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The Comic Con trailer (http://pursuitist.com/arts/thor-comic-con-trailer-watch/).

Based on the Marvel Comic, the powerful but arrogant warrior Thor is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard and sent to live amongst humans on Earth, where he soon becomes one of their finest defenders.
Coming to theatres 6 May 2011.

You don't read the internet much do you.

Looks like good stupid fun.

Looks better than the initial pictures led me to believe. If anything I think it'll look silly but have good acting.

The stills they've sent out had concerned me, as the armor looked plastic. But now seeing it with real film lighting, motion and grain, it looks perfect. I fucking loved this trailer. The Destroyer at the end was perfect.

It's becoming painfully obvious that comic book fans are getting more love in the movie theater lately than in the comics themselves... (drops in talking point and sits back)

Movies are a better format for these stories anyway, primarily because movies actually end. There's no "We've been telling Captain Meathead stories for fifty years, we're out of ideas! Shit add more alternate universes!" crap going on.

I'm in.  The trailer was enough to get me to see this in the theater.  I've always been a Thor and Captain America fan.

That and Marvel is HORRRRRRIBLE right now.

Natalie Portman  :heart:

-End of Line

edit:  Kat Dennings, Rene Russo   :heart: :heart:

Cosmic Marvel is pretty awesome if you like space opera and awesomeness.

Trailer looks interesting, going with the Kirby designs for Asgard was a pretty brave decision but I think it works. We'll see of course, if nothing else I think this movie is going to have some really great moments. I'm worried though that it's going to be some sort of 80's style 'mysterious stranger Kung Fuing bad guys across America' bookended with awesome Godly stuff.

"Your ancestors called it magic, you call it science"  :mob:

   :why_so_serious:

This becomes especially obvious when you have a universe that has both magic and technology side by side.

Seriously, in some worlds having magic and science be very separate makes sense. Marvel is not one of those worlds.

Worried?  I'm counting on it.   :drill:

The actor whose playing Thor really beefed the fuck up there.



I also dig the rainbow road.

Wow, that looks great!  I like how Agent Coulson is the thread thru all of these Marvel movies, that's kind of cool.  Asgard looks great, the armor looks great and I'm thrilled they Kirby-ized it.  Good-looking cast; Portman is always eye candy and Sif and the nerd girl are hot as well.  For the ladies they have Thor. 

I was really unsure they could pull Thor off, but now I'm not so worried.  Kind of curious why they picked Kenneth Branagh to direct, maybe it's because he's so versed in Shakespeare and that's needed here for the Asgardians?

Okay.  To figure out who the actor was, I discovered that they're remaking Red Dawn.  Red fucking Dawn. 

Wolverines!

My wide and I actually MST3K'd that movie over the weekend.

Col. Andy Tanner: ...The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that's why they're here. That's why they won't use nukes anymore; and we won't either, not on our own soil. The whole damn thing's pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords.
Darryl Bates: What started it?
Col. Andy Tanner: I don't know. Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later, they're gonna fight.
Jed Eckert: That simple, is it?
Col. Andy Tanner: Or maybe somebody just forget what it was like.
Jed Eckert: ...Well, who *is* on our side?
Col. Andy Tanner: Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.
Darryl Bates: Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.
Col. Andy Tanner: There *were*.
[he throws whiskey on the fire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]

Yeah, that was my thought. I mean, Norse gods running around being all mythological, it would be impossible to pull that off without someone like Brannaugh.

Looks pretty generic to me like Clash of the Titans.  It was an alright movie but no Spiderman or Ironman.  Personally, the fact that he isn't a anachronistic god just kills it for me. Superman with a hammer isn't particularly interesting.

It looks like it has potential. We'll see how it all works out. I suspect he will spend most of the movie not being Thor which I'm not sure I like.

Looked pretty cool.  Not too sure about Hopkins as Odin, though.

And they really should have put Peter Stormare in there somewhere.  Loki, maybe.

Gave away too much in the trailer. I know exactly what the plot is now and how it ends. Blech.

I think the only thing in that trailer that was any sort of surprise is that it looks like Odin dies (although even then, I wouldn't count out the possibility that Odin ends up surviving somehow).  That, and I thought it was a nice touch that Thor has to become worthy of holding the hammer again.

Christ, give me a film you can't predict these days...

Never was a big Thor fan, but I recall some issues where Odin went into a coma and Loki raised hell.  As for the trailer, show me a big budget movie that doesn't blow the plot these days.  The more money they spend, they more they feel they need to show.  I hate it too but my advice is just to not watch the trailers. 

Also, keep in mind that it isn't a trailer in the strictest sense (most trailers aren't 5 minutes long).  It's footage that was shown at Comic Con.

There's at least three plotlines in 'classic' Thor where Odin is incapacitated or in the "Odinsleep" and Loki gets himself into control. Heck, he more or less just pulled it again in the latest reboot, getting Balder to exile Thor.

That's pretty much the plot of the Hulk vs Thor animated flick they did as well.  Odin enters the Odinsleep, or whatever it's called, and Loki summons Banner to Asgard, and separates him from the Hulk, who he then lets loose on Asgard.  Hulk promptly kicks the crap out of Thor, and all of Asgard, until they get Hel involved. Odin wakes back up, and everyone lives happily ever after.  Except poor Bruce Banner, who is forced out of the lovely dream life with Betty, and their kid, in Niflheim, gets re-attached to the Hulk and sent back to Earth to continue sucking.

Um, would I be shallow if I said I'm not too concerned about the plot if they give me the lovely, lovely eye-candy?

Yeah, but no more shallow than all the guys in the theater checking out Portman, or Kat Dennings.

Dude... There was more plot and political intrigue between the Gods in that five minute trailer than you got in the entirety of Clash of the Titans.

Olympus in Clash consisted of Neeson and Fiennes saying a couple of nonsensical lines, some extras standing around looking God-like, jump ahead an hour so Neeson can get the money shot line in, jump 15 more minutes to what I assume was the end of the movie for Neeson to fail to make any more sense (not sure on the last part, I'd already turned the movie off by then).

Adequately entertaining, not as good as Iron Man

I don't think much of Thor as a superhero, and none of the characters in this are particularly interesting, I didn't really care what happened to most of them.

So would you recommend watching it this weekend if you're "meh" about Thor or instead try to find a different movie and catch this on Netflix/ DVD?  It's the wife's B-day tomorrow and going to a movie on the closest Saturday is a tradition.

Well Thor won't be too bad with the womenfolk as it has some romance within it.  Altogether I liked it.  I think they did a great job of showing both the Asgardian aspects as well as the Earth parts. 

It was refreshing that it wasn't a typical origin story - Thor started as Thor with all his powers. There's no lame scientist discovering a magic hammer and being transformed - it's just who he is.

FAKE EDIT because Merusk posted: I am very meh about Thor and comics in general but I like superhero films. If your missus enjoyed either of the Iron Man films then you could do worse than go see this. I don't think it's quite as good as Iron Man - mainly because RDJ isn't in it - but I do think it holds up better than IM2. YMMV

On the other hand, if she's amused by good looking, buff Australians then this might be right up her alley. So to speak. Plus there's quite a sweet romance of sorts. Apparently.

You could probably do a lot worse than see it. The 'romance' is pretty much paper thin though, I really wouldn't sell it to anyone as part of the movie.


As a superhero romp with Ironman levels of production quality it's good fun. As an epic saga for the ages, not so much. n.b. I saw it in 2D and was fine, I doubt 3D would have made much difference.

The chap who plays the lead is pretty damn hench though, and he's tall. At 6'4" he towers over the rest of the cast. Intentionally of course.

He also played Kirk's dad in the new ST.  I am going to see this Sat afternoon, it looks like fun.

