Thor: Ragnarok

robeiae

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Saw it last night.

It was a lot of fun, with great special effects, great costumes, a lot of humor, and some epic battles. Pretty much all of the acting--when actually needed--was quite good.

So why am I not called it great/awesome/etc.? Really, it's battle scenes and humor were both better than GotG, 1and 2 (which is very much how this movie played, as GotG with fill-ins). And it made tremendous use of Immigrant Song.

Maybe because, more than any other of the better superhero movies, this movie has no soul. Which is weird, because it has a couple of very serious components, yet they just don't play as serious.

All that said, it was still a lot of fun and almost a must-see on the big screen for its visuals.
 

Laer Carroll

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I've just gotten a bit burned out on the Marvel movies, as great as they are in every way. I have zero interest, for instance in Avengers Infinity War I and II (which has now been retitled so it's not immediately obvious that it's a sequel to I).
 

GypsyLayla

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I didn't like it that much either. 7/10 I really only liked that Loki and Thor had a cordial relationship but then there was the end so....

It really lacked a soul. It was funny but extremely shallow and the heroine was overblown and her superpowers were oddly tied to her hair. That was a poor choice.
 

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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.
 

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I remarked to my husband after seeing it that while I enjoyed it and laughed out loud a number of times, there were also scenes when I wished it would slow down and let us settle into some of the more serious moments, rather than leap immediately to the next wisecrack or slam-bang special effect.

I also confess to a major pang when they cut off Thor's hair and turned him from blonde to light brown. Thor without the hair is just another dude. (A slammin' dude, yes, but...)

At least he got to keep some of his red cape.
 

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OMG, when they cut off his hair (which I'm assuming was necessary for some reason, and they chose to incorporate it into the film...unless it's a really good wig, then they had me fooled!). "Please, good sir, don't cut off my hair!" :ROFL:
 
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mrsmig

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Apparently the shorn Thor is Hemsworth's real hair. Maybe he got sick of the blonde locks.
 

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It was a really fun movie. I loved that everything that was brought in got used in some way. It made things a little predictable, but in a satisfying way for me.

I'm not quite sure why it's being hailed as the best Marvel movie ever, though. I mean, it was good, but I don't know about the best.

I also found it very oddly plotted. A majority of the plot was dealing with the Grand Master's world, which was so superficial compared to his people being slaughtered by his sister. Other than gaining new allies and equipment, I didn't feel like Thor grew during his time on that world, so it didn't feel like it was necessary to the Hela/Ragnarok plot, just a really really long obstacle to getting back.
 

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Went to see it yesterday. I thought it was a long, long way from being the best Marvel film. Possibly even the worst. The humour, especially, fell flat for me. Felt like the kind of thing that should have been accompanied by canned laughter at times. Both Thor and Bruce seemed a little off, out of character to me as well, somehow. I think, partly, because the cheap one-liners sounded a bit weird coming out of Thor's mouth.

Also, the Immigrant Song was used way better in Shrek 3 :greenie
 

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Saw it last night, loved it. Agree with those about it being a transition film, though.

A big part of that transition IMO was a hammerless Thor becoming more reliant on his lightning powers. Maybe old age is affecting my memory, but those powers have been pretty much dormant as of late, right?

Loved the Odin line about him not being the "God of Hammers"
 

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Apparently the shorn Thor is Hemsworth's real hair. Maybe he got sick of the blonde locks.

Yup:
In an interview with CBR, Ragnarok screenwriter Eric Pearson revealed that Thor’s hair was changed for the purely practical reason that the Thor wig was driving Hemsworth crazy
Which sort of drives me crazy, because...they're paying you pretty good money, dude. Wear the fucking wig.

[Yes, I know Thor has had short hair in some of the comics. I don't care. I want the hair.]

ETA: Alternately, cut a few thousand bucks from one of the visual effects and get the man a comfortable wig. I bet human technology is up to it.
 
