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Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
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In this episode, Tommy of Podcast Assemble comes by to discuss one of the most reviled MCU films yet—Thor: Love and Thunder! Ever the MCU defender, Perry does have some good points to harp on, but the overall consensus is that this film is something of a mess.
Listen to Tommy on Podcast Assemble
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
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00:02:00
Speaker
A beautiful, beautiful thing. Jane. Laura. I want to feel shitty about you. What? Well, you know, I... I want to feel shitty about something. And I think that's you. I'm not really getting it right. It's not as a damn it. I want to... My friend here told me that it's better to feel shitty.
00:02:29
Speaker
from losing love than it is to never experience love and to feel nothing at all, to feel empty. And I think he was right, which is how I've been feeling for a long time. I've pushed people away, kept them at a distance because of the fear of that loss, but I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to live like that. Better to close off your heart than feel the pain. That's what I did, yes. I closed off my heart and I meditated. Did you meditate? No, that's so boring. It actually made me more angry.
00:02:53
Speaker
But I'm tired of giving myself over to the idea of fate and trying to figure out what the universe wants from me. I want to live in the moment. I want to live like there's no tomorrow. Throw caution to the wind. I want to be with you, Jane. What? What do you say? I have cancer. So what? I'm sick. What's happening? Bye. No, no, no, no. Jane, Jane, Jane. What? Did I say I didn't mean that? Just kidding. I...
00:03:23
Speaker
Don't have cancer. I'm supposed to match something. Jane, I'm so sorry. Don't be sorry for me. When did you find out? Six months ago, I was just feeling tired, and then they told me I have stage four, get my affairs in order. And then I heard Mjolnir calling me, so I thought maybe if science isn't working, maybe Viking space magic.
00:03:53
Speaker
That's why you came to New Asgard. Yeah, I thought the hammer maybe could cure me, and I think it's getting better. Maybe not. Jane, none of us know how long we have. You don't know what tomorrow holds. And Mjolnir, Mjolnir chose you. And it chose you because you're worthy, and that's something.
00:04:16
Speaker
When I first met you, I was unworthy. I was unable to pick up that hammer. But you taught me there was no greater purpose than to help those in need. You made me worthy. So whatever you want to do, we can do it together. Bye. Now, what do you want to do? I want to get those children back to their families. I want to finish that mission. That's probably not the truth at all.
00:04:47
Speaker
How do you feel now? I'm so scared. What have you found? Shitty. How shitty? Really shitty. Father. Welcome
Introducing Guest: Tommy from Podcast Assemble
00:05:06
Speaker
to the Superhero Cenophiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine. Welcoming a new guest today and one of the co-hosts of the Podcast Assemble podcast, and that is Tommy. Tommy, how you doing today?
00:05:17
Speaker
Hey buddy, how you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. So before we get started with the movie and everything, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself and your show? Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me. I was actually laughing to myself earlier because I contacted you a little while ago and then life just got in the way and I was like, this guy must think I'm an absolute nightmare.
00:05:39
Speaker
But yeah, I've been trying to get this together for a while. I'm, as you say, a podcast assemble, podcast and YouTube channel. We are effectively, we're effectively the start of a bad dad joke. It's an American and a Brit walking to a podcast. But yeah, it's just an excuse for me and my buddy to watch pretty much whatever movies we want to and then talk about them for two hours, get a couple of hours away from the respective partners.
00:06:05
Speaker
Nice,
Podcast Assemble's Film Discussions
00:06:06
Speaker
very nice. So, I mean, by the name alone, most people probably assume it's MCU, Marvel Focus Podcast, but from what you just said, doesn't sound like that's all you guys talk about. Absolutely, yeah. We kind of started off with a bit of a skew towards superheroes and superhero movies and TV shows. And kind of as we've evolved, just hit our 100th episode, we sort of just got into a lot of stuff. Thank you very much. Yeah, stuff we love.
00:06:32
Speaker
for example we do a bunch of anthologies like we do we do directors we love we're currently working our way through all the Chris Nolan movies i'm sure you know you love the Nolan batmans we just did that for a hundred for a hundred and third episode i think um we did the batman begins which is a absolute favorite and a bit of a slept on classic i'd say but yeah we've got a bunch of other anthologies like
00:06:53
Speaker
Movies you want to go back to from when we were kids or movies that our dads told about that we never watched like stuff like that So things that we're excited to talk about and you know, like I say, it's a reason to not it's a reason to talk for two hours and not have any distractions Yeah, that's the nice thing I mean, I don't get the distraction free part unfortunately with two little kids but but it is it is nice to be able to that's one of the reasons that I
00:07:17
Speaker
My original co-host and I started this show was just, I wanted an excuse to talk to him more about movies. So this gave me a reason to talk with him every week. And then after he passed, just kind of wanted to keep it going. And now I've been able to talk to a whole lot of other folks, get a whole lot of other different opinions, such as yourself. And it's been a lot of fun doing it that way too. Yeah, get to meet new people, work with new users. We actually started us kind of in COVID, podcast assemble. And it was one of those things where
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, you know, you're supposed to do all the things like you're supposed to connect with other people to bring on your pod so you can get a broader audience. And we kind of just didn't do that. Life got in the way. So we're at the point now where we need to start actually doing that. I had the same thing because it was just it was just me and my buddy at first. So we were just kind of like talking to ourselves and shouting out into the void. Yeah. And it was only after he passed and I realized I should want to and people are like, no, you want you to keep the show going. And so
00:08:15
Speaker
Then it's like, oh crap, now I gotta actually talk to other people. Now I gotta try, oh my god. Yeah, yeah, it's a whole different experience. It's hard when you're an introvert, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And especially, you could probably relate to being on the other side of the world from most of the people you're gonna end up talking to.
00:08:36
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's, it's, it's funny. We, uh, my, my buddy's got a few friends. My co-host DL has a few friends who are in the sort of film industry, but in LA. So just connecting is a nightmare because the time differences are so completely different from being here in Sydney. And it would, that would probably be a good way to get some more listeners, but we go about it. We go about it that way.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, so what was your interest in superheroes? Were you a comic fan growing up or you more lean towards the mass media side of things? What was kind of your introduction to it, this whole thing?
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah, totally. It's actually funny. I was thinking about this not long ago. I was a massive closet geek for such a long time. So I grew up, my dad used to love Green Lantern. That was one of his absolute favorites. And I would sort of grow up around Daredevil. He had comics and stuff around those. He wasn't massively into talking about it, but they were around. I knew about them. His all-time favorite movie. I laugh every time I think about this.
00:09:36
Speaker
was the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie. And I will never, ever not laugh at that fact. He loved that film for some odd reason. And yeah, so I think I grew up and I- It's underrated. The director's cut at least is underrated. Yes, the director's cut. I'll give you that, absolutely. But I grew up with this sort of background and never really lent into it. I loved geeky stuff growing up. I love video gaming. I'm a huge Final Fantasy person. I loved,
00:10:04
Speaker
the pokemon games growing up god they were rpgs as well they were amazing and but in the back of my mind i had this superhero thing that was kind of itching to get out and i think when the mcu finally came out things started to actually be sort of mass media like you say people could actually connect with these movies and really see like patterns within them and that's when i really looked it all really came out in the podcast but yeah so like i said a bit of a closet geek for a long time
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was a similar idea there because I remember when I was in in high school, it was I was the only one who who was who was actually who would talk about the fact that I actually read comic books, nobody else would ever other people did, but they would never talk about it. And it was the kind of thing that you just you didn't you didn't let other people know that you were into it. And then
00:10:49
Speaker
a lot of you got to keep going with that yeah yeah and then uh but the first spider-man movie came out and everybody was like oh we want to go see that i'm like really where have you guys been for the past four years well like one of my one of my first reasons for really started started to like leak out just a little bit was that first x-men movie
00:11:07
Speaker
I did a video on our YouTube channel recently about the MCU and some of the problems. And we're going to talk about some of those problems today, I think. But one of my favorite movies is that first X-Men movie, because even though it sort of didn't quite lean into the wackiness of comic books and the bright colors and the excitement, it was all the things I wanted. It was these characters on screen who were, you know, real to me. And I love the X-Men. I've always had a big thing for the X-Men.
00:11:33
Speaker
But the fact that we got such an amazing actor named Hugh Jackman, I was like, this is what comic book movies should be.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. X-Men was one of, I always say X-Men walked so that Spider-Man could run and then Spider-Man ran so that the MCU could fly because you don't get to those other ones without having that first groundwork where X-Men gave people a chance to say like, oh, we can take superheroes seriously. We're not going to lean into that. We're not going to put it too far in. We're going to hold back with a lot of stuff.
00:12:03
Speaker
we're gonna give you a little bit and then spider-man's like yeah we're gonna use the the bright color for costume and we're gonna have him swinging around and being a superhero and then and the mcu is just like here's a talking raccoon with a gun and he's best friend's a tree
00:12:19
Speaker
Obviously Groot's my favorite character. But isn't it interesting that I believe Kevin Feige was a big part of those movies. I think he was an executive producer on a lot of them. So he learned from their mistakes, especially around that third one. And if you notice both those trilogies, it's the third one where they kind of topple and fall. It's really interesting how much he must have learned from that experience.
00:12:41
Speaker
Well, you know, you mentioned the Nolan movies, too. That was another example of that, what I call the trilogy curse, where it's, you know, the first one's really good, the second one's amazing, and the third one, it's time to shit the bed, and it doesn't quite work out. Ah, I know podcasts are supposed to be yes, but I'm gonna go the other way here, right? Actually, those nine Dark Knight Rises, I think I'm one of the apologists.
00:13:00
Speaker
That's all right, that's all right. I'm a bit of an apologist for the movie we're gonna be talking about today, so we'll get into that. Interesting. I mean, it definitely has flaws, it definitely has flaws, I will say that, but there's a lot of stuff I like about it too. But before we jump into that, what kind of stuff are you into lately? Movies, TVs, video games, anything like that can be superior related or not?
00:13:24
Speaker
Oh,
Tommy's Interests: Movies and Games
00:13:24
Speaker
mine are all super, well, vaguely super related. I want to know if you've seen a movie that's just come out. It's literally only cinemas. I would assume not, but have you seen Across the Spider-Verse just yet? No, I have not because it's an animated film and it's more geared towards kids. So when it comes in Japan, I think it's only available in dubbed form in the theaters. Right. Okay. Interesting. There you go. So I'm going to have to wait until it comes out on video.
