It definitely does that. I just felt that within that scene’s purpose in the story, there was also that political commentary.
I see where you’re coming from on the 9/11 parallel, but I’d be very surprised if it were intentional. The biggest strike against it being intentional is that the attack on Asgard really is pretty inconsequential. The frost giants got in, but they only managed to kill a couple guards before they were obliterated. Regardless of what one thinks of the response to 9/11, it was a major, devastating attack. If they’d wanted to make the comparison, they needed to make the frost giant attack more successful.
Now if Thor looked at all the evidence from the Jotunheim frost giant’s attack, and then invaded Iraq, it’d be truly spot on.
I loved everything about Thor. Great action and pacing, beautiful special effects, everyone perfecylt cast. Their depiction of Asgard and Bifrost was probably my favorite thing about the film.
Loved it when Darcy called Mjolnir “Meow-Meow”. I’m so calling it that from now on.
I would really love to see a Thor trilogy. It would be awesome if the second film explored all the other realms, and of course the third film should be about Ragnarok. That battle would kick so much ass on the big screen.
In the most recent comics from the past few years Asgard is transplanted to a very similar looking middle-America destination. It’s kind of a hovering mountain and castle complex. I’d be willing to bet we see that in a Thor movie sometime in the next decade.
Took the son to see this a week ago. I think I am an outlier here. Randoms:
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Incredibly boring story. Couldn’t have been more boring.
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Helmsworth did as good a job as anyone could do playing Thor. Not bashing him. Thor just doesn’t translate to live action very well. The hammer looked fairly corny throughout the movie.
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Asgard was very well done. Looked pretty nice.
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So did the frost giants. Was that Liam Neesons voice?
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Is Loki a frost giant in the old run of Thor? I don’t remember that aspect of the character.
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The battle with the Destroyer was over WAY too fast.
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Loki should have used more magic and trickery in the final battle. Does he ever have a chance toe to toe with Thor in the comics? Not that I can recall.
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Anthony Hopkins was pretty good and looked cool on the horse.
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Rene Russo? Hope she didn’t get paid much because she didn’t do much.
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Thors posse wasn’t fleshed out enough. They all seemed as powerful as Thor. Are they?
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The Hammer as a weapon just didn’t translate well to live action.
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Captain America trailer looked good.
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Green Lantern trailer looked ok.
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3D wasn’t good.
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ETA that the costume looked good and they made the right decision to minimize the wearing of the helmet.
I don’t know enough about the comics to say, but as I noted above, Loki is a frost giant and adopted son of Odin in the original mythology
It was definitely an improvement over the first trailer they released, which was a LOT better when it was the trailer for Iron Man.
Sinestro looks badass.
I get a real Heath Ledger vibe from Hemsworth - just so likeable, even though I should hate the good-looking bugger. This was exactly the vibe I got off Ledger in Knight’s Tale and 10 Things…
Gonna hit on random thoughts and talk about posts without directly quoting them…
Good movie! I had fun with it. It wasn’t the greatest movie in the Avengers series (Iron Man) but it wasn’t the worst either (Iron man 2).
I thought the pacing of the movie was it’s best part. They did a wonderful job editing the two storylines of Earth and Asgaard.
Whomever said the theater had the volume up too loud: The EXACT same thing was with mine. When the destroyer did his screech it almost hurt to listen to, I wonder if that was a movie thing?
I agree very much that throughout the entire movie I was watching Chris Hemsworth and thinking Heath Ledger (10 things Heath…not Batman)
Hemsworth is a GREAT Thor.
I had no idea what the thing in Sam Jacksons briefcase was, so thank you for the link
Here is my biggest question regarding the after-credits scene. Sam Jackson opens the case and we see the Cosmic Cube, which is a big thing in Caps universe. So we can assume that the Cube will be a big part of the new Captain America movie, and it’s also been thrown around that this is what the Avengers is about. However if you look at the trivia page from IMDB it’s mentioned that the filmmakers for this movie, Thor, made a 60 pound Infinity Gauntlet. I didn’t see the Gauntlet in the movie at all, and it wouldn’t make much sense for it to be in the Cap movie…so is that the main power source in Avengers? Does Loki have anything to do with the Gauntlet? Does that mean I can get my hopes up and we can maybe see my all-time favorite Marvel baddie of all time?!? (Thanos)