My wife is a geek.  Previous movies we've seen for her birthday were: all the Spiderman (as they all opened 1st week of May or thereabouts) a Harry Potter, Iron Man and  the Scorpion King.   So long as it's fun, it's usually a good call, romance is not a requirement.   (In fact, the only romance I've ever taken her to was Titanic.  I won't go to them  :grin:)

I wonder why Natalie Portman does these roles that are (from my perspective) beneath her; I'd like to understand her perspective so I'm informed about who she is as a person. Does she pick these projects for fun? It's confusing to sort out in my head aside from "Gimme money. Lots of money."

To go from Star Wars to Black Swan to Your Highness to Thor... I almost want to know about who she is as a person or what her priorities are because it seems like she's grabbing up every role no matter how Artsy or Entertainment it is.

thor and your highness were probably done deals before black swan was in production and even then it was her break out/time to get artsy role. I doubt she was even thinking oscar at the time. I expect her future roles to be a bit heftier but I wouldn't expect anything this year.

She picks them for fun/money is my guess. Didn't she miss her own movie debut in the starwars prequels to study for exams or something? She doesn't seem very artsy from what I can tell, there's no THIS IS MY CRAFT BAAAW stuff that I've seen.


I admit, I don't pay all that much attention to what she says  :why_so_serious:

Same reason Michael Caine or Anthony Hopkins will be in anything. Work is work.

Plus the order we see films released in doesn't necessarily reflect the order they were shot in.

And Micheal Caine says flat out that over 50% of the films he was in were shit. (His personal pick of the worst film he ever was in was "The Swarm," if only because they kept the bees penned up in their hives till the director needed them to swarm out, and as a result the bees shat all over him as they wont do it inside the hive)

Vincent Price, in one of his last interviews, had the same work is work attitude.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoneyDearBoy


That has a decent listing of various examples if you're bored. 

As Michael Caine apparently said about working on Jaws IV: "I have never seen it [the film], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!"

There's a great quote from Michael Caine about his appearing in a Jaws movie paying for a house.  Something like "Yes, it's a shitty movie but you should see the house I bought with the money!"

NP has done some weird stuff, liked her in V for Vendetta (stellar film), I think that's pretty cool she is open for almost any role.  It's given her high visibility, can't think of a young actress who's getting more work.

Also glad to see Mila Kunis having success.  Not sure why, maybe it's my peener talking?  

Heh... 5 seconds.  :awesome_for_real:

You do realize that comes off as a wee bit creepy right?  :oh_i_see:

James Franco is another great actor who seems to jump between great movies and awful movies.

There's a good quote from John Malkovich about why he wasn't in Goodfellas:

"It sort of came at a bad time in my life, when I wasn't feeling well and didn't want to think about working. It's hard to explain why you end up in Eragon and not GoodFellas. But De Niro is fantastic."

Acting is a job 100% of the time. Only sometimes is it something else on top.

Here's all you need to know about Natalie Portman as a person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpMPFGBtE7Q

(ETA: NSFW lyrics.)

So, all my friends are saying this movie rocks. I'll probably see it this weekend.

You can also avoid the 3d version, apparently it was all added post production. There are a couple of scenes where the hammer's flying around and that's pretty much it.

I just saw it and thought it was amazing. The 3D was utter crap, though. Yikes. It never let you forget it was all a bunch of fake-ass special effects.

I knew JMS had a cameo in it, but I didn't realize he actually wrote the movie too.

I really liked Portman in this. She's a great... I guess character actor is the term, she plays Natalie Portman.  :grin: The romance bit was believable. It wasn't some epic soul bonding garbage, she was just really into him.

1. Do NOT see this in 3d. There is absolutely zero 3d-ish stuff in it. Total waste of money.
2. It's pretty decent. I wasn't blown away by it, it's not particularly memorable, but neither is there anything actively bad about it.

Except character actors play everybody but themselves. I think the term you're looking for is "She plays herself." :P

Okay I haven't watched it yet but I went to the imdb page and :uhrr:

THIS WAS DIRECTED BY KENNETH BRANAGH?

Who greenlights Mr. Shakespeare Adaptations to direct a big summer action superhero flick? I mean, I'm pleased to hear it worked out pretty well but WHAT.

There wasn't a single moment in the movie when i didn't know what was going to happen next and i was still massively entertained.  Very fun, definitely worth a watch.

I was surprised at how well he handled such a big action story.

Saw it this afternoon while waiting for my new glasses to be made.

Liked it quite a bit. Stellan Skaarsgard is quite possibly the best actor in the world at portraying a believable professor type.

On the Branagh thing, there was a bit about him on CBS Sunday Morning last week that I caught (cause my mom was here and watching it) which talked to him. Apparently Thor was the first comic book he ever picked up when he was a kid and he read issues of it for years. Plus, all super hero movies are melodramas. Someone who has been acting in and directing both tragic and comic Shakespeare for 30 years should be able to handle your run of the mill melodramatic super hero story fairly easily.

I liked the line in A.O. Scott's review of the flick: Stellan Skaarsgard is at this point a leading candidate for the Nobel in Pretend Sciences.

Saw it today, liked it a lot.  Almost as good as Iron Man.

But to echo whats been said already, 3D is NOT needed at all for this.  I saw it in 3D because the theater didn't have 2D and it wasn't even worth the extra $2 per ticket.

Totally watchable and enjoyable.  I could nitpick a few things about it as a movie but I had a good time.  The scenes between Portman and Hemsworth were totally believable and, IMO, the best parts of the movie.

I think it was jam-packed with more Marvel Universe references than any other movie to-date, too.  A few casually dropped lines got you references to Bruce Banner & (I think)Tony Stark, and there were the cameos by Hawkeye and Agent Coulson.  The guy next to me in the theater implied there were a few more cameos/ references, but I didn't catch any more than that. I'm also not a huge comic fan, though.

Heimdall was pretty damn cool. I wanted more of him and less of the fat warrior guy.


That last bit is pretty much what I said to my wife when she expressed shock over seeing Branagh as the director.  I didn't know he'd been a big fan, kind of a neat factoid and explains why he was able to take the material seriously. (Which is a lot of what a comic movie needs to get folks to do well with it.)

The sequel needs to just be about Heimdall, seriously.  What a baddass.And mythologically, he has no equal 'cept Odin (most of the time) yes?

Other cameos/references:

That's all I spotted on one viewing.

Marvel Studios pick actors and directors who have talent but aren't generally that expensive (yet). Brannagh's directorial ability is known, but he isn't as expensive as going for a full-on Hollywood blockbuster director.

Yeah, 3D is useless. Serves me right for fandangoing in a bar after four martinis.

It is not even the money part. Branagh and Favreau are both ACTORS who got into directing. They actually know the craft from both places and it shows in how the actors in their movies act more like real people than the ones who are in your average summer blockbuster. Both of them can make mediocre actors seem good, most of the guys like Michael Bay can make good actors seem bad.


Also, I saw it 2d...almost saw 3d on accident but when they charged me 10 bucks for a noon show on a saturday I asked "no matinees on Saturday?" and she said "there is a 3 dollar surcharge for 3d movies, the next 2d is at 12:45." I ended up going to Burger King and grabbing lunch with that 3 dollars.

Surprised at the praise.

Just saw it, really enjoyed it.  They did an amazing job of tying the Asgardian mythos into modern day.  Great story from JMS, great directing from KB and good acting all around.  I don't know what they could have done better, good to see Agent Coulson again, Nick Fury sure keeps him busy!
Lots of humor, action and larger-than-life events; great summer movie!

I didn't stay for the easter egg at the end. Figured it was for Cap and I can catch it online somewhere.

Really wasn't that enthused about yet another super hero movie, but very glad I saw it.

Watching this was like riding a slip-n-slide on level ground.

