#anti thor: love and thunder

[theladyofspaceandtime]

Thor: The Dark World is the last great Thor film we’ve had and my mind can’t be changed.

[dkmbookworm]

Something that really pisses me off is this assumption that because you dislike the current direction with Loki and Thor’s characters, it must mean that you “hate comedy” and “want everything to be serious and gloomy”. As if the only form of comedy that exists is weird, random antics. What is this attitude that thor and loki were never funny in the previous films? The only difference is that the comedy was formed based on their personalities and conflicts with other people or situations, rather than just them being stupid or quirky.

[beheworthy]

How Taika Waititi Ruined Thor

[This essay talks negatively about director Taika Waititi and his Thor films. Please don’t read if you happen to enjoy them.

Despite my best efforts, this post is 10,343 words long. Here is a table of contents for ease:

1. INTRODUCTION 2. CHARACTER – Personality – Funny nature – The way he talks – The way he operates – Power ups – Agency – Side note in ‘agency’: shirtless scenes 3. RELATIONSHIPS – His father – Odin – His love – Jane – Supporting characters – Weapons 4. HIS STORY – Character arc – His way forward – Torture p*rn 5. APPEARANCE – The ugly suit in Thor4 – Shabby AF casual clothes – Gouged out eye – Stripped fOr FuN 6. WEB OF LIES 7. CONCLUSION ]

Despite Thor: Ragnarok (2017) (Thor3) introducing a complete change of tone for the Thor franchise, the mainstream media has decided it was only ever received positively by 100% of the audience. Not a ‘divisive’ or even a ‘generally favored’, but a ‘unanimously loved’ tag was given to this movie and its director Taika Waititi for “saving Thor”.

You have to wonder who were those people who went to the theatres for the first two films if this film saved the franchise because they were both hits. But seeing as I’m the non-existent 0% of the population that doesn’t echo that sentiment of the media, I decided to shed light on how Taika Waititi didn’t save him, but actually ruined, destroyed, and annihilated Thor in every way possible.

CHARACTER

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: there is nothing wrong with Thor being funny, as long as it isn’t at the expense of his character. And now you know why I’m writing this thesis.

Keep reading

[abby118]

No way even after 13 years, I..a fan, am still spending hours analysing speech patterns to write everyone as true to their character as I possibly can and then post 2013 mcu just-

[leahcee]

no no no because I am very mad at how k*vin feige and the mcu made thanos and the blip this huge life altering event that was so traumatizing and heart breaking just to make it “silly” and have “funny” throw away jokes and restaurants in future films like that’s why ur shits quality is declining bro

[streets-in-paradise]

It baffles me to think that in a world were Thor Ragnarok exists, with the disastrous portrayal of the greek gods in its sequel, people still regularly claim Troy is the worst insult to mythology Hollywood ever created.

[musclesandhammering]

The way they went from Thor & Val having a very predictable male lead x female lead vague beginning of a romance arc in Ragnarok to them being platonic best friends who tease each other about their new relationships in Love and Thunder, with like zero explanation or acknowledgement…. that’s exactly what I need them to do with Loki & Sylvie moving forward.

[silenceinternalmonologue]

thor: love and thunder's ruthless degradation of new asgard

remember how in thor: ragnarok, asgard was blown up but it was justified because "asgard's not a place, it's a people"?

even though the destruction of this ancient realm was treated like a joke there was some semblance of a future for the surviving asgardians, a sense that thor would have an important role ahead of him in helping his people to rebuild in the wake of their relocation. and that thanks to good leadership asgard would come out of this stronger.

then endgame happened, and all of thor's development was undone. and THEN love and thunder continued this trend. guess what, thor still has no idea who he is! he was never ready to be king after all! the only thing he knows how to do is go out on adventures and fight people!

but in thor: love and thunder, this isn't the case at all. new asgard is a tourist destination: in fact, it seems like that's all it is. there seems to be none of asgardian culture remaining at all. most people wear midgardian clothes, the kids thor interacts with claim they've never been taught how to fight, there's no sign of anything magical around new asgard, and king valkyrie's government comes across just like any midgardian bureaucracy, suits and all.

how can you claim that asgard is a people and then not show them acting asgardian at all? i actually find the concept that asgard's entire history and cultural identity has been stripped away so quickly deeply upsetting. the early thor films had so much fascinating worldbuilding and i hate that one writer/director took all of that away just because he... isn't interested in it.

