Ok, so many things. This felt like it had a lot of wizard of oz themes. My theatre was pretty jolly for the film on Thursday with the expected reactions. I really enjoyed this film.
Random thoughts (they may be too random)
My goodness the goats. Easily my theatre’s favourite and a big disappointment they didn’t show up in a post-credits scene. A close second and third to me was Tessa Thompson’s arms and Jane’s Thor hair.
The callback to Thor being saved by another Mjolnir wielder while being stabbed in the chest by Voldemort was cool.
The eternity land looked like the soul stone. I wonder if that was on purpose.
Did granting the wish/making it to eternity release something like in Shang Chi?
Did the glass in Ominipotence City contain the Sanctum pattern as one of its overlays?
These godly orgies. Sounds just like herogasm on the Boys. Mr Park, what can you tell us about these orgies? Also, what can you tell us about them from the comics?
If Valhalla is legit, and just another dimension confirmed from Moon Knight, dead MCU characters can appear when we have all these incursions, right? Secret Wars will be interesting.
Eternity looked a lot like Galactus. I wonder if that’s just to mess with us.
Will Dwayne the Rock be the voice of Duane the rock?
Is MCU Jane’s cancer from having an infinity stone in her?
If stormbreaker grows roots, what would it become?
If Voldemort got some electrolytes at the beginning of the film, he may not have been so cranky. At the beginning of the film heard him say he prayed for rain and we never even saw him hydrate properly in the whole movie. I’d be tempted to start killing in that state too.
Back to dead people. Do seances count as incursions?
Is Love going to join the young avengers?
If Korg’s species can grow a moustache, does that mean Korg shaves?
Hey I’m hijacking this thread for our feedback thread for the podcast. We’ll be recording July 18th, so plenty of time to go and see the movie before leaving your thoughts.
While I thought Ragnarok was funnier, I felt this one blended the funny stuff better with the more serious stuff, be it what Gorr the God Butcher was up to, or how and why Jane Foster is Mighty Thor (inspired by comics I have read when they came out within the past eight years). Thor isn’t kept at a distance from what Gorr is up to like he was from Hela in Ragnarok. I thought Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, and Christian Bale were all very good in this. Natalie Portman just a little less so. Russell Crowe as Zeus is a funny asshole, and the mid- and post-credits scenes both have real meat to them.
Ok, I really enjoyed this movie, but I think there were some missed opportunities, and some things that didn’t quite work.
What I think I appreciated about this movie the most was that it was just a stand alone Thor adventure. Much of it felt ripped straight from the comics, and I really enjoyed his and Jane’s arc in this movie.
Christian Bale as Gorr was outstanding, and absolutely terrifying in some scenes. My biggest complaint though was that we didn’t get enough of him butchering God’s. I honestly thought he was going to show up in impotent city and wreck all the unknown Gods and maybe Zeus. I feel like it would have gone further in establishing him as a threat. I understand they did cut out a scene with him killing a few powerful beings including The Grandmaster, and Eitri, but I’m not sure why they left it out.
The scenes with the kids were a little awkward and klunky. As adorable as the fight was at the end, it just felt out of place. And even though Gorr scenes with the kids were good, it really just made me feel like we were watching Gorr the Child Frightener.
And finally I felt like the tone was all over the place. At one moment comedy to the point of absurdity, like the Korg rock god sitting in a Game of Thrones style throne made out of scissors, to incredibly deep and painful themes like the death of a child and cancer. I think part of it is Taiki’s directorial style but I think they could have done without the absurdist comedic elements as it really took away from the more serious elements and cheapened the urgency.
All that aside though, like I said I enjoyed the film. My biggest requirement is that I have fun and I definitely had fun.
I thought it was a fun space Viking adventure. Waititi is a visually creative filmmaker who knows how to take advantage of green screens and not make it look awkward. The black and white planet was one of the more visually impressive scenes in the entire MCU.
I enjoyed the Jane storyline in tandem with Thor realizing he was happiest and had a purpose when they were together. Christian Bale was great as always and Russell Crowe was surprisingly hilarious.
However, the movie is a little confusing in terms of the rules of the MCU. What exactly is a god? I always assumed it was metaphorical, like a powerful entity could technically be considered a god in relation to humans but since the Necrosword exists it seems that all gods have some sort of shared element. I liked it better when gods were just super aliens.
I really got the feeling it wasn’t green screens, that it was those wraparound screens that replaced greens screen on the Mandalorian.
I noticed it in the scene on the boat in space. The colours reflected off the actors and I wondered if it they bothered to get coloured overhead lights for that.
