Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Hemsworth has realized that Love and Thunder was too silly.

Chris Hemsworth Admits ‘Thor 4’ Was ‘Too Silly,’ Calls Scorsese and Tarantino’s Marvel Criticisms ‘Super Depressing’: ‘I Guess They’re Not a Fan of Me’

Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” was a box office hit with $760 million worldwide, but a lot of Marvel fans were turned off by writer-director Taika Waititi’s silly humor a…

variety.com

Better late than never, I guess.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Taika Waititi Reveals What He’d Do With a Hypothetical ‘Thor 5’: New Worlds, ‘Outlandish’ Monsters and an Enemy Stronger Than Hela

Waititi revealed what he would do if given an opportunity to direct a new installment in the "Thor" film series.

variety.com

 

[Sean Bryan]

Taika Waititi Reveals What He’d Do With a Hypothetical ‘Thor 5’: New Worlds, ‘Outlandish’ Monsters and an Enemy Stronger Than Hela

Waititi revealed what he would do if given an opportunity to direct a new installment in the "Thor" film series.

variety.com

Ugh, please no. What’s the point of having a “powerful enemy” if everything around it is a silly farce that sucks all of the dramatic tension out of the room?

I hope to Oden that Feige moves Thor away from Waititi.

 

[Jake Lipson]

What’s the point of having a “powerful enemy” if everything around it is a silly farce that sucks all of the dramatic tension out of the room?

I think Waititi's quote is interesting because it seems to imply that he doesn't know who the enemy would be. The post-credits tag from Love and Thunder clearly points to Zeus and Hercules as antagonists for another film. Why even put that there in the first place if that isn't the direction a followup would go in?

This is a problem with the MCU these days. It used to be that a tag scene would be followed up on in a timely manner. Nick Fury visits Tony at the end of Iron Man and he shows up again two years later in Iron Man 2. The Collector shows up at the end of The Dark World and returns less than a year later in Guardians of the Galaxy. Wanda and Pietro are teased in The Winter Soldier and they become major players in Age of Ultron the next year. The tags with introductory cameos were (usually) pointing to something much more concrete.

Now, the credits scenes introduce either stars or ideas that might show up again at some point but don't seem to be any kind of priority. See: Charlize Theron in Multiverse of Madness, Harry Styles in Eternals, Hercules in Love and Thunder, etc. What or who are Shang-Chi's rings calling out to? Marvel doesn't seem to be in a hurry to tell us, since Destin Daniel Cretton has been assigned to Kang Dynasty and Shang-Chi's sequel appears to be on hold indefinitely. Are Doctor Strange and Charlize Theron going to be able to fix that incursion? Maybe we'll find out in a few years, or maybe they'll just drop it like our primary timeline version of Chiwetel Ejiofor, who has never been seen again. The rapid expansion of the MCU has seriously damaged its ability to follow through on established storylines in a timely manner, and that makes it feel messy and somewhat unsatisfying.

In fairness, Waititi did give us Ragnarok, which is the best Thor film by a wide margin. I think the problem is Waititi didn't really seem to have a specific vision for what to do next with Love and Thunder. I think it also helped that, even though Ragnarok was clearly Waititi's movie, he knew where it was heading. He had to get them to that mid-credits tag with Thanos' ship because that's where Thor was going to be handed off to the Russos for Infinity War and Endgame. Without a specific place to leave the character, Love and Thunder felt more meandering. I wouldn't be totally opposed to Waititi returning, but I think the Marvel team would need to help him create a more focused story with real narrative drive.

 

[Sam Favate]

The rapid expansion of the MCU has seriously damaged its ability to follow through on established storylines in a timely manner, and that makes it feel messy and somewhat unsatisfying.

Yes, this is true. The lack of timely follow-ups has made the Marvel films more unsatisfying. It's because where you were once waiting breathlessly for an answer to one film's tag and knew you'd get it soon, now you have no idea when or if it will come.

 

[TravisR]

Now, the credits scenes introduce either stars or ideas that might show up again at some point but don't seem to be any kind of priority. See: Charlize Theron in Multiverse of Madness, Harry Styles in Eternals, Hercules in Love and Thunder, etc. What or who are Shang-Chi's rings calling out to?

Until reading your post, I had forgotten about Harry Styles' appearance but if you had told me that Charlize Theron was in a Marvel movie, I would have bet a million dollars that you were wrong.

