Thor: Ragnarok

[OP Tipping]

I enjoyed this movie but the levels of silliness are off the charts, coming close at some points to self-parody, which potentially ruins the "spell" of a movie. It's fair to say that all three MCU films this year have been lighthearted. I don't mind it: it's nice that they can vary the tone. But I hope they can still turn on the gravitas when they need to.

Highlights are:

*The Odd Couple feel between the roomies Thor and Hulk

*Great post-credit scene with the Grandmaster. Goldblum cracks me up.

*Hulk

Spoiler:

beating himself up to stay angry, in order to forestall the return of Banner

*An Asgardian play with

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Sam Neill

as Odin,

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Luke Hemsworth

as Thor, and

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Matt Damon

as Loki. Some nice meta-links there if you look for them.

Sadly, no Sif or Selvig.

[Zohar]

I'll only be seeing it in a couple of weeks with my brothers when I'm visiting my family, but I'm looking forward to it a lot. I don't mind the lighthearted nature of the MCU, it's kind of what I'm looking for in it, and a major differentiation from the drab DC universe at the moment (though yes Wonder Woman was decent).

[charliepanayi]

I thought it was decent, pretty funny in places, wish there’d been more of the rock guy Taika Waititi voices. I preferred the other two Marvel films this year though, there’s nothing in this quite as funny as the Mary Poppins line in Guardians 2 and no moment as impressive as the twist in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

[maybeagnostic]

I enjoyed it. Certainly the best of the Thor movies, not that that is saying a great deal as the first two were among the most forgettable in the MCU. Tessa Thompson and Taika Waititi were certainly a bit incidental to the actual story and could have used a bigger role but I suppose Ragnarok should be focused on the Aesir. Not that the events in the movie have much connection to the mythological Ragnarok.

I found the mid-credits scene rather bizarre though.

Spoiler:

We had this whole "home is the people and the people are still alive" mood going and then this big scary ship appears. Trying to find some explanation online of what it all means, the only thing I could discover was some speculation that this is Thanos coming for the Tesseract (makes sense) and he'll wipe out the surviving Asgardians before Infinity War starts.

It's fair to say that all three MCU films this year have been lighthearted. I don't mind it: it's nice that they can vary the tone.

Lighthearted as opposed to what? The only MCU film I wouldn't quite describe as lighthearted were Winter Soldier and Civil War but even they aren't too far off. All the other MCU films are colorful and lighthearted with (sometimes) deeper issues for people who care to look beyond the surface without spoiling the fun in the moment.

Homecoming had a twist?

[Zohar]

The villain's identity. I agree with charliepanayi, that was a pretty great moment.

[OP Tipping]

It's fair to say that all three MCU films this year have been lighthearted. I don't mind it: it's nice that they can vary the tone.

Lighthearted as opposed to what? The only MCU film I wouldn't quite describe as lighthearted were Winter Soldier and Civil War but even they aren't too far off. All the other MCU films are colorful and lighthearted with (sometimes) deeper issues for people who care to look beyond the surface without spoiling the fun in the moment.

Well these things are relative. There's humour in all the movies, but yeah, Winter Soldier and Civil War are designed to be taken seriously, and the same can be said to a lesser extent of the two Avengers films: they ain't just for the lols.

[Zohar]

Oh I saw it! It was tons of fun. I don't know if I'll remember anything about the movie, but it sure was entertaining.

Also rename this thread to Thor: Reykjavik.

[EdgarJPublius]

Also rename this thread to Thor: Reykjavik.

Or y'know... maybe consider not doing that. It's hard enough to find threads in this forum already.

[maybeagnostic]

d'Or: Ragnarok?

[rmsgrey]

Short version: it feels like the movie's trying too hard to be a comedy. It's a movie about the prophesied end of the world (or realm or whatever Asgard is) but that's not important - what's important is that Thor and Loki are together again and Thor gets to fight as a gladiator...

[SDK]

"Trying too hard" doesn't count if you succeed at being a comedy! It felt to me a lot like Guardians of the Galaxy in flavor. Which isn't really a bad thing.

The scene with Dr. Strange was... strange. Pretty pointless. Apart from that, this was a pretty great movie.

[Pfhorrest]

Yeah my general impression of the movie was "Guardians of the Galaxy, if it were a Thor movie".