I saw this over the weekend and went into it expecting less than i got. I happen to be a Thor fan from the 80s and had a hard time finding fault with anything in the movie really. While i might have enjoyed the first Iron Man more, i would put it right up there with it. I'm amazed that we somehow went from crappy adaptations of superhero comics to decent movies so quickly. Maybe Lord of the Rings to thank for this originally? I'm sure Iron Man and the X-men didn't hurt. To see the superhero recover from flops like The Shadow and the goofy Billy Zane superhero movie is great. Casting  was really good and of course Thor kicks ass.

I saw a couple of trailers before the film that look like the summer is going to be great for superhero movie fans. Green Lantern is looking better each trailer i see and Captain America looks like it might be the best of the summer just going  off the trailers. Nazis are always great bad guys.

You can't blame Billy Zane for anything which is bad.

The Phantom isn't exactly good source material, either.  I remember reading it in the comics section back in the 80's and the whole whole story  felt like the 50's comic it is.  That's not going to work well without a big overhaul similar to the ones the iconic Marvel & DC chars have had over the years.

Not much you can do about a dude who hangs out in the middle of Africa wearing purple tights, honestly. There is almost no way to fix that as material, though there was a cartoon with a futuristic Phantom that took a decent stab at it. The Shadow, on the other hand, should have been way better than it was--it almost was good in a few spots.

But definitely the thinking about how to do superheroes and get the tone right has come a long way. I was watching Tim Burton's Batman the other day and was shocked at how weak it feels compared with the films that came later. I didn't like it all that much at the time, but against the way that the basic concept of the superhero in film has developed since?

Lest we get too cocky the modern film era of Super Hero movies also brought us Daredevil, the Fantastic Four movies and Catwoman. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go make plans to see this.

The director's cut version of daredevil was ok. The FF movies had moments, but the casting for Reed and Sue was so bad there was really no way to do anything.

I'll probably be a bit picky about Thor, being a nordic pagan and whatnot. The Simonson era comics were great, though.

I wonder how much involvement JMS had. He got story credit, and he was in it, and once mentioned that he likes Branaugh, but I can't find any interviews or articles beyond that.

If you can't leave your nordic paganism at the door, you will NOT enjoy Thor. It takes the stargate approach to mythology in that our religions and myths were based on these immortal space people.

Oh... like scientology.   :grin:

I had forgotten about catwoman. In fact, i never saw the whole movie. Daredevil was, meh. Fantastic Four was decent i guess. I was never a big FF fan, so the movie pretty much held set with what i already thought about them, though the thing seemed to be plus. Yea, there have been quite a few bad ones, but it seems now we get 2 good ones for one so-so one. That is a hell of a lot better than our odds 30 years ago. We'll see how the summer goes.

3 big superhero movies, and the first one gets a plus in my book. Thor was a movie i was surprised in a good way over. I will probably grab it on dvd/blu-ray to add to my collection. Now we see how Green Lantern and Captain America go.

I thought FF was pretty wretched. One of the all-time dumb storytelling adjustments in making Doom one of the gang to go into space. FF2 was pure shit.

They should cast Chris Evans as Namor in a movie.  That way he can be all of the Invaders.

(Bucky doesn't count he was a sidekick)

There's also a Hawkeye cameo, by the way. You'll know it when you see it.

The Human Torch doesn't count either, right? I don't think Johnny Storm was ever in the Invaders, it was the original android Human Torch.

OH... yes.  Derr.

I'm wondering what the big-ass crossover movies are going to look like in ten years.

One thing i have to wonder about is doesn't the Thor Timeline sort of shoot down the whole idea that that guy getting his mugshot taken in the French Prison in Iron Man 2 was supposed to be a Thor cameo?

Cause the entirety of Thor's banishment to earth takes place in New Mexico.  About the only plausible explanation (since I believe the Iron Man 2 Cameo would chronologically be before the events of Thor) would be that mere months before his banishment he was galavanting around europe and got arrested, but somehow that just doesent seem likely.  Then again, Jane had enough data on 17? different wormhole phenominon that had previously occured, so who kows?.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, the fan boys were wrong and there never was a Thor cameo in Iron Man 2 at all.

I thought one of the producers actually confirmed it.

I don't recall that being the case and certainly can't find anything to back it up.

What I can find is a reference to a tweet from someone who was, allegedly, a "Creative Designer involved with the film" saying that it was a cameo and which was then reported across the websites. Doesn't look like anyone's proved the veracity of his claim as being involved with the film.  The guy is, however, a "social media" expert so this is more than likely a way of getting attention and proving that a) social media works and b) people will believe anything.

I'm curious what The Avengers is going to look like next year.  Or more to the point, I'm curious as to how much time is going to be spent putting the team together.  Despite how much groundwork they've laid in the various movies so far, the status quo of each of the characters is such that it seems like it would take some time in the Avengers movie to get them to a point where they can join up. 


I almost feel like Thor and Cap could have used one more movie each to set up the Avengers, and Iron Man might have been better set up for it without the second movie.  With Iron Man, it doesn't take much to set up the character, whereas Cap has to deal with adjusting to another time, and Thor has to deal with adjusting to another world.  In some ways, I'd rather see them do that first instead of rushing into the big team-up movie where presumably all the characters will be fighting for screen time (something the X-Men movies have struggled with).

If they spend a lot of time putting the team together then it will pretty much kill the movie dead because that could take half the film leaving no time for plot. But the seeds have been sown since Iron Man with all the post-credits teasers. They need to get that sorted within the first 10 minutes and that shouldn't be too hard.  Getting Tony Stark out from being a consultant and as part of the team?

NICK FURY: Stark - we need you to lead the team.
TONY STARK: No way - I'm only a consultant remember.
NICK FURY: You're right - you haven't got the skills or the cojones to lead this team. We'll find someone more capable.
TONY STARK: What the...? No way - you can't find anyone with more knowledge of what's going on with me. They won't be able to handle it like I can. I'll do it.
NICK FURY: Okay. Moving on...


I reckon they can set up the bad-guy and macguffin (obvious from Thor's post credit teaser) and establish the team within the first 10 minutes of the film. I'm also not that worried about spending any time with all the members of the team because there's only going to really be three who count and that we spend much time with.

The problem then becomes, why include these plot points to begin with, only to invalidate them almost immediately?  With Iron Man, it's not a huge deal, but it would still feel a little strained for Fury to make a point of telling Stark that he's too unreliable to play an active part on the team, only to completely change his mind at the beginning of Avengers.


The thing about spending time with each of the characters is that Thor, Iron Man, and Cap have their own franchises to develop their characters in.  Hulk's franchise is sort of in Limbo, but he's had at least one movie although they're now on their 3rd actor playing Banner in just under a decade possibly confusing things a bit for the audience.  Fury's appearances add up, and Black Widow got at least an ok amount of screen time in Iron Man 2 but not really enough to get to know her character too well.  Hawkeye has only had a cameo in Thor.  So do they spend some time reintroducing the Hulk, who will have gone the longest without an on-screen appearance?  Does Downey get the most screen-time, being the biggest star, despite the fact that we've already got two Iron Man movies?  Do they develop Black Widow and Hawkeye's backstories since those characters don't have their own movies to flesh them out in?  Jeremy Renner has been getting a lot of attention since Hurt Locker.  Did they sign him on here with the intention of leaving him largely in the background?

Mind you, I'm a fairly big Whedon fan, and I know from his previous work in Marvel comics that his respect for the characters shows through in his writing.  I'm not saying that they can't do a good Avengers movie here.  I just think they've got a very big juggling act, and I'm curious to see what their plan for pulling it off is.

Don't forget, we also still have no idea what (if any) plans they have for Wasp and Giant Man for Avengers as well.

They spent a decent amount of time in the original X-Men bringing in Rogue and Wolverine, so there's precedent for a slow initial team movie. Avengers is actually in a better spot due to the solo movies, of course. I hope the Vision makes it in at some point, he was one of my favorites to throw into 'most powerful superhero' debates. Maybe done like Dr Manhattan. And if you bring the Vision, you can throw in a sexy Scarlet Witch!

