Thor : the Dark World (spoilers are boxed)

Cafe Society
61

Saw it. Hated it. I thought it was immensely boring. But Thor’s hair was fantastic.

It didn’t help that due to a movie time mix-up, we thought we were to see Ender’s Game in 2D. We were a little confused by having the 3D glasses, but thought that we just misread the part about it being 2D. When the movie started, we thought it was a preview, which was weird because the Thor is already out. Then it was like “this is an awfully long preview, isn’t it?” Then it was like “crap, we’re watching Thor, aren’t we?”

I had every intention of seeing Thor on purpose, but I’m kind of glad I ended up seeing it by accident, because at least I don’t have to be annoyed at spending the money on the tiresome thing.

(They gave us free movie passes to make up for the mix-up, by the way)

p.s. What was up with the saggy crotch on Natalie Portman’s jeggings? They should have diverted some of the F/X budget to a tailor.

62

Well, they did have Stan Lee locked up in the same ward with him…

63

You know what’d be hilarious? If all the extras in that scene were Marvel people.

64

Wow that didn’t have the rewatchability of the first, and the first was not great.

Inconsistent: In the first movie an Odin VO calls Asgard “The Realm Eternal.” In sequel, when he’s flipping through his book, he explicitly states that none of the nine realms are eternal - they have a dawn and dusk. I like that. It fits the viking vibe better. But there should have been a line like, “Though we like to call Asgard eternal…”

The villain:

was as non-threatening as the Aether. You shouldn’t just tell an audience something is powerfully bad. SHOW US! The stuff zapping fodder (cops or gaurds) out of existence doesn’t cut it for something that can destroy the universe. At least have it hurt. Rend the flesh from their skeletons like thousands of mini black holes or something. Any one of the companions three did more damage than the McGuffin. And the villains were just this side of Power Ranger villains, in costume, action, and motivation. And while Mjolnir whizzing about the realms was cool, the final fight was made too goofy by the warp bubbles. At that point, it was clear nothing and no one was at stake – even though the movie wants us to believe EVERYTHING was on the line – and flick was just marking time until prince perfect braid could be defeated.

I did like the cloaks they wore in their downtime on Asgard. That was a nice change from walking about in full battle kit on a random Thorsday. They nailed Bor. Hope we get to see him in a sequel. And it was nice and faithful to see the giant rock guy from all the way back from Journey Into Mystery #83. They were also recently used in comics in the Planet Hulk arc.

65

Saw it with friends. We though it was fun but not particularly good.

Random, non-spoilery thoughts:
Any movie that requires that much exposition at the beginning tells you up front that it has lazy writers.

Christopher Eccleston was very underutilized

Movie was a bit of a mess until Loki joined in proper. Loki and Thor act a lot more like brothers who still really like each other and have to keep struggling to be enemies. Nice.

Wish Jane Foster was a character instead of a trope. Can’t decide how much is writing and how much is Portman needing more direction than she gets. Kept thinking Emily Blunt could have brought a lot more to the role, but maybe there just isn’t enough there for any actress.

Thought Stellan Skarsgaard was hilarious with the little they gave him.

Overall a fun afternoon wasted but don’t feel the need to see it again.

66

I was amused how it chasing Thor like an eager puppy.

67

I liked it, more then most recent comic book movies.

I think they approached it the right way. The concept of Space Vikings is so silly that you can’t even try to play it straight. And they didn’t, almost every other line was a gag, it was basically a comedy.

The paint-by-numbers villain was OK. Loki pretty much took up the space of nuanced, shades of grey villain. So the fact that the Dark Elf guy was just a generic (if cool looking) villain with a generic villain motivation

(literally bring object A to place B at time C to DESTROY THE WORLD!!)

to drive the plot along didn’t bother me.

And I like that the fight scenes had enough twists (espeically the last one) instead of just degenerating into a generic “super-strong-guys bunch each other through walls” CGI fest.

68

So is Thor magical or technological (I mean in the Movie universe; in the Comics he is clearly magical)? Specifically his hammer. It seems magic but everything else about Asgard says science that seems like magic.

69

They wisely don’t spend much time addressing what the Asgardians actually are (other then to establish that they aren’t immortal), what exactly a realm is (another planet, universe, whoknows?) whether Thors hammer, Loki’s shapeshifting, etc are “magic” or not, etc.