Edit: Look at Glean’s post RE production. The wraparound is called “the volume”.
Thought I’d let you guys in on some cut scenes from the film as I’m sure some people are curious.
The “shadow realm” moon they fight Gorr on was originally just a prison moon for the grandmaster, the little hut they visit is a sciency workshop where he lived, hence all the funky looking curtains.
It was a huge and detailed set. The original idea was that the grandmaster was imprisoned on a moon that orbited a perpetual party planet, so he’d be tortured by constantly seeing a party he couldn’t join.
Lena Headey was going to play one of three witches who were similar to the fates from disney’s hercules, who the team would encounter as they enter omnipotence city.
Another of the witches was going to be played by Matt berry of the mighty boosh but because of covid restrictions he was replaced by a bunch of comedians until they finally settled on Angus sampson, who of course also got cut.
On a production note, they did use the “volume” set for most scenes in the film (the volume looks amazing btw) however for some scenes when shooting, a blue box would appear behind the actor, i think this way, they replace the background with a higher fidelity image or a completely different one if needed? There were a tonne of people controlling the volumes visuals on giant computers. The setup looked like a NASA control room.
So much of the film was completely redone in editing and reshoots but probably for the better.
Also Chris Pratt was the nicest dude.
Now excuse me, as I think I see a marvel sniper through my window.
I was a bit worried after seeing some of the less-than-positive reviews from critics and elsewhere on the internet… but, thankfully, I had a really great time with this - its not the most serious Marvel movie, but its well made, and its just silly, dumb fun, and it really felt Taika Waititi and co. had a lot of fun while making it. Ultimately, I was hoping for a comedy and that’s largely what we got here. Taika is one of my favourite film and tv creators, and his brand of comedy is always right up my street, so most of the gags landed with me and them some.
I can see people being disappointed with the action side of things, but honestly, I didn’t come into this film looking for amazing action - fact is I saw Top Gun Maverick two weeks ago and I doubt anything in this film could live up to the action there - so really, if this film had just been a total comedy with zero action I’d have been totally on board. I personally would love to see Marvel be a bit more bold with their movies and moving into different genres - give me a Murder Mystery, give me a Drama, in fact, one of the reasons I was disappointed with the latest Doctor Strange is that I was hoping for far more from the horror elements, instead of the glimpses we got.
Anyway the action, whilst not over memorable was fine, and I did really enjoy the brief black and white aesthetic that the film went into on the shadow planet - it made it visually different and striking from your standard Marvel fair. On top of that you have a welcome return from Natalie Portman, a great performance from Chrstian Bale and - my personal highlight - Russell Crowe having the absolute time of his life and chewing up all the scenery as Zeus.
Looking forward to seeing where we go from here, and especially seeing Brett “Roy Kent” Goldstein as Hercules… I wonder if he’ll get to call Thor a F’ing C-word at any point… probably not.
Be good if they squeeze in a Roy Kent quote. Maybe “I Do Yoga With A Group Of Women In Their Sixties. They’ve No Idea Who I Am. It’s Twice A Week, And It’s Really Good For My Core.”
I liken my experience with this film to the one I had watching Rise of Skywalker - it’s a fun ride but ultimately it’s a bad movie where the plot and tone are all over the place and is essentially just trying to capture the magic of things that came before it and failing for the most part.
The first two thirds of the film felt like Taika was just doing Ragnarok again and not as well. The Guardians were completely wasted and the goodbye between Thor and Starlord was the worst scene in the history of the MCU for me; it felt like two bad actors reading a script they’d written out together and learned by heart with no room for changes - just awkward and fake and it completely undercut the stakes of what they were facing or the idea that these people have been living together for any amount of time and have any kind of relationship to each other at all.
Christian Bale was fantastic. I completely bought his motivations and was convinced that he was only killing God’s to get to Eternity and make his wish; not to end the reign of the God’s, but to make sure every child got the “eternal promise” his daughter had been refused. It was the only reason I could think of for him still having the kids when he got to the entrance to Eternity - but then he just left them at the back of the room to die and their being there was revealed to just be a story device to give Thor an adorable army to command.
I love Taika as a director, Ragnarok was great and his none MCU work (Jojo Rabbit, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do in the Shadows, etc…) is incredible stuff - but this is a bad film and he’s the reason why.