When do we get to the Defenders?  :grin: Valkyrie, Doc Strange, Gargoyle? Hell yeah!

Ahem. Sorry.

Oh no Joss Whedon is writing the Avengers. Argh!

"Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning?"

Someone take the word processor away from this man!

If they go the "X-Men" route, they introduce an outsider into a team that is already almost complete. There's a bit of exposition about what's happened / why the team it together (which Sam Jackson can deliver) and then it is on to blowing stuff up. They don't need to spend 45 minutes bonding and becoming BFFs before the Red Skull and Skrull hordes show up .

I also think that Marvel Studios intentionally strands some of its characters so that the actor can't be too confident that they'll actually be needed for the next film.

So much hate for Whedon and so much reference to this line while ignoring the line that definitely got a laugh (and the fact that only two lines of his were kept from a complete overhaul of the script).  His dialogue and character changes to Toy Story and Speed didn't seem to harm them.

Plus, love him or hate him, Whedon has got experience with Marvel properties and also handling ensemble casts.

I'm expecting Iron Man to be essentially Malcom Reynolds, and everybody else having the weight of the rest of the Firefly cast. That is to say, plenty for the actors to chew on, but the story still centered on Iron Man.

Also, did Whedon write the toad line? I'd convinced myself that was a Halle Berry ad-lib.

If it was edited down from the normal stream of Whedon-isms, it would stick out. But I wouldn't see that as out of place as a throw-away line on Firefly. That show was almost like Henny Youngman, so many quirky quotes and most of them good, delivered so that the lesser ones just slid on past.

They're re-airing Firefly on some network right now, so I'm especially partial to Whedon currently.

I think he did.  I remember reading that whoever wrote it was pretty annoyed by Halle Berry on that one though, because they'd written the line to be delivered in a completely different tone than she ended up using. 

Because Halle Berry was a shitty Storm? Good riddance.

Yeah, Halle Berry is totally to blame for that. A better actress would have made that line awesome. :oh_i_see:

Anyway as far as re-introducing the cast and such for Avengers, it can be done quickly. I mean everyone knows who The Hulk is. There have been movies, animated shows, a live-action show, "Hulk Hands", inflatable Hulk punching bags. Just the other day at the supermarket I heard some guy saying "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" to a cashier. As far as stuff like Iron Man being an advisor rather than leader or whatever - how many people are even going to remember that, and how many would care if it was explained away with a few lines of dialogue?

It was a scene at the tail end of Iron Man 2 that was specifically setting up the character for the Avengers.  All that continuity they're trying to establish will be for shit if they can't even get the end of Iron Man 2 to flow into the beginning of The Avengers.

These are movies based on comic books, I assume disregarding continuity is expected from both sides.

Also, the mass market is not us.

The vast majority of folks will go to see the kickass summer blockbuster superhero movie, not worry about whether Marvel fully developed the leadins to the ZOMG HERO MOVIE CONVERGENCE movie.

Again, how many people will even remember, and out of those how many will care?

Avengers Member: (Talking to Stark) I thought you were just going to be an advisor?
Stark: That was before I cleaned up my act.

Bam. Explained in two lines of dialog. Or "With my ego?" Or "And I thought Lindsey was a natural blond. (Raises eyebrow)" Or "nobody puts baby in the corner." Or "Do you know what happens to a toad when you hit it with lightning?"

Ok...maybe not that last one. Point is, it can be explained in literally 5 seconds. Sure, they could make Stark just an advisor, or start him as an advisor but it becomes clear that he's a natural leader or whatever, but if they want to just start with him leading the Avengers they can give him a single quip and Downey's charm and smarm can sell it.

Yea, I think those after credit scenes are there so fanboys can crank one out into their popcorn and then go home to create Internet buzz.

I guess I just don't really see the benefit of dismissing stuff from the previous movies that was obviously meant to be built upon on the basis that nobody will remember or care.  I realize this is just a "comic book movie", but lazy writing is lazy writing.  I'm not even trying to go comic book nerd here.  I was speculating how they're going to put the team together based on what they've built up so far, and the reaction seems to be "fuck all that, just have Nick Fury say some shit and move on to the action".  Is there that strong of a desire to just see two hours of the Avengers fighting people that any and all character development needs to be rushed through before the opening credits have even faded from the screen?  Maybe it's just me but Downey and Hemsworth at least both seem more entertaining in these movies when they aren't doing super hero stuff.  I'd settle for maybe three good action scenes and the rest of the time let the cast play off each other.



 :facepalm:

I guess this is proof positive that people don't remember.  It wasn't an after credits scene.  It was the scene right before the credits.

Doesn't really negate his point tho.

Dear neckbeardy comic book types:

We don't read comic books, we know nothing about the 'backstory' of the Avengers, and frankly we don't care. As long as the movie has a trailer with buff dudes (and dudettes) fighting bad guys, explosions, and maybe a comic one liner we will probably decide to see the movie. As long as the movie is enjoyable and tells its particular story in a plausible way, we will be happy. We knew almost nothing about the X-Men and we went to see multiples of that and did not really care when those of the neckbeardy persuasion tried to tell us how 'so and so is going to become so and so" or "The movie totally broke from the comic on such and such plot item". We knew of Iron Man only from the Black Sabbath song. Captain America is a guy in a red, white, and blue suit. Most of us were not totally aware that there even WAS a comic about Thor, we just know of him as the God of Thunder from school. The hulk is a big green guy who ruins a lot of clothes.

Regardless of what you seem to need from a movie for it to 'work', we don't really care. We, the general movie going public, want a movie that removes us from our shitty lives for a couple of hours and is entertaining. Large numbers of us even like to see total pieces of storytelling garbage like Transformers 2. And you know what is 'great' about these little tidbits? We are the people these movies are made for because we pay the bills. So if the story does not 'develop properly' enough for you who hang out in comic book stores, it does not matter. The movie will make a profit and we will get our 2 hours of escape from reality.

Sincerely,

The majority of the real-world population.

:heart:   :Love_Letters: :heart:

Bring back Lou Ferrigno, bitches!

(http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080612/ferrigno-hulk_l.jpg)

Also:

(http://imageshack.us/m/36/4615/150pxcaptainamericatv.jpg)
My fiancee and I were the only two that stayed in the theater for Iron Man 1's Nick Fury reveal after the credits. I then had to explain why it was so kick ass.

Just drop acid. It's cheaper than movies and probably better for your brain.

Very few comic nerds maintain the belief that the movies have to completely follow the comics.  If movies where completely locked into what the comics did, we wouldn't have the last two Batman movies among other things.  Most people didn't really even care that part of the ending to Watchmen was changed (in fact most of the criticism here was that it tried to be too faithful to the comic).  In short, I think you're arguing against a mindset that hasn't really existed since X-Men 1, or Spider-man's organic web shooters.  Also, I wouldn't brag about being one of the people that helped a shit movie like Transformers 2 make a profit.  If you can't come up with a better means to get two hours escapism than that, that's a shame.

"Is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark

Touche'

I did not spend a dime on seeing Transformers 2 (unless you count watching it via a netflix rental because of the thread about the next one on here). I was not speaking for me per se, but paraphrasing the thoughts of the people who blockbuster movies (which the majority of superhero movies have been since Christopher Reeve was wearing a cape and tights) are marketed at.

You also missed the point that the "well they NEED to develop such and such or the movie will suck" back and forth in threads like this mean two things in the blockbuster movie business: jack and shit.

I didn't miss that point, I just don't see how it pertains to this thread.  People are arguing over their preferences for how they'd like to see the Avengers done (in particular how much or little time should be spent on putting the team together, and how strictly the writers need to adhere to what happened in the previous movies), but I don't think anybody here has argued that the success or failure of this movie is going to be determined by it or that they need to appeal to comic books fans or any of that shit. 