00:13:49
Speaker
Right. Look, the first one is probably one of my favorite movies. And I actually saw a quote from old mate Tom Holland, the current Spider-Man, saying that he thinks Into the Spider-Verse is the best Spider-Man movie. Really? The new one just coming out. We went to see that this week. The podcast just released this morning. It's Sunday. It's the beginning of June. I'm assuming this isn't coming out anytime soon, but we released this podcast this morning.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so far ahead in recording. This is probably going to come out in like maybe September or something. I don't know. Wow. Time is a flat circle. I have no idea what's going on anymore. Well, look, time is a flat circle. In this context of right now in June, it just came out this week, we did a podcast about it. And I'm not going to tell you anything. I'm going to let you come to your own conclusions. But we had a lot of fun with it. And I've just been creating a YouTube video about that, some of my favorite cameos, vinnits. That should be up on the YouTube channel soon too.
00:14:43
Speaker
And the other thing I've been sinking so much time into is the new Zelda game. And I know on your Guardians podcast you guys talked a little bit about video gaming in general. Because it's hard man, it's a big game. It's such a big game. And I feel like it's one of those things where I don't actually do anything every time I play it.
00:15:05
Speaker
I start the thing up, I spend half an hour going from point A to point B, and by the time I'm going to point B, I'm like, oh, well, that's my entire half an hour that I had to play this game. Yeah, yeah, exactly. How it started? I love the open world games, but that is one of the big issues. It's like, if I've only got like half an hour or an hour to play, it's not enough time to really do anything other than because there's so much time between playing sessions. So there's always some update to download first and then
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah. And you were talking about, you know, Final Fantasy earlier. I'm a huge Final Fantasy seven fan. And when Remake came out, man, I just dove into that for I think that was before my daughter was born. So I was lucky that was still when I had time to play games. But even when she was when she was a baby, like when Ghost of Tsushima came out, like I'd be like holding her in one hand. Perfect parenting, right?
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's tough finding time to play around with these games nowadays. And there's so much stuff I have with the PlayStation Plus subscription that I downloaded and created, just have never had a chance to open up yet. What did you think of the Final Fantasy remake? I'm intrigued.
00:16:19
Speaker
I really liked it. At first, I thought they were just going to do a straight remake, just like the same story with maybe some more beats or something like that. But I was a little curious why they said the first game would just be Midgar. And then when we got towards the end and stuff started changing, I'm like, oh, they're doing something a lot more different than I expected. This
Creative Decisions in Final Fantasy 7 Remake
00:16:41
Speaker
is pretty cool.
00:16:43
Speaker
Very, very like, very in section, very like the matrix, all these kind of influences clearly like on the game. I really liked it. Don't get me wrong. If they had have just made a beat for beat remake, I would have been sound out of it. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I feel like they've gone, they've done the right thing for a new audience and made it a little bit more matter. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love all that multiversal timey wimey stuff. So I'm all out there for that.
00:17:09
Speaker
go to Sashima as well. I actually bought that recently and I literally have it. It's still in the, it's still in the plastic. It's just sitting there and I'm like, I want to play this game, but I think it's so good and ring at a similar time. And that just, I just took my life out. I just played all of that game.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, Ghost Tsushima is so much fun. It's like playing a Kurosawa movie. There's even a Kurosawa mode where you can switch to all black and white in it. It's pretty cool. That's awesome. I'm going to have to play that soon then. Because the new fans, I think it's 16 maybe.
00:17:45
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, I thought you were talking about the new remake one, but I still haven't, I played 15 and that was, that was okay. But like I've been sporadic on Final Fantasy since eighth. Like I never actually played nine and I played- Oh wow, really? Parts of 10. Yeah, yeah. I played part of 10. I played part of 11. No, no, 11 was the online one. Yeah, I played that one a little bit. And then I played part of 12. Mm-hmm.
00:18:12
Speaker
Didn't touch 13, and 14 I think was another online one. I think I kind of- Don't touch 13, it's terrible. There are apologies for that game. I absolutely hated it. I was like a hardcore Final Fantasy fan. It just broke me. I was like, what is this? Ah. Yeah, and I played, I think 14 was the other online one. I think I played that when it was free for a brief period, and then I didn't stick with it. But those MMOs, they're just, I can't do it. I don't have the time to invest in those things.
00:18:41
Speaker
If like we don't have the time to play the games we can just play on our own imagine Yeah, it would just be crazy Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but anyway today we're talking about Thor love and thunder the the fourth movie possibly final we're not there's not seem doesn't seem to be a definitive word on that of movie in the in the in the Thor series Again, we got Taika YTD coming back to direct and of course the big draw of this one was
00:19:10
Speaker
Jane
Thor: Love and Thunder - Comic Book Origins
00:19:11
Speaker
Foster picking up the the hammer and you know doing a kind of a spin on Jason Aaron's Mighty Thor run from a few years back But anyway, what? What did you think of this movie? Well before we get into the movie, what's your history with Thor as a character in general? Are you mostly familiar with him from the movies? Do you know anything about him from the comics? Well, I know a little bit about him from the comics Like I said, my old man had a few kicking around the whole time of Blake and
00:19:36
Speaker
thing. I always found that a little bit weird. I quite I quite like the idea of superheroes having like a secret identity, but that one just always baffled me. So I never really gravitated to Thor in that way. But it's funny you mentioned mentioned the mighty Thor series. I like I have a prop I bought. I bought that series to read after this like the whole thing. It's a chunk. It's like I don't know like two inches thick or something.
00:19:59
Speaker
because I was so excited about this movie when it's coming out. We actually on Podcast Assemble do like a most anticipated of the year. So we do like five movies we're super pumped for. And I think this was like my most anticipated for 2022. And coming off the back a few other ones, a few less than, you know, Stella outings on the MCU, like Black Widow, for example. I was like, this is gonna be it. This is gonna be the turning point. Type has got it in the bag. And it was so,
00:20:26
Speaker
I was so non-plus by it, the comic is still in the plastic. And I know it's probably a significantly better comic book than this movie is, but it's made me feel I needed to give it a bit of a break.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally get that. I will say the comic is amazing like Jason Aaron has been cited by by people who were big Thor fans is like one of the like right up there like Walt Simonson's like the gold standard for Thor writers and Jason Aaron's been listed as like right alongside him like it's it he did it a he did an amazing run on that character and
00:21:03
Speaker
Like I wasn't as big of a I wasn't that big of a Thor fan reading the when I was a comic and really big into Comics I started picking it up when Dan Juergens was doing it Read a little bit of it. It was okay And in the years since I've gone back and I've read a lot of stuff and I've read the whole Juergens run, which is good I haven't read any of the Simonson stuff yet. I've read the Jason Aaron stuff. I love Jason Aaron's work and I'd also read
00:21:29
Speaker
J. Michael Straczynski did a run too. Right, right. Excuse me. And that was a really good one too. That was a really, I thought that was, that one actually brought back Don Blake for the first time in years, but actually found a way to make it work pretty interestingly. And so I really dug that one. And, but yeah, Jason Aaron's run was just spectacular. And so, but I don't know, like my, my co-host was really big into Thor. Like Thor was like his favorite character. Yeah. At least, at least Marvel characters.
00:21:57
Speaker
And I could never really connect with the character as much.
MCU Character Adaptations
00:22:01
Speaker
But when he started popping up in the MCU, I found myself, sometimes the MCU, they'll change things around with the characters from the comic books. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
00:22:18
Speaker
And movies in general will do this. But I think MCU, more often than not, has given me versions of these characters that I like more than I do in the comics, in some cases. I think Steve Rogers in the movies, Chris Evans' portrayal, it's not that it's better than the comics, but I think it's the perfect synthesis of what the comics version is.
00:22:42
Speaker
Downey's Stark, he's got the same arrogance and all that, but in the comics he was never as snarky. So I definitely prefer Downey's take on it. And the Guardians, all of them vastly superior to the comics in my mind.
00:22:57
Speaker
Absolutely. It's funny you mentioned the Thor in the movies, like I'm a mass apologist for that first Thor movie. I actually really like it because it's like, I don't know you guys who talk about it in your Guardians of the Galaxy episode, that Phase One of the MCU, it's kind of like a bit of an outlier because he is such a uniquely different character to everyone else. And the fact that the MCU made this weird Norse god work
00:23:20
Speaker
Just for me like just highlights how great that movie was and the fact that it Seamlessly blends in and then when he it's the fish out of water character with around with around everyone else And I think as we get into it, I think that's the thing this movie really missed or being that fish out of water Yeah, um, so it's funny. This is coming at the perfect time because yesterday I recorded an episode on on dr. Strange and one of the things that we were talking about where how with the first Thor movie is
00:23:47
Speaker
they were really kind of trying to straddle that line of like, let's introduce magic, but only a little bit. And they did a pretty good job with it. And then that led to Dr. Strange just being a lot more open with what magic is and embracing the fantasy side of it. And that was one of the things I really liked about Ragnarok is it found a way to blend the fantasy stuff with like the wacky sci-fi stuff. And it did it in a way that worked really well.
00:24:17
Speaker
This
Critique of Thor: Love and Thunder's Humor
00:24:18
Speaker
one, I mean, so this movie is obviously not very well loved. And I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna say it's my favorite Thor movie. Like Ragnarok is clearly superior. I mean, I think even the first Thor movie is deaf. I think I would put the first Thor movie above this one as well. I mean, I think that is, I'm an apologist for that movie too. We covered that way back with my original co-host, Eric. And you know, we both love that movie.
00:24:46
Speaker
you know there's some stuff I would have liked to see more of I would have liked to see a little bit less of New Mexico a little bit more of Asgard and you know some stuff like that but other than that I I love that film I thought it was it was great and
00:25:00
Speaker
And I really thought that what Taika did with Ragnarok was a really, really gave it a new injection of creativity and a new boost of enthusiasm. Hemsworth felt like he was much happier playing the character now, as opposed to like, when we got to the Dark World and
00:25:20
Speaker
Age of Ultron, he kind of seemed tired. He was still doing it. He was still putting in the work, but he just didn't seem as enthused about the role as he had been in that first Thor movie or in the first Avengers. Yeah, it's really interesting you say that.
00:25:38
Speaker
I've actually got a recent video on the YouTube channel about, I don't know, do you know the trope of lampshading or hanging a lantern on it? Effectively, if something stupid or something out of the ordinary is happening in a scene, if somebody in the movie quips about that thing being stupid or out of the ordinary, then the audience seems to feel more relaxed and suspend their disbelief, just add a little bit more. Perfect example is Hawkeye in Age of Ultron, you were just talking about where he's like,
00:26:07
Speaker
I've got a bow and arrow. We're on a flying island or whatever. Nothing here makes sense. None of this makes sense. Yeah, I love that line. Me too. But that's the perfect example of lamp shading. So he is literally explaining something dumb to another character. So we all go, oh, if they think it's dumb, it's all right to allow it to just be still on screen. And I feel like there's a point somewhere between
00:26:32
Speaker
all of the Thor movies where they stop lampshading and they just go full comedy and it's around Ragnarok-ish and might even be between movies and there's something about it that just doesn't quite work in exactly in the same way a James Gunn movie does. He goes a bit too tight, he goes full tycoity on this and I don't think it quite works.