As I said, the whole concept is irredeemably goofy. The movie works because it spends zero time inviting the audience to think about the premise. Any attempt to try and spin a convoluted explanation for everything would’ve a) involved a lot of boring dialogue and b) wouldn’t have made sense anyways.

70

Unfortunately at the beginning of the first Thor movie, the narrator announces that in some places, technology is so advanced that it seems like magic. Of course, they don’t spend a moment after that dwelling on it. I wish they would have just left that out entirely because if you start thinking about flying boats that shoot lasers and enchanted hammers, you start to lose it.

71

From Thor: “Your ancestors called it magic; you call it science; where I come from, they’re one and the same.”

72

And a bottle of Lucozade!

Seeing as I live in foreign parts these days I did get unusually excited when I saw these small details. I need to get out more.

73

And in the comics …

The last I remember each member of the Illuminati (Iron Man, Reed Richards, Whatshisname from the Inhumans, Namor, someone standing in for Professor X and … Dr Strange?) was holding on to one infinity gem for exactly the same reason.

74

I forgot about the Lucozade. Weirdly, the bottle looked like their packaging from the seventies, but I suppose when the walls of time and space are collapsing…

75

That makes sense, actually - the bottles they were dropping through the anomalies weren’t things they’d brought with them, but trash they’d found lying around that old, abandoned factory. So not only did the film makers go out of their way to use a UK brand, they made sure to use an outdated version of the packaging to fit in with the log abandoned building they were in.

That’s some pretty impressive attention to detail, really.

76

Beast was the X-man Illuminati, and yes it was Dr. Strange too. However, they apparently don’t have the infinity gems any more. Thanos, the Illuminati, and other stuff are all involved in the current Infinity storyline/crossover in Avengers comics. I haven’t read it all, and what I have read seems a bit of a muddle, so I’m not sure where the infinity gems kipped off to.

77

So it wasn’t just me then. I had flashbacks to being off school sick when I was about ten.

78

Ah. That reminds me, I really should read that. I’m very far behind on my reading and the pile is only getting bigger and bigger.

79

Perfectly awful and I can’t see why anybody would like such a one-dimensional movie. I was in the Money Seat and the left, center, and right speakers were placed about three feet too high and weren’t spread out enough, the side surrounds were a full EIGHT FEET too high, there were two spare surrounds on a 7.1 system that were just there to make it louder, and some moron thinks that cranking the surrounds to eleven means the theater sounds better. Tuning a sound system, including the room, is an art, especially if you want to create a 3-D audio experience, but they just let some idiot high-schooler loose and whatever he set it at they kept. I came out of the theater even deafer than when I went in.

“But drop, didn’t you used to know the guy who owns the theater chain?” you may ask. “Couldn’t you offer your services to fix the sound?”

Actually, I knew his son, and after a messy divorce I sorta found myself on her side because she has big boobs. It’s compli…no, it’s as uncomplicated as it sounds.

“But other than that, how did you like the movie? I ask because you nearly got banned once for [del]threadshitting[/del] expressing your opinion of comic books and the movies made from them.”

Well, my kid got me watching Agents of SHIELD so I’ve had to play catch-up with the movies so I know what’s going on and after the last episode the announcer said something about how I’ll never understand the next episode if I don’t see the new Thor first and another daughter had free tickets and bought us dinner and shut up.

Digital projectors are much better than they were the last time I went to a theater, before The Attack of the Really Gross Bedbugs. Resolution was much higher so I couldn’t count the pixels unless I tried and the picture didn’t swim. The movie was dopey fun, given that I could understand only half the dialog thanks to the bad audio balance. I’ll watch most anything with Natalie Portman, though I know she’s not much of an actor. Having not read the comics I feared they would change the real Thor into some comic book shadow of himself and they did–this one is much smarter. I miss his goats but I like his Super Friends, who were appropriately comicky, though Fandral is less so than in the first movie. I understand my own infatuation with Ms Portman, but I don’t see his motivation, especially because he has Sif throwing herself at him and he doesn’t have to worry about breaking her.

So, all in all it was a nice night out. I might do it again, since they seem to have mostly licked that vermin problem. Especially since I need to see Rush and I have daughters with crushes on Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl. I should email somebody from the theater chain about the sound mix–the speakers are stuck where they are but allowances can be made. And I find myself missing being an A/V demigod.

80

So I saw it and enjoyed it. But quick question.

Did the hammer talk?

I am pretty sure that during the “everyone saying everyone’s name” scene the hammer said it’s own name.