Thor
Jamie: I thought the new tone of this film really allowed Thor to be the perfect combination of cocky Asgardian prince with a guy who’s been thorough a lot of big things that have taught him and allowed him to grow. I also love that now he’s going to have a new, special bond with Bruce/Hulk (assuming that his Hulk state is in fact permanent now like he predicted). The other Avengers have a whole mess of crap going on after Civil War, and now these two do too! Revengers forever!
Lorena: Revengers made me LOL! Is Hulk his permanent state? I do like Mark looking like Mark (whimpers slightly) As for Thor, yes I felt Thor finally carried his own film for once. I mean, I wanted Loki to be on screen way more than he was, but Thor was interesting to watch at least. Gone is the broody face snuggie wearing dude of The Dark World.
Jamie: What do we think about his new look? I was iffy about the short hair at first, and I’ll always have a soft spot for his flowing locks, but I think I can get behind it. Now that he’s missing an eye and has the Odin style patch he’s badass in a whole new way. I don’t know if his new lightning harnessing power counts as a physical attribute. I guess so, it seems to be connected to his body somehow. Either way, it’s very superhero-y and I think it’s going to look really cool in battle scenes in future films.
Lorena: The no eye thing I felt was dumb, especially given that his fully harnessed superpower is most visible via his eyes! But, whatevs. I’m not really into pirates anyway, and Nadine wasn’t exactly my favorite Twin Peaks character… Hemsworth, however, can pull it off. He’s just flawlessly beautiful. Now that we’ve met him and you’ve touched him, I feel we can really say that.
Jamie: Any excuse for the picture.
Lorena: Quite right. And look, he’s even about to film Thor: Ragnarok here with his short hair!
Loki
Jamie: What can I even say about him in this movie? Someone asked me, “Was Loki good?” and like, how is that even a question?
Lorena: It’s not! “What was your favorite part of Loki’s performance?” is a question.
Jamie: He wrote a heroic, epic play ABOUT HIMSELF (good on him for recognizing the importance of the arts), his reaction to Hulk was hilarious, and he engaged in some feisty jousting with Valkyrie. He’s such a cocky bastard and we love him for it. I think my favorite Loki moment in the movie was his full out drama queen “Your savior is here!” exclamation right before the final battle. Killed me. (And did we ever think we’d hear the phrase “passage through the anus” come out of him? I certainly didn’t.)
Lorena: It’s impossible to predict when one will state with a straight face “pass through the anus” but it certainly is not something I foresaw, no. His savior proclamation made me laugh out loud, though it was not my favorite. My favorite was when Hulk tossed Thor around like a ragdoll and I practically screamed, “CUT TO LOKI’S REACTION!” in the theater and then he reacted and I was so delighted by it. From a sexy standpoint, there was an overhead shot where he and Valkyrie were walking to the Grand Master to discuss capture terms and it just captured my favorite Loki stride. Unf.
Jamie: We discussed right after we saw the movie that while they didn’t explicitly show it, Loki almost certainly has the Tesseract again. Please don’t give it to Thanos, Loki. Don’t be that guy.
Lorena: I think Loki may be leaning more towards chaotic good than chaotic neutral now. It was quite the journey from discovering he was Jotunn to catching whatever the hell Thor threw at him in the giant spaceship at the end, but he got there. But yeah, he 100% stole that Tesserect. Or took? I mean, he is a prince of Asgard too sooooo, it sort of belongs to him? Plus it’s an Infinity Stone so if he didn’t take it then it would’ve been left over in the ruins of Surtur’s smolder and thus left unprotected. He was just doing everyone a favor…
Hulk
Jamie: He was so sweet in this, and it’s the most I’ve ever liked his character. I think he got the biggest laugh of the whole movie in our theater, when Bruce smashed down onto the Rainbow Bridge without transforming into Hulk first. Speaking of which, is Bruce actually always going to be Hulk now? He seemed to think that the next time he made the transformation that was going to be it. As much as we love him he certainly doesn’t have an easy go of it as Hulk.
Jamie: Something small that I actually really liked was the detail that Bruce ended up wearing Tony’s clothes from the ship, because whenever I saw him in trailers I was thinking that his style wasn’t really in keeping with his character. He’d been more of a plaid shirt and khakis kind of guy up until this point, and the sudden change to band t-shirts didn’t make sense to me.
Odin
Jamie: CAN WE TALK ABOUT ODIN REAL QUICK????? He wasn’t a huge character in this so there’s not a ton to say, but I have to get it off my chest that I can’t believe that he’s still up to his old infuriating nonsense. How many thousands of years did he have to tell everyone that Hela was going to come back from wherever she was trapped the second he died? The last two years are absolutely on Loki, but what about before that? He just gets to drop that bomb and then dissolve into glitter without dealing with any of the consequences. THANKS FOR THOSE 8 WHOLE SECONDS OF PREP TIME DAD. You’d think he’d have learned after the whole “Loki found out about his true parentage and it caused a psychotic break that turned him into a homicidal megalomaniac” thing that keeping huge secrets like this wasn’t the way to go, but apparently not.
Lorena: Not to mention that Frigga would have birthed Hela, right? Or maybe not? Maybe he was banging someone else like in actual mythology and had a daughter older than Thor (who is not named Hela in mythology since Hela is Loki’s child but whatevs). Odin is the actual worst. Everything Hela was saying about him, I was just like “Preach, girl!” And while she was an uber flat “I’m so evil and taking back my realm thanks, losers” character, I still related to her a bit. And got why she’d wear Loki colors. Cuz like… fuck Odin. Also, Loki 100% called that shit to Thor in the freaky circle holding pen. “Doesn’t feel good to know dad betrayed you and lied to you for like, ever, about who you actually are in relation to the throne and reality and his heart and value. Yeah, feels like a passage through the anus, doesn’t it?” Basically this film could be called “Revengers: Fuck Odin and His First-Born”. I mean, I definitely HATE Odin. Abusive, manipulative POS. Anyway, Anthony Hopkins slayed. Him playing Loki-as-Odin was so marvelous. I giggled with delight.
