Thor : the Dark World (spoilers are boxed)

Cafe Society
21

I enjoyed it a lot. It certainly had some weaknesses, but I’ve been a Thor fan since Walt Simonson wrote and illustrated the book in the 1980s, and I loved both movies.

I;m not sure that I like what I saw as a change to Odin’s character:

In the first movie, he was the one who was trying to give the brash, warlike Thor a sense of humanity. In this movie, he comes across as very hard-edged and callous, especially towards Jane.

Some scenes I particularly enjoyed:

[spoiler]Thor and Loki walking through the palace, and Loki using illusions to change their appearance, especially when he changed into Captain America.

The entire final battle, with the “portals” making everything quite unpredictable. Especially when Thor and Malekith briefly found themselves in Jotunheim, and one of the frost giant’s beasts showed up.

Darcy exclaiming “Meow-meow!” when Mjolnir flew past her, later in that battle.

And, in the final shot of the second stinger, the Jotunheim beast running through the parking lot, chasing pigeons.[/spoiler]

22

Saw it. Enjoyed it a lot. I like the melding of sci fi and fantasy. It really makes these movies feel different from the others and I like that.

About the ending:

[SPOILER] I felt it could be read two ways:

Fallen Loki: He murdered or imprisoned Odin and usurped the Throne.

Redeemed Loki: Odin gave him the Throne and he deceived Thor because he wanted to hear what Thor would say about him without knowing he was alive.

I am leaning towards the first but I could see it be either way.

Like others, I also knew immediately the betray earlier in the movie was a ruse. But this I’m not sure.[/SPOILER]

Against my better judgement I left after the mid credits scene. Anyone care to describe the post credits scene? Much thanks.

23

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars–and in your case, making puns about them.

Back on topic:

I saw it and liked it, but I wished they’d given Christopher Eccleston more interesting dialogue. I was hoping for a cool conversation with Loki.

Another thing I wish had happened that didn’t was for Darcey to taser Loki. She did it to Thor.

24

Jane is sitting at the breakfast table, hating her wheaties, when Thor beams down. Kissing ensues. Cut to a large parking lot, with the Jotunbeast gallumphing along, chasing a flock of pigeons.

25

I felt that this was on par with the original Thor movie. So long as they keep shooting these things in 3D, we’re going to be stuck with a certain number of chase sequences, stuff flying straight at us, and people getting punched through walls with tons of shit flying everywhere. Then again, it is a comic book movie so that’s all appropriate, which brings up my next point: More than most of the other Avenger movies, this one felt like they were deliberately trying to set comic book bits & elements in the movie, rather than just making a good movie and oh, by the way, the hero can fly. Thirdly, they seemed to include a lot of little bits in it specifically because they knew the fans wanted to see them, rather than because they would help the plot, which tends to turn the movie into a 3D version of Where’s Waldo?

Example of point 2:

Thor actually can’t fly without Mjolnir… when he’s stuck on a different plane, he has to fall through a portal to get back to the plane Mjolnir’s on and once it’s back in his hand, he can fly.

26

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to say, my daughter made a good point: “Poor hammer, it got so confused!”

27

I enjoyed it a lot, but there were some major elements that didn’t sit well either.

First was the nature of the enemy.

[spoiler]They’re Dark Elves. Evolved in dark. Hate the light so much that they want to stop if existing anywhere in the realms. But they make their weapons out of … lasers? Not something that would give them an advantage in the dark? Not something that wasn’t, y’know, insanely bright?

I look forward to the sequel where - presumably - the Realm filled with creatures with nut allergies decides to build a peanut cannon to take out their non-allergic enemies.[/spoiler]The Americans

[spoiler]What is it with movies that make Americans look like rude, mannerless douchebags? From movies you’d think that Americans do NOT know how to say thank-you for anything, spend their time stomping around acting like they own the show, and treat other people with complete disregard for basic manners.