That there are blockbuster movies that do big box office numbers regardless of quality is a "yeah, no shit" argument.  Mind you most of us here don't get any of that money, so I'm not sure what you've got to gain as a consumer by championing movie studios' rights to make shit movies like Transformers, but whatever.

 :heart:

Who has popcorn left over by the end of a movie?

LOTS and LOTS of people.  I work at a movie theatre, and it boggles my mind the sheer number of people who will spend 20+ bucks on obscenely overpriced concession items and then only eat half of them.  Hell, quite often they don't even finish their chocolate coated rasins / sweedish berries / Gummie bears too.

It's because there's little incentive to buy the small popcorn when you're already paying $5 for a fucking small, might as well pay 50 cents more for a ton of popcorn you won't eat.  The whole price gouging on concessions has got to be reashing critical mass, it's gotten disgusting.

I liked the movie, was happy with their selection for Thor.  Natale Portman was a poor choice.  Would have rather they played Odin as slightly-unstable.  Really liked that Loki calls him out on "there had to be another reason".

Re: Tony Stark being 'just a consultant'.  The very moment this was said I chuckled - Tony's personality is either complete disinterested or all-in, there is no way he'd be a contributing consultant.  I thought that exchange showed some clever back-and-forth between the two egos/personalities getting to a point where they could work together.  Just more groundwork showing Tony saying one thing, but then doing another (like giving away the Iron Man secret)

Husband takes the leftover popcorn home, because he actually likes slightly stale movie theatre popcorn.  It's obscene how much things cost though, which makes me glad I have a large purse sometimes.

Since I'm fairly certain the husband won't go see this with me, I may have to go by myself this weekend and enjoy the beefcake.. err.. story and effects.  Yeah.

The fact that people bite at that reasoning is why so many Americans have credit issues.  It makes no economic sense.  People pay extra for something that delivers zero marginal enjoyment/benefit/utility.

My understanding is that the film studios take a high percentage of the door prices (I've heard of 90-100% rates for some hot films), so that the main way a theater makes money is off of the concession stand.  This study (http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/hartmann.popcorn.html) seems to agree.

That said, I get the jumbo popcorn myself and have it for a snack the next night or two when I go.

I think a lot of people see a movie as a trivial extravagance. Big box of popcorn! Big soda! Big spender!  :grin:

 :facepalm:

I'm surprised somebody had to do a study for that as recently as two years ago.  It's a pretty commonly acknowledged fact about the industry.

Huh.  Wasn't expecting this sort of reaction.  Normally I'm the person who is overtly accepting of movies!

It's probably because I saw this in France with all my French friends, but I didn't think it was very good.  I think this was influenced by all of said French friends mocking the movie the entire way through, then making jokes about how god awful the movie was the entire rest of the trip.  I think I enjoyed it a lot until the credits, when everybody I was with started pointing out how shitty it was.   :awesome_for_real:

I was expecting a similar reaction here, but it seems not.  Overall, I actually enjoyed it, but it had some flaws that kind of ruined it for me.

It is true that summer blockbusters can be bad movies and make bank but I'd prefer good movies personally. Velorath is not arguing that Avengers needs to be true to the comic, he's arguing that it should make sense in relation to the other movies. Which it should, even though it will make money regardless.

Maybe it didn't have enough cigarette smoking flimed in black and white for them?  :awesome_for_real:

When the French stop actually being the pricks everyone accuses Americans of being I'll start accepting their opinions of shit.  :grin:

I thought they were pretty obvious not making Natalie Portman a love interest, and rather just a chick who wanted to fuck Thor.

Also, ooo, some French people didn't like something that came from America, directed by someone from Britain. News At Eleven. :oh_i_see:

I hope you explained to your French friends the concept of a 'summer blockbuster'.  Portman is there for some romantic scenes so the wives/girlfriends who were dragged to this can imagine themselves in her shoes.  That and Thor minus shirt.  :drillf:

Your complaint about Thor's Big Day is a good one, didn't think of that.  I guess getting run over four times makes you care about people more?

Plus you gotta love Thor and his crew flying to Jotunheim just to kick some ass because there was un-kicked ass there.

This is pretty much how it is.  The theaters don't make much the first few weeks of a new release so they have to make a profit by charging a lot for food and drinks.  Thats why the theater owners love it when they get a movie that plays for weeks or , like Avatar, months.

They're fair criticisms and I don't think anyone would argue that the film didn't have some serious flaws if you want to start seriously analysing it. However it was fun and shit got blowed up without needing to disengage one's brain. They told an entertaining story, which already puts this head and shoulders above most summer blockbusters, combined with the fact that the flaws are more of the, 'Well that's kind of far fetched' variety rather than the 'THAT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!!' sort I'd say it was pretty great.

That's just what Asgardians do. It's like the Nordic middle east.

Wow. We must have seen different movies.
Dunno why this has to be spoilered, but eh.

Besides the fact that Dennings is fascinating by default  :grin:.  It can be said Darcy was simply more fanscinating-er than Jane.
Jane's character was just too bland and underdeveloped.  Darcy was likewise underdeveloped, but at least she wasnt bland.  The same can be said for Torvald (or whatever the f*ck his name is).  Much more interesting character and dialog than Jane.  Of course, something tells me that's the vibe the director wanted to portray - a bland, scientist-type chic... it's just Portman's style did it overkill.  It was like watching Padme all over again.

As a sidenote, Natalie Portman lost a ton of weight for Black Swan (Mila Kunis did too for that matter) which I thought was awesome serious method acting. But it looked like she kept it off for Thor. Yuck. She looks creepy and I hope she starts eating again before she does another movie dammit!

She could look worse.

 :ye_gods:

She's fat (for her) and very pregnant right now.

Oh yeah, that's right. Yay! Fat tummy Natalie Portman!

Just saw it.


Also, Heimdall was cool.

Yes, though

Heimdall is just a rip-off of the wizard Tim imo.

Just saw this in theaters, liked it a good deal. Anyone wanna explain the post-credits scene to me, since I know nothing of comics and might not have seen all the Marvel movies so far?

Thanks for reminding me why actual comics suck.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41488/cosmiccubelovestwinkie.jpg)

/obligatory

Saw it.


Meh +.

Bad parts included lackadaisical romance between Jane and Thor yet in the end they are supposedly madly in love? And the warriors three were very "He Man"-ish and detracted from the movie.
Good parts were Asgard and Heimdall and Kat Denning (which should have had a much larger role in the movie.)

Pic related-

 

Re: Kat Denning -- Her character was a dorkish, plainly dressed political science major serving the role of comic relief. She probably enjoyed a role that didn't rely on her breast size as her most attractive quality. That's not knowing a thing about her, though. She's quite a looker with the right lighting, camera, clothes, make-up, and expression.

~fixed
You are your internet scale of beauty can fuck right off, sir.

Not really, no.

You are not your Khakis.

That said, she does clean up nice. Still wanted to punch her in the face through half of 40-year-old virgin though.

What's an internet scale of beauty?

He's saying you're accusing her of having sharp knees.

I don't respond to sexy women the same way other men might. I blame low testosterone and emotional detachment.

Thanks for sharing.  :uhrr:

I blame your sexual orientation.

NTTAWWT

:facepalm:

I may be weird compared to other ladies, but I would prefer they ditch the forced love interests. I don't put myself in her shoes but rather think BITCH GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM. I'll endure it if it's the best excuse they can come up with to get his shirt off, but generally the love interests just irritate me.

Pretty sure you won't find any arguments about that sentiment around here  :grin:

Whatever, I know I'm a catch.  :grin:

I felt sorry for Renee Russo.  She used to be a big star now she's a bit player.  Should have had an unknown there, it was distracting.

Saw it yesterday, was entertained. Slightly amused by Dennings referring to the hammer as "Meow-Meow."

Yeah. During her scenes I was like... Rene Russo? WTF? I suppose it's better than not working at all, though.

I liked the movie. But...