[dr-doomsduck]

At the risk of rubbing some fans the wrong way:

It makes me feel some sort of way that Thor abandoning the Throne he was always meant to sit in for an ordinary life he wanted led to a sequence of catastrophes for him. His absence at various points led to Odin disappearing, Odin dying, Asgard destroyed, Gorr targeting New Asgard and finally, Jane dying for using Mjolnir to stop him.

Thor, tragically, walked away from his purpose and lost everything that was dear to him.

And now there's Loki, who honestly committed outrageous crimes in order to get that same throne, was denied it, and then ended up finding loved ones and friends and an ordinary life he could live. But when his throne presented itself, when he had to sacrifice it all for his (glorious) purpose, he accepted the burden and saved the TVA, Mobius, Sylvie and everyone else.

Loki fought for his purpose, tragically sacrificed his ordinary life, and got to live with the knowledge that those he loved were safe and taken care of.

There is something extraordinarily Shakespearean about that. The 'horrible' brother accepting his destiny and becoming the hero and the 'heroic' brother failing to be the big hero because he rejected his destiny.

[geehollow]

Listening to the loki series music on youtube is awesome but it requires an iron will not to look at the comments because dear gods t:ragnarok (and the first loki season) really destroyed Loki's reputation and it's a tragedy. Which is why newpipe and a basic ads-free music app are my best friends

[uniiiquehecrt]

Why is it a cosmic problem that the Asgardian bloodline will end with Thor? Asgard is no more - what we have is a nonmagical place on Earth where Asgardians live. When Asgard doesn't exist, who cares that there will be no heirs. The current ruler is someone to whom King Thor just gave the rulership. That's how every ruler will be made now - anyone the current ruler gives it to. Or maybe they start holding elections. Make it democratic.

They don't need heirs now. And Thor will die alone in a ditch. It doesn't matter anymore. Taika has made it so that everything in Thor's world is insignificant now. But this is a happy ending.

I... genuinely can't entirely tell if you're being sarcastic, nonny, or if this is a genuine question that perhaps I may be misreading... (and if I have, do feel free to send a follow up and correct me)

but there's quite a many problem with the royal bloodline ending with Thor from an in-universe standpoint, just as well as the trajectory of Asgard's fate from Ragnarok and Endgame onward is an insult to the worldbuilding of Earth-199999's Asgard and the Nine Realms.

There's a couple of different ways you could slice my statement and I would still argue that what I've said can be seen as true. But I'll go through the wide range of elements in your ask to best illustrate the broader strokes of my point.

but TL;DR:

Ultimately you answered your own question, and that's the best way to boil down the travesty of it all:

Q: Why is it a cosmic problem that the Asgardian bloodline will end with Thor? A: Taika has made it so that everything in Thor's world is insignificant now.

Not only this, but Thor is the lastoline of the royal family. Before which, there only existed himself, and his father, Odin. He is the last of a subspecies of alien on par with other massively powerful aliens like Titans and I would wager, potentially even more mortal Celestials like Ego. He's a being who can generate storms just because he's miffed. Once Thor is dead and gone, there will NEVER be an Asgardian who is more than just your usual 'super-strength, super-speed, super-endurance' humanoid looking alien. There will NEVER be an Asgardian with the ability to summons storms and have lightning flow through his veins.

Hela had dominion over life and death, Thor is effectively a living, breathing, walking, talking tempest, Odin can be inferred to have some kind of 'order' seeking affinity. Who knows about MCU Bor and Buri. They are INCREDIBLY ancient, and powerful beings. If MCU Asgardians are to MCU humans what D&D elves are to D&D humans, then Thor is to Asgardians what an eladrin elf is to normal elves.