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Cyia

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So - finally saw it... Better than I expected. Not as good as I'd heard. Bruce and Valkyrie (tiny, angry girl!) are adorable. Please, please, please give Korg a role in Infinity Wars. Heimdall, too. And Thor, please *at least* ask what happened to your friends at some point.
 

robeiae

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It really lacked a soul. It was funny but extremely shallow and the heroine was overblown and her superpowers were oddly tied to her hair. That was a poor choice.

I remarked to my husband after seeing it that while I enjoyed it and laughed out loud a number of times, there were also scenes when I wished it would slow down and let us settle into some of the more serious moments, rather than leap immediately to the next wisecrack or slam-bang special effect.

I confess that when I started this thread, I was worried that I'd catch a lot of flack for not gushing sufficiently over it. Glad I wasn't the only one who saw the above flaws. :)

But I will reiterate that I thought the movie was still a lot of fun.
 

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I really enjoyed it a lot. But spoilers . . .
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I found it criminal that the warriors three (and the non-present Sif) were so easily discarded. At least Hogan got a noble death, but the other two were so quickly dispatched it really seemed like the writers didn't care at all about all the history and importance of the relationships between those characters established in the first two films. I don't mind that they had to be killed off, but it felt too quick and too disrespectful. Like an inconvenience the new creators had to do away with.

That annoyed me. And I needed to vent about it. I also agree about the lack of taking time and allowing for some pathos. Also when one undercuts everything, the humour of the undercutting is seriously reduced because the surprise factor goes away. By the end I knew what was going to happen pretty much every time.

Anyway . . . I still really enjoyed myself but it's hard to be able to talk about its flaws I find in some circles so appreciate the opportunity to do it here :) .
 

GypsyLayla

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About the warriors three-- TOTALLY AGREE! I was like... Are you kidding me!

I too am happy there is a good place to vent. Most of the people we saw it with loved it and my husband thought it was hysterical.
 

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It wasn't the death of the Warriors Three that really bothered me (yes, they were throwaways, but they weren't exactly a huge part of the second film either), it was the fact that Thor never seemed to give a shit. These were his lifelong friends and comrades and he never even asked about them.

Other than that, though, it made me laugh.
 

EMaree

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Yeah, I really enjoyed the movie for its sense of fun but that particular set of deaths was horribly done and tacky as hell. It bothered me so much that Scourge got so much screentime and they got wiped out in an instant, with no impact on the story.

Valkyrie and Heimdall were rocking it in this movie (SO incredibly happy with Heimdall), but it bothered me that Bruce's character arc never actually got an ending. And some lines definitely felt out of character -- the devil's anus was just cringe-worthy, Loki doesn't fit that sort of deadpan humour.

The plot had a lot of holes. That was super-obvious as soon as the after-cinema glow of the humour wore off. It's also not true at all to what was promised in the previous movies building up to Thor Ragnarok: it's a Planet Hulk movie, with Ragnarok clumsily shoe-horned in. You can feel how badly Taika didn't want to follow the pre-destined route, especially in his handling of the Warriors Three and Strange.

In a better world we'd have had a serious Ragnarok movie, using the tone set by the previous two (particular the flash-forward to Ragnarok), followed by a Planet Hulk movie to take the grimdark edge off.

It's definitely a weaker movie for being forced into a box it didn't belong in. Still fun, but stuck in an identity crises.
 
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Cyia

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There were a lot of changes to the script (besides the adlibbed lines) that I think really impacted the final product.

Early on, there were images of Anthony Hopkins as Odin living the life of a homeless amnesiac, rather than having been relocated to a nursing home. The initial meet-up with Hela was also in NYC, not Norway. (You can see this in the original trailer. The hammer gets broken in an alleyway.) And, there was supposedly more with Dr. Strange & Loki, as the latter was decidedly unimpressed with the few years of magical skills possessed by the former. All of that got scrapped, mostly for that Matt Damon gag at the beginning of the movie. (plus, it's not exactly logical that an explosion like the destruction of Thor's hammer would go unnoticed by the Avengers, since Tony's tower is in Manhattan.)

