Fandral was played (this time) by Zachary Levi. When I saw that, I thought, "Wow, Chuck’s “flashing” on swashbuckling this time.
I went and saw it today - in 2D, after how poorly they handled the 3D in the first movie. I thought the movie was great fun - I loved the science fantasy feel of things.
That they were. Anyone who plays 40k would have instantly thought “Ooh! Vortex grenades!”
I assumed Loki used the same spell in the first movie when he visited Thor on Earth.
Wait, what are you talking about? You’re saying that the guardsman that Loki temporarily looked like when he was doing a bunch of shapeshifting earlier was the same one who showed up to report to Odin that they found a body? Or was there actually something more than that?
After Loki’s supposed death, we saw the last few seconds of a guard using an illusion spell. That guard was Loki.
Took a bathroom break did you?
Ok I kid.
[SPOILER] Loki fights the monster and “dies.” He doesn’t actually DIE. I swear it. Later on, right after Thor and Jane leave the Dark World (the dark elf planet) there is a scene that begins with a cutaway view of an Asgard guardsman on the planet (and yes, it’s the same one from the shapeshifting scene earlier), looking out over the scenery, and then turning back to the skiff behind him. That guardsman’s pike is briefly outlined in the same green as previous Loki illusions - therefore, Loki IS that guardsman.
The skiff is the same one that Loki, Thor and Jane came in on. Loki can now pilot it back to Asgard the same way he piloted them out from Asgard to the Dark World (but we don’t see that part). A bit later, the next scene with that guardsman is him announcing Loki’s death, and looking very self-satisfied about it. That is LOKI, wrapped in an illusion, announcing his own death (aka - LYING HIS ASS OFF) to Odin. [/SPOILER]
Ta-dah!
Now, what we DON’T know is how we get from Loki wandering round Asgard in disguise as a random guardsman to being in disguise AS ODIN acting as King of the 9 Realms, but I’m really hoping that Thor 3 will sort that out for us.
He was originally played by Josh Dallas. Apparently his filming schedule on Once Upon A Time kept him from being in the film.
Fun movie, but not a good movie. I described the first Thor the same way, and this wasn’t as good. I liked Thor, the comic character better than Captain America and Iron Man (in general, as the ever changing writers make certain storylines and characterizations better than others), but CA and IM (except IM3) were better movies than Thor.
And they are all better than Man of Steel. DC/Warner still has head-up-ass disease.
I definitely took that scene as:
Loki is banana-balls. He misses Frigga terribly during his confinement (he’s much fonder of her than of Odin or Thor), and is using his illusion powers (and his own self-delusion) to try and convince himself that she’s come to visit him. I think it’s very similar to the illusion that Loki is later maintaining, of himself in good shape and his cell in good order, when in reality, he’s a mess, and he’s trashed his cell, after he received word of Frigga’s death.
In answer to your last question:
Sure, SHIELD and the people of Earth would be really pissed if they learned that Loki was now on the throne. But, I strongly suspect it’s a situation of which they’d never learn. Even in The Avengers, it seems like SHIELD has very little information on Asgard, or the goings-on there. Earthlings have had extremely limited interactions with the Asgardians over the past 800 years or so. 
It’s also worth noting, for those who didn’t hear about it or see it in Thor…
[spoiler]The Gauntlet of Destiny, into which one sockets the Infinity Stones, is in Odin’s vault. In the scene where the destroyer is nuking the frost giants in the vault, there’s very brief shot in which the camera is looking out of one niche, a giant runs from right to left, followed almost immediately by the destroy-o-beam. If you pause, in the space between the giant and the beam, you can see, in the niche across the aisle, is the Gauntlet. In the voice-over for that scene, Branagh says something along the lines of "And there may well be one or two items of interest for future movies here in the vault.
Fan theory is that this, plus the fact that he’s safe in assuming the Tesseract will end up back in the vault, is why Loki let himself be captured several times in The Avengers: so that he would be taken back to Asgard, where he’d be able to get to the Gauntlet and the first Infinity Stone.[/spoiler]
Re: Frigga and Loki
[SPOILER]I don’t get how the scene in the cell wasn’t entirely straightforward to people.