Overall I had fun but I’d have much preferred to have got more from Portman’s Thor than Hemsworth’s. I went into this with baggage, having lost my mum to cancer this year and so perhaps I’m too close to that element to really approach it with unbiased eyes, but personally the idea of a hero who is battling cancer and losing is a far more interesting story to me than the story of a hero who’s regressed to being a selfish asshole that takes nothing seriously until he finds out his ex has cancer, even when there’s potential for children to be murdered by a psychopath for a long period of the movie before that revelation takes hold for him.
I really enjoyed this movie, but as with all thor movies it’s not a movie i would go out of my way to rewatch. I enjoyed a lot of the comedy but the goats were a bit of an overkill for me. Christian Bale gave an incredible performance as always. Im curious to know if Gorr the god butcher’s motivation to kill the gods in the comics is the same as what the movie portrayed.
I enjoyed Natalie Portman as the mighty Thor and her trying to figure out what her catchphrase would be was fun, also I was really bummed to see the character pass away after gaining the power of thor. Tessa Thompson was a badass as always and the battle in the shadow realm was visually stunning. Also shout out to Dwayne the Rock for making his mcu debut as Korg’s mate. Overall I’d probably give this movie a B-
Thor Ragnarok is probably my favorite MCU movie, and while this one wasn’t quiiite as good, I still had a really good time watching it. I felt some of the running gags got maybe a bit tired by the end, and I was disappointed we didn’t get a full movie worth of the Guardians hanging with Thor. Christian Bale acted his ass off and Gorr was a good one-off villain with good motivation. As usual though, the further expansions into the higher lore of the MCU bring up many questions. What were all these gods doing while Thanos was killing half the universe? If Stormbreaker is the key to getting to Eternity, how did people reach that place before it was built a couple years ago? (since Heimdall was the only person who could activate the Bifrost) If Thor holds the key to Eternity, can’t he just return there and make a wish of his own anytime? Why did Thor never share his Thor powers with anyone else beside these kids? Oh well, better not to think too hard about it lol
Thor is a great character and him now having a daughter is certainly an interesting new dynamic I didn’t see coming, but I’m not sure we need another movie with him, feels like his arc is pretty complete. If we don’t see him again, I’ll be satisfied with the Thor we got
I entered the theatre with low expectations as I traditionally am not the biggest fan of Thor. As a casual fan I enjoyed the films humour (especially the goats) and it exceeded my personal expectations. In the grand scheme of the Marvel universe it ranks low for me but again I have a skewed opinion.
I enjoyed the film, I really like the shadow planet part with everything becoming black and white, which was a nice touch. I also enjoyed the comedy bits, but I can understand why some were getting tired of it.
Speaking of which, is one of the reasons why the film was getting negative reviews is that we are finally getting tired of Marvel movies or TV shows coming out every few months?
Also, I can’t wait for Roy “Hercules” Kent to start calling everyone else names we can’t say here on the board.
I think stormbreaker is one method of “summoning the bifrost” (creating einstein-rosen bridges according to Jane’s physics), which is one way of travelling. There are other ways of travelling and even other ways of summoning the bifrost.
I think in the movie they made up the first person there gets this one-time magical wish granted. I don’t think it’s like a wishing well or a genie sitting there waiting to reward every person that’s sitting there waiting for it.
Although, like in Shang Chi, I wonder if getting to Eternity and granting that wish released something. What do you think?
Jermaine from Chicago. Really like the cold opening of Christian bale story of the end of his and his daughter life. A nice change up to open a marvel movie. Had a problem with the whole reason that thor and the guardians left earth was to find gamora and in love and thunder she wasn’t even mention. I really respect Natalie Portman who put in a lot a work at the gym to look the part. Unlike Bree Larson in mr marvel.Thor vs Hercules should be something to look foward to in the next movie. Not the best thor movie, not the worst. I feel this phase has been just ok other then Shang chi. Spider-Man no way home was a nostalgia fest. I would tell Taka Waititi less debauchery offset and more plot on set but that me. Lastly wh and wai, what are you two hoping to see at comic con. I want to see more of blue beetle and static shock news. Thank you guys for the good work
Does Love and Thunder top Ragnarok? No. But it’s no The Dark World either. Overall, Hemsworth, Portman, Thompson and Bale all elevate it. I kinda wanted more scenes with Guardians just to see what Taika would do with those characters. In addition, I did feel that the Jane arc was rushed. Russell Crowe’s brief stint as Zeus paves the way for Hercules (played by Brett Goldstein!) in the dope mid-credits stinger should Hemsworth choose to bow out. (Norse to Greek mythology, mayhaps?)
Just wanted the community to have an outlet for thoughts.