00:26:52
Speaker
No, I definitely that's, that's a definite criticism I have of this movie. Like, you know, like I said, I enjoyed this movie for the most part, but they're deaf, they definitely go too far into the comedy bits. And I think they would have benefited a lot from I think part of the reason is they didn't really seem to know what kind of movie they wanted to do, right?
Multiple Plotlines and Character Development
00:27:11
Speaker
It didn't
00:27:12
Speaker
It felt like, and I think there, and from what I know, there was apparently some, a lot of, you know, changing of minds and stuff going on behind the scenes. So they're like, and they're doing a lot of stuff like reshooting or re-editing stuff or, you know, swapping things in and out with CGI. And because, yeah, I mean, I, there's so many different ways you could have gone with this, right? You could have, you've got a great premise right from the start, right? Thor is in this place where,
00:27:43
Speaker
And that was one of the things I loved about Endgame, the fact that he had failed being the great hero. And his mother was like, you don't have to be the great hero, right? You don't have to do that. And his whole idea of like, well, I'm gonna try and find myself. I'm gonna go out into the galaxy, and go out into space, the Guardians of the Galaxy, I'm gonna try and find out who I'm supposed to be. That was such a, and we talked about, you probably remember, we talked about this in the Guardians episode, that was such a great setup.
00:28:11
Speaker
I'm not sure, and I wish we could have seen something with Thor, at least having one movie being part of the Guardians of the Galaxy and see how it interacts with a different group. I think that would have been so much fun to see. I don't know if you would have done it as like...
00:28:28
Speaker
you know, Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy, or Asgardians the Galaxy, or what you would have done. But I think it would have been nice to get at least one movie to see them going on at least one adventure. And, but instead, and I don't know if it was because of the behind the scenes stuff with James Gunn being fired, then being brought back in and then him saying like, we don't want to use Thor in the third movie. Yeah, it's interesting to talk about that. He really did not want Thor in that movie.
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I get that, right? He had an idea for these three movies he wanted to do, and that's totally valid. And also, like I said in that movie, it felt like Adam Warlock was kind of just tacked on there. It didn't really feel like that was what he was originally intended to be.
00:29:12
Speaker
And then here we get Thor with the Guardians at the beginning, but it's almost like an afterthought. It's clearly just like, we gotta clear the decks and get this out of the way first, and then we can move on to the other story. And then you've got the whole thing with Jane, which I think is the most interesting part of the movie.
Underdeveloped Themes in the Film
00:29:32
Speaker
And it's just, it's...
00:29:34
Speaker
And I think this, it's, I was really thinking of guardians three when I was rewatching this because that whole idea, what I loved about guardians three was that whole storyline, how they took that idea of Gamora is now Gamora from the past. So she doesn't remember Peter and, and the whole idea of it's a metaphor for falling out of love with someone. I thought that was, that was a beautiful story. I feel like.
00:29:58
Speaker
There was some of that in here, like that whole idea of unrequited love and all that, that would have been really interesting to play with. And we never really got, it never really played with that concept in any way that I thought it needed to. Yeah, agreed. And I think watching this movie back, I've got, there were two thoughts I had. First, my first thought was, this movie is way better when you can sit with a Nintendo Switch and play Zelda and not really have to watch it.
00:30:27
Speaker
And my second was that the Jane Foster stuff was so underused. I thought she was amazing in this. And I know from the comic book, my knowledge of those comics, that she is phenomenal in that run. And it's her struggle against the cancer that's slowly killing her that really gives heart to those comics. And I think there was some of that in this. But we go back to that lampshading thing or that problem of the humor, like the humor, like the type of Tiki just can't let a scene rest.
00:30:56
Speaker
And I always make this comparison. And it's a random one. And give me a second. You'll understand what I mean in a minute. But I used to love Scrubs. Scrubs was one of my all time favorite shows growing up. Like I was a teen, perfectly timed. Yeah, perfectly timed. And if you watch those first four series, they are immaculate. They're amazing. And something around season four, season five changes.
00:31:18
Speaker
and it becomes a bit wackier and it's not quite the same. And I think someone, I heard the camera, I heard this, I'm stealing this, but someone summed it up perfectly for me. It went from being a drama with comedic elements.
00:31:31
Speaker
to a comedy with dramatic elements and I think that's the change we've seen with this character and the fish out of water part that makes him so compelling and the drama that goes with that is kind of now in the background and it's not the same and much as I love this character and like you say it just doesn't quite work. No yeah I think that that's totally fair and I think at some point
00:31:54
Speaker
Taika forgot that this was supposed to be a superhero, a serious superhero movie first with comedic elements. And then he kind of got away from that a lot in this movie and he leaned a little bit too heavily into the humor. I mean, and also going back to the whole idea of this being overstuffed, right? I mean, you've got Thor trying to find his place in the world. You've got Jane, you know, struggling with this idea of do I use the hammer and hasten my own demise or do I, you know,
00:32:24
Speaker
just succumb to like a human, or do I just kind of like, you know, try and whatever, you know what I mean? I can't really figure out how to phrase it right now. But you've got that, then you've got the whole thing with Valkyrie and new Asgard and how she's, you know, she's the king, but she's she hates the bureaucracy of it all. And she wants to go out on adventures again.
00:32:45
Speaker
and then you've got you've got gore and you've got this whole thing about well the gods haven't done anything for us why it's better to live in a godless universe i loved everything i loved all that stuff with gore i thought that was great and it's just like you've got these four very compelling ideas in here each one of those could be a movie in its own right instead they just cram them all into one and it doesn't have the time to really focus on any of them oh plus you've also got the guardians there too so that's that's technically five things you could have there
00:33:15
Speaker
It's too much. And I'm with you on that. And I think, I think going back to gore, like that had so much potential that character, especially with that comic books run. And the thing with that comics run is it's massive. It's like, spans like multiple years. And I think that's a problem when you get these sometimes decades spanning comic book runs, which have so much detail and so much intricacy. And they just try and like cram it down and go, Oh, let's give you the
00:33:42
Speaker
you know, the quick version of it. It doesn't seem to always work. Dark
Gore's Underutilized Character
00:33:46
Speaker
Phoenix is a perfect example of that. Hurt twice. They did that twice. Yeah, twice, twice. I refuse to watch the second one. I'm not going to lie to you. Much so I love McAvoy's. What's the other guy? No, no, no, which I love. Oh, Fassbender. Fassbender. I think he's phenomenal. Love those guys. Amazing. That's great, too. When I saw that movie coming out, I was just like, I think I'm good. Dark Phoenix is...
00:34:13
Speaker
It's really bad, it's really bad. Somehow, they managed to look at the last stand and say, how can we make this worse? Well, you think they learned, and it's so funny that Hollywood seems to always take the wrong thing out of movie failures. Have you noticed that? They always go, oh, this failed for this reason. Or something does well unexpectedly, like, I don't know, Venom. They give you more turd rolling in the wind, rather than the things that made it great, Venom being Venom.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, well, I mean, you know, I've been rewatching community lately. I think that's a good example where they're like, you know, we don't need Dan Harmon for this. Let's take him out. And it's like, well, let's keep Chevy chasing. I'm like, well, you're, you're forgetting what is working here and what's not. Yeah. I love all the community references and Rick and Morty. It's just like, I haven't seen that actually. I still got to get into that.
00:35:09
Speaker
Really? Oh man, I feel like you'd love it. It's great. It's really, really meta, really deep. It's got a bit strange in the later series, but that's all right. They've got to go through their maturing curve, right? Yeah, yeah. And I feel like, going back to this movie too, the gore stuff, I thought was... I remember a lot of people complaining about gore, and when I was watching this last night, I thought,
00:35:34
Speaker
Besides Jane, I thought his was the most interesting part of the movie. I thought Bale was doing a phenomenal job in this. He was- He's doing some serious scenery.
00:35:43
Speaker
I mean, that opening scene, and it's probably because I'm a father now, and it's just like that was heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah. Where he's pleading to the gods to save his daughter. And just on a personal level, I could relate so much to what he was going through in that, even up until the end. I could relate so much to that. And then you contrast that with these very dark, sinister places he goes to and how
00:36:13
Speaker
very genuinely scary he is in some of those scenes. Like I thought his performance was incredible. I'm with you 100%. The only minor thing I'd say about that is
00:36:23
Speaker
He really goes from zero to 100 in no time at all. He goes from being like this, you know, seemingly like, you know, really nice father figure who's, you know, to like, he's got the spiky teeth and the red eyes and terrifying. Like overnight, there's no middle ground. And I think that's really, really shows how his character has fallen so far.
00:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, well I think to the point you were saying before about this being a longer story like that's that's something that could have played out in like over the course of like two movies or something like I think that would have been a much more interesting way to do it plus you got all that stuff with the gods in here which I mean like
00:37:03
Speaker
talk about chewy cedary like i like the the the whole thing and like the celestial city or whatever it's called it's it's totally goofy but i i loved russell crow in that sequence did you tell me i thought he was so much fun i just thought it was so much fun it was it was so ridiculous it was so over the top and i know a lot of people were were down on it because of the way it treated zeus but i thought it made
00:37:24
Speaker
perfect sense for the message they're trying to give, right? These are gods who don't give a shit. They've just gotten, you know, they've gotten flabby and soft and just they don't care about anything but their own decadence. And especially if you go back and you look at mythology, that's 100% accurate. Like it's exactly what they were doing.