And we are watching – have already watched, even, — that incredibly powerful, incredible RARE sub-species of asgardian effectively be driven to extinction.

Just think about that for a second.

(the rest has been put under a cut because this answer got long, and for that I apologize ... mostly.)

Asgard is no more - what we have is a nonmagical place on Earth where Asgardians live.

Yes. This. This is quite actually the crux of the problem of this choice. The most beautiful and compelling aspect of the MCU in Phase 1 in particular is the prospect of an alternative universe out there where, to quote Jane Foster, "magic is just science that hasn't been explained yet". A world where superheroes truly can exist and aren't cartoonishly corny as superhoes used to be depicted... I'll say pre!Raimi Spider-Man era. (Though.. the Goblin's costume is still pretty goofy.)

What made Thor stand out as an individual hero within the Avengers (both the team, and the 2012 feature), and what made him so compelling to quite a many fans new, old, or casual, was that Thor is magical. He comes from a place where magic and science are the same thing. His whole world is ethereal and timeless, it's vast and expansive, and because it's inspired by real world norse mythology — of which is itself a rich and fascinating study in and of itself — there are a thousand different directions he could be taken.

I may be speaking partly for myself, but he also further ropes in a fantasy-centric audience such as myself who largely enjoy high-fantasy, medieval inspirations, tales of chivalry, hope, love, adventure, magic, timeless knights and princes — Dark World in particular has him acting quite a bit like your typical idea of a chivalrious, regal, stately prince or honorable knight who is virtuous and kind, and who protects those who can't protect themselves.

And that's just a single aspect of what made him so unique. What made him so unbelievably lovely. Thor is lovely, and Thor is magical. His family, friends, world, and people are magical.

But as of RAGNAROK, the realm he hails from was destroyed before our eyes before we got to truly know anything about it.

As of ENDGAME and LOVE AND THUNDER, the people and culture of asgard that remain has been so watered down that they dared to make New Asgard a tourist attraction in some rinky-dink nowhere backwater coastal town no different than Puente Antiguo, New Mexico where Thor first crash-landed in the first film.

Asgard used to be on par with, if not even more intriguing and full of mystery, than Wakanda, the earthen monarchy. Now it's a tourist trap that ... for some reason has "infinity gauntlet" ice cream in the heart of the town of a people devastated by Thanos twice.

The current ruler is someone to whom King Thor just gave the rulership. That's how every ruler will be made now [...] They don't need heirs now.

Potentially unpopular opinion (?) but I have so many issues with the decision to give Lady Valkyrie Thor's birthright that it could take an entire 10 paragraph essay for me to fully delve into all of the issues.

In short:

To say Valkyrie had a character beyond "traumatized alcoholic with a chip on her shoulder" is ... generous at best. That's not a diss, that is entirely factual. I could not tell you what her Want vs. Need is, or her character goal, or her motivations, or why she bothered to suddenly help Thor (re: lack of motivations) because she never took any action with any real agency in RAGNAROK that wasn't spurred on by Loki. ....Off screen.

I also don't think that the woman who had spent over 1,500 years MINIMUM running away from her home and her people, festering bitterness, spite and hatred towards the royal line, and who never actually respected Thor in the first place because of who his father is should have been honored the title of King. She did not deserve that. Both in general, and as a character who frankly just did not get enough screentime to really be SHOWN caring for her people, atoning for her absence and otherwise supporting, caring for, and working alongside Thor. Had she actually been shown doing any of the above in a substantial amount of screentime, perhaps then I might have felt differently, as if she earned the position more than Thor who has spent 2 solo movies (not counting RAGNAROK) earning his place as a future leader. This is likewise not entirely counting his O.S. actions of maintaining peace under his authority between Avengers and Dark World, and his personal search for the Infinity Stones post!Age of Ultron.

