Thor (2011)

[oyceter]

It took me about three tries to finally watch this past the point Thor starts to realize he might be stuck on Earth.

Spoilers for Thor and Avengers

I was extremely unimpressed by Thor the first time I tried watching this, but after watching Avengers and Joss Whedon's total shipping of Loki/Thor (srsly!), I am much fonder of Thor. Possibly this is also because Hulk punched him. I still think his initial plan that led to his banishment was stupid, but as he seems like a very large eager puppy who accidentally wrecks all the furniture while being enthusiastic, he is not nearly as objectionable as Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies.

Also, why in the world does Loki think it'll be funny to let the Jotun in during Thor's supposed coronation? Is he already kind of evil then? What are we supposed to make of that?

Also also, my huge problem with this movie is the portrayal of adoption and heritage and genetics. I do think the movie tries to present Loki going evil as his choice, since Thor and Odin and his mother all still love him, but there's something about the "Now he knows he is a Frost Giant! The information is too much for him and he reverts to evil Frost Giant ways!" and "You can try to raise someone with kindness but blood will show" that irritates me. It doesn't help that I naturally tend to sympathize with the smaller, darker-haired sibling who is wordier and less athletic and feels like he is in the shadow of his blonder, more charismatic brother. That said, though I am annoyed by the choices shown re: adoption and think Odin should have told Loki earlier, this is grounds for sulking and maybe lashing out at your family via mean words, not sending giant robots to firebomb them, attempt to kill your father, bring in enemies to raid, and then attempt genocide.

I wish I were more interested in Jane Foster, but there's not very much of her being a science geek and much more of her looking at Thor with googly eyes and being awkward. I didn't buy the romance at all, which takes some of the drama out of the Thor-breaking-the-Bifrost scene.

Darcy is awesome, and I was sad all the "Darcy is recruited into SHIELD by Coulson" scenarios I've seen in fic are fanon, not canon. Darcy/taser is now my new OTP.

Also, how in the world is the blue Frost Giant box thing that is apparently not the tesseract different from the tesseract? Are they powered by the same blue glowy light? Do they have nothing to do with each other? And in that case, why does Red Skull find the cube in some Norse mythology carving thing?

Loki's horned helmet is still funny.

Thor is much more fun when he is smashing coffee cups and demanding large animals to ride than when he is being self sacrificing. Also, I felt that didn't really show much character growth. My impression of Thor is that he would have done something like that for his comrades anyway. I suppose the big difference is learning to count humans as his comrades as well, but it doesn't really speak to his learning better about randomly waging war and the like.

And finally, why does Loki show up to whisper in Erik Selvig's ear? Does that mean he has been influencing Selvig since before Avengers, or has he possessed Selvig and that's how he manages to open the tesseract door in Avengers, or ... ?

Comments

[mme_hardy]

The adoption point really grated, too. My fanon is that he snapped solely because they NEVER BOTHERED TO TELL HIM, but yeeah, what the movie is mostly saying is BLOOD WILL TELL. Sigh. Also, the crack about "Well, adopted" in THE AVENGERS bothered me the same way.

That movie was a complete and total waste of Natalie Portman, and IMHO she phoned it in or was directed badly.

[oyceter]

Yes re: Natalie Portman. I did see a post out there about how all the major female characters in Thor are not skimpily dressed, and I do like that. But I think I wanted more Jane + science as opposed to Jane + Thor.

[mme_hardy]

Also, I would have liked more indication that Jane was a functional human being.

[keelieinblack]

The adoption thing was really awkward. I don't think they meant it to have such a "blood will out" vibe, but it's kind of hard not to come away with that message. It makes me really wish they'd kept the deleted introduction for Thor and Loki, and the longer scene between Loki and Frigga--I think both would have helped a little at mitigating the "suddenly, he's evil!!" problem.

Also, why in the world does Loki think it'll be funny to let the Jotun in during Thor's supposed coronation? Is he already kind of evil then? What are we supposed to make of that?

Well, he does call it "a bit of fun", but as a plan to temporarily stop Thor from becoming king it's not a bad one--it puts off the coronation, and it was the perfect way to get Thor riled up enough that with a little nudge Loki could send him charging off to Jotunheim and into trouble. (Thor's banishment seems to be an escalation he wasn't prepared for.) Which is not to say that he didn't find a lot of amusement in wrecking Thor's day, but I don't think it's an indicator of evil at that point. Bitterness, envy, callousness in the sense that he didn't seem to mind too much that a couple of guards ended up dead because of it, but not actual evil.

The Frost Giant box is the Casket of Ancient Winters! Odin took it from the Frost Giants after they were defeated in the war at the beginning--its powers seem to be snow/ice/cold-based, and its absence is apparently the reason Jotunheim is still such a desolate wasteland even years after the war. The Tesseract/Cosmic Cube is all about energy and matter and is incredibly powerful; I don't know if they ever said how Odin ended up with it, but one timeline for the movies says that he left it on Earth about 600 years before the modern day, which is why it's hanging out in Norway for the Red Skull to find. It...probably wasn't a good idea for the prop designer to make them both glowy blue boxes.

[oyceter]

Oooo what was in the deleted scenes?

Also thank you so much for the various glowy blue box explanations! I get even more confused because I started to read some Captain America comics in which it is the Cosmic Cube and it can be destroyed and rebuilt? Or there's more than one of them?

... or: why I suck at comics canon.

[keelieinblack]

This has some of the deleted scenes, including the original intro for Thor and Loki, and this is the longer Loki-Frigga scene. I kind of think it was a mistake to cut/edit them--the first one's pretty significant in establishing both Thor and Loki's mindsets and relationship at the beginning of the film (including the fact that Thor dismisses Loki's abilities as 'tricks'), and the second in showing that kingship really was an accidental result for Loki, not a an original goal. (And that Frigga's the one with the most emotional sense in the family. One gets the feeling that she would have been able to fix the whole mess if she'd had the chance.)

Heh, I don't actually know that much; I've just seen the movies too many times. But I'm pretty sure you're right that there are multiple Cosmic Cubes in the comics--like, ten or twenty of them, maybe? God only knows how anyone keeps track of them, either in the comics or IRL.

[marina]

I think the point of Loki whispering to Selvig was that he was already able to influence him, and probably kept track of him and his work, by at the same time Loki needed allies and a way to return to Earth physically (not just extend his ~trickery~ there) without the bi-frost, so like by the Avengers he finally figures it all out and comes back for real.