 

[Sam Favate]

FWIW, I’ve read that the follow-up to Doctor Strange MOM will be a major part of this arc and will lead directly into Secret Wars, so the movie will come out before May ‘27.

Grain of salt:

The MCU Has Already Set Up Doctor Strange 3's Rumored Inspiration

Doctor Strange 3 may adapt an important Marvel Comics storyline. But even if it doesn't, the MCU has already started setting up Time Runs Out.

www.cbr.com

As for a fifth Thor movie. I’m all for it. I’d like to see them explore Asgard some more, with Lady Sif and Balder the Brave. I would not like to see a film in which they kill off Thor.

 

[jayembee]

The question of what to do for a hypothetical Thor 5 has one correct answer: Beta Ray Bill.

As for a villain...it doesn't matter, as long as it's a good villain. Doesn't have to be an extraordinarily powerful one. Hela was already one-upped by Thanos; she wasn't by Gorr the God Butcher.

Well, actually, there's another correct answer, which would be to use a Thor movie to continue the Eternals storyline. There was a storyline in the comics (collected in the book Thor and the Eternals: The Celestials Saga). And having the Celestials be the antagonists would certainly up the power level way beyond Hela (and Thanos).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If Waititi is going to do another Thor film one day, I’d like him to go in the opposite duration in terms of villain and make it a low stakes one.

That’s what felt off-balance to me with Love And Thunder - the bulk of the film has Thor dealing with personal issues and obstacles that are more amusing than deadly, but for me, it felt like Christian Bale’s villain was from a different film. If the stakes are nothing less than the survival of all of creation, Thor being sad about his hammer just isn’t important in any way. When you show kids being kidnapped and placed in peril, it’s hard to cut to a joke. And I don’t think Waititi’s strength is in high stakes plotting, it’s in everyday character interactions and how these godly characters wrestle with very human feelings.

I think it would be great to have a film where Thor is faced with something that should be easy to solve but winds up being enormously and hilariously vexing. Almost all of the MCU films end with a high stakes CGI battle and I think Waititi’s take on Thor is uniquely positioned to try something different. I’d like him to trust that a Thor movie can be lighthearted and comedic from start to finish, rather than decreasing into chaos and violence at the end.

I’d also like the next Thor film, whoever handles it, to not repeat all of the beats and structure of Ragnorok. Love and Thunder copies a lot on that front from Ragnorok, right down to repeating the Matt Damon-as-Loki gag, and for me it was diminishing returns having essentially the same gags repeated but without the freshness from the first time.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Love and Thunder copies a lot on that front from Ragnorok, right down to repeating the Matt Damon-as-Loki gag, and for me it was diminishing returns having essentially the same gags repeated but without the freshness from the first time.

This is it exactly. There didn't seem to be anything new guiding the comedy, and you've zeroed in on a microcosm of the whole movie. The reenactment of Ragnarok offered nothing new because we had already seen them do the same thing with the enactment of The Dark World. For me, the scene where the actors find Valkyrie after the kids have been taken and ask about reenacting that to help the community deal with the incident through art was much funnier than seeing them do another takeoff of the previous film.

The other thing that bothered me is that Jane had cancer, which is a very real and very dangerous disease that affects millions of people all over the world, and yet the film never really dealt with the gravity of that situation. Waititi's absurdist comedic tone really didn't gel with that storyline, which (if they were going to give her cancer) should have been dealt with in a more serious way. I don't want scenes about Jane dying of cancer to be punctuated with jokes at every turn. There is something to be said for comic relief lightening the mood from time to time, but comic was the default mode in Love and Thunder, not the relief. The frankly excessive nature of it all and Waititi dialing everything up to eleven really undercut the drama of what should be emotional scenes as Thor and Jane confront the reality of what is happening to her. There could certainly have been a comedic movie with Jane in it, but if that was the direction they wanted to go, cancer should not have been part of it.

 

[jayembee]

The frankly excessive nature of it all and Waititi dialing everything up to eleven really undercut the drama of what should be emotional scenes as Thor and Jane confront the reality of what is happening to her. There could certainly have been a comedic movie with Jane in it, but if that was the direction they wanted to go, cancer should not have been part of it.