Frigga can do the same trick that Loki can do- I think “illusion” is a limiting term to use. She can transmit and image of herself and communicate, and receive communication, through that image. In fact, as the elder of the two and as Queen of Asgard, I have no difficulty believing she is better at it than Loki is.
Thor says to Loki about Frigga “You inherited her tricks”, which well establishes this as one of Frigga’s powers even if we hadn’t already seen her creating a Jane illusion.
So, yeah, the Frigga visit was not just Loki deluding himself- Loki wouldn’t be telling himself things he didn’t want to hear. Frigga was actually visiting and interacting with him, she was just doing it remotely. Maybe just for convenience, maybe because it’s a security risk for the Queen of Asgard to be in the prison among enemy combatants- let alone actually be in a cell with a prisoner.[/SPOILER]
Anyone interpreting anything else is reading way too much into it.
Yay! First post on a new page! I win a puppy!
I don’t understand The Collector scene.
[spoiler]Are Sif and that other guy traitors in league with the dark side? Anyone with half a brain could see that Benecio del Toro is a creepy fuck that noone with any sense should trust. So they take this Super Important Thing off-world to some guy who probably needs money for his hobby and just leaves it with him with no way to track what he’s doing with it?
And what was with that girl with the stone mouth & chin?[/spoiler]
I loved this one, as much as I loved the 1st one. I love Thor, love Loki, love Kat Dennings, love the last part of the last stinger scene (birds!). I love The Avengers, love all the Iron Mans, love Captain America, love Marvel. I’m so happy with all the movies so far in this new realm, except I haven’t seen any of the Hulk movies, not even Ang Lee’s. It’s all So. Much. Fun!
Can we please have a Black Widow movie? Please?
The tesseract and the aether are apparently two of the six things which were used in the comics to power the Infinity Gauntlet, which allowed Thanos (who is the bad guy behind the invasion in The Avengers) to kill half of all the beings in the galaxy, a stunt he pulled to impress his girlfriend, Death (“To go up against the humans would be to court Death!”, and Thanos smiles…). Having two of them (and the gauntlet) all stored in one place is not a great idea, so Odin had them take it to The Collector, who I’ve never heard of but I’m comfortable assuming he… collects things, and once you’re in his collection, there’s no getting out. Interesting point that hadn’t occurred to me until just now… it may well have been Loki masquerading as Odin who told Volstagg and Sif to take the Aether to The Collector…
Saw this Friday night, it was decent, though I preferred the first film. As mentioned earlier, I would have liked more interactions between the characters and less F/X. It was a pretty movie, but then… aren’t they usually, nowadays?
Not surprised that the bad guys’s plan made no sense, but I didn’t pay attention enough to their motivations or background to make a call one way or another: they were the bad guys, at the end of the movie they’re going to be vanquished. What else do you really need to know? 
I saw the double-cross being a fake a mile away, but was pleasantly surprised by the last scene - that, I did not expect.
The red aether was a nice effect, but when Natalie stuck her hand between those two stones I strained something in my head, my eyes rolled so much. :rolleyes:
That was Idris Elba in the first movie… and I totally missed it?
Anybody else think while watching the movie “Hey, I used just that move in Portal!” 
I don’t read comics, but a cursory scan of the Collector’s wiki page shows that he is in fact an immensely powerful primordial being, more ancient than the gods, who whiles away the eons by collecting anything interesting he can get his hands on. I think the assumption is that such a creature would never willingly give up something as unique as the Aether, and that few entities are dangerous enough to take it from him. We’ll see how right they are.
For what it’s worth, Alessan’s description of The Collector sounds right to me. Definitely seems a safe choice as someone with whom to entrust the stewardship of something valuable.
That scene with the bottle, my husband and I both simultaneously chimed: “Speedy thing go in, speedy thing come out.”
He’s a little busy right now as Prince Charming on Once Upon a Time.
Regarding the mid credit scene. I don’t think they were betraying anyone. Just trusting the wrong person.
Maybe I missed it upthread…
Did anyone else notice that when Erik Selvig is ranting to the other patients in the ward on the board behind him was written “Universe 616”?
This is - of course - the designation for the Marvel Universe in the cosmos.