[ul]The running gag about not using the intern’s name did not come off as funny, it came off as boorish. [/ul]
The scenes with Jane in Asgaard:

[ul]correcting the medical staff like she’s doing them a favour by putting new words around technology they probably invented before her species had learned to use fire[/ul]
[ul]getting up in Odin’s face as though she somehow hadn’t worked out that he was the guy Thor (remember him? Effectively a god?) was treating as a superior.[/ul]

Ugh. She’s obnoxious as hell. I was rooting for the enemy.[/SPOILER]However, there were some really great moments that made me really enjoy the movie.

[Spoiler]Loki and Thor make an awesome team. I hope they find a way to make them work together, because that entire part of the movie - from the prison release, the escape, the plan to trick the dark elves - was great fun.

Also, the zap-through-the-realms scene was very well done, although I couldn’t help thinking of Yakkety Sax and then got that stuck in my head the rest of the afternooon. [/spoiler]The only real problem I have with super hero movies in general is the fact that the writers apparently feel obliged to spend time making ‘normal folk’ part of the story. We have plenty of movies about normal people; I reckon if you’re going to have a super hero movie, it shouldn’t be mandatory to put second-rate sidekicks in it.

Ditch the humans and keep the superpowered guys! The best scenes in the movie were entirely minus humans in any significant capacity.

28

For those familiar with the comic books, can you tell me if Vanaheim is where Visneyland is?

29

Damn it, now you tell me. I saw the movie earlier today and stuck around for the mid-credits scene but missed the post-credits scene. I wish I’d read enough online to know to stick around for that. Anyhow it was fun. They did a nice job of adding some humorous bits throughout.

30

We didn’t stick right out to the end, but saw 2 extra bits:

1. The Collector. 2. Loki/OdinWas there a third?

31

I loved watching Chris Evans play Captain America and be happy and relaxed, rather than the broody, taciturn, stoic and confused Cap we saw in The Avengers.

32

Described upthread:

I also missed it.

33

I think you’ll find they were Shreddies, not Wheaties. I quite liked that they kept genuine Brit brand names in. This must be the first Hollywood movie ever to feature a can of vimto.

…errr, SPOILER, I suppose

34

Marvel’s Odin, pre-Simonson, was quite a bit of an ass. I was somewhat amused that they brought that back for significant portions of the movie. Odin hates the idea of Thor with Jane Foster (probably for pretty good reasons), but other than whining like a bitter mother-in-law, manages to put up with idea.

35

:confused:

The scene with Loki on the throne in the guise of Odin wasn’t an “extra bit,” that was the last scene in the film. Before the credits started.

36

I thought this was not great, but solidly good fun. Probably the biggest problem for me was how generic the bad guys were. Their motivation also seemed to make very little sense. They have eyes and feet. That implies they want light to see with and ground to walk on, right? So why do they want to destroy all the worlds? What are they going to do then, just float around in blackness being evilly happy? Another minor bad mark for me: why/how would Thor have any familiarity at all with flying alien spaceships? Does some part of his super powers involve very quickly familiarizing himself with alien techology?

Mostly the things I liked have been mentioned already, but I thought the grenades were super awesome.
So, are we supposed to understand the last scene?

As far as we knew, Loki died. And Asgardians aren’t immortal, right? Was that not Loki all along? Was he just not dead? And however he ended up being Odin, it wasn’t something that we were supposed to have seen, right? Also, if it turns out that Loki is now the king of Asgard, I hope that there’s some reaction or pushback to that among the people of Earth (like SHIELD), for whom Loki is the bad guy who nearly destroyed their world.

As for the mid-credits scene:

So from Wikipedia I see that The Collector is a pre-existing Marvel Villain. What was it that those two Asgardians were giving him to store? Do we assume it was The Aether in some Aether-containment device? And The Aether is kind of similar to The Tesseract, which was the McGuffin in the first Thor movie? Or was it the first Captain America movie? And/or the thing that got stolen at the beginning of The Avengers?

37

Saw it again last night… :o

I thought of a few things this time around:

Where was Frigga really when she was “illusioned” inside of Loki’s cell? I didn’t see her standing outside anywhere, which made me briefly wonder if Loki was going “banana-balls” and trying to self-therapy himself with his own illusions. My re-watch made it seem more likely that it really *was *Frigga, but could she have projected that illusion from her own quarters? Remember the dungeons are a pretty decent Mjolnir-flight away from the palace when Thor leaves Jane with Frigga to deal with the “prison break.”