The Destroyer was aquitting itself well against Sif and the Warriors Three. It looked like it was winning, which was why Thor made his noble self-sacrifice. When Thor (predictably) got his hammer and powers back, he crushed the Destroyer like an empty beer can. That was a good way of showing just how powerful he was, much more powerful than any other Asgardian warrior.
I agree that Loki should have used more magic and trickery and energy blasts in his battle with Thor. He shouldn’t have been able to go toe to toe with him.
I liked the way Shield worked in this movie. It made sense that they were less benevolent here than in Iron Man. Shield is evidently set up to protect the US (or is it humanity? Do they have a UN mandate?) against weird comic booky things. In Iron Man Stark wasn’t a threat, though maybe a bit of a loose cannon, so Shield was benevolent from the get-go. Here they had know idea what was going on. All they knew was some weird energy disturbances were occuring, and there was this mysterious ultra-powerful artifact. They were in panic mode, and much less benevolent. Of course they came around once they realized Thor was an ally.
The use of Shield as a thread to tie all these movies together is one of my favorite things about this series. I like agent Colson. It’s nice to see a guy like him, a fed in a suit, portrayed as competent and decent, rather than the cliche of the evil and bumbling bureaucrat. I like the minor superheroes (Hawkeye and Black Widow, the latter saving Iron Man 2) and Sam Jackson hovering in the background, usually not coming out till after the credits.
Also a shout-out to story writer J M Straczynski who I’m sure had something to do with Thor not sucking.
Re: The Infinity Gauntlet
I think they’re just producing some Marvel bric-a-brac to include in the background of scenes as Easter eggs for fans.
I think that’s about it. The Infinity Gauntlet was one of the artefacts in that vault in Asgard, along with the Cask of Ancient Winters – the Warlock’s Eye was in there too.
I think they had about a second’s screen-time each. If you want a better look, there’s a book, The Art of Thor, for a mere $31.31 at Amazon.com. (Or you can see them both here)
Quoth cubsfan (and echoed by others):
That was the whole point, the reason Loki was fighting him in the first place. He didn’t need to prove that he was better at trickery than Thor; everyone knows that already. He’s out to prove that he’s “more of a man”, or a “greater warrior”, or whatever, which means that he has to fight Thor in a smash-em-up melee. In other words, exactly Thor’s kind of fight.
That’s actually a good interpretation, thanks.
Saw it last night with the husband.
I liked it! It wasn’t anything earth-shattering, and I think that I enjoyed Iron Man better than Thor, but Thor better than Iron Man 2.
The trailers were for Green Lantern (very much anticipating) and for Captain America, which I’m meh about, but husband is looking forward to.
Some thoughts - I was all worked up about Heimdall being black, but really, he was in so much damn armor it was hard to tell there was a person inside at all, let alone what color he was. Idris did great, people, give it a break already - they’re immortals, for all we know, they get to pick what colors they want to be.
I really enjoyed that very Knight’s Tale Heath Ledger “big, friendly, happy sweet-natured dude” vibe that Hemsworth gave off. It really made the film go a lot better for me. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s beautiful, and I think they made a good choice with the jeans&shirt outfit for most of the character development part. That warrior gear was a bit over the top for me.
I’ve seen so many conflicted superheroes lately that it was nice to have one who just wants to kick people’s butts, fight some battles, eat some good food, and get drunk sometimes.
I will say that because of that, the scene where Loki tells Thor that Odin is dead and Loki is now king - that was nice, that utter brokenness and total willingness to not fight over the kingship. All he wanted was to go home, and he accepted that he had done too much wrong for even that to be allowed, and didn’t fight it. I really liked that touch.
Loki was very Data/Lore and a bit Gollum (Andy Serkis) and a big bit Iago from Othello. Husband was a little unhappy that he was so bastardly from the start, but I mean, it’s LOKI for Christ sake - it isn’t like it’s *ever *a surprise that he’s a scheming bastard. I loved that he was very lean and frail-looking. His costumes really helped him out a lot. I did like that he did magic, and that it was noted that he had other means in and out of Asgard, but I wish they hadn’t been so coy with it. He’s supposed to be a master trickster-magician, and all they had were a few parlor tricks. I’m hoping he’ll show out more in Avengers.
Speaking of, am I the only one who thinks there’s going to be a Sif/Jane throwdown over who is better fit for Thor sometime in the Avengers? I would very much like to see that.

