# THOR: Ragnarok- Seen It!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 3, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574 "2017-11-03T03:58:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/1 "2017-11-03T03:58:19Z")
Thanks to the glory of AMC Stubs, your man Scrappy was at the Opening Night Fan Event! I enjoyed it thoroughly. Visually awesome, flowed well, lots of call-outs to the comics. They thanked a couple of specific Thor writers and artists in the credits and it’s easy to see why. It’s faint praise to say it’s the best Thor movie, but it compares well next to the best Marvel movies. Thor’s homecoming is hilarious. His fight with Hulk is awesome. The banter is quick, witty, and unforced. Cate Blanchett was magnificent. Hemsworth was solid as ever. Very happy with my overpriced ticket. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/2 "2017-11-03T04:41:18Z")
It opened here last weekend. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/3 "2017-11-03T05:01:41Z")
I saw it last week. It was okay, but I didn’t love it. Thought the drama was undercut by the humour too often and that didn’t work for me. Also the song choices were uninspired. I can see a great similarity between it and _Guardians of the Galaxy 2_, both bright and colourful and heavily comedic, but the balance was too much the other way for Guardians, drama too heavy and comedy too lame. Still a fun movie, though. I’d put it near the lower middle in my MCU Ranking list. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/4 "2017-11-03T05:23:12Z")
Saw it last night and enjoyed it but yeah, some dramatic or action moments were undercut by the humor, which was unnecessary when the humorous bits (the play about Loki with cameos, the encounter with Dr. Strange) were quite fun. My fave Marvel film remains CA: Winter Soldier but I’d put this in the top five. Blanchett made a great villain, and Goldblum’s bit was quite good. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/5 "2017-11-03T07:39:49Z")
I, too, saw it last week. Thor took a page from Guardians and injected some much-needed comedy into the mix. Great fun. The best bit was the play recreating the end of _The Avengers_ but granting Loki a heroic death. And then Odin, realizing Thor was in the audience suddenly acting very unlike Odin but much like Loki. Cate Blanchett played it mostly straight. In fact, I was reminded of her performance as Galadriel, but as if Galadriel had accepted (or taken) the One Ring from Frodo and become the terrible ruler of Middle-Earth. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/6 "2017-11-03T13:42:20Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#): > > I, too, saw it last week. Thor took a page from Guardians and injected some much-needed comedy into the mix. Great fun. The best bit was the play recreating the end of _The Avengers_ but granting Loki a heroic death. And then Odin, realizing Thor was in the audience suddenly acting very unlike Odin but much like Loki. > > Cate Blanchett played it mostly straight. In fact, I was reminded of her performance as Galadriel, but as if Galadriel had accepted (or taken) the One Ring from Frodo and become the terrible ruler of Middle-Earth. The play was reenacting Lokis fake death scene from the last Thor movie. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/7 "2017-11-03T15:00:16Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > The play was reenacting Lokis fake death scene from the last Thor movie. :smack: I knew that. It’s just that that movie was so utterly forgettable that it conflated in my mind with an _actual_ good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/8 "2017-11-03T19:05:21Z")
I have to echo the positive sentiments here. I felt a bit let down by Spider Man: Homecoming, so this one was a pleasant surprise—I haven’t been much of a fan of the Thor movies so far, but this one really came together for me; the campy eighty-ness worked especially well. But I have to agree that Marvel may have learned the wrong lesson from the successes of Deadpool and the Guardians-movies; what they brought into the fold was variety, but they also happened to be pretty funny. I hope the Marvel universe does not degenerate into a serial comedy… ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/9 "2017-11-03T19:11:58Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I have to echo the positive sentiments here. I felt a bit let down by Spider Man: Homecoming, so this one was a pleasant surprise—I haven’t been much of a fan of the Thor movies so far, but this one really came together for me; the campy eighty-ness worked especially well. > > But I have to agree that Marvel may have learned the wrong lesson from the successes of Deadpool and the Guardians-movies; what they brought into the fold was variety, but they also happened to be pretty funny. I hope the Marvel universe does not degenerate into a serial comedy… I think it’s just the setting. It would be weird if Guardians took place in a campy space universe and Thor didn’t. As long as they keep this style for their “space” movies I am fine with it. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/10 "2017-11-05T01:03:07Z")