The Warriors 3 thing REALLY bugged me. They've hand-waved the idea that Sif's in exile courtesy of Loki-Odin, so maybe she'll be able to come back, but they could have at least let one of the 3 survive to assist Heimdall in the mountains. (As logically, that's where at least one of them would have been anyway.) I was holding out hope that Hogun was going to survive, but they had to ruin that, too!

But it makes ZERO sense for Thor to come to Asguard with the express purpose of defeating Lady Psycho-Death-Antlers, and not once does he think to look for the four people who have fought by his side for a millennium! They didn't even have the decency to show him finding Hogun's body as he entered the palace. He wasn't near the bifrost to find the other two, but he could have at least seen one of them! All it would have taken was one line between Thor and Loki for Loki to fess up to sending Sif offworld because she didn't buy his Odin-act or something.

And some of the jokes were just out of place. The one about the foundations of the planet being good just before Asguard exploded was way off base. Not so much as a tear for the people who lived there. No wailing. No mention of how destroying a planet in a connected planetary system might impact everything else.

I'm really starting to hope the rumors of Infinity War involving time-travel (via Eye of Agamoto) to the 1st Avengers movie pan out and erase some of this.

AND IN WHAT UNIVERSE WOULD HELA BE "WORTHY" TO LIFT THE FRIGGIN' HAMMER? All the frescoes showed it to be her weapon!

Surtur - arguably Thor's "Mandarin" felt like a punchline without the "I'm Trevor" joke.
 
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mrsmig

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I wanted a lot less Skurge (whose story arc was predictable to the point of being yawn-inducing) and a lot more Topaz, who was enigmatic and therefore fascinating.
 

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Wifey and I checked out Thor: Ragnarok and despite his shorn locks, she still got all the feels for bare-chested Thunder God, so yeah. She liked it.

I found it trying just a little too hard to turn Thor into Jerry Lewis, but seriously is anyone gonna try and tell me Thor: The Dreary World was a better installment? I say thee NAY!

I enjoyed Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster and Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie (though they copped out on her same-sex love thang) and Cate Blanchett's Hela had the right amount of campiness because I never did figure out what her evil scheme was supposed to work. Marvel still has a villain problem, but the interplay between Thor and Loki totally worked for me. Karl Urban's Skurge repeated the best part of Walter Simonson's second-only-to-Jack Kirby run on the Thor comic book and they finally gave Idris Elba's Heimdall something to do. Even Anthony Hopkins seemed to have enjoyed his comedic turn.

Three-and-a-half stars because any Thor movie that loses both Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings is better than any Thor movie with them.
 
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GypsyLayla

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AND IN WHAT UNIVERSE WOULD HELA BE "WORTHY" TO LIFT THE FRIGGIN' HAMMER? All the frescoes showed it to be her weapon!

OMG. I think I blocked this out it bothered me so much!! YES! Thank you!

EDIT. DAMNIT. Husband just explained it to me. BEFORE movie 1: Thor was an arsehole. He still carried the hammer. It is Odin that takes the hammer and whispers that, he who holds the hammer has to be worthy. And then Thor is exiled and can't life the hammer until he is worthy. SO, the hammer was not judgemental until Movie 1, which is millennia after Hela held it.
 
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Cyia

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OMG. I think I blocked this out it bothered me so much!! YES! Thank you!

EDIT. DAMNIT. Husband just explained it to me. BEFORE movie 1: Thor was an arsehole. He still carried the hammer. It is Odin that takes the hammer and whispers that, he who holds the hammer has to be worthy. And then Thor is exiled and can't life the hammer until he is worthy. SO, the hammer was not judgemental until Movie 1, which is millennia after Hela held it.

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