If Erik was nutty because Loki had been in his brains during Avengers, then what does that mean for Hawkeye? Both were recovered the same way (concussive repair - ie, hit in the head really hard) and now I’m wondering if Hawkeye is perhaps a bit residually unstable also.

The scene at the beginning of the film where Loki is brought in chains before Odin - what’s the time scale on that? I’m confused about the timing between Thor, Avengers, and Thor 2. It has apparently been 2 years since the events of Thor, but when was the Avengers compared to Thor 2? Was the “sentencing Loki” scene supposed to be a flashback, or is that happening right as Thor is cleaning up Valheim, which is the LAST of the Nine Realms to be cleared up - so what was done with Loki during all that time Thor was clearing up the other 7 or 8 Realms? Or do people think that Loki was jailed, THEN Thor went on clean-up mission, and we just got to see the end of that, because it wasn’t important to the film? My time-sense is all screwed up here, and I get the impression that if I don’t get it sorted out, I’m going to be screwed as the universe of films keeps expanding forward and branching out.
Do people think that Loki could have illusioned himself as Thor well enough to get Odin to grant him the throne? If so, then Loki returns to Asgard as a random guard, announces his own death, then “returns to Asgard” as Thor, claims to have dumped Jane back at home, and takes over the throne. Odin goes for a long-overdue vacation just as Thor really comes back, and Loki plays Odin to keep Thor in the dark also. I can see it from Loki, Thor doesn’t think sideways enough to be suspicious, but I don’t know if Loki can trick the Allfather like that.
As for the stinger scene is the Collector working for himself at this point, or already working for Thanos? That scene was very enigmatic, in a Dr Who sort of way.

38

Yup, my thoughts exactly. Would have been so much better if most of the human scenes were gone and Sif and the Warriors Three got the screen time. Sif is severely under utilized in my opinion. Oh well, got some token scenes to fuel the fanfic, will have to live with that.

About Frigga’s big scene:

I was ANGRY, not sad. Angry because she died for Jane Foster. I admire the combo of keeping Malekith from getting the Aethir and saving the life of her son’s love, but she’s worth a thousand Jane Foster’s and gah stupid humanity. I’ve never been into the whole ‘humanity is special because their lives are so short and fleeting and they live and love and laugh’ thing.

39

In that last scene we already know (as the audience) something that no one else does: Loki did NOT die on Darkelfrealm; we know because we saw the last bits of his illusioning himself to appear as an Asgardian guardsman. So the very end of the actual movie shows us (the audience) an even bigger something that no one else in the world of the film knows - Loki is on the throne, and NO ONE KNOWS IT. If he’s clever (which he is) he’ll just keep impersonating Odin (or Thor, see my theory above) to everyone for as long as he can keep all the balls in the air. He’s gotten what he wanted - the Throne of Asgard; he just got it secretly.

The McGuffin in the stinger is the Aether, and it and the Tesseract are both identified as “Infinity Stones” and that there are 6 of them total; “one down, five to go” was the line. Thanos in the comics managed to get all of them together to become supremely omnipotent at least once, so it makes sense that is what is going on now. And yes, the Tesseract was the item from Captain America, and from The Avengers. It is the McGuffin that Hydra (the Nazis) were using in the war, and that later, Loki was planning to steal from SHIELD in payment for the Chitauri invasion that was to take over the Earth for him.

My God I sound like a nerd. :smiley:

40

I’m just glad they established that Hogan is from a different realm than Asgaard, to explain why he doesn’t speak perfect English like all the other Asgaardians.

I just hate the tired old trope that an Asian person couldn’t possibly speak English as a first language- in fact it is more plausible that aliens from another planet speak perfect English than it would be for an Asian person to speak perfect English. I cringed every time he spoke in the first movie.

Also, I liked the original actor who played Fandral better than the replacement actor.