00:37:44
Speaker
Well, it's funny, I played, we talked about video games before, I played the recent God of War Ragnarok game and Thor is just a big dude. Like he's not like, you know, Hemsworth ripped or anything. He's just a dude with a big gut who's really tall and swings his hammer around. That is exactly what they were in mythology. They're not necessarily, they're not necessarily the sort of like, I don't know, bodybuilder type, beautiful beings. But it's, you're exactly right. And I think it's interesting that
00:38:10
Speaker
It's interesting the sort of juxtaposition of like them being gods and them being incredibly powerful, but yet they're still hiding. They're still stopping the world getting to them or getting, let it go, get anywhere near them effectively. And when, when they're in that scene where, you know, balls calling them all out, how they all shrink away from any sort of just anything that might call them to action. It's really interesting.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I remember there was this one image I saw it was a yet what caused most problems in in Greek mythology and it's like Some God through a hissy fit because a human was better than him fate prophecy that couldn't be avoided Hubris and these are these three only comprised about like maybe 20% of the pie graph The rest of
Defending Zeus's Portrayal
00:38:54
Speaker
it is Zeus couldn't keep it in his pants
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean Russell Crowe is the perfect character for that, right? He's he's the perfect he's the he did such a great job playing that version of Zeus. I thought it was it was great. And especially I think it's again, this is another example of this is a six point that is that shows like how how much stuff is stuffed into this movie. This whole idea of, you know, Thor
00:39:21
Speaker
cares because now he has lived among the humans, right? So he's been an Avenger, he's been a superhero, he's traveled the galaxy, he cares about people, he's learned humility and all that and all of that. And that would be really interesting to look at the fact that he's there advocating for humanity to gods that don't give a shit anymore. I thought that's another very interesting thing that could have been really cool to explore, but it just kind of gets stuffed in as an afterthought.
00:39:48
Speaker
I'm 100% with you. The thing that really, going back to the broader, taking a step back from this movie, and the thing that always takes me out, especially when I'm watching that scene where they're in the Coliseum with all the gods is just the quick fire jokes. Just let it sit. Let it be a serious moment. Let Thor realize that his hero maybe shouldn't meet your heroes, you know what I mean? Maybe he's not the all-powerful, but no, they have to flick off his clothes or
00:40:17
Speaker
whatever it is, it's like, give me, give me a second. Just call shut up for just a minute. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, that was another thing too. I mean, like Korg was, was great in Ragnarok. He was great in, uh, in end game, right? But what made him great is that he had just these small parts, right? These less is more and with, with a character like that. Yeah, absolutely. Minimalist. It's something that I don't think ever been entitled to eat his vocabulary.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah.
Korg's Overuse
00:40:51
Speaker
But even then in Ragnarok, too, I felt I felt like as much as I love Ragnarok, I did feel like there were places where he was pushing the line a little bit too far with the humor. And I think he I think he benefited in that movie from having because that was his first movie from Marvel. So he probably had people looking over his shoulder a little bit more. And he probably had Feige saying like, hey, pull it back a little bit, pull it back a little bit.
00:41:13
Speaker
I feel like after the success of Ragnarok, he didn't have that anymore and he had a lot more freedom. And I think when you give a director a lot of freedom, sometimes it can be a good thing.
00:41:24
Speaker
Sometimes, though, directors need to be reined in, right? There's a reason why it's a collaborative process. And I think that's, I mean, you look at someone like, again, take, there's so many comparisons between James Gunn and Taika Waititi, because they both have these kind of similar styles, they both use a lot of humor in it, their movies have a lot of heart.
00:41:44
Speaker
Whereas Gunn, I think, is a little bit more disciplined as a director. And he's able to find that line. He goes right up to that line, but he doesn't cross it. Taika went up to that line. He started to dance around a little bit in Ragnarok. In this movie, he just kind of charged right over it.
00:42:02
Speaker
And it goes back to that thing where James Gunn knows how to keep a movie as a drama with comedic elements. And then this is just an attempted comedy, right? Like there's no bravado here. This is just attempted at being like a full blown comedy, which, you know, like fair enough. Like I think my favorite part of the MCU is that even going all the way back to the likes of the Winter Soldier or Civil War, things like that.
00:42:28
Speaker
The MCU really shines for me when they take a genre and they wrap superheroes around it. They go, this is a spy espionage movie, but superheroes are in it. And that's great. And I love them trying new things. I'm always open to see. I'm excited when they do a Western. My co-host, TL, he's a massive Western guy. I'd love to see what that looks like in the MCU. Oh, yeah. We did get Logan. That was basically a Western.
00:42:53
Speaker
It was, it wasn't MCU though, but then if Deadpool 3 is going to be part of the MCU, there's that little crossover there, isn't there? I mean, I think they said that this is going to be a Logan from a different universe is what it is. It's not going to be the same one from the Fox movie. So yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm really interested to see. But yeah, I mean, I would love to see.
00:43:13
Speaker
I think once they bring Wolverine into the MCU proper, I think you could really do like a, cause I think you do solo Wolverine movies and you structure them like Westerns. Like he is basically a Western character in a superhero universe. So that would be perfectly well. I love that idea. There was a-
00:43:33
Speaker
Check, there was a Greg Rucka did a run on Wolverine back in the early 2000s. I think it was right around the time of that. The second X-Men movie came out. And it was very much like that. It was, you know, it was Wolverine like being like kind of like this, you know, wandering character. He's like going into this town and like, you know, and, and, you know, some troubles happening in this small town. He comes in and he tears shit up basically. And that's nice. It was, it was, it was great. And it was a wonderful, probably one of my favorite Wolverine runs ever. So you check that out if you can.
00:44:03
Speaker
I've been really trying to find the old man Logan comic book run, like just adds a block and it's really hard to find. No, not a fan. Well, the original stuff that Mark Miller did, it's like it's the quintessential. It's like that comic perfectly encapsulates the good and bad of Miller. Like the whole idea of Wolverine old and being like kind of like this Clint Eastwood and unforgiven type character. That's amazing. But then you contrast it with
00:44:33
Speaker
redneck in bread bread hulks and it's just like it's ridiculous but there was a few years back after the secret wars crossover they brought old man logan into the main marvel universe yeah that run is a really good run that is a really good run okay i'll check that out that's awesome i think that is um
00:44:55
Speaker
I'm blanking on the guy's name, but he also did a great run on Green Arrow a few years back for DC, and he was amazing on that Wolverine run, that old man Logan run. Yeah. Well, I think going back to what we were talking about, I like the idea that they attempted more of a comedy focus. I just don't think it really resonated. I don't think the dramatic moments held with the amount of comedy that was in there.
00:45:19
Speaker
Even though I really like the universe that we're trying to create here, it feels like something different. This sort of superficial, everything has to be gold, the god's fingerprints are across everything. I really enjoyed that. The thing I didn't enjoy was the fact that you didn't actually get to see the god butcher butchering any gods.
00:45:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. You only get that first scene, that's all we get, and that's it. Yeah, yeah. Like, you get that amazing shot that's ripped straight from the comics where you've got the... I forget the name of it, the huge dead god.
00:45:52
Speaker
and Thor knows him. And I wanna see that fight. That's the one I wanna see. I don't wanna see him kill some pompous gold guy. Well, also it was, and speaking of that scene, Jamie Alexander, you finally bring her back after she was out of Ragnarok. Yeah, tell me about it. She's just completely wasted in this scene where it's played for laughs. And it's just like, she's such a better actress. Her character is so much better than, deserves so much better than what she got in this.
00:46:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know why she wasn't in Ragnarok in the first place, like thematically, as in in terms of story reasons. Didn't make sense. But I do like the idea that she is still in the universe. I'd like to see more of her. I think she's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was she was great in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when she popped this time. She popped up on that. And it really made me want to see. I.
00:46:45
Speaker
I said she was great in Agents of SHIELD. I stuck with it for about, I think, I haven't watched the last season, but like the Inhuman stuff really started to lose me. But I thought the first two seasons were pretty strong. And the Ghost Rider season, at least the stuff with Ghost Rider was good. Ghost Rider's awesome anyway. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker
But her appearances and that, I thought she was great in those appearances she had on that show. And it really made me want to see more of her playing Sif. And then she ended up doing that TV show Blindside or Blindspot or whatever it is. I think that caused a lot of scheduling conflicts. And I think that was one of the main reasons why she wasn't in Ragnarok.
00:47:34
Speaker
I bet she really enjoyed her role in the Loki TV show where she just could walk in, meet Tom, Tom Hiddleston in the nuts and walk off, carry on. Yeah. Who gets to say they've done that on film? Yeah.
00:47:48
Speaker
But I mean, that's another example, you know, this character is just wasted and you know, Valkyrie too, like she's, you know, such a great character that we get in Ragnarok and we get these such a great setup at the end of Endgame with her taking over Asgard. And again, that premise right here, like she's clearly bored with being king. She doesn't like this and that whole idea of you've seen Superman too, I assume, right? Yeah, of course.
00:48:14
Speaker
You know that scene when they're in the White House and Ursa says to Zod, you are Lord of all you survey. And he's like, and he's just very bored. And he's like, as I was yesterday and the day before that. And he's just like, he was so bored with the idea of ruling. He wanted to conquer. And it's like, I get the same kind of feeling from from Valkyrie where she doesn't want to be a ruler. She doesn't want to be a king. She wants to be a warrior. And
00:48:39
Speaker
And the brief moment she gets where she's interacting with Jane, I wanted to see more of that. Honestly, what I kinda was hoping for this movie is this would be a way to close out Chris Hemsworth's story as Thor, give him not even a death scene, right? Because I think that would be playing into the whole heroic death thing that he was supposed to be getting off that path. I think this, have him,
00:49:06
Speaker
In a way, I kind of, I mixed on the ending that happens with him. And one hand, I do like the idea that he's kind of settling down a little bit. But on the other hand, he is still going out there being a hero. I think that's, and the whole, you know, bringing in the love at the end was kind of, it felt very enforced. Didn't feel like it was really, it felt really tacked on. I mean, it did like a nice, I did like that they brought in his actual daughter to play that part. That was cute. Did you? I found out a bit, like, I feel like there's a bit of,
00:49:33
Speaker
But there's a bit of creeping nepotism in these movies. Like it's just sort of like just coming in around the corners and you're a bit like, Oh, okay. His wife was in the second one. Now his daughter's in this one. It's a bit like, come on, guys. I like what you mean. I know you mean that. I do like, I do like the new direction they kind of aimed for with that character. I think I like what it got to. I just didn't love the journey to get there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:49:57
Speaker
Prime example of being taken out of this movie was the weapons and the whole weird thing with them sort of being oddly sentient. Stormbreaker was like a moody child or like a vet. Like a child's girlfriend, yeah. Yeah, it was like, what is this? That was, yeah. And I think I laughed at it and I was like, oh yeah, that's a comedic moment. But looking back on it, it's like, what is this trying to say? Yeah.
