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- Dec 21, 2002
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- Jake Lipson
I saw Endgame again today and a couple things occurred to me about Thor 4.
1) I wonder when, relative to the making of Endgame, the decision was made to bring Natalie Portman back. Not only did Ragnarok give the impression that she was done with the franchise by casually discarding her in a single line of dialogue, but Endgame does almost even moreso. They had a setup where they could have given Portman a significant cameo, like Rene Russo and Robert Redford had. It would have been really easy to show us Rocket interacting with her while he got the aether, or they could have written something in there where she talks to 2023 Thor in disguise. This probably would have pleased fans even more than what we did ge, but they didn't do it. Instead, they used deleted footage of her from The Dark World for the couple of shots where she's in bed, and the only new thing they asked her for was the one line where she asks if they have anything with pants for her to wear. This probably took her all of a few minutes to record, if that. It seems like if they knew that she was going to return, they could have used Endgame to reintroduce her in a more meaningful way. As-is, there will be an eight-year gap between her last significant appearance (The Dark World) and her reappearance (Love and Thunder.)
2) It seems like we're going to have to spend at least part of the movie on Earth, because they'll need to explain what Jane has been doing since 2013. If the goal is to get her in space, they can do it, but it would be foolish to skip over the part of the story where she goes to space, because she is a very Earth-bound character as portrayed previously. (Yes, I know she visited space in The Dark World, but that was a brief trip and then she immediately returned home.)
3) Of course Valkeryie is back -- yay -- but the real question is: is the Hulk in it? Endgame didn't really give him an ending. Yes, we saw him merge the Banner and Hulk personalities, which feels like the completion of the arc he's been on for the last few movies, but he didn't get a "goodbye" moment, like Tony and Steve and even Thor (who was clearly sent in new directions by heading off with the Guardians instead of remaining as king of New Asgard) did. The last time we saw Hulk was when he was trying to get Steve back after Steve didn't immediately reappear from returning the stones, and he saw Steve in the distance when Sam and Bucky went up to him. I don't think the movie needed to have more of an ending with the Hulk necessarily, but I do think the fact that they didn't tie his story up with a bow leaves the door open for him to return sooner rather than later. Because Mark Ruffalo was a replacement for Edward Norton, started later than the other original Avengers, and has never anchored a solo movie of his own, it seems like he probably has more options left on his contract than the others do. We know they can't do a Hulk solo movie because of legal crap with Universal, but I'd be surprised and disappointed if he didn't end up being used in a major supporting role again soon. Given how great his chemistry with Hemsworth and Thompson was in Ragnarok, I would hope we see him again here, but of course it depends on what they want to do with him next.
1) I wonder when, relative to the making of Endgame, the decision was made to bring Natalie Portman back. Not only did Ragnarok give the impression that she was done with the franchise by casually discarding her in a single line of dialogue, but Endgame does almost even moreso. They had a setup where they could have given Portman a significant cameo, like Rene Russo and Robert Redford had. It would have been really easy to show us Rocket interacting with her while he got the aether, or they could have written something in there where she talks to 2023 Thor in disguise. This probably would have pleased fans even more than what we did ge, but they didn't do it. Instead, they used deleted footage of her from The Dark World for the couple of shots where she's in bed, and the only new thing they asked her for was the one line where she asks if they have anything with pants for her to wear. This probably took her all of a few minutes to record, if that. It seems like if they knew that she was going to return, they could have used Endgame to reintroduce her in a more meaningful way. As-is, there will be an eight-year gap between her last significant appearance (The Dark World) and her reappearance (Love and Thunder.)
2) It seems like we're going to have to spend at least part of the movie on Earth, because they'll need to explain what Jane has been doing since 2013. If the goal is to get her in space, they can do it, but it would be foolish to skip over the part of the story where she goes to space, because she is a very Earth-bound character as portrayed previously. (Yes, I know she visited space in The Dark World, but that was a brief trip and then she immediately returned home.)
3) Of course Valkeryie is back -- yay -- but the real question is: is the Hulk in it? Endgame didn't really give him an ending. Yes, we saw him merge the Banner and Hulk personalities, which feels like the completion of the arc he's been on for the last few movies, but he didn't get a "goodbye" moment, like Tony and Steve and even Thor (who was clearly sent in new directions by heading off with the Guardians instead of remaining as king of New Asgard) did. The last time we saw Hulk was when he was trying to get Steve back after Steve didn't immediately reappear from returning the stones, and he saw Steve in the distance when Sam and Bucky went up to him. I don't think the movie needed to have more of an ending with the Hulk necessarily, but I do think the fact that they didn't tie his story up with a bow leaves the door open for him to return sooner rather than later. Because Mark Ruffalo was a replacement for Edward Norton, started later than the other original Avengers, and has never anchored a solo movie of his own, it seems like he probably has more options left on his contract than the others do. We know they can't do a Hulk solo movie because of legal crap with Universal, but I'd be surprised and disappointed if he didn't end up being used in a major supporting role again soon. Given how great his chemistry with Hemsworth and Thompson was in Ragnarok, I would hope we see him again here, but of course it depends on what they want to do with him next.