This is awesome! I didn’t know about the flags.
For those saying they think the movie should have taken its tragedies more seriously, I can’t really argue otherwise. From a narrative perspective, you’re right. But I still really enjoyed it.
Was Cate Blanchett’s figure CGI or is she seriously underrated as a babe?
Yup. You could have the willy wonka “Come with me…” song stuck there instead!
So did they cast Jeff Goldblum before writing the script, or retrofit the character to him? And is there a manual floating around Hollywood titled “How to write a Jeff Goldblum character” ?
I don’t think the humor undercut the losses in the movie. These are Asgardians, war and loss are part of their life. A warrior dying in battle isn’t cause for grief, it’s cause for Revenge(rs).
I saw it today. Best Thor movie, loved that they fit a little of the Skurge story into it. I wonder who put the face Infinity Glove into the vault. I know Thanos took the real one (though why didn’t he also take the Tesseract?) Humor is good, but less humor would have been better. Also, a reminder of who the Warriors 3 were, in order to give their passing a little more gravitas.
Regarding Sif on Agents of SHIELD, the actress has her own lead gig now. That means she is very unlikely to have free schedule time for another show, even as a cameo.
I guess in the MCU the Collector and the Grandmaster are simply immortals and not cosmic beings as they are in the comic universe.
Loki versus Dr. Strange - I’m pretty sure Strange has the edge in the comics, but by how much (in general, because we all know how power levels flucuate)? Though a comics fan, I was never really a Dr. Strange fan.
I’m not sure how my thoughts got in your head, but since you’ve said everything I feel, almost verbatim, I don’t need to waste time and effort posting. The thing I disliked most, in fact the only thing I disliked, is how they neutered The Hulk, as Hulk. He was talkative, understanding (at times), and had emotions. Nonsense!
That is a little more consistent with how he was in Planet Hulk, though. He was a lot more advanced in the comic, but It looks like they kinda struck a compromise there.
He had been the Hulk for two straight years. He couldn’t have been raging for all that time. He calms down occasionally (except that now he doesn’t revert back to Banner when he does it).
Which segues to one of the points I think the movie raised and then dropped: Banner’s fate. The movie made it clear that Banner no longer appeared automatically; Hulk was now the default persona. And Banner was aware of this. He knew that if he changed back into the Hulk it might be permanent and he would effectively “die”.
This raised a lot of potential moral issues. Banner now was much more afraid of turning into the Hulk than he had been in the past because the personal stakes were now higher. He was also more resentful when people like Thor wanted the Hulk to appear to fight some battle; they were essentially saying the Hulk was more useful than Banner was even if they denied it. And there was the unspoken issue that if Banner succeeded and kept his identity, it would be the Hulk who would effectively “die”. Did either of them have the moral right to kill the other? Or did they both have a right to exist?
In the final battle scene on the rainbow bridge, Banner made the sacrifice of summoning the Hulk. He did this knowing that he might never return (and at the end of the movie, he was in fact still the Hulk). But surprisingly none of the other characters acknowledged this sacrifice. I realize a lot of other people had died but I think it would have been a strong moment for Thor to have acknowledged Banner’s sacrifice, especially when he had earlier asked for it and had seen how much Banner feared this fate.
Yes, she is.
That’s a very good point, and yes, it would have made for a strong scene. Maybe this will be addressed in Infinity War?
He doesn’t need to know it; but he does know that he doesn’t automatically convert back. This puts not returning into the realm of possibility—and perhaps even likelihood. That’s plenty to be afraid, and to allow himself to change anyway is a sacrifice.
I mean, even if he only looses another two years, how happy would you be if I asked you to give up two years of your life in order for somebody else to take your place?
In their first comic-book meeting, Loki tricked Doc into magically depriving Thor of the hammer – which I guess makes sense, because Loki is all about playing trickster and Doc is all about magical problem-solving. Doc figured out the trick in time, which (a) likewise makes sense, and which (b) is why no mystical combat then ensues to settle the question of who’d win a wizard duel – because, once Doc restores the hammer, he just needs to play defense until Thor soon gets anywhere near Loki.
Which, even without bringing any other Loki-and-Doc stories into it, is kind of the whole point: Doc has tons of stories where he deals with an opponent by magically bringing in another heavy hitter, or creating the illusion that another heavy hitter is there; and Loki is, if anything, even less interested in straight-up slugging it out.
I’m perfectly fine with Valkyrie being bi or gay. But I saw something that sort of annoyed me.
There was an article about the LGBT content in this movie. And obviously Valkyrie was mentioned. But the writer also identified several other characters as gay based on what they saw as gay subtext. And one of them was the Grandmaster.
We didn’t see any explicit declaration of what the Grandmaster’s sexual orientation was. But we saw he liked to have scantily attired women around him and he enjoyed it when female characters flirted with him.
I found it annoying that the author who used subtext to declare Valkyrie was gay then ignored the similar subtext that said the Grandmaster was straight. The writer of this article was doing the same thing other people were doing with Valkyrie; ignoring the clues if they didn’t like the direction they were pointing in.
All of Jeff Goldblum’s scenes were just him puttering around his house in his personal wardrobe. Then they wrote a script around it.
…I didn’t think Grandmaster was straight. I hope I’m not annoying you.
This isn’t some sort of science. Interpretations of film are subjective, not objective. I’m allowed to read what I like into a character and in my mind (based on his behaviour I saw onscreen) the Grandmaster swings “Jack Harkness” and wouldn’t turn anybody (or anything) down.
Many, if not most Americans see this as a big budget funny action movie. To many indigenous people this movie is strongly about colonialism, trauma and Indigeneity.The film you see and the film I see are almost two very different things. When you see Korg you see a funny rock monster. When I see Korg I see and hear my mates: because this is how they talk, and these ridiculous things he says are the kind of ridiculous things we say to each other. This is an incredibly subversive film that is also a big dumb action adventure. It shouldn’t annoy you that I see something that you don’t see in a movie.
If you want a good laugh here is Taika on the day of the movie’s release in the US. (Some bad language)
The only other "big hollywood director" who I can think of to get laughs this big in front of an audience would be Kevin Smith. Taika is a national treasure.The Grandmaster is an Eternal. We have absolutely zero idea about gender, sex, reproduction or anything else dealing with them. For all we know the Grandmaster is the hottest chick in 20 galaxies.
Were there a lot of scantily clad women around him? I just saw it again last night, and I don’t recall any, although in fairness, when Jeff Goldblum’s on the screen, its hard to look at anything else. The only women I recall him interacting with were Val, and the woman who hates Val, and neither of them were scantily clad.
Goldblum’s performance was camp, and camp has a long association in films as a code for “gay.” Between him, Val, and Hela, the film had a remarkably strong queer sensibility to it, even if there was no explicitly queer content.
Hey, if it involves Cate Blanchette, I can live with Thanos 
Because I am an old fan of Adam Warlock.
According to the Wiki page on the movie,
Me too.
Pip the Troll. The universe is a weirdly zany, slap-sticky place. Case closed.
In the last scene after the credits, where he is congratulating everyone on a successful revolution.
[nerd mode=activated]Technically, he is an Elder of the Universe, as is The Collector. Thanos is a Titanian Eternal.[/end nerd mode]
ETA:
[nerd mode=reactivated]Ego the Living Planet is also an Elder of the Universe.[/end nerd mode]