I’d give it a C+. It was fun but gave me the same empty mental calories feeling that all Marvel movies do, actually. I appreciated the camp and self-deprecating humor, and I think Hemsworth is actually a very good comedic actor whose talent is wasted on tripe like this. These movies convey a child’s understanding of how, well, _anything_ works. The villains deal in will to power as literally a 10-year-old might experience it. I want to rule the 9 Realms! Um, OK. And also childish is the mechanics of, well, _anything_ in the movie. Asgard is evacuated into a not-so-big spacecraft. Do they only have a few hundred residents? You know, you want to know what a Goddess of Death really looks like, take a gander back at Operation Barbarrosa. Real evil? How about Reinhard Heydrich. A real evacuation? How about Syrian children drowning in the ocean. I know, I know: it’s supposed to be fun! Funsie-wunsie good times! Yet… Some core of truth within the cartoon, some sense of _stakes_ for fux sake. The concept of the “simulacrum” is quite pertinent here: > **[Simulacrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum)** > > A simulacrum (plural: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin simulacrum, which means "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Literary critic Fredric Simul... Per Baudrillard, it is the form of representation which “bears no relation to any reality whatsoever.” Loki threatens innocent lives… but at the end of the day, he’s just a lovable rogue! Etc. etc. It is not even trying to engage with anything. It simply invites us to manipulate its algebraic elements and be satisfied with their relations. But it was kinda funny. It had one really compelling image as well: the fields of junk in which new junk kept raining down. Make a whole movie of things as interesting as that you’ve got a real movie. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/11 "2017-11-05T01:41:46Z")
I truly enjoyed it and would rank it among my favorite of the Marvel movies. It was funny. That surprised me given their attempt to include elements of the darkest masterpiece _Planet Hulk_, but I can’t say I’m disappointed. To be perfectly frank, I’m getting tired of the _Superheroes are Srs Business_ thing these days. Hemsworth is, in my opinion, a skilled comedic actor, so I’m glad they put him to use. The comedy only fell flat for me with Ruffalo. I’m not familiar with the Ragnarok storyline in comics and most of the _Thor_ I’ve read is Jason Aaron’s new title so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Hela was a wicked fun villain and even the ''friend or fo?" dilemma of her Grand Executioner was a nice touch. Hell, I even liked (but did not expect) the science fiction elements, though it was a bit weird to see a Valkyrie using an automatic weapon while riding a spaceship. I can empathize with people who wanted something darker and more gripping - objectively speaking, watching your father die and your planet destroyed must have some emotional weight to it. But there were moments I found pretty moving despite the overall light tone. The rainbow bridge battle scene had some good feels packed into it. Also, I never looked twice at Chris Hemsworth until Stan Lee chopped off his hair, and holy shit. Holy shit. > [@Half Man Half Wit](#): > > I hope the Marvel universe does not degenerate into a serial comedy… Looks like we’re in for some genre jumping in general. Marvel’s _New Mutants_ is about to happen and judging by [the trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu9e410C__I) it’s a straight-up horror movie. Did anyone catch the _Black Panther_ trailer? So excite. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/12 "2017-11-05T03:58:41Z")
We really enjoyed it. It was funny and told a good story. I don’t go to super-hero movies to be lectured to or to be educated, so this movie was what it should be. Someone upthread mentioned that the last Thor movie was forgettable. Before we went to see Ragnarok, we watched YouTube videos telling “everything you need to know before Ragnarok,” and both my husband and I reacted with the same thought: “Oh, no! Did we miss a movie?” We hadn’t, we just forgot the last one. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/13 "2017-11-05T04:45:49Z")
