# Thor: Love and Thunder

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies, disney-hulu\
**Created:** [April 18, 2022, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008 "2022-04-18T19:41:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/1 "2022-04-18T19:41:45Z")

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A teaser trailer is out:

[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/tgB1wUcmbbw/maxresdefault.jpg "Marvel Studios' Thor: Love and Thunder | Official Teaser") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgB1wUcmbbw)

I like the trailer. Check out Natalie Portman as Thor at the end.  
Taika Waititi is directing the movie.  
Release date is July 8, 2022

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**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/2 "2022-04-18T19:44:06Z")

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Awesome!

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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/3 "2022-04-18T19:46:04Z")

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Quite the team up in that one.

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**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/4 "2022-04-18T19:47:41Z")

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I’m really looking forward to this one. I loved Waititi and Hemsworth’s collaboration in _Thor: Ragnarok_, and I also really liked the “Lady Thor” storyline, with Jane as Thor, in the comic books, a few years ago.

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**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/5 "2022-04-18T20:10:02Z")

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I can NOT wait. I loved Thor 3 and consider it one of the best Marvel movies. And the fact that the Guardians are in this is great, too.

So is it our Jane that catches the hammer or a multiverse other-Thor?

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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/6 "2022-04-18T20:13:21Z")

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> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> So is it our Jane that catches the hammer or a multiverse other-Thor?

Good question. It would seem weird for the Jane of the first two Thor movies to become Lady Thor.

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**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/7 "2022-04-18T20:17:03Z")

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> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> So is it our Jane that catches the hammer or a multiverse other-Thor?

So, in the comic book story arc, the details were as follows below (spoilered just in case). Waititi was reading that series of comics when he was working on _Thor: Ragnarok_, and was inspired to incorporate it into the next film; whether or not the film will use the details of the plot of the books is yet unknown.

Thor realizes that he is “unworthy” (due to something which Nick Fury pointed out to him), and can no longer lift Mjolnir. The hammer (which turns out to be intelligent) seeks out a new, worthy successor, who is a woman.

The books concealed the identity of “Lady Thor” for a while, but it was finally revealed to be Jane Foster – and, yes, it was the “prime” (Earth-616) Jane, rather than from an alternate universe. The transformation from Jane to Thor was similar to that in the early years of the _Thor_ book, in which Thor had a “normal human” persona (Donald Blake), but could transform himself into Thor when needed.

In the books, Jane was going through chemotherapy for breast cancer, and every time that she transformed into Thor, the hammer’s magic purged her body of any harmful foreign substances, which included the chemotherapy drugs – but, it didn’t cleanse her body of the cancerous cells, since those were “part of her.” In essence, changing into Thor was preventing the chemo from working, and killing her by allowing her cancer to progress.

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/8 "2022-04-18T20:35:01Z")

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> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> Good question. It would seem weird for the Jane of the first two Thor movies to become Lady Thor.

It’s been nearly ten years real world time since we’ve seen Jane Foster, last on screen in _The Dark World_. It’s been even longer in universe, what with the snap. That’s a lot of time for off screen character development.

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**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/9 "2022-04-18T20:57:41Z")

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> [@Miller](#):
>
> It’s been nearly ten years real world time since we’ve seen Jane Foster, last on screen in _The Dark World_ . It’s been even longer in universe, what with the snap. That’s a lot of time for off screen character development

Well she was in endgame, but it was a time travel scene.

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/10 "2022-04-18T21:01:25Z")

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> [@DigitalC](#):
>
> Well she was in endgame, but it was a time travel scene.

Just her voice, though, right? I don’t think we actually see Natalie Portman in the movie.

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**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/11 "2022-04-18T21:07:36Z")

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> [@Miller](#):
>
> Just her voice, though, right? I don’t think we actually see Natalie Portman in the movie.

We do see Jane Foster, but not Natalie Portmans face.

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**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/12 "2022-04-18T21:11:50Z")

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You see her face, but IIRC, it was repurposed footage from Thor 2 that had not been used.

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**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/13 "2022-04-18T21:20:55Z")

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Natalie Portman has been seriously working out. I’ve seen some behind the scenes footage and those muscles are not CGI.

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**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/14 "2022-04-18T21:30:28Z")

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I guess my only question going forward is Natalie Portman herself. While I’ve not seen everything she’s done, what I have still makes me wonder if she’s really the right kind of actress for a superhero film. I feel like those take a kind of willingness to have fun with the silliness of the part that I’m not sure she likes to do. I could be completely wrong, of course.

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**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/15 "2022-04-18T21:39:51Z")

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Well she did appear in one when she was kid: [Léon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on:_The_Professional). Maybe not exactly a super hero movie, but it certainly had lots of action tropes including some quips that she herself made.

`//i\\`

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**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/16 "2022-04-18T21:48:53Z")

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> [@Miller](#):
>
> Just her voice, though, right? I don’t think we actually see Natalie Portman in the movie.

She made no new on screen appearance in the movie, but they did bring her in for a brief voice ADR thing, but it was like a half-day work.

This is her first Marvel movie she has really worked on since Thor 2 \<–I kind of like that movie, if you can believe it!

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**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/17 "2022-04-18T21:55:31Z")

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Looks like a fun movie so I’m on board.

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**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/18 "2022-04-18T21:57:37Z")

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> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> Looks like a fun movie so I’m on board

And, my kids are now at the age to go see these. We’ve seen Black Widow(terrible!) and Spider-man No Way Home(great!) in the theater.

We did not go for Eternals or Shang-chi, which is a shame since Shang-Chi is great. Eternals was garbage, though.

We’re seeing Dr. Strange 2 and Thor 4 opening weekend for sure.

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/19 "2022-04-18T22:09:06Z")

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> [@asterion](#):
>
> I guess my only question going forward is Natalie Portman herself. While I’ve not seen everything she’s done, what I have still makes me wonder if she’s really the right kind of actress for a superhero film. I feel like those take a kind of willingness to have fun with the silliness of the part that I’m not sure she likes to do. I could be completely wrong, of course.

Her other big genre roles were the Star Wars prequels, which were ponderous and over-serious, and the first two Thor movies, where she wasn’t given much to do, except be rescued by Chris Hemsworth from menacing CGI. She wasn’t given a whole lot of “silliness” to work with in either role. But she was excellent in _V for Vendetta_ and, even further back, the very silly _Mars Attacks_.

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**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2022, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008/20 "2022-04-18T22:18:10Z")

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Her performances seem to be strongly correlated with the writer/director of the movie. While I haven’t seen a movie where she can save or even temper bad material or direction (“Your Highness” blech), it’s never been the case a movie’s been pulled down by her.

In this case, it’s Taika Waititi, so I think there’s a strong chance she’s going to be pretty good or even great in it.

[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-love-and-thunder/963008.md?page=2)