It was probably a conflict with executives. Jane Foster having cancer, and on top of that, ending up being worthy to wield Mjolnir was a major (and controversial) storyline in the comics. In fact, in the comics, she essentially replaced Thor as Thor, and taking his place in the Avengers. He, meanwhile had his own issues to deal with (the reason why Jane had the opportunity to pick up Mjolnir was because Thor lost his worthiness...but that's another issue). I suspect the conflict was in Waititi wanting to do another comedy, while someone else (Feige, maybe?) wanted an adaptation of the Jane Foster as Thor arc, and we ended up with this Frankenstein picture.

But anyway, the other problem with the film was that, Jane aside, it sidelined the other two powerful female characters. At the end of Endgame, Thor tells Valkyrie that she has what it takes to be the new king of Asgard. But in Love and Thunder, her agency as king is pushed aside at every chance. And Sif gets sidelined by a battle injury and is left out of the story until the vignette at the end showing her training girls to be warriors. Ultimately, we end up wondering what the point of making Valkyrie king was in the first place if you're going to negate it the first chance you get. And why was Sif in the movie at all, other than to answer the question of whether she was killed by Thanos, or got snapped and snapped back, or something else (that they don't really explain).

 

[Jake Lipson]

And Sif gets sidelined by a battle injury and is left out of the story until the vignette at the end showing her training girls to be warriors.

I think it is very clear that Taika Waititi is just not interested in Sir or the other supporting characters from the first two films.

Ultimately, we end up wondering what the point of making Valkyrie king was in the first place if you're going to negate it the first chance you get.

This is another situation where I think you can blame the incongruity on two different teams. The Russos and Markus and McFeely were in charge of Endgame. Waititi had different priorities in Love and Thunder.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I’d also like the next Thor film, whoever handles it, to not repeat all of the beats and structure of Ragnorok. Love and Thunder copies a lot on that front from Ragnorok, right down to repeating the Matt Damon-as-Loki gag, and for me it was diminishing returns having essentially the same gags repeated but without the freshness from the first time.

Yeah, I would like to see a new director if they make another one for that reason. Waititi definitely has a distinctive style of humor, and I think he's used it to say all he can with Thor. I'd rather he apply his talents to something different, and get someone who bring something new to the table the way he did with Ragnarok.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Yeah, I would like to see a new director if they make another one for that reason.

I think Hemsworth said somewhere that he is not signed for another film right now. We know that he loves working with Waititi. I think if Marvel wants him back -- and they clearly do because they ended Love and Thunder with the "Thor will return" statement -- he might get more control over the next film as part of any contract. If he were so inclined, I think he could make his return conditional on Waititi returning as well.

Hemsworth has worked with five (or six) different directors over the course of his time in the MCU: Kenneth Branagh, Joss Whedon, Alan Taylor, Waititi and Joe and Anthony Russo. (Five or six depends on whether you count the Russos as individual people or as one because they are a directing team.) So he isn't strictly a Waititi loyalist or anything, but has spoken very highly of their collaborative process specifically.

There is also the fact that Waititi has gotten a lot busier since he first came to Marvel and has his hands in a lot of projects. He also has a Star Wars thing in development for Disney as well. So it would also be a question of fitting Thor in around Waititi's various other commitments. Of course, there's also the question of how a fifth solo film would fit in with the two upcoming Avengers films. I know the team is going to look different in those movies. But because Thor is one of the remaining original Avengers still on the board, I'd be very surprised if we didn't see him in those movies.

That being said, I would very much like to see Thor get a fifth solo film. Perhaps it would be appropriate to design something as a sendoff for the character, depending on how much longer Hemsworth wants to keep playing him. Hemsworth has always been great in the role despite the inconsistent nature of his films, and I would very much like to see him go out on a creative high. Love and Thunder was certainly not that, so my interest in a fifth film would be to allow him to take a hopefully better final bow. Both Hemsworth and Thor, the character, deserve the kind of emotional, epic, satisfying finale that Robert Downy Jr. and Chris Evans got for their characters in Endgame. Whether Waititi is the director to do that or not, I hope they can get it. Perhaps it would be interesting to bring back Kenneth Branagh to finish what he started?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

And I don’t think Waititi’s strength is in high stakes plotting, it’s in everyday character interactions and how these godly characters wrestle with very human feelings.

Thing is that "Jojo Rabbit" showed TW can mix farce and drama and emotion in a very satisfying package.

Of course, the difference is that "JR" was a small-scale human tale vs the major theatrics of an MCU film.

But still, he can do it!