00:50:26
Speaker
They put, like, it was a fun gag when, like, he's trying to, he's trying to Sun and Mjolnir and Stormbreaker comes. He's like, oh, it's you. Just what I was looking for. And I'm just like, okay, yeah, that's funny. But they pushed, again, Taika took it too far. He took the joke way too far. Just like, you know, to your point earlier with Scrubs, like season five and season six, they've got some great comedy bits, but they took the comedy too far. Like, I remember one scene when, you know,
00:50:52
Speaker
turk hides jd in his backpack and jd's like all crammed it's like this you kind of forgot what made this show work i mean it's a funny bit but it just doesn't work for what you're trying to do here and suspending disbelief is such a big thing especially in these movies and the film
00:51:08
Speaker
The thing that I loved about the early MCU, and I keep going back to that, I'm sorry, but like the reason I loved Marvel, the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the very beginning was this felt real. Like, you know, the whole Tony Stark billion Iron Man suit, like doesn't feel a thousand years in the future. Like
MCU's Relatability Issues
00:51:22
Speaker
you see some of the weird mech stuff they're creating and you're like, oh, yeah, that could easily be turned into something.
00:51:27
Speaker
And the fact that the Norse stuff was, it's just science. We just don't understand it. Like all that, it's great. And it's kind of relatable. And the fish out of water, everyone's been in that situation where they're in a situation they don't feel comfortable in, or they're maybe in a different friendship group. They don't know anyone.
00:51:45
Speaker
And they stripped all of that out and put JD in a backpack, as you say. Yeah, yeah. Well, also too, like the whole idea of the gods, like there was that one of the greatest parts in that first Thor movie was when
00:51:59
Speaker
when Darcy says, you know, a primitive culture like the Vikings would have thought these extra dimensional beings were gods. And yeah, so they're not actual gods, they're extra dimensional beings that are just really powerful. They're, they're space aliens, basically. And that is kind of undermined in this movie when you've got, you know, the gods hanging out in this celestial city. And in the MCU, though, like in general. Yeah, yeah.
00:52:25
Speaker
Is it the celestial? And Ragnarok kind of muddled these waters to begin with. And I think where it's like, okay. Because the whole idea, my interpretation was that Asgard was a separate dimension. But now in Ragnarok, it's like a separate planet. And it just, it felt really bizarre. And I wasn't sure how those things
00:52:48
Speaker
It feels like, and I think part of that Ragnarok in some ways was like a soft reboot of the Thor stuff, which is why they killed off everybody. Kinda.
00:53:00
Speaker
I think the thing that I did, I know I've been really down on this, but the thing I did really like about this movie, and I'm going to go back on myself a little bit here, was some of the action. So I feel like when you go aside from all of the nonsense and all of the jokes and they tried, Taekwiti can do a really good action scene.
00:53:19
Speaker
when you're talking about Ragnarok when all of Asgard gets wiped out by Hela. That's awesome. That's such an awesome thing. And then when Serda, you know, destroys it with the giant sword. God, I hope people have seen these movies, otherwise we are really spoiling them. But until the scene, yeah. So Serda comes in with a sword and he drops down, destroys Asgard. I really hope people have seen these movies, otherwise we're really spoiling them for people.
00:53:43
Speaker
I think James gonna get him confused now. I think Taika does really have a good eye for the action stuff. And in this he brings that back, you know. So for example, the scene where they enter the zone where it's all where all the color gets sat down and it's just black and white. That's really visually interesting. And though the enemies they're fighting, you know, they're not that, you know, they're not exactly riveting. They're just sort of like shadow monsters. But like, it's visually very interesting. And I like what he tried to do with that.
00:54:13
Speaker
Yeah, same here. I thought the the fights were one of the the action was one of the one of the high points of this movie. Like, especially like the way Jane fights. I love the idea that because one of the big questions I had was going into this movie, I think everybody had was, okay, so how is Mjolnir factoring into this? Like, how is it the one from the other from the other universe? Like, what is and then you find it's, it's it is still fractured. It's just she it's been reassembled. And I thought,
00:54:41
Speaker
Also, too, I think it would have been nice to have a scene where it's like Thor being like, well, why didn't I think I'm doing that? I think that leans into what you're saying before around the Jane Foster arc in this. And I really like the fact that Mjolnir is kind of part of that. Because obviously, you know, there's that there's, I quite like the background scene. You're the ones that are showing you them them in a relationship and how maybe they might work out. I found that really affecting. I thought that was great.
00:55:04
Speaker
And the fact that he'd asked Milner to be like, take care of her. And it's doing what he asked this sentient hammer to do. But I thought that actually really worked in this scenario. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That was so great. I feel like it's
00:55:22
Speaker
It, part of me doesn't, I like it. I have two minds to that because on the other hand, it feels like you're also undermining Jane's own worthiness because in the comics, she was able to pick up the hammer because she is worthy.
00:55:37
Speaker
Whereas here, it seems like she's picking up the hammer because Thor gave the hammer permission to be picked up by her. I think the whole worthiness thing is completely ruined in this. Sorry for jumping in. If you go to the final scene, where Thor effectively gives all the kids the worthiness to use anything with the power of Thor, it's like, well, if everyone's worthy, what's the point in it? Do you know what I mean? Well, I think that the worthiness thing,
00:56:05
Speaker
the worthiness enchantment is is weird the way they've done it in the movies because Sure, I think it only it only ended up being used It was kind of like it was kind of used as a plot device in the first movie for Thor to be unworthy, right? Because there's that there's that scene when Odin puts the enchantment on it and up until that point it wasn't enchanted and then Only after that point is it get enchanted which is why like everybody can lift stormbreaker but yeah the whole so I don't think the hammer giving powers is necessarily because of that it's and it's also
00:56:36
Speaker
It's also kind of confusing because we had that whole arc in Ragnarok where Odin tells him, you know, the hammer was not the source of your powers. The hammer is a conduit. It's a way to channel and focus your powers. And I know people said that they didn't like an Infinity War, how he goes and gets a new hammer. I'm like, no, that actually makes sense because he still needs something to focus the powers in a more concentrated way. And so it makes sense for me why he'd need Stormbreaker.
00:57:03
Speaker
This movie seems to try to have it both ways. It's this idea of like the power is in him, but it's also in the hammer. So I was kind of confused about how that worked.
00:57:12
Speaker
It was interesting they also introduced yet another weapon. I feel like it's an overload in these movies. You know, there's the, the lightning bolt of Zeus as well, which becomes his new, well, it's sort of, it's in it for like a minute and then it disappears. He doesn't get it. He obviously doesn't seem to take it, take it with him. I'm not sure he might do, but it's like, what, why does Thor need all these weapons? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that was another thing too. It felt like the whole.
00:57:40
Speaker
Again, it just feels like that the whole thing with the gods was just an excuse to get this weapon and it was just a McGuffin. It doesn't actually serve any purpose. It'd be one thing if the Thunderbolt was actually the key. I think that might've worked a little bit better then. Yeah, something a bit different. I think that would have made a lot more sense. I feel like what they did was they paid himself into a corner. He had a great weapon.
00:58:08
Speaker
He had, they had Natalie Portman's character also having a weapon and they're like, how do we, how do we make some sort of, where's the tension here? How do we make it, how do we take something away and taking the axe away, you then have to go and get another weapon, but it just doesn't work for me. We haven't really talked about the big MacGuffin in this though. I love that word you use, by the way. That's probably my favorite, favorite word in, in reviewing movies.
00:58:33
Speaker
Like talk to me about eternity. Cause I don't know a huge amount of certainty from the comics, but I feel like in this it's, it is the epitome of a MacGuffin. Yeah. I mean the attorney, like I'm not, so cosmic Marvel is like one of my blind spots. I'm not very tuned into cosmic Marvel. I know eternity exists as a character. He is like this kind of like all powerful being, but other than that, I don't really know a whole lot about him.
00:59:01
Speaker
I thought he looked great. I thought they did a great job of translating the character from the comics and it looked perfect. But one of the big problems I had too is like, okay, it seems like because unless I'm missing something, this whole thing about being able to approach eternity didn't seem like a surprise to Thor. It's something he'd known
00:59:21
Speaker
had existed. So when Thanos wiped out half the universe and you have the key to eternity, why not? I mean, you don't know what's the key, but still, you know that this is a possibility out there. It seems like a good time to go out and find out what the hell is going on here.
00:59:43
Speaker
As soon as you know this is happening, why, why are you not at least checking this out? You know what I mean? I mean, I mean, infinity wouldn't understand it because, you know, he's, he's the big hero. He doesn't feel like he asked. He feels like he can take on Thanos himself. That I get. I get that it's part of his arc. But when you're an end game, then this holy, you need to have the integrity thing be something that is new to him in this movie for it to work in the continuity. Otherwise it's just like, well, then.
01:00:08
Speaker
Dude, half the universe was wiped out. You were drinking beer and eating pizza for five years when you could have been going to eternity and asking him to do something about this. I mean, you think it would have been something you would have at least explored.
01:00:26
Speaker
The same thing with the gods in the Celestial City, right? Thanos wipes out half the universe. This might be a good time to see about talking to the other gods, because you know where the place is, you know how to get to there, you know that they exist, so why aren't you going out and having a conference with them?
01:00:41
Speaker
Absolutely and if thought like in general like that character seems to be not terribly far away from a Thanos level of power in in the movies at least before Thanos gets the stones and somebody's gods are potentially more powerful than Thor like Well, come on guys help us out as well, you know, I Mean and this would have required a level of planning that I don't think Marvel really does They kind of have like the illusion of planning things out but I think one of the things that would have been
01:01:12
Speaker
a good idea was to introduce Gore earlier in these movies and have him killing the gods in the background. So then you don't have this problem when you get to the, when you get to endgame. You don't have these questions. Absolutely. And something I actually find really fascinating and I, I reheard this the other day and it's something that was in my brain, but slipped away somehow was that. So initially the idea was after, I think it was after guardians two or after maybe infinity war,
01:01:40
Speaker
James Gunn was originally going to be like a mini Kevin Feige for the cosmic side of the universe. So you have Feige who heads up the whole thing, but mainly keeps his focus on the ground level stuff. And he lets James Gunn run away and do the intricacies of the story in the cosmic side.