- I didn't get the impression that the Asgardians where no more than normal guys who just happen to live thousands of years.
- Frost Giants could do to be Giants or threatening
- Thor was a really good brawler with a hammer, He had a bit of a live action superman feel to him. (which begs the question why haven't they got the man of steel right yet....) But again no god of thunder. I think there special effects budget wasn't high enough to show him actually hit someone with thunder, it felt like the "angels" in supernatural where most of thors impressive "supernatural" displays of power were background effects.

Didn't he fly up in the air, twirl his hammer and summon a storm?  Can't remember if there was lightning.

But yeah, nice to see him flying and being Superman-like. 

Considering the heavier emphasis on advanced technology as magic instead of pure magic (Marvel Movieverse), the lightning that did show up from the storm made more sense than Shock-A-Pow from Meow Meow.

Which again renders the question - Are the Asgardians just humans who figured out how to extend their life spans and kinda stopped at that? Considering the movie debunked one theory that Asgard and Earth flow in different times putting things in perspective the Asgardians being "advanced tech race" hasn't changed at all in a 1000 years....

So basically Mjorin is the IronMans suit inspired by some blurry vision of a 40k space marine seen through the eyes of someone born a thousand years ago but possessing tech 4000 years ahead of our time.

Taking it too seriously will only hurt your brain.

You know what bothers me the most?

Not Heimdall, he was awesome and skin color did not matter one fuck.
Not english dude because while not norse in any way it could be put off as a regional thing.
Not silf who had no other defining characteristic other than she was the girl.
Not red beard, who was a really tall dwarf.

The fucking japanese guy. Seriously? Hell I could even accept if he simply 'looked' asian, but is the asgaard realm so vast they even have multiple dialects with completely different accents? jesus that guy really threw me out of the movie.

Ho'gun has always been portrayed as Asian.  He even looks like a Mongol in the comics.  Also he's not Asgardian or he's not of the same race as the Thor and the others. 

I was more put off by the Fencer's terribly fake mustache.

Ok, I'm fine with that but if you aren't going to explain it in the least don't put it in. It really made me stop thinking about the movie and start thinking why the fuck is there an 'really' asian dude there? And don't get me wrong, cheesy british guy was second on that list, it was just hard to nitpick him with mister samurai right there.

 :facepalm:

The whole point of being a nerd is taking shit too seriously. Otherwise we wouldn't have comic books or dnd or rpgs or..dear god mmos! We wouldn't have mmorpgs!!
It was so awesome it fucking twirled! I wanna a movie with him and his twirling mustache. Oh and Heimdall, he gets like 3 scenes in the movie, he and twirling mustache man need to be in the same movie, rush hour style  :drill:

Yeah, because you know, alien planets with magic superscience would really not have the same variety of ethnicities and subcultures as our own planet does. I can imagine a motherfucking superhero with a magic superscience hammer summoning lightning and beating on a magic superscience robot, but why the fuck would those people have some Asian guy hanging around with them?

'Cause like pig and elephant DNA, Asians and super science just don't splice.

lol x10  :grin:

ETA: They also didn't explain those ravens that were sitting on Odin's throne. They should have also left them out.

They didn't explain all the stuff in the vault. Why show it if they're not going to use it?  :grin: (Dogpile!)

Like I said, nothing wrong with heimdall and whoever said asgaard was an entire planet? sure as hell didn't look like one or was explained as one. Might as well have just had a guy in a tophat and monocle speaking the kings english and not bothered to explain it.

Whoever said it wasn't? You know, I generally wouldn't interfere with a nerd's fetishes, but going full autistic-spectrum because there's an Asian guy on a multicultural planet/realm/whatever of space gods who like to dress up in faux-medieval armor, ride horses, build killer robots and so on? Only marginally less weird than the Aryan Brotherhood types getting all shirty about Heimdall being black. It's not even justified by reference to the source material, since Kirby and Lee always portrayed Hogun as an outsider to Asgard who came from a sort of Mongol-ish part of the Nine Worlds.

Reading comprehension is hard. I'm fine with Hogun being some sort of Mongol or whatnot but they could at least make up some brief explanation. I also had a problem with the british dude, though it was not so obvious. It just all begs the question 'why' asgaard would have different cultures, if asgaard is its own planet fine, but as they show the realm it looks like its only a city.

Fuck neckbeardy comic people or the norse-loving "they must all be white" crowd. I am simply saying from a narrative standpoint it is jarring to add such a multicultural cast into what appears to be a a city full of people that inspired legends of the norse gods. You know how they could have gotten around it in the simplest way? When they mentioned that the asgaardians inspired myth, they could have had a line about inspiring legends all over the world.

It's not that hogun shouldn't have been there but they might as well have made one of the warriors a cat and never explained why there was a cat wearing armor in asgaard.

Chin up! If you keep practising you'll get there one day.

This is a film, not a novel. Hogun's a background character with perhaps a couple of lines of dialogue - his backstory is entirely irrelevant to the main story of the film so why the fuck would we want to spend time finding out about it?

I've never read a Thor comic and had never heard of the Warriors Three before the film and had no idea whether he was meant to be oriental or not but also, I didn't care. I'm happy to not have the slightest thing explained to me because it means I'm not being fucking patronised and that the filmmaker assumes that I'm intelligent enough to either go with it or make my own conclusions - especially about a fucking character who wouldn't have been missed by me if he'd been cut from the film totally.

Demanding an explanation for every story element, no matter how fucking irrelevant, is indiciative of the dumbing down of films to cater for an audience who go "Derp!" every time they're asked to use the brains for a second. It's the sort of rationale which, if it had been made today, would have changed to Silence of the Lambs to include Hannibal Lecter's backstory and explain why he was a cannibal rather than just saying "He's a cannibal, he eats rude people. Deal with it!" and leaving him as a fascinating enigma. And yes, I'm well aware that The Adventures Of Young Hannibal Lecter explained exactly that.

As I tell my clients, that sort of shit does not need to be committed to the page.

/rant

EDIT: <columbo>One more thing</columbo> I'm not going to defend the entirety of Thor because quite frankly that whole Hawkeye cameo thing was jarring and felt shoehorned in. That needed more time or to be cut entirely - it was an application of Chekhov's Gun that isn't going to pay off until The Avengers and felt totally out of place.

Wanting background on all characters is pretty much = 'I don't like good movies, just movies that cater to my inexplicable need to have everything explained in depth.'

You apparently weren't watching the costuming or the designs for exterior and interior spaces in Asgard, which look nothing like Norse culture in the real world and actually include a variety of architectural styles. Did I just give you another thing that makes you uncomfortable and requires explanation? If not, why do you accept that the main Asgardian city we see has buildings that don't look "Norse" in a variety of styles, and that the Asgardians don't wear armor that looks "Norse" in any specific sense?

See, the premise as the film sets it up is: there are alien planets that are connected by some kind of wormhole network. (Which Thor describes to Jane as Yggdrasil, the "Tree of Life"). The Asgardians describe them as various 'realms', one of which is Jotunheim. Jotunheim's inhabitants, "frost giants", used to attack other planets in the Yggdrasil network, including Earth. The Asgardians came to Earth to save them from the frost giants and fought a long war. In the course of this conflict, they were worshipped as gods by the cultures which directly witnessed some of the battles in the war.

Another consideration: the original Norse myths have several realms from which gods or god-like beings hail. The main gods that people know about are the Aesir, but there are gods from other realms who are often described as looking or acting somewhat differently than the Aesir.

I'm glad the internet has its white knights rushing to defend flawed movies. I never said I was uncomfortable with the casting choice, just that they never explained it and it was jarring.  The funniest thing about this is people trying to defend some of the weaker parts of a movie IE character glut.

How many characters were in the first iron man, characters with any substance. You had stark, rhodes, potts and the jeff bridges character, everyone else was basically irrelevent or had very little screentime.  When characters were introduced, they mades sense, you understood who they were within a few lines and if you didn't it was explained.