New Characters
Jamie: I’m realizing we never actually got a name for Valkyrie, since that’s what she was, not what she’s called. Regardless, she’s on Sam Wilson levels for me in terms of how invested I am in a character introduced mid-series. No offense to intern Ian from The Dark World, but did anyone really care about him? Whereas with Valkyrie, we got solid characterization, and if something bad had happened to her we would have been upset. I’m glad she’s going to be in later movies, I thought she was great.
Lorena: The fact that she showed up too drunk to walk, but still handled her business successfully made me certain I would like her. My favorite though was her relationship with Hulk. I really enjoyed their dynamic, and I hope we get to explore their friendship further as the Avengers: Infinity Wars progress.
Jamie: Do we think Hela is really dead? We sort of saw her die, but this is Marvel, even when we see people die explicitly they might not really be gone.
Lorena: I really honestly am not sure. I want her to be dead because she was basically Thanos, but less powerful. Just really boring. Characters who are evil for no discernible reason are so boring to me as antagonists. That’s why Loki was necessary in Thor, because Laufey was too boring. Thanos only works because he’s been in the background building up for so long. Personally I want a backstory for him though, and he has one in the comics, so we’ll see. But Hela is way more interesting in my fanfiction than in Thor: Ragnarok. That’s all I’m gonna say 😉
Jamie: I would watch an entire trilogy of movies that’s literally just Korg doing stuff.
Lorena: I need a Korg plush toy, and I need it now. And I need every book ever written read on tape by Korg. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… so, we’re all going to get on that giant spaceship and escape, if you wanted to come?” or “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Except for Doug. Also for New Doug.” or “Call me Ishmael. But that’s confusing because I’m Korg and this is Miek.”
Jamie: Omg that’s a brilliant idea. It would be like a newer, much more enjoyable version of Cliffs Notes.
Lorena: I must say that I love, love, loved Jeff Goldblum as Grandmaster. He perfectly nailed it. The nuanced humor was so strong. Also I love that Tom finally got to work with someone from Jurassic Park, his longtime favorite movie.
Jamie: I always forget that he did that dinosaur impression, and it delights me every time I’m reminded. And I agree about the Grandmaster, he was every bit as Jeff Goldblum-y as I expected him to be, and it was a delight.
New elements and changes
Jamie: I ended up really liking the comedic aspects of this movie more than I thought I was going to. I’ve said before that at first I was reluctant, because the Norse Ragnarok is so apocalyptic, but Taika Waititi said in interviews that sometimes movies can take themselves too seriously, and that at the end of the day they’re here to bring the audience a good time, and I realized that he was 100% right. These are movies based on superhero comic books, why the hell shouldn’t they be fun? (Btw the more interviews of Taika Waititi that I’ve watched the more I’m developing a bit of a crush on him.)
Lorena: I absolutely agree! I felt the lightness of this film came at such a needed time, too. It being set mainly in space, almost entirely with aliens, enables it to fully abandon the reality of Earth-bound stories, like Black Panther. And since apocalypse and gladiator death rings aren’t exactly for the faint of heart, it essentially had to be humorous or else it would be unwatchable in its bleakness. And do share about this Taika crush! Perhaps you can talk him into my Korg books on tape idea since he voices him… (grabs some popcorn)
Jamie: That pineapple short set he wore to Comic Con is made of Husband Material. I think most of it is probably because he’s funny, and not in the nasty or gross way I find a lot of male comics to be, which is always an attractive trait. He seems like the kind of guy who would text you something to make you laugh if he knew you were having a bad day at work or something. It’s still developing, I’ll have to keep you updated. 😉
Nitpicks
Jamie: We saw the fearless Warriors Three all get killed by Hela, but where was Sif? Did Loki banish her somewhere, or was it supposed to be implied that she was there somewhere in the fray and was killed along with everyone else? That seems unlikely, but if Jaimie Alexander wasn’t available to make an appearance I would have at least liked a quick mention of why she was missing.
Lorena: Agreed! Where indeed was Sif? I’m holding out hope she’s still alive, and maybe we’ll even get a Thor-Sif-Valkyrie love triangle (though I think Valkyrie and Hulk were cute together). And I sincerely believe that Sif could do humor more than anyone’s bothered to allow her to before. I will admit that I’m super sad Fandral is dead.
Jamie: I know that there was a lot of improvisation on this one, and there were a few small moments where it didn’t quite work for me. At one point Thor yelled “Oh my God!” and it felt jarring to me because it seems like such an unlikely thing for him to say. He is a god, why would that be an expression he’d use? Maybe it’s something he picked up on his time on Earth.
Lorena: Yes, his Migardian slang, learned from Tony and Dr. Jane Foster.
I will say my nitpicks were more mythos related. Because I wrote my Lokane fanfic, I know way too much about Norse mythology now, and it was both fun and awkward to experience the interpretations by Marvel comics. Fenrir in particular was disappointing, mostly because they named him Fenris? I just wish in the comics that Hela and Fenrir were still Loki’s twin children, and that it was a massively awkward situation where he had to join them or kill them. But as Joss Whedon says, that is what fanfic is for and I already wrote it so there.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, get on it. You’ll love it! If you have, what were your favorite parts?