01:01:58
Speaker
To me, if James Gunn hadn't had his whole cancellation for a little while before coming back, if you imagine the story he could have built within the cosmic side, I can totally imagine that being a thing that's running throughout. That might have been happening in the background if you have a James Gunn in the chair, but they just didn't have that. Right, yeah. I think you heard that in the Guardians episode we did because Adam had mentioned that, that originally the plan was
01:02:24
Speaker
Gunn was gonna do three Guardians movies and then he was just gonna kind of like oversee the cosmic side of Marvel. And yeah, that would have been a great idea. And Thor is the perfect bridge character between those two worlds, him and Captain Marvel. These perfect bridge characters between what's going on on Earth and what's going on in the space stuff. And especially Thor, because he's already been introduced to audiences, audiences are already familiar with him. So that's the perfect gateway to, and especially him going off with the Guardians,
01:02:51
Speaker
Again, perfect gateway to do that. In fact, that's probably what I would have had this movie be. I would have had doing an adventure with the Guardians or something. And in the background, you have this whole thing where they keep finding these planets of dead gods. And then you're leading up to the God Butcher in a fourth Thor movie instead and doing it that way. Well, I'm not sure if you guys talked about the original timeline, but obviously, you know, COVID,
01:03:18
Speaker
ruined the Marvel timeline effectively in terms of when movies came out, the length of time it took to make them. I think, I believe Guardians 3 was supposed to come out before a fourth Thor movie. So I could imagine as part of that, even what you were just talking about, imagine just the Guardians going through all these different planets and they're seeing like their beings not realizing their gods. And then within this fourth Thor movie, it just comes back around a crescendo and you go, oh my God, this is what Thor's needing to fight. That would be fascinating.
01:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It also would be the perfect way to bring in Jane as the new Thor, basically, because you could have this thing. I mean, again, I'm kind of arguing against myself here because I like the idea of Thor not going to the heroic death.
01:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, we're like maybe even him losing his worthiness in a battle. Yeah or something like that And then and then Jane picks up after that and then he you know He accepts the fact that he's not worthy. He's happy that he's not worried. He gives up the hammer I think that would have been it would have been a good closer for his character arc And also would have set the stage for something really interesting with Jane as Thor going forward
01:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think what we're affected with coming to the conclusion of here is that this should have been the swan song, right? For Chris Hemsworth, at least as the mighty Thor. I feel like this should have been a way for him to bow out on a high. And yeah, I love the idea of Jane Foster taking over and been the Thor moving forward for the universe. But I feel like they just got a bit too wrapped up in, we've got these amazing stars, we need to use them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, well, even like, you know, looking at some of the stuff that was cut from this movie, because you also had,
01:04:53
Speaker
Jeff Goldblum and Peter Dinklage were supposed to come back and it says that their seeds were actually cut. So they were in this movie and I don't know where they would have been put in. Maybe in that, I guess maybe in that Olympia scene is the only thing I could think of when they're at the celestial city. Probably crack one line, let's be honest.
01:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And Lena Headey was also supposed to have a part in this. I don't know what she was supposed to do. I read that. That would have been really interesting because she like for me, if you're talking serious, serious actors, she really has that in droves. I don't know, you might have seen the more recent dread movie with God, what's his name? Who's the dude who was? Oh, Carl Urban. Carl Urban. Why am I forgetting his name? I love him and the boys and everything.
01:05:37
Speaker
And in the Thor movies, he was Scourge and Ragnarok. Exactly, yeah. She's terrifying in that film. I'd love to have seen her bringing some real gravitas to this and making it a more serious, generally a more serious outing. I feel like she could have been a god who maybe put up a fight against Gore, you know? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, also too, again, going back to the whole sift thing of it, it would have been nice to see her putting up a fight against Gore.
01:06:05
Speaker
And I get what they're trying to do. They're trying to build up the idea of gore as this big threat so you don't see how, you only see the aftermath of his devastation. But you keep undercutting that with the humor and it just, and it doesn't work. Absolutely. And I like the idea. Did you ever watch Game of Thrones? Here and there. Like I haven't watched the, yeah.
01:06:26
Speaker
Fair enough. It's funny because there's a great scene whereby one of the cocky characters talked to Sean Bean's character and says, like, how come you never fight people in Tawny's? And he says, effectively, like, because when I get onto a real battlefield, I don't want people to know exactly what I can do. And now if you took that perspective of this and you go, you don't want people to know what gore can do. Perfect. That's a great way to do this. But as soon as you layer over the fact that Sif's arm getting cut off was used for a joke and you're a bit like,
01:06:55
Speaker
Come on guys like I won the seriousness to this film. Yes. Yeah, I mean especially that scene it Should it does that's a scene that deserves to have the full weight and drama to it like yeah You can have humor in other parts of the movie like I don't want this to be you know You know Batman B Superman where there's there's no there's no there's no even chance of human right?
Humor vs. Serious Themes in Thor: Love and Thunder
01:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean you want to have you you know going back to the Nolan films everyone talks about how serious and dark they were there's lots of moments in levity in movies and
01:07:25
Speaker
I love, we were doing this just recently. I absolutely love Michael Caine in those movies, because he is almost that. He brings an amount of levity that is just, I didn't expect it from him at all, but it's great. Well, yeah. I mean, like the, one of my favorite scenes when, you know, he says he's going to give up being Batman in the dark night and he's going to turn himself in and, and then, and then Alfred's like, I guess they're going to lock me up as you're accomplished. Like, no, I'm going to tell him that was all your idea. It's one of my favorite lines in those movies. It's great.
01:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, one thing we didn't talk about talking of humor and something that I I would love to know why you think this was in there to start with the the classic screaming goat meme, which Feels like ty for tea. He saw something on the internet and when that's funny I'm gonna put that everywhere because while there was too much screaming goats in this movie. I Mean the goats are from the comics. So I think that was yes He wanted an excuse to bring some bring in bring in something from the comics. I thought it was
01:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, of the things that bothered me in this movie, that was kind of low on my list. It didn't bother me that much. I thought it was, it was funny at first. And it just, it was, of all the other stuff that was going on, that was probably the thing that bothered me the least of everything else that was bothering me. I'd love to know the hierarchy of that list. What was the thing that annoyed you the absolute most? It's a good question.
01:08:50
Speaker
I think maybe it's a tie between the jealous hammer and Korg. Yeah. The best thing about that is even when you think you've got rid of Korg, like Keith is face, you're like, just stop talking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it hurts for me to say that because I loved Korg and Ragnarok. I thought he was one of the best things about it. It's the sparingly thing you talked about. Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:20
Speaker
But also I want to talk about the designs a little bit because yeah, you know that whole the whole idea and I kind of touched on this a little bit but Some one of my favorite scenes in this is the scene with when Val goes to Jane right before they're about to leave and And yeah, you got the funny little joke
Val and Jane's Sisterhood in the MCU
01:09:37
Speaker
where she's got the speech. She's got the portable speaker, which I thought was great. Yeah but also just this sisterhood bond right this, you know, yeah, we're cuz and that that's
01:09:49
Speaker
That was such a great moment because Val has lost all her sisters. She's lost her sister warrior. And having now Jane and having this new sister warrior, and she's been a new Asgard now for some time now, Jane has been, we see obviously, because, you know, Sif mentioned the fact like, oh, she's really good at saving people. She's not good at the quips and all that kind of stuff. Right, so you feel like they've had some, you know,
01:10:15
Speaker
at least some small adventures together at least, or at least some combat training or something together. And just their interaction in that scene, I'm just like, I want more of this. I want to see more of Val and Jane having a relationship and seeing how they interact with each other.
01:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think one thing the MCU has done consistently really well is like mini team ups within movies. Like I know
Successful and Failed MCU Team-Ups
01:10:41
Speaker
I keep going on about it. I'm sorry. But like, for example, for example, go back to the winter soldier, it's cap and black widow, or it's cap and Falcon in some movies. These mini team ups, like they don't always work perfectly. Like if you watch the captain America, the winter soldier show. Is that what it's called? No, it's Falcon the winter soldier.
01:11:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one. I knew it was a thing. But I didn't love that dynamic. But I know that movie was completely butchered because of COVID. Like, do you know this? Apparently, within that whole show, there was a storyline about pandemic. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They just had to rip it all out. Yeah. Madness. That's so interesting. And it was supposed to, I think it was actually originally supposed to be like nine episodes and said they knocked it down to six. Actually, the Sam and Bucky stuff was what I loved the most about that show, actually.
01:11:29
Speaker
Right. Interesting. Well, I kind of agree. I think because it was so stilted and like it felt cut weirdly at times.
01:11:39
Speaker
Like it didn't always work and it felt like they took leaps in logic. And I used to feel like some of those sensibilities came through in this film. Like I loved the bits where you got these little team ups, like the Thor and Jane. I thought explore that some more, just give them more screen time. But eventually it just ended up being Thor and Jane on screen together all the time. But I wanted to see more of what you wanted to see. Well, yeah, I mean, that whole thing about Thor and Jane, like, I mean, they had this great relationship and it
01:12:08
Speaker
it burns out because they've got these different commitments. And now they're in a situation where they have to work together. And that's a, you know, having to be in force in a situation where you have to work with your ex and you've still got lingering feelings. That's a really compelling idea. And just like, and you can use that as or like even the fact that, you know, she's dying. And, you know, they're,
01:12:32
Speaker
there'd be some understandable conflicting opinions about that, right? You don't want her to die, but at the same time, how supportive can you really feel like you can be in that situation? You don't want to feel like you're taking advantage or anything like that. So there's a lot of interesting dynamics you could explore with that. Just like, again, I keep going back to Guardians 3 because it's
01:12:54
Speaker
It's fresh in my mind and it's just, it was, it's such an amazing movie, but how they had worked, they'd use that relationships between Quill and Gamora so perfectly in that. And they used to tell this really beautiful story. And it's just like, I wanted that here because I mean, I know a lot of people didn't really like the Jane and Thor matchup. They'd said like, they felt like Portman and Hemsworth didn't have enough chemistry together.
Thor and Jane's On-Screen Chemistry
01:13:19
Speaker
I thought they were great together. I always thought I really enjoyed watching them on screen in both Thor and The Dark World. Yeah. That's never something I ever really picked up on. I think what's interesting about these movies is it's effectively the Star Wars thing. That's the Star Wars story. God, that's going to make people angry. The Star Trek thing. Every other movie is a bad movie. The first one I liked. The second one was pretty tough. Third one was good. Fourth one wasn't great. The interesting thing is,
01:13:48
Speaker
I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of doing this, but I actually during COVID for the most part, I sat down and I effectively made my partner watch all of the MCU movies. So we had this little like thing going on whereby we both had a no veto week and I could watch something one weekend that she couldn't say no to. And then the next weekend she couldn't say no to interesting movie choices. I'm not going to lie to you, but we got through the majority of the MCU and
01:14:15
Speaker
She absolutely loved Thor and Jane Foster on screen. And I think it's an interesting thing to talk about. The conversation we're having right now, it's super deep, super nerdy, which I love. But these movies, to make a billion dollars, they have to appeal to the likes of my girlfriend. So I'll take her with me. I know she'll be interested in seeing this. And she loved the second Thor movie, where I'm like, why are you watching this?