I loved it. It was a Kirby comic brought to life. Had loads of fun. Thought the ending might have been a bit dark given the tone of the rest of the movie, but other than that, it was great. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/14 "2017-11-05T06:44:07Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > You know, you want to know what a Goddess of Death really looks like, take a gander back at Operation Barbarrosa. Real evil? How about Reinhard Heydrich. A real evacuation? How about Syrian children drowning in the ocean. > > I know, I know: it’s supposed to be fun! Funsie-wunsie good times! Yet… Some core of truth within the cartoon, some sense of _stakes_ for fux sake. You know, you’re entitled to your opinion, but I sure am glad you’re not the one making these movies. “How about Syrian children drowning in the ocean”? How about for two hours I just get to have a good time with my wife and my kid and not think about something fucking horrible? “Fun” isn’t something to be sneered at, and cramming a bunch of real world tragedy in there doesn’t make something like this more “adult”, it just makes it crass and sad. I can get either of those in abundance just by reading the news. As far as the movie itself was concerned… I enjoyed it, and so did my wife and my 9-year-old. The jokes worked for all three of us. I felt like occasionally the jokes stepped on the dramatic beats a bit, similar to Guardians of the Galaxy (which I also enjoyed). I think this is the best version of the Hulk we’ve seen in the MCU, mostly because he finally gets to talk a bit more. The above comments aside, the stakes were actually about as high as they get for this sort of material: a bunch of stuff our hero cares about is in danger of getting CGI exploded, and a bunch of his friends are in danger of getting CGI killed. And without really spoiling anything, Thor and his world don’t make it through unscathed, not even close. The losses don’t feel so big only because of the pacing. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/15 "2017-11-05T06:51:11Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Did anyone catch the _Black Panther_ trailer? So excite. There was a young kid sitting behind me who was hilariously excited about every trailer. We got Justice League, Star Wars, and Black Panther, all of which I’m pretty geeked for. Also Tomb Raider and Pacific Rim, which I don’t really care about. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/16 "2017-11-05T06:58:01Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > You know, you want to know what a Goddess of Death really looks like, take a gander back at Operation Barbarrosa. Real evil? How about Reinhard Heydrich. A real evacuation? How about Syrian children drowning in the ocean. That’s rather like complaining that a fish isn’t particularly good because it’s not a grand piano. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/17 "2017-11-05T07:18:23Z")
Saw it tonight- Liked it a lot. But it’s really not up there in my top MCU movies. I was really disappointed that although Thor is learning as a character he’s also becoming a kind of weasley brute most of the time with short flashes of nobility. I was really hoping that his speech to Loki about being more than the role you were given (for Loki it’s god of mischief) was building to some payoff. I wanted him to try to reach out to Hela first before throwing down with her. I was surprised that they offed the Warriors 3 so quickly (only Hogan got some screentime probably to make up for him being written out so early in Thor 2)…and no mention of Sif. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/18 "2017-11-05T08:43:36Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > We got Justice League, Star Wars, and Black Panther, all of which I’m pretty geeked for. Also Tomb Raider and Pacific Rim, which I don’t really care about. Hijack alert: I got _Star Wars The Last Jedi_, _Daddy’s Home 2_ (bleargh, laugh-free nonsense), and _The Greatest Showman_, which is a musical about PT Barnum starring Hugh Jackman, which looked ideal for Baz Luhrman, but is painfully obviously not by him. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/19 "2017-11-05T15:31:07Z")
I saw it yesterday. One question. At the end, as Loki was retrieving Surtur’s crown, he looked at one of the Infinity Stones. (I think two of them were shown to be in the vault.) So did he steal them for his own use? Save them from the destruction of Asgard but not so he could use them? I assume this will come up in the next movie. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574/20 "2017-11-05T15:37:37Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I saw it yesterday. One question. At the end, as Loki was retrieving Surtur’s crown, he looked at one of the Infinity Stones. (I think two of them were shown to be in the vault.) So did he steal them for his own use? Save them from the destruction of Asgard but not so he could use them? I assume this will come up in the next movie. Just one Stone - the Cosmic Cube/Tessaract (the other artifact we saw was the Cask of Endless winter, I think, which is not a Stone). We didn’t see Loki take it, but we didn’t see him \*not \*take it, and considering the fact that this is Loki we’re talking about (and considering what he did to get the Cube in the first Avengers film), I’d be very surprised if he just left it there. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thor-ragnarok-seen-it/800574.md?page=2)