Thor suffers from classic super hero movie bullshit, too many random canon characters there why? because they are there in the comics. None of the other warriors should have even been in this movie if they weren't going to give them any kind of story, they were useless and pointless. Yes I found hogun the 'most' jarring but none of the four really had a place in the movie.


Is Asgaard its own planet? probably, the movie never says and it looked mostly like a city when we were shown it. Did the asgaardians influence other cultures than the norse? I'm pretty sure they would have. The problem is the movie didn't take five seconds to say any of this and the only thing it even half-heartedly tries to say is that all their culture inspired some vikings.

I went into this movie expecting stargate asgaard, knowing that this would be the whole "we inspired your myths, because we are aliens, and awesome schtick. The problem was just when you bring four completely different charicatures of warriors for seemingly no reason and then never explain it.

Dont' fucking backtrack now - you didn't say anything about character glut, you were demanding an explanation as to why one of the incidental characters was Chinese.


Bollocks. They served the same purpose as Rhodes in Iron Man - the "sidekick" character except that there were four of them rather than one. And you got the brief explanation - they were friends and comrades of Thor who had fought together many times. That's who they are - the sidekicks.  They served a purpose in so far as they were the ones who went to rescue the protagonist when all seemed lost for him.

So yes, you could have made them one person rather than four and it wouldn't have made a difference. Yes, you could have got rid of them all and changed the story so Thor didn't need their help at the end of the second act.  You could say the same about Rhodes who did fucking nothing in the first Iron Man and wouldn't have been missed at all if he'd been cut.

You absolutely did not need to know why one of them was oriental. That's just fucking ridiculous.

As for being a White Knight - well, thank you. All I can ask is that please for the love of all that's celluloid, don't ever go to a test screening and give your feedback because the rest of us don't deserve to suffer the sort of crap that would produce.

 :awesome_for_real:

They probably didn't even explain how Valkyrie descend to pick up the souls of the greatest fallen warriors from midgard to take back to Valhalla to hang out waiting for Ragnarok and that the best of those might hang out and drink and fight with Thor who liked to slum around alot.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Lakov is not of Scandanavian descent.

I just don't see how people can't understand that it is a bit jarring to have random earth culture inside a supposedly alien world. It wasn't even skintone so much as "this dude is captital A-Asian, heavy accent included" the british dude was every bit as heavy-handed and stupid, don't think for a second I felt he was any better, just not as noticeable.

Also it does have every bit to do with a glut of characters. Because with that many, you don't take the time to explain them, they are just there.  Rhodes or Potts are great examples because you 'didn't' need to go into great detail about their history or backstories, in a few lines you figured out all you needed to know about them. rhodes was straight-laced military, starks friend and a generally good guy. Potts was starks assistant, straight laced but with a hint of sexual tension nd someone who cared for him.

Thor was a fun movie but where it really dropped the ball was with its characters. They never explained hogun, nor even gave him more than a couple say-nothing lines.  Just imagine if potts in iron man was dressed in a barbarella outfit but they never explained why and unless you read the comic you didn't know that it was because of whatever stupid reason. 

Seemed pretty self explanatory to me. They are Thor's drinking & brawling buddies for his merry adventures. They had no role besides showing that Thor was a social guy who enjoyed comraderie, and served as props in the scene where Thor's lack of maturity is exposed when he goes out to kick the giants' ass (also highlights his selfish traits, where his desire for revenge and glory almost get his bros killed). This establishes he is not at heart a loner anti-hero like wolverine or the hulk, since he does care about these people, they're all very tight, and they love him, but he lacks wisdom, maturity, and some empathy, he is too much of a rash, single minded hero like Achilles. It sets up the character developments later in the film.

This basic role as Thor's homies as props to explain Thor's character, and later character developments was pretty clear, beyond that it hardly mattered if they were asian, robots or battletoads.

So you think chinks are more noticeable than limeys when they all pretend to be aliens who look exactly like humans.

(http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l20/dwccrew/Joseph-Ducreux-YOU-SIR-ARE-A-RACIST.jpg)

 :grin:

Yeah, I love the "the British guy is not as noticeable, however I object to him just as much, because neither of them fit the peculiarly intense impression I got that Asgard was a city, not a planet, and as a city not a planet could not possibly be ethnically diverse, because alien superscience planets when they have otherwise completely human-looking aliens on them are always of a single ethnicity and race, this is just a fact of imaginary sociology".

I think you'd better get more comfortable with those nasty Asians since the way you're digging yourself into a hole here, you're bound to pop out in China any time now.

Hey what about Heimdall?  I didn't know there were Black Viking gods!   :why_so_serious:

Introducing a character that does not fit with a particular setting and not explaining it in any way is just bad film making. You had thor/odin/loki/red beard/silf-maybe/queen all seeming to be set in a sort of european renfaire mentality when then you get random british guy and random samurai out of fucking nowhere.  Could asgaard have been a whole planet, complete with an entire set of racial diversity hat near exactly matches our own? sure but it's not fucking likely and it's a big stretch. could asgaardians have inspired mythologies and other cultures beyond the norse? sure they could have but its never explained.

Stop being complete idiots, if the movie even half-heartedly tried to explain things it would have been fine.

Go ask Stan Fucking Lee and Jack Fucking Kirby. They created the looks of all of those guys and never really did much explaining of why they looked like they did either.

You are obsessing over something REALLY FUCKING PEDANTIC. Stop it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogun

That seems like a lot of explaining to me, also are you using comic books as the standard for good storytelling?  Besides I'm not obessing, I'm just bored at work and when I made a comment about an unexplained character being 'jarring' peoples jumped on the racism bandwagon like someone threw meat in the water.  Let's face it, not a lot of controversy happens here and it gets boring so I understand why but come on.

Doesn't matter is he was asian, british or a krogan it still begs the question "why is that dude there?" if anything it made me want to know more, not that he ought not be in the movie.

Come on, you know the fucking answer to that question. He's there because Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had him there in the original stories and his exclusion would be a pretty bad use of the source material.

As for your dig at comic writing being, there is good storytelling being done with comic book writing. At the very least, comics tell modern mythological morality plays palatable to a wide audience across multiple mediums.

Go to that wiki page look at picture, read that backstory and tell me that's great comic writing. Lee and Kirby had style and fun but literature was never their strong suit.  Again, I'm fine with hogun if they had given even a couple throw-away lines about asgaard or hogun or anything. We just got dropped these four warriors with no explanation, hell they didn't even really do much with thor besides go down to the planet, we see little to no interaction between them and I argue they had any impact on the story what-soever which is sort of the point, they were pointless.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Knutrike.png/220px-Knutrike.png)

Danelaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw)

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Hunnenwanderung.png/325px-Hunnenwanderung.png)

Hun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun)


Completely Unrelated: Best name ever?  Harald Bluetooth.

See, I wasn't even going to go there, but when someone digs in their heels this hard on a completely retarded point, it's hard not to bomb the position from orbit. Someone who thinks that steppe-riding "Asiatic" peoples don't belong in a "Nordic" setting to the point that it requires some kind of complicated twenty-minute digression in a summer-fun movie about superscience aliens who act like superheroes isn't just someone who misunderstands the requirements of efficient storytelling, the superhero comic as a source fiction, and the fine points of "when am I being a racist". That's also someone who doesn't know fuck-all about North European history from the late Roman to the late medieval period.

Hogun seems out of place, I didn't say he doesn't belong there and you don't need twenty minutes to explain shit. you could have had a simple narration when they were flying over asgaard saying it was a place for people of all realms or some shit.  It doesn't matter if hogun was an asian or a lizardman, the result would have been the same in that he and the brit seemed out of place.

As to your real-world examples, no shit? hogun would have actually seemed MORE credible in norway than he would in space asgaard, earth has tangible and established reasons for having people of different cultures.