[ConMan]

T'was a bit silly, but the whole concept is silly when you really think about it, so it's nice that they have fun with the ideas. Taika Waititi made "What We Do In The Shadows" which is the best vampire comedy film to come out of New Zealand, and he threw in a few nice antipodean references including one throwback to "The Castle", a classic Australian film from the 90s.

[rmsgrey]

Yeah my general impression of the movie was "Guardians of the Galaxy, if it were a Thor movie".

The Guardians movies have genuine emotion to them too - Ragnarok kept feeling like there were moments that should have carried emotional weight but didn't. I might feel differently after a rewatch, which will be after it comes out on DVD, but my experience in the cinema was that there was nothing like the "bunch of losers" speech, or Rocket crying over a handful of twigs, or Peter giving Gamora his mask, or the moment of pelvic sorcery, or...

[Carlington]

Probably my only qualms were the doctor strange segment and the sometimes awkward Korg, like when

Spoiler:

he's used as comic relief during the otherwise weighty scene where Asgard is being destroyed in front of the fleeing Aesir

[maybeagnostic]

The Guardians movies have genuine emotion to them too - Ragnarok kept feeling like there were moments that should have carried emotional weight but didn't.

Maybe there weren't as many but there were still some. The best ones were (weirdly?) about The Hulk like when he

Spoiler:

started punching himself to keep himself angry because he was using it as a tool to not deal with his other emotions.

I found Taika Waititi's character to be even more out of place than Doctor Strange. A lot of the supporting cast wasn't all that well developed but still had some personality. Korg seemed to have no personality at all. It felt like every single line he had was a wisecrack, not only devoid of emotion itself but often used to relieve the tension of an otherwise emotional scene.

[SecondTalon]

"Trying too hard" doesn't count if you succeed at being a comedy! It felt to me a lot like Guardians of the Galaxy in flavor. Which isn't really a bad thing.

The scene with Dr. Strange was... strange. Pretty pointless. Apart from that, this was a pretty great movie.

It's so when he shows up later as the Sorceror Supreme, everyone (in the audience) takes him seriously. We have concrete evidence that he's gotten better even since his film.

It also resolves the "If X is looking for Y and Z exists, why didn't X ask Z about it, and why didn't Z track down X and just spill the beans?" issue.

Part of Strange's job is "Don't let the universal order fuck itself".

Hela is attempting to fuck said universal order. Better for Strange to get involved early.

[SDK]

Part of Strange's job is "Don't let the universal order fuck itself".

Hela is attempting to fuck said universal order. Better for Strange to get involved early.

I understand Strange's motivations, but he didn't have anything to do with Hela. He didn't have anything to do with this movie. I know they're trying to remind us that he exists so they can tie it all together, but they should have done a better job making me care that he was there. Or at least have Strange wrap up the conversation with a "Great, you've convinced me that you're not going to let the universal order fuck itself, now I'm a busy man, so off you go!" I found the (amusing) five-minute scene pretty jarring in that respect.

[rmsgrey]

Part of Strange's job is "Don't let the universal order fuck itself".

Hela is attempting to fuck said universal order. Better for Strange to get involved early.

I understand Strange's motivations, but he didn't have anything to do with Hela. He didn't have anything to do with this movie. I know they're trying to remind us that he exists so they can tie it all together, but they should have done a better job making me care that he was there. Or at least have Strange wrap up the conversation with a "Great, you've convinced me that you're not going to let the universal order fuck itself, now I'm a busy man, so off you go!" I found the (amusing) five-minute scene pretty jarring in that respect.

He did pretty much say "I don't want Loki around, so I'm going to help you find Odin so you'll leave and take your brother with you."

Given that Odin had disappeared from where Loki left him, Strange provides a way of tracking him down that doesn't require Heimdall and doesn't involve giving Thor or Loki an ability that might be inconvenient later.

[SDK]

Yep... but the movie would have been exactly the same if Odin hadn't disappeared at all. He could have been sitting in the retirement home where Loki left him and nothing would have changed, except for the out-of-nowhere cameo. Lazy.

[rmsgrey]

Yep... but the movie would have been exactly the same if Odin hadn't disappeared at all. He could have been sitting in the retirement home where Loki left him and nothing would have changed, except for the out-of-nowhere cameo. Lazy.