Quoth cubsfan (and echoed by others):That was the whole point, the reason Loki was fighting him in the first place. He didn’t need to prove that he was better at trickery than Thor; everyone knows that already. He’s out to prove that he’s “more of a man”, or a “greater warrior”, or whatever, which means that he has to fight Thor in a smash-em-up melee. In other words, exactly Thor’s kind of fight.
Wasn’t he fighting with Odin’s spear?
Help me out here - I’m not familiar with the comics. Is Odin’s spear as powerful an artifact as Mjollnir? Would it give Loki an edge in the fight?

Wasn’t he fighting with Odin’s spear?
Help me out here - I’m not familiar with the comics. Is Odin’s spear as powerful an artifact as Mjollnir? Would it give Loki an edge in the fight?
Not sure about Odins spear, but I would have thought that Loki would have been able to lift Mjolnir off himself at the end. Odin never had a problem lifting Mjolnir (as seen when he stripped Thor of his powers), and seeing as Loki was filling in to Odin as ruler of asgard at the time, the same rule should have applied to him.

Not sure about Odins spear, but I would have thought that Loki would have been able to lift Mjolnir off himself at the end. Odin never had a problem lifting Mjolnir (as seen when he stripped Thor of his powers), and seeing as Loki was filling in to Odin as ruler of asgard at the time, the same rule should have applied to him.
I think it’s a question of worthiness. I think the theory is that only someone who’s worthy of the powers is capable of even lifting it.

I think it’s a question of worthiness. I think the theory is that only someone who’s worthy of the powers is capable of even lifting it.
Yeah, but that rule was made up BY Odin, so whoever has the Odin power would be able to overrule it.
In the comics, Loki once possessed Odin’s body, and had no problem beating Thor* around the head with Mjolnir…
(* it wasn’t the real Thor, but it was the real Mjolnir)

Not sure about Odins spear, but I would have thought that Loki would have been able to lift Mjolnir off himself at the end. Odin never had a problem lifting Mjolnir (as seen when he stripped Thor of his powers), and seeing as Loki was filling in to Odin as ruler of asgard at the time, the same rule should have applied to him.
Odin could lift the hammer because he’s worthy of wielding it - brave, self-sacrificing, concerned with the well-being of others. He’s also the one who laid the “worthiness” enchantment on the hammer in the first place, so it might not apply to him, even if he didn’t otherwise qualify. Loki, on the other hand, is deceitful and dishonest, and primarily interested in his own advancement. Even as the lord of Asgard, he still lacks the moral strength to lift Mjolnir.
I did think it was interesting, when Loki tries to lift the hammer in the SHIELD compound, the sound effects seemed to indicate that he could almost lift it - that he has the capacity to be as great a hero as Thor, but is too caught up in his own jealousy and greed to fulfill his potential. Seeing as, in the original myths, Loki is supposed to eventually redeem himself and save Asgard during Ragnarok, I thought that was a nice touch.