Valkyrie is powerful, yes, but she is ultimately still NOT an Asgardian Royal. And to your point about "this is how every ruler will be made now" — Heimdal aside, NO OTHER ASGARDIANS have special powers. It is EXCLUSIVE to Odin's bloodline. (Frigga is a practicing witch and these are two incredibly different things, since Loki was taught his magic, not born with it.) This is a GLARING worldbuilding issue further highlighted down below, but the tl;dr of it is: the only reason why Earth has been largely untouched and the Nine Realms kept safe in isolation despite the constant going-ons of the other galaxies in the universe is BECAUSE of the royal line. Odin isn't kidding around when he says he (and his bloodline) are protectors of the Nine Realms. Valkyrie is most certainly able to try, but at the end of the day she's NEVER going to be able to get through very many galactic battles without ultimately calling on Thor for assistance at the end of the day. And when her time is up? Or when Thor is finally dead and gone? There goes your ace in the hole.

But more than that, thinking about it semi-realistically from a worldbuilding perspective:

It's quite literally a cosmic problem in that there is now a galactic power imbalance. MCU!Thor comes from a version of Marvel's world where the there aren't literal gods, but there are aliens. Tons of aliens. All with varying powers and proportions and what-have-you-not. More specifically: power humanoid aliens from a realm called Asgard, that in Earth-199999 inspired the entirety of the Norse mythos of the viking age.

These aliens, governed by the ruling monarch of the realm eternal, also govern over 8 additional realms— which for all we know could range from a territory that is a singular planet (vanaheim, asgard), to potentially an entire solar system (earth and its solar system). BOTH options nine times over marks an absolutely incredible empire for a singular species of alien to claim complete control and territory over.

But they were not only able to obtain this territory but continue to safeguard it under Asgardian protection because the royal family is gifted incredible power (Thor, for instance, can change the atmosphere out of sheer mindless emotion not to mention conscious thought), and have secured and/or subdued multiple infinity stones throughout the millenia (the aether/reality stone, the tesseract/mind stone, thor has also personally endured a power stone directly to the temple, for instance), and have maintained peace for a MINIMUM of a thousand years beneath Odin's reign as All-Father, Protector of the Nine Realms.

So, if the royal family governs its own pocket dimension planet, AND maintains peace and prosperity by personally safeguarding the territories itself and of eight additional realms, all with a variety of other alien species, ecosystems, solar systems, galactic quadrants, etc. ...Who are also KNOWN to be fierce and proud warriors who have likewise safeguarded ancient and powerful alien relics the likes of the tesseract/mind stone for hundreds if not thousands of years — and you take this long-lived warrior race out of their own equation...?

We're talking potential outbreaks of a new age of war the likes of those talked about in Thor (2011), in-fighting amongst the Nine Realms, invasions from outside realms of conquesting species, so on and so forth. Without Asgard and specifically a Royal Asgardian at the seat of power to maintain the balance of what has been built, (and i specify a ROYAL asgardian, aka Thor's line, because his bloodline is the only asgardian bloodline with the raw power to maintain and preserve everything long-term), well, you've effectively started a cosmic power vacuum — even if the MCU likely will never bother to explore the consequences of it.

Slight sidebar (albeit still mostly related), but:

Quite frankly one of the funniest aspects of Thor's relationships with Nick Fury and the humans that are equally as worked up about aliens existing, pointing their fingers at Thor as an example of their right to be wary (and eventually Loki and the Chutari, though those are more earned) is that they are effectively minimum-wage fast-food employees bad-mouthing he who is essentially the up-and-coming Chairman of the metaphorical "Yggdrasil's Nine Realms Fast Food Chain" without realizing who he actually is.

(Which, viewing through that lens makes the Avengers Nick Fury scene and the Tony Stark Age of Ultron scene even more hilarious despite the eventual coming of Thanos, because Thor, bless him, doesn't take ...much... offense to it until the bad-blood becomes over-bloated and geared towards the violent. RE: "My people want nothing but peace with your planet." / "Your work with the tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war.")