And the implications of Odin and Loki's relative power levels, losing an example of Loki's drop in competence having "won", having Hela appear in the heart of a crowded city rather than an empty cliffside, not having the tease of potentially rehoming the Asgardians in Norway, Loki potentially having to move out into the open to call for the Bifrost...

Just the demonstration of how lazy Loki has gotten since taking over is a worthwhile contirbution to the story in itself.

[CorruptUser]

Saw it earlier today. Liked it.

Did find it interesting with the social commentary on how Asgard was, for all intents and purposes, a colonial and marauding empire that had murdered millions for their resources, and only now pretends to be this enlightened kingdom... that still kept all of its filthy lucre.

Also, anyone else keep thinking "Oh shit, it's the draugr from Skyrim"? I kept expecting someone to scream "ZUN HAAL VIIK" or "FUS ROH DAH". Would've been a useful ability during the battle.

[cephalopod9]

it's up on the Netflix, and I enjoyed it.

Re: Silliness
It's probably pretty hard to take things seriously when you're millions of years old and can get tossed through space and land in garbage unharmed.

A lot of the Marvel movies, and action movies in general, are pretty heavy on the mass slaughters. I'm pretty burnt out the spectacle of large scale destruction. That's probably part of why some of the emotional beats felt like they hit at sorta weird times.
It's also weird that Asgard

Spoiler:

seems to have the population of a highschool foot ball game audience, and that saving a large, yacht full of people is a win.

There's too much fun stuff for me to really mind the plot is a little shaky. It has four or five intersecting heroes' journeys.

[Zohar]

It's also weird that Asgard

Spoiler:

seems to have the population of a highschool foot ball game audience, and that saving a large, yacht full of people is a win.

I'm not sure that's so strange:

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A society where people live effectively forever is bound to have a lower birth rate if it doesn't want to destroy its resources, and Asgard has a lot of resources.

[Tyndmyr]

It's also weird that Asgard

Spoiler:

seems to have the population of a highschool foot ball game audience, and that saving a large, yacht full of people is a win.

There's too much fun stuff for me to really mind the plot is a little shaky. It has four or five intersecting heroes' journeys.

That is slightly weird, and it comes up in a number of films where they're trying to show an entire nation's worth of people, and it ends up looking like a large birthday party. Not even marvel specific, would assume it's largely budgetary. Hard to get enough extras on site, costumed, and good to go, that kind of thing.

Spoiler:

In fairness, it's at least consistent, in that Asgard has always been kinda portrayed this way, and often a "city of the gods" is shown in fiction to be composed of relatively few, albeit powerful, individuals. Asgard's definitely a smaller world, and earth is much larger. It still feels a bit odd in some contexts, but it's not entirely unreasonable.

[CorruptUser]

A society of elites with a low birthrate is also extremely unsuited for constant warfare; the Spartans didn't conquer much of the world, obviously. Perhaps that goes to explain some of the decisions in the movie...

[Tyndmyr]

Being quasi-immortal helps with that.

Predators are in nigh-constant conflict with prey, but given their win ratio, it's not a huge problem. It seems probable that, given what we know, Asguardians enjoy a ridiculous advantage over their enemies. Pretty much every one we've seen is obscenely overpowered.

[Soupspoon]

The DC's universe island of Themyscira also seems a little uncluttered and steady-state. Mind you, barely any children (do we see just the one, and her growing up?) because of practically no opportunities/wishes to have them, and some form of spacial (maybe also temporal?) separation from all enemies is probably behind that contentedness to sit back on the mystical/biological immortality for however long they can stay isolated on their Paradise Island.

[cephalopod9]

The DC's universe island of Themyscira also seems a little uncluttered and steady-state.

Themyscira was an island pocket dimension, that existed just to home a specific immortal, cloistered army. It made sense for it to be between a summer camp and a small coastal town in scale.

I didn't watch Thor 1 and 2 that closely. It seemed like Asgard was talked about as a World and a Kingdom with an army and large scale stuff like that. It's also not super clear how often people travel to or from. Even if there's very little population change, they still need to eat, and replace goods that wear out or get smashed apart.
but also, I mean, writers are almost never good at population scale type math, and the timeline, and cosmology of the film are fairly... AxeCop in style, so it's a little ridiculous for me to get caught up on trying to do a head count.