01:14:37
Speaker
But she loved it. And I think that's a reason why people would have wanted to go and see this in cinemas, getting that relationship back on the screen. And I think it's a shame that they wasted it. Yeah, we did that. In fact, funny story, when my wife and I started dating, she said that she doesn't like superhero movies. I'm like, oh, I don't know how this is going to work out. And so I showed her Guardians of the Galaxy, and she loved it. Right.
01:15:03
Speaker
And then I showed her Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and she loved that. And then I showed her the Deadpool movies. She loved those. And I'm like, okay, now she's primed. Now we can start off with the MCU from the start. We went through and we watched the whole MCU. So she watched them all. Perfect. You know what's funny? Look, eyes are phenomenal. But the only thing that gives me pause is the fact that A, she loved the second Thor movie.
01:15:26
Speaker
and B, she didn't like Guardians of the Galaxy. They're the only things that make me go, oh, is this going to be? Oh, yeah. That first Guardians of the Beast. It's such an amazing movie. When she ended up loving that, I'm like, OK, good. Now I can work with this here.
01:15:47
Speaker
I walked, I actually sat down and watched the first Guardians again just after watching the third
Thor: Love and Thunder Soundtrack Critique
01:15:52
Speaker
one. I was like, I was so into it. Like I had the playlist playing on Spotify. I was absolutely loving, loving life. And I just sat and I watched it one evening when the girlfriend was out at yoga and she walked in and she was like, oh, this. And I was like, ah. But it's funny talking about the music because going back to Fall, Love and Thunder, what did you think about the music in this? Because I felt at times it was a bit out of place and a bit on the nose.
01:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit, but at the same time, it's, again, I feel like maybe Taika's trying to take too many cues from Gun in the, and what are you doing here? I mean, I thought they were great songs. I thought it was a lot of fun, but also like even the thing with, you know, Heimdall's son changing his name to Axel because of Guns N' Roses, I'm like, okay, you're pushing things too far now.
01:16:45
Speaker
Yeah.
Unnecessary Plot Elements
01:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. And then CGI and Handel's son, when he has the vision of him, it's just physical. I just, I didn't like the whole, I didn't like anything with the kids in this basically.
01:16:58
Speaker
Right. Interesting. Cause we didn't really touch on that at all. Yeah. I mean, I just thought like every time they're on, I mean, I thought the scene with Gore ripping off Octi's head was creepy as fuck, but yeah. And I thought that was so great. And yeah, I mean, I thought he looked that it was a great way to establish like how menacing is, but I don't think you need the kids to have Thor want to stop this guy. Like, I don't think you need that. I don't think that's an S that's a necessary part of it.
01:17:26
Speaker
Agreed. I feel like, I feel like the original idea for this movie was something along the lines of they fridge a character, right? You obviously across the concept of fridging, they fridge a character, probably someone like a Valkyrie, something like that to give them a moment to go out. Yeah, 100%.
01:17:44
Speaker
right, right on the nose, one of these characters, and then they kind of maybe went, Oh, you know, in today's day and age, fridging, especially female characters, probably not the best way to go about this. So they had to find some other motivation to keep him really invested. And I just I just didn't buy it. Same with you. The kid stuff just didn't jive with me.
01:18:04
Speaker
I mean I think you even had that when he finds out all these gods are dying I mean like that's that's something he's gonna want to get to the bottom of it totally makes sense why he'd want to figure out what the hell is going on here. I mean because that that was his motivation in the comics all these gods are dying he wants to find out why and.
01:18:20
Speaker
That's all you need. That's all you need. That's all you need right there. You don't have to kill a character that the audience loves and is waiting to come back to. Or in this case, chop off her arm so you don't kill her and you just try to have it both ways. And then you have these really irritating kids
Costume Design Debate
01:18:38
Speaker
the whole time. And it's just like, none of that is necessary.
01:18:43
Speaker
Perry, I love that we started this podcast by you saying you were a bit of an apologizer for this movie and I've managed to bring out the hate and I've managed to do it. It's great. There is a lot of stuff that I do like about it. I think the Jane stuff is great, like we talked about. The stuff with Valkyrie.
01:19:02
Speaker
mostly we're focusing on the bad stuff here. And I know people are probably thinking like, oh, he hates this movie, actually. No, I don't. Like, I had fun rewatching it last night. But it is this, when you're when you're sitting down, you're trying to examine these things, the more critical why these things are going to come up. And I agree. What do you think about the designs they use for the characters? Let's talk. That's a good way to probably close things up on. Yeah, I found them really interesting, actually. And I know
01:19:28
Speaker
There's a lot of comic law behind a few of them, especially the blue Thor outfit. I didn't love it, though. I felt like they were trying to make it distinctly different from what he had previously and distinctly different from what Jane Boster was wearing. It sort of made him feel almost like a
01:19:48
Speaker
I don't know, like a Jeff Koons artwork.
Gore's Transformation and Performance
01:19:51
Speaker
It wasn't, you know, it was just too shiny and bright. And I think in general, the sort of cinematography of this whole film is that it is this sort of like garish, overly gold, overly bright visual, which is, which is so different from what we had. If you look at the original Dormu that you were talking about, and I know they've evolved since then, but like, that's in New Mexico. That's pretty much the whole film. It's just Sander. It's basically that
01:20:17
Speaker
It's basically one of the Star Wars prequels, we hate Sam. It is just that the whole way through and taking away that grittiness I feel adds to the, it just adds to that shiny veneer which is completely false that almost leans into what the rest of the gods are touting.
01:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with you on that on that arm I like I thought the the costume he wears the beginning where he's with the Guardians that fit because he's hanging out with the Guardians He's dressing. Yeah, like yeah, I thought that was a very nice choice and then
01:20:52
Speaker
he changes into that Viking outfit, which comes straight out of the Jason Aaron run. And that should have been his look going forward throughout this movie. I thought that look was so great. It looked amazing. Hemsworth wore it well. And I could understand the armor for like a scene when he sees Jane or something like that, but then, you know, have him go back to the regular, you know, the classic Viking outfit was much better, I thought.
01:21:16
Speaker
And yeah, I'm with you. I like the nod to the comics, but at the same time, I mean, even when that armor was in the comics, it was a bit too much when we saw it in the comics too.
01:21:29
Speaker
I don't feel like that, it's nice to have it as like a nod, you know, kind of like they had the helmet at the beginning of the first Thor movie and then he takes it off. Or like in the beginning, or like this, when they show him as a teenager and he's wearing the helmet, fine, you know, have it for like a scene or something as like a callback. Same thing when they had the mention of Loki turning him into a frog in Ragnarok, right? Yeah. Fun moment, I love that they have that moment in there, but it's not something I'd want to see like being like the whole movie.
01:21:55
Speaker
That was in the Loki series, I think, wasn't it? Yeah, they had Thrawn there too, yeah. I think on the flip side of that is, though, I think they got Gore so right. I think in terms of the design, specifically the design, it would have been very easy to go for the comic look, no-no's, get him confused with Voldemort, we'd all be having a good time at his expense.
01:22:19
Speaker
I think they really nailed the
Jane Foster's Representation in the MCU
01:22:21
Speaker
creepiness of him, like the way the teeth became sharp, like his whole arc from being nice, you know, father effectively, right? To this evil deity killer back to being sort of like getting his redemption at the end. The look just works the whole way through. Yes, yes, absolutely. 100%. I thought Gore looked amazing.
01:22:45
Speaker
And I thought it was, it was, it was, it was a nice callback that, you know, Bale leaned back into his machinist days for that. Yeah. Yeah. And it was really creepy, wasn't it? When he was skinny. Yeah. Yeah. It was so creepy. I remember funny story. When he asked Nolan about being Batman, he's like, what do I have to do to get, to, to, to get this role? And Nolan's like, eat a lot. And then he went in and he had overdone it. They went and when he went in for the audition, someone was like whispering, is this supposed to be Batman or fat man?
01:23:15
Speaker
He got big for that movie as well. He got big. He went hard. He went really good. But yeah, I thought his look was amazing in it. And I thought Jane too, like they did it and like they basically just 100% took the look from the comics, just put it up on screen. And it looks great.
01:23:33
Speaker
I thought it was weird. The last scene though, when like her helmet's splitting up, like the CGI was wonky in that. When like her helmet's like broken, I noticed at this side, I'm like, what? Just have the helmet knocked broken off and don't have it at all. Like there's no reason to have it where like half of it is still on your face and it's like this really terrible CGI.
Practical Effects vs. CGI in Superhero Films
01:23:55
Speaker
I find that so odd. And I find it really odd that in the minute there's this trend of, especially in Marvel movies, that all the maths
01:24:02
Speaker
our CGI. Why? You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean.
01:24:09
Speaker
This is one of my pet peeves about superhero movies is the fact that there's always gotta be that obligatory scene where the hero's mask comes off, right? Yeah. But even before the CGI stuff, even before like the nano machines and all that, you always had that scene in the Spider-Man movies where Tobey Maguire would pull off his mask and just like, why are you doing this? Or like in the Avengers, my favorite movie was in the Avengers when the Chitauri grabs Cap's head and he just conveniently pulls his mask off.
01:24:40
Speaker
It says you paid for Chris Evans face. You gotta see Chris Evans face.
01:24:45
Speaker
Exactly. And I get it. That's exactly what it is. Right. But at the same time, it's like the whole point of the superhero is exactly. I agree. I mean, like kudos to Ryan Reynolds for keeping the mask on all throughout the movies or being completely disfigured in them. Right. And it's like, yeah, kudos to him for doing that and willing to willing to do that. And like probably pushing for that. I imagine because I imagine Fox like, no, we paid for Ryan Reynolds. We want Ryan Reynolds face. And there is like, no, you got to have me covered up in this.
Necro Sword Design Discussion
01:25:13
Speaker
My favorite part of the first Deadpool movie is actually at the very end when he takes the mask off and he just has the Hugh Jackman mask on a mask. It's great. The last thing I wanted to quickly mention before you wrap up is the sword, the Necro sword, because they obviously changed it from the comics. It's very different in this. I didn't love the look of it. Like in the movie, like it was fine.
01:25:41
Speaker
I didn't really have a problem with it. I thought the... It reminded me a lot of the Black Knight sword, the whole thing about the curse and all that, and how it's calling out to him. So I'm not sure, because they'd had that whole thing in The End of Eternals where Dane has the Ebony Blade, and I wondered if they were trying to establish some sort of, set up some sort of link between the two.
Ranking Thor Movies
01:26:02
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Or some sort of sword in a universe.