For all of the drama of MCU Phases 1-3, realistically speaking, Midgard is low enough on the hierarchy of Asgard's protected territories that not only would it not be targeted first by Asgard's enemies (or other conquesting alien species), but even if it WAS to be targeted, or if Asgard was in its own fit of warfare ... Earth wouldn't even know it in the first place because THAT is how good at their jobs the Asgardians are. Earth, despite being SURROUNDED by alien activity and having even been in possession of multiple infinity stones at a time throughout history, not ONCE realized that (other) aliens existed out there... during the entirety of the 1,000-some years of peace that Odin so often talked about.

[stromuprisahat]

About five minutes in Thor: Love and Thunder (because apparently I've decided to suffer today), and I already can't wait to see another article treating Taika Waititi as some sort of native inhabitants's icon, showing it to evil white western corporations, 'cause re-introducing Thor as ripped, cool white saviour of poor helpless peaceful inhabitants, robbed of their foolish fake religion turns my stomach in a way I'm rather certain it wasn't intended to.

[justarandomgirly]

Its fun to watch Love & thunder fans get mad that the movie they love is so hated. How does it feel huh? Thats what yall been saying about Thor & Dark world! Karma,bitch.

[beheworthy]

Whoa whoa I think I missed some stuff, is it okay to hate TW and how he ruined Thor now? I've been bitter about his treatment of the mcu and his attitude for years but never expected to see any mainstream agreement, what did I miss! (If u don't mind me asking, you seem to have better kept up with marvel stuff than I've been able to lol)

haha it's become mainstream to hate on waititi now, friend. we will not be publicly executed the way we'd have been back in 2017 when thor3 released.

i'm not sure how this came about tho. thor4 released and everyone suddenly decided that they will hate on it FOR THE SAME THINGS THEY LOVED THOR3. i don't understand this. make it make sense. the one reason people give for this is - the humor was balanced in thor3 but not in thro4. it is NOT TRUE AT ALL and these people should get some critical thinking instead of regurgitating sexist youtubers.

also, his attitude during thor4 was also picked upon by people to be unacceptable - calling thor's gf useless and boring, saying he set out to make a film that fans would hate and daring them to hate on it, saying he wanted to put cancer jokes in the film, and crapping on the vfx artists who worked to death on his trash film.

anyway, the general consensus of thor4 was that people surely want to see thor again but not at waititi at the helm at any cost. so, marvel kicked him out. fans rejoiced. moreover, marvel specifically wants the next film to be as far away from his 2 films as possible. fans rejoiced even more at this.

waititi had stated his ideas for the future of thor's story during thor4, implying he'll be stuck to thor forever. but then he also said that he'll only come back if chris does, implying that marvel will have to beg him to give his genius to them again and also take care of this side actor mr. hemsworth.

all this came back to bite him when he was unceremoniously discarded. since then, he has went in an overdrive trying to have the last word at any cost. first, saying he knew he won't be invited back and he doesn't care because he has so many films in his kitty anyway. second, backtracking and saying he said no to marvel actually. and third, saying he only made thor3 for money, taking a dig at superhero films in the process and saying he's above them.

this act in particular has incited fans the most. even people who didn't hate on him have now started calling out his sore loser act. this is why you're seeing a serious uptick of people hating on him and his beloved thor3. :)

[midgardianqueenreturns]

As much as I dislike Thor: Love and Thunder, I have to give it credit. Ever since it came out, I’ve noticed a lot more people being critical of Ragnarok in retrospect. It is now much more acceptable to criticize Ragnarok (and its characterization of Thor) compared to several years ago. When Love and Thunder was first announced, I feared it would further solidify Ragnarok as the definitive Thor version, but it looks like it is doing the opposite. There was a silver lining to Love and Thunder after all. Am I being petty? Yes.

[meimaru]

*gasp* Oh no! Did your unhinged director buddy let you down?

Such shock.

Much sad.