[maybeagnostic]

It seems probable that, given what we know, Asguardians enjoy a ridiculous advantage over their enemies. Pretty much every one we've seen is obscenely overpowered.

Um, like who? I am pretty sure every time we've seen an Asgardian other than Thor* fight, they've had their ass handed to them by just about everything they tried to fight. That random security droid from the first movie kicked the asses of the Warriors Three who are supposed to be the toughest Asgard has to offer, the dark elves from the second movie just crushed Asgardian defenses effortlessly and Hela straight up took over the place by herself in a direct attack without breaking a sweat. Aside from being tiny/underpopulated, Asgard has felt ridiculously weak to me. Thor was by far their best warrior and he isn't even the strongest Avenger.

The thing about tiny places is a problem with Marvel movies though. I found it particularly grating in Black Panther because Wakanda felt more like a tiny cheap amusement park than the majestic nation it was supposed to be.

* I think technically Peter McNicol was stronger than the Agents of SHIELD vanilla human team but he still got killed by the end of the episode.

[rmsgrey]

It seems probable that, given what we know, Asguardians enjoy a ridiculous advantage over their enemies. Pretty much every one we've seen is obscenely overpowered.

Um, like who? I am pretty sure every time we've seen an Asgardian other than Thor* fight, they've had their ass handed to them by just about everything they tried to fight. That random security droid from the first movie kicked the asses of the Warriors Three who are supposed to be the toughest Asgard has to offer, the dark elves from the second movie just crushed Asgardian defenses effortlessly and Hela straight up took over the place by herself in a direct attack without breaking a sweat. Aside from being tiny/underpopulated, Asgard has felt ridiculously weak to me. Thor was by far their best warrior and he isn't even the strongest Avenger.

A) Worf effect - you establish a threat by having them casually beat up the designated "strong man".
B) "random security droid" seems a bit dismissive of a unique artifact designed to be able to defend Odin's Vault against threats capable of getting in past Asgardian defenses. It's like calling a Terminator a "random tin man".
C) The battle in Vanaheim at the start of The Dark World seems like a better example - the Asgardian forces aren't losing the battle, but they're not sweeping all before them either - until Thor arrives and wraps things up in seconds.

[Tyndmyr]

It seems probable that, given what we know, Asguardians enjoy a ridiculous advantage over their enemies. Pretty much every one we've seen is obscenely overpowered.

Um, like who? I am pretty sure every time we've seen an Asgardian other than Thor* fight, they've had their ass handed to them by just about everything they tried to fight. That random security droid from the first movie kicked the asses of the Warriors Three who are supposed to be the toughest Asgard has to offer, the dark elves from the second movie just crushed Asgardian defenses effortlessly and Hela straight up took over the place by herself in a direct attack without breaking a sweat. Aside from being tiny/underpopulated, Asgard has felt ridiculously weak to me. Thor was by far their best warrior and he isn't even the strongest Avenger.

Thor is definitely framed as a great warrior, but Hela *is* Asgardian. That also isn't a random security droid. It's an Asgardian defensive artifact, sort of comparable to Thor's Hammer, or any of the other artifacts found in the vault. The biggest threat to Asgardians is almost invariably other Asgardians and their toys.

In the beginning of Thor 1, we see that Asgardians, including Odin pretty much wreck face against the frost giants. Valkrie is a powerhouse. We have a brief combat scene involving the Warriors Three that do pretty well, though Thor of course upstages them. Loki's definitely no slacker. Heimdall does pretty well for himself when on screen.

Basically, if they could stop their incessant god-family drama, they'd be doing amazing.

The thing about tiny places is a problem with Marvel movies though. I found it particularly grating in Black Panther because Wakanda felt more like a tiny cheap amusement park than the majestic nation it was supposed to be.

* I think technically Peter McNicol was stronger than the Agents of SHIELD vanilla human team but he still got killed by the end of the episode.

That was definitely an issue in Black Panther, though it somewhat improves in Avengers 3. Agents of Shield, unfortunately....better off ignored in general.

[cephalopod9]

I do find it amusing to imagine the reputation of "Asgardians" being based on half a dozen people from there.

It's really unclear what percentage of the population is fighters of any kind. They went through a lot of soldiers with helmets there, and there were at least 10

Spoiler:

Valkyries

back in the day.