MCU Rewatchathon April 12th: Thor (2011)
Day Four: 4/19 down!
Thor
In 2011 Marvel expanded their universe exponentially with the introduction of the nine realms. Bringing with him wacky and wild concepts like the rainbow bridge and the Odin Sleep, Thor was an incredible ambitious film, but how does the thunder god's first outing measure up to his fellow Avengers?
Lets find out!
Favorite Moment:
Javier: Thor breaking the rainbow bridge. Very Grodd.
Antonio: I know it's a blink and you miss it moment, but honestly it's that shot of Odin on his 8 legged horse as he comes out of the Bifrost. That's the most "Thor" shit ever.
Favorite Line:
Antonio:
Thor (Portrayed by Chris Hemsworth): "I have no plans to die today"
Heimdall (Portrayed by Idris Elba): "None Do".
Javier:
Heimdall: "You would defy the commands of Loki, our king? Break every oath you have taken as warriors, and commit treason to bring Thor back?"
Sif (Portrayed by Jaime Alexander): "Yes"
Heimdall: Good
Villain Ranking:
Speaking technically, Thor actually has three villains present, the king of the Frost Giants; Laufey, Loki Laufeyson and The Destroyer. So I guess we are ranking all three!
Laufey
Antonio: The Frost Giant's lose a lot of points for me just for not being...well giant...like they're big but...Not big ENOUGH. Also Laufey is kind of a punk in this and basically just loses every fight he's in. Makeup and ice-weapons are cool though.
5/10
Javier: He's JUST there. That's it. He's just there to die, that's it.
1/10
The Destroyer
Javier: The Destroyer is there to Look cool and that's about it.
5/10
Antonio: I know he's just there to look cool...But he looks so damn cool...He's one of my favorite page to screen translations so maybe I'm bias.
7.5/10
Loki Laufeyson
Javier: Loki's motivations for being evil are good but he doesn't really do much. He's just there like "I'm totally not the bad guy".
5/10 (Not Gorilla Grodd enough).
Antonio: I agree that it takes everyone WAY too long to realize Loki is the bad guy. I do think Tom brings some nuance to a pretty flat character in the comics (who only really evolved I feel due to the films popularity).
7/10
Final Ranking: 5.5/10
Additional Commentary:
Thor is neither of our favorite Marvel movies so we may not have gone into this with the most altruistic intentions of enjoying it. I did have fun watching it though and I think Javier did too, despite it's shortcomings. I think Marvel Studios took a long time to figure out what comic readers have actually liked about Thor in the comics and sadly they didn't quite nail that till 2017...alas...
Continuity Notes:
I liked the list system I employed for Iron Man 2 and feel that's probably the best way to organize these notes moving forwards.
There are a lot of crazy concepts this film introduces to the Marvel Universe that I am 100% HERE for.
1. The Nine Realms, the concept that there are eight realms outside of Midgard (our world) that are home to gods and monsters. In this film we are introduced to two of those realms: Asgard, home of Thor and the Asgardians, and Jotunheim, home to Laufey and the Frost Giants.
2. The Bifrost, the magical rainbow bridge that connects the nine realms through Yggdrasil, the world tree. The visual representation of this concept is absolutely inspired and a super cool part of this film.
3. The Odinforce and the Odinsleep. As All-Father of Asgard, Odin has some neat abilities, one of them is the Odinforce, channeled through his staff, he can project massive beams of energy and announce his presence throughout all of Asgard. The Odinsleep however is the downside, once in a while he has to take a week long power nap and recharge.
4. Odin's eight legged horse, Sleipnir. He's got a lotta legs.
5. The Casket Of Ancient Winters. This magical relic is a treasure to The Frost Giant's and a weapon capable of mass destruction, it can cause super storms and essentially incite an ice-age if left open too long.
6. The Odin-Vault, Odin's personal gallery of treasures and spoils, the vault contains such items as The Eternal Flame, Mjolnir, the Casket of Ancient Winters and most notably a replica or forgery of The Infinity Gauntlet.
7. The Odin-Vault is also watched over by the autonomous metal guardian, The Destroyer.
8. When the Destroyer touches down on Earth he is intercepted by SHIELD Agents. Agent Sitwell infers that the living armor may "Be one of Starks" to which Coulson replies "Guy never tells me anything."
9. SHIELD Agent Sitwell is introduced (Hail Hydra).
10. We get our first look at Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye! He is tasked with taking down a depowered Thor but ends up just watching from afar.
11. We are introduced to Erik Selvig, another character creator for the films, he has a past relationship with SHIELD and even mentions his friend, a gamma radiation expert who was disappeared by SHIELD, most likely referring to Bruce Banner, though the two never reconnect in later films.
12. While on earth, Thor is given a name tag and alias thanks to Natalie Portman's ex, Donald Blake, which just so happens to be Thor's actual human counterpart in the original comics.
13. The Warriors Three (Hogun, Volstagg and Fandral) are all major supporting characters in the comics, along with Sif.
14. Thor's hammer, Mjolnir is forged from Uru, a metal created in the light of a dying star. The inscription on it reads "Whoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor"
15. Loki flies into the void of space at the end after falling from the shattered Bifrost, this is presumably how he runs into Thanos, the Mad Titan, as he is using his new found power of possession (courtesy of the Mind Stone) during the end credit scene.
Closing Thoughts:
Javier: Thor is just boring there are some fun moments and the humor is good, problem is it's just not much happens of any significance.
5/10
Antonio:
Thor is very ambitious and I give it a lot of credit for trying to introduce new viewers to all the weird fantasy-sci-fi. shit from the comics, unfortunately, literally every scene on Midgard falls flat for me, it's a pretty even split to be honest.
5/10
Final Score: 5/10
After the Credits:
Thor has a pretty solid end credit scene, setting up two future Marvel films in one go. In a scene where Erik Selvig (now possessed by a space-faring Loki) meets with Nick Fury to discuss SHEILD's acquisition of what comic fans will recognize as The Cosmic Cube (renamed the Tesseract for the films).
Javier: End credit scene: I think it's a cool foreshadowing to what's to come and it's also the first appearance of an Infinity Stone.
7/10
Antonio: I think at the time, this scene got me more excited than the Iron Man end credit's scene, between the tease for The Cosmic Cube and the hinting at Loki being the main villain for Avengers, I was extremely hyped.
8/10
Final Score: 7/10
Sorry about the late posting guys, tonight we are watching Captain America: The First Avenger, so check back tomorrow as the blog will be up much earlier I promise!
See you all tomorrow!
And remember...
Peace
Love
and Grodd.