01:26:09
Speaker
Just some sort of sword in a universe, you know, like something ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think the movie is, I think, you know what, if we hadn't had Ragnarok, I think I would have enjoyed this movie a lot more, but the fact that we did have Ragnarok, it set the bar so high that Taika just wasn't able to live up to the expectations. Because again, like, if I'm gonna rank the Thor movies, Ragnarok is obviously gonna be number one with a bullet.
01:26:38
Speaker
Um, and yeah, I think I probably put, I put, I put the first Thor movie second and I guess this would probably be third. That's hard to say, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Cause I mean, I, I am a bit of an apologist for the dark world. I actually kind of enjoy that. There's, there's things I enjoy about that. So it's funny.
01:26:56
Speaker
The Dark World 2, I had a lot of criticism of that movie when we talked about it on the show, but that is still, it's a movie that I enjoy more than I don't. Like it's not a movie, like the only movie I skip on, rewatches is Iron Man 3. That's the one we play. Interesting. Skip over, yeah. Mine's Iron Man 3. It's probably now, Eternals would probably also be in there too.
01:27:17
Speaker
Yeah, Eternals isn't great. You know what's interesting? When Eternals first came out, I really enjoyed that movie because I was like, I was at the point of getting a bit sick of all the, let's call it the oversaturation of comedy in these movies.
01:27:29
Speaker
And I really wanted something a little bit more serious. And that kind of gave me that. But then as soon as I, you know, I had like two or three days out from watching it, I went, Oh, actually that was crap, wasn't it? I mean, I thought Gemma, Gemma Chan, I thought she was good. Yeah. I thought she was good. And I really liked, um, uh, I really liked Dane, Dane in it too. I thought he was a, I wanted to see more of him. He's only in it for like five minutes, which is, which is, which is annoying, but.
01:27:58
Speaker
I would have liked to see more of him too. But yeah, everything else about that movie, it's just like, didn't quite. I mean, I'm also biased, because like, Eternals is one of those things that I just have no interest in, like, not even Neil Gaiman could get me to care about the Eternals. So I don't think so. Chloe Zhao had an uphill battle with that anyway with me. Yeah. I mean, they've done it before, right? But creating ensemble movies out of nothing, right? And I think
01:28:25
Speaker
It was, it was really interesting because I wasn't sure what was supposed to be the bad guy in that. It was like, what am I, what should I focus on? I'm so confused here. And even when they had the, what were they called? The, um, what were the opposites of the eternals? It was like the deviants, even when they have the deviants at the end, it was almost like tacked on. It was like, well, have them in the back. You don't need the big deviant to come out at the end. Like the real battles elsewhere.
01:28:54
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well also too, like the, I think if you had got, like Gaiman had done this Eternals miniseries back in the early 2000s, I think it was.
Expectations vs. Reality in MCU Films
01:29:02
Speaker
And in that series he had established like the driving forces that the Eternals had lost their memories. They had had like a form of amnesia and they had to, and I thought that would have been a great way to explain why they'd been doing fuck all during the Thanos stuff. Yeah, totally. I really liked a bit where he's like, where we went when Thanos was here.
01:29:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's an example of lampshading that doesn't work. 100%. Absolutely. But yeah. Anyway, I think that brings us to the end of Love and Thunder. Do you have any final things you wanted to say about it? I'm not going to lie to you. I wasn't joking before about watching Zelda while I was half watching this. I did play a lot that night.
01:29:45
Speaker
I thought, I chose this because I thought we could have a bit of fun tearing it to pieces and having a laugh with it. And then getting into it, I was like, ah, this is everything I remember it being. So I appreciate you for letting me, letting me have this moment.
01:30:02
Speaker
I'm not going to go that far. Like I said, I think there's some things I like about it, but it's just like, it's, it's got, it's got a lot of potential that's just wasted is really the biggest sin of this movie. It's not, I don't, I wouldn't go. Yeah. I wouldn't go so far to call it a bad movie because I think it does have some good performances, got some great action. It's just like, it's, it's just, it just doesn't live up to that potential that it sets for itself. Yeah. Look, the internet's polarizing. You've got to choose one or the other. And I went, I certainly went.
01:30:32
Speaker
Well, it was funny when I was, cause this movie has gotten torn to pieces by like, by like Twitter and Reddit and all that stuff. But when I was looking it up on Wikipedia last night, I was looking at the reception. It actually got a much more even handed reviews in like the, in like the press and stuff like that. Like it, like people, like some people were like, Oh yeah, it's, it's pretty good. It's like most people gave it like a C or C or B I think, or if you're going to grade it on a, on a letter scale. Interesting. I didn't realize that.
01:31:00
Speaker
We on podcast assemble, we have a very simple grading system. It's that, but it's, it's that binary version. We say like, is this better or worse than most average movie that we know? And there's an average movie we could think of was Aquaman 2018. And I think at the time we sort of said, this is worse than that. What do you think? No, if we're going to compare, like I love Aquaman.
01:31:23
Speaker
I had a lot of fun with Aquaman. So if I'm going to compare it to Aquaman, yeah, I'd take Aquaman over this, absolutely. There you go. Me too. I would take Aquaman over this as well. I was trying to think of what the critical reception of this was like when it first came out. And INDB was about 6.4. Rotten Tomatoes was 74. And Metacritic was 57. And I think that says it all for me.
The Future of Thor in the MCU
01:31:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, I think too, like there's, there's just a lot of anticipation. Like you said, we're kind of hoping that this would like kind of like write the ship for the MCU. This is supposed to be like Marvel's big movie coming out of the pandemic that was supposed to like get everything back on track. And I think there were too much, there was too much expectation for it that it would never have lived up to, even if it was a better movie. I don't think it would have lived up to those expectations.
01:32:13
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, I just, it's, I like, I know Hemsworth has said like, you know, he's be willing to come back if the story's right. And, and I really hope he does because I think he deserves a better movie to close out his run. Great. Absolutely agreed. I mean, it's possible because we had that happen with, with down. He had Iron Man three, which was up. It was kind of like they closed the book on him, but they left it open just a little bit in case he was going to come back. Cause at that point it was his last movie he was contracted for. Yeah.
01:32:43
Speaker
And I'm glad they didn't end that on him. They ended up bringing him back for Civil War and the Infinity War and Endgame. And then Endgame was the perfect way to close out his story. Same thing with Chris Evans. They both got a perfect closure to their story. And Hemsworth deserves that, too, because he's the last point on that trinity. He deserves that good movie to close out his legacy as this character.
01:33:05
Speaker
Agreed. And I'm going to say this with complete love. And I know some people might not love this thought, but I have the same feeling about this version of characters I do about Batman in movies at the moment. I love the Robert Pattinson Batman movie. I think the Flash movie is effectively going to be a Batman film, but I would just love if they could give Batman five, maybe 10 years, just not making a Batman film so that when we get him again, we're all like,
01:33:30
Speaker
Oh my God, it's Batman. He's back. Where I think if you gave Chris, Chris Hemsworth, you know, a little bit of time, just let him take a break. He's trying to take a break from movies a little bit anyway. You just give him that for, I don't know, five years, seven years, maybe 10. Let the next big Avengers movie roll around. When we see him again, how excited would you be for him to finish out his tenure?
01:33:53
Speaker
No, absolutely. I think that'd be great. The one I go to for that is the Joker. We don't need to see the Joker for 15 years, I think. 100%.
01:34:02
Speaker
And yeah, I think that would be great. And it's not like we're going to, there's going to be a big void. It's not like we're going to be missing him. Cause moment got so many other characters that they can play with now. So many. I mean, this is Jane Foster. Exactly. This is another example of a wasted opportunity. You could have had Jane pick up the mantle and she could have been, you know, run his Thor for a little bit. Um, you could even try to bring in, you know, thunderstrike Eric Masterson and, you know, bring, do, do a spin on that one. That'd be interesting. Right.
01:34:29
Speaker
especially because, you know, Hemsworth was wearing a version of the Masterson costume at the beginning of this movie. What's the guy called? Why have I forgotten his name? The Horseface Guy. Oh, Betar Ray Bill. Yes, absolutely. Yes. You can meet Betar Ray Bill. Yeah, I was so psyched when we saw him, his face in Ragnarok and I'm like, oh, maybe we're going to get him in this movie. That was one of the things everyone was hoping for. And, you know, yeah.
01:34:55
Speaker
have him come up and you got Stormbreaker already have him come on and take over Stormbreaker for a bit and then you know you get to a point where you need Thor in like Secret Wars or something like that where all of a sudden just like he came in an Infinity War boom Thor comes back he's got he's got Mjolnir again and yeah you know he's there to kick some ass 100% I think I mean like that's the place of love I'm coming from is that you can just imagine that
01:35:21
Speaker
that feeling, that feeling exactly from Infinity War where he waits for Sin and starts wiping out everyone. I'd love to see that. Yes, absolutely. Although I would say, bring back the eye patch. I actually thought that was a cool look for him with the short hair and the eye patch. I thought it was a great look. I was so bummed when they got rid of that. I'm just like, ah, no, bring it back. Bring it back.
01:35:40
Speaker
another missed opportunity like I feel like Marvel just tried to just spit through so many things so quickly in the last few years. Yeah, absolutely.
Engaging with Podcast Hosts on Social Media
01:35:48
Speaker
Yeah. Well, even like his, you know, the brief interaction he had with Captain Marvel, I thought that was amazing in that game. I'm like, I wouldn't see more of them working together. Yeah. Could you imagine them being on opposite sides in secret war at least to start with thinking their opponent? Oh, yeah, that would be so cool. Yeah. Oh, now we're just now we're just writing fanfics.
01:36:09
Speaker
All right. This is a lot of fun, Tommy. Thanks so much for coming on. And, uh, why don't you tell people where they can find your, your podcast? Absolutely. Thanks. I really appreciate it. Great to, uh, great to watch Zelda and play this movie or something like that. Um, yeah, look, you can find us, we're across all major streaming, all major podcast platforms. We are podcast assembled Spotify, Apple, whatever you want. We're across them all. Uh, you can find us at podcast, someone Instagram, or if you really want to, you can email us at the podcast symbol, gml.com.
01:36:36
Speaker
Check out our YouTube stuff. I do quick, short videos. Thanks so much for coming on. This was a lot of fun, and we'll have links to that stuff in the show notes, so everybody can go check those out. As for us, we are SuperheroCinephiles.com is the website, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. And remember, if you subscribe to the Patreon page, for as little as a dollar a month, you get to listen to these episodes a week in advance, no ads. And you also get access to the Book Club Companion Podcast, where we talk about comic books and graphic novels about once a month or so.
01:37:17
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk
01:37:29
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comments but don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash supercinemahot and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:38:12
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.