Thor: Ragnarok

JohnLReed

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That might hold up, save the way Hela destroyed the hammer. She was holding it in her hand. (take that hubby-logic! :poke:)

She wasn't wielding it, she just overpowered it. If she would have taken it and hit Thor with it, then there'd be an issue. :)
 

Cyia

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No one else is supposed to be able to *lift* (as shown in the 1st film). Wielding has nothing to do with it. It's one of many plot holes that the MCU has casually ripped open to fit their established narrative to the one required for sequels.
 

Beanie5

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shizu

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Just saw it last night, and despite laughing out loud on several occasions I couldn't shake this nagging feeling that everyone was a little out-of-character. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a lot of fun, but it just didn't feel as though it fit into the overall tone that's gone before.

Truth be told though, that's an issue I've had with a lot of the MCU movies over the past couple of years; all the different people working on different strands of the franchise have made it feel a lot less cohesive (especially when it comes to characterization) the more it converges into one amalgamated universe. Which, presumably, is the opposite of what they're going for. :/
 

JohnLReed

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No one else is supposed to be able to *lift* (as shown in the 1st film). Wielding has nothing to do with it. It's one of many plot holes that the MCU has casually ripped open to fit their established narrative to the one required for sequels.

Thor couldn't lift it in the first film. Odin changed the dynamic to make someone "worthy" of it. It's unique in that way. Odin's spear, for example, has no such restrictions. Previous to the first film, ANYONE could wield/pick-up/carry Mew-mew (see what I did there? I crack myself up).

When Thor throws the hammer at Hela, the hammer is trying to do what he wants. It's pushing against her hand. She's just too strong . . . strong enough that she crushes it, which is something I doubt Thor himself could have done at that point. I think the point of the scene was to show that what we thought was an absolute, the power of the hammer, was not absolute at all when used against Hela, who was probably as close in strength to Odin as you could get.

I agree about the plotholes, though. I'll list four of my big ones in a new post.

Also, I'm the husband, in case you were wondering. :D
 
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JohnLReed

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Some of these have been mentioned:

1. Hela could teleport, and had the tesseract, and gungnir, but needed the sword to open the bridge to conquer worlds?
2. Asgard looks way too small for Hela and her seemingly endless demon army to not be able to find the GIANT doors to the “hidden” cavern.
3. The Warriors Three are killed (rather anticlimactically), and Thor shows more emotion about a haircut.
4. It’s a Planet Hulk movie. Honestly, they should have just made two films. You almost forget about Ragnarok.
5. Why was David Banner even there? He had no point beyond Hulk Smash. It reminded me of Batman v Superman where they just really really wanted those two in a movie together so "let’s just go with it".

There may be answers for all of these, but they weren't explained well. At least to me.
 

Cyia

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And another plot hole --

Why were Fenris and the elder army buried in state below the palace? Asgard burns their dead.
 

JohnLReed

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And another plot hole --

Why were Fenris and the elder army buried in state below the palace? Asgard burns their dead.

YES! Forgot about that. They just needed an evil army, like the Chitauri in Avengers.
 

Max Vaehling

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I made a point of not reading up too much on this movie prior to watching it and then I almost didn't go, expecting some heavy-handed operatic spectacle which has always been the side of the Thor movies I was least interested in. (Seriously, instead of Thor 1 as it was, give me two hours of that diner scene and I'm good.) Instead, this. Can't say I'm disappointed.

I agree ith a lot that has been said above - the way they handled the Warrior Three almost made me glad Lady Sif wasn't in this, although the movie could have used a few more female characters. The Marvel villain prtoblem continues but at least Cate Blanchett got a lot more to do than Christopher Eccleston. I really liked Skurge's arc. While predcitable, I liked that he completed it without much recognition. Nothing liker the GotG 2 space funeral for that guy, and I didn't miss that one bit.

The humor took some getting used to - it seemed a little too much of the same thing. I read somewhere that the self-deprecating thing and the undercutting of pathos is a specific Maori flavor of humor that Waititi brought into the franchise. But it felt a lot like some of the jokes in Doctor Strange that took some of that movie's thrust. Anyway, there's an understatement here that works great against the operatic bits - much like that diner scene in Thor 1 -, so I guess it's a glass half full for me. It also forces the characters to - often literally - pull themselves up and earn their standing, over and over.
 

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This movie made me laugh so hard. I took it as a transition film, the focus of which was really Thor and Loki's relationship. It was a relationship reboot, summed up in the elevator scene. The villain was just a tool to achieve a plot end. I think this film does need the previous Thor films to stand upon, or else the relationship issue would be partly lost, but I felt the humor redeemed it of any failings. Likely they had to jam some elements into it as a means of bringing things around to Infinity war, which I believe is the last movie in this story cycle.


I dunno - I've not seen Thor, or Thor: Dark World and only needed one or two tiny fillers from my husband and son to ensure I got minutia. That said, I know the outline of the myths and i've seen Avengers Assemble so......

I loved it. Loved the Loki/Thor relationship with the snide bickering. Very brotherly! Loved Benedict Cumberbatch and the whole Dr Strange scene.

Now I need to go back and watch the first two. One day I will have watched the whole MCU saga....
 

Cyia

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I really do like this movie, but I've got to mention one more thing that just digs at me.

There was a cut scene in Thor 1 that showed Loki being crowned king while Odin was out of commission, meaning he actually *did* have command, though no one accepted that command. Well, in Ragnarok, thanks to the quick rewrites that cut out "Homeless Odin," and moved him into exile in Norway, the implication is that he - once again - knowingly put Loki in charge of Asgard. Odin knew how he'd gotten to Earth; he knew who was on the throne; he didn't reach out to the Avengers or even Heimdall to oust the pretender. Yet, the fact that Odin had his faculties in place is just glossed over.
 

nighttimer

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I dunno - I've not seen Thor, or Thor: Dark World and only needed one or two tiny fillers from my husband and son to ensure I got minutia. That said, I know the outline of the myths and i've seen Avengers Assemble so......

If you haven't seen Thor: The Dark World you do not need to see Thor: The Dark World. It seems locked in a death match with Iron Man 2 for winner of the Worst Marvel Movie. I give the edge to Dark Dull World for if no other reason the lazy and messy IM2 at least introduces Scarlett Johannson's Black Widow where as TDW has bored looking Natalie Portman and annoying-as-hell Kat Dennings sucking what little life there is to the movie.
 

thehansell

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Just saw it last night, and despite laughing out loud on several occasions I couldn't shake this nagging feeling that everyone was a little out-of-character. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a lot of fun, but it just didn't feel as though it fit into the overall tone that's gone before.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this in the thread, but I think a lot of the dialogue heavy scenes were apparently heavily improvised. The director, Taika Waititi, comes from a mainly comedic background and his style definitely comes across in Ragnarok - for comparison see his weird but wonderful movie What we do in the Shadows (mockumentary film about vampires, I highly recommend).

I'm a fan of his style, but it's not for everyone and it's a definite departure from the previous Thor flicks.
 

Cyia

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Watched this again last night, and I have to ask: Why do people (like Hulk) who fall off the Bifrost bridge in this movie hit water, when Loki fell into an abyss in the first movie?
 

Maggie Maxwell

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Watched this again last night, and I have to ask: Why do people (like Hulk) who fall off the Bifrost bridge in this movie hit water, when Loki fell into an abyss in the first movie?

Remember, they broke the Bifrost in the first move. They probably rebuilt it in a more sensible location so that situation wouldn't happen again. Could also depend on their location on the bridge when they fall. Closer to Asgard: water, further from, abyss.