It just baffles me you are trying to defend a comic book movie for one of the most common sins:Adding tons of characters and not explaining them(but they were in the comic!)

Blacks get a free pass because being racist against them is old and boring.

You amuse me. Seriously. "There were characters who were not fully explained! I demand full explanations of why Volstagg is fat, Fandral styles himself after Errol Flynn, and Sif is allowed to fight, since in my imaginary vision of Norse culture, women should be baking bread. No, it would not detract from the film to give me expository turd-bombs explaining that Asgard is indeed a whole planet, Hogun comes from some almost-Nordic realm of steppe-riding nomads, Sif is a lesbian volleyball coach from the stars, Volstagg has a small black-hole generator in his colon, and Fandral just loves 'Captain Blood' when he saw it on the etheric Asgardian TV".

Somewhat relevant:

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2011/05/25/comic-critics-163/#more-80646

Your paraphrasing is reaching critical mass for stupid.  I never said they needed to fully explain the characters and I actually think the British guy is just as heinous. Silf was just there and I never had a problem with her, though I think she and the warriors were underplayed in fighting ability. 

I'm not even sure you are replying to my posts anymore, there's no need to spend twenty minutes per character but there are better ways do film ensemble casts

 :popcorn:

What the fuck is with the mega-neckbeard ragefest?

 :ye_gods:

Theres one now.

Simple narration is the hallmark of any good film!

If this was supposed to be a movie version of the Prose Edda or something I would be right out there on the ledge with Lakov, but it's fucking Marvel Comics Space Alien Thor, you just have to let the  :uhrr: wash over you.

And I thought I nerded out to extremes at times.  :uhrr: I feel tame by comparison to this witch hunt for a world that makes sense.

You know telling a good story was a bigger priority for them than explaining every part of their fiction. It's a movie, not a technical manual explaining how something works. It looked cool and for most people that's enough because most people don't give a shit about fictional superheroes being 100% accurate to life or their comic origins.

I think introducing a lot of characters without depth in the vein of x-men 3 is a bad move. BAtman begins and Iron man really set the bar for how a good movie could be about comics but first and foremost they were really good movies. Thor was not bad by any stretch but it wasn't up to the standard set.

I used to read Thor in the 80's, and my girlfriend has never read comics, we both loved it!  I can't wait for Captain America and eventually the Avengers!  Did you all spot Hawkeye in it?  :woot:  She now wants to watch the other Marvel movies with me, trade off is I have to watch the Twilight stuff with her (hey I can cheer for shark boy!).

Was that the guy with the bow and arrow hanging from a crane in the rain?

Yep!

Yes, but then he'd be wondering why Odin's horse refers to Loki as "mom." :drillf:

Seriously, Norse people, what was your problem.

They like to get high and party in bear fur coats.

Zeus was a pretty freaky fucker too.

Haven't you ever drank a slurpee REALLY fast and gotten brain freeze? Didn't it make you just a tad bit crazier than normal? It is COLD in scandanavia.

I actually like the Norse mythology more than the whatever passes for story telling that Marvel pulls out of ass (not even getting to the advanced race of sword wielding space aliens).

Just came back from this.  Started strong, ran out of energy by the end.  Not much more to say, beyond they made a Thor movie that I could laugh along with, rather than at.  That's not a bad thing.

Nothing special, but not horrid either.  Consider the source, that's kinda high praise...

Finally got a chance to see this today. Much better than any sort of Asgardian as magi-science aliens in a world of superheroes had any right to be. It felt like it fit in perfectly with the Iron Man line of films, which is the new gold standard for all Marvel movies. The only weak roles in my opinion were Thor's mother and Hogun - neither had enough to do. Hogun in particular should have been bigger and more physically imposing. Falstaff should have been a lot fatter, and the movie could definitely have stood with more of the Warriors 3 altogether. The effects were really good, and the art direction on the Asgardian stuff in particular stood out as being otherworldly and unrealistic yet beautiful to look at. I especially liked the Rainbow Bridge. The actor playing Loki did a bang up job - his performance stood out the most. The others weren't bad but weren't outstanding either - serviceable is probably the best description. Hemsworth totally worked as Thor. Lots of little nods to the fans, probably a lot more than I noticed on first viewing. I have real high hopes for Captain America and the Avengers.

Yeah, I thought the Asgard scenes were really well done myself.  Just beautiful to look at.  I do remember thinking that it had some of the best outer space visuals ever done.  Of course it's a cutting-edge modern film, but still.  I really liked how Thor flew and the hammer spinning wasn't as  :ye_gods: as I thought it'd be. 

Kudos to them for bridging the gap between science and magic for Asgard.  To me, it was their biggest hurdle and they stepped over it easily.

Day one Blu-Ray purchase.

I may be getting ahead of myself, but I think Marvel's entering the Golden Age for their films.  IM, Thor, New XMen (allegedly) are all very well done.

Going to see XMen tomorrow, then Green Lantern (not a big fan but felt the same about Thor) then Cap later on.

Just when I thought I was burned out on super-hero movies, they PULL me back in.

I should not I saw this in 3D (because the place I went to was listed on-line as a 2D showing, they weren't) and I felt like the the 3D effect on all the long shots made it feel like I was looking at a model-set. It really put me off a bit, the same kind of feeling you get from tilt-shift photography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography). I really wish studios wouldn't shoe-horn in 3D to movies that don't benefit from it in any way, shape or form and I really, really wish cinemas would at least have the 2D version available.

Yeah, I skipped the 3D version. Until I hear people say a particular movie really needed or took advantage of 3D, the studios can take that 3D surcharage and shove it right up their asses. I saw Tron in 3D and thought it made the screen murky for not much benefit.

Saw it in 2D yesterday, since that is the version that was starting when I got out of the courthouse (hurray for early release for jurors). Very meh. Mostly just a giant CGI wankfest with as little story as possible to still patch Thor into The Avengers. An extended shower scene with NP and KD would have definitely made it a lot better.

Watching this on On Demand right now. What is with the Dutch angle shots? I find it really distracting. I think I've seen more dutch angle shots in the first 30 minutes than I've seen in the last year of movies. Like there is an establishing shot of a town that for some reason is done with a dutch angle, then 30 seconds later some characters are walking through a hallway and it's another dutch angle shot. I don't remember seeing this in any reviews but to me it's super noticeable.

Edit: Well according to a quick google search I'm certainly not alone in noticing this.

If I Google "Dutch angle", should I make sure that search safe is on?  :grin:

No, you're not. I noticed it too. Didn't stop my enjoyment of the film any but yeah, happened a lot.  Branagh loves his use of different angles and oblique shots - remember there being quite a lot in Frankenstein too - but I get the impression he doesn't really know how to use them to full effect.

I too had to Google "Dutch angle" which is kind of funny to me because I tend to over use the technique in still photography.

I had never heard the term "Dutch angle" shot and I've used that a shitton in my photography over the years. However, I don't remember seeing too many out of place shots like that in Thor, but it's been months since I've seen it.

I thought this was pretty cool... if a little short. In a way, the whole look of the comic could have gone really bad.. like Flash Gordon (not that I'm knocking Flash really), but they pulled it off. Even Loki looked good.. and he's one of the silliest looking comic characters.

Surprised that I saw Kenneth Branagh's name at the end (Director). Maybe that was it.. all of his movies have good art direction.

I saw this movie so the thread is now alive again...

Could Mr HGH and Portman have any less chemistry in this film?

Otherwise a fun movie. Didn't have enough weight in parts for me, especially the action, but I guess that was stylistic in part for a bit of the naff comic feel.

I don't know that it was a chemistry problem as much as that Jane just had nothing to do and was in many ways the least charasmatic of the three main female characters. (By that I mean Jane, Sif and the other helper chick who had like 2 lines of dialogue)

It felt like her character existed mostly because a similar character exists in the comics and the male hero needs a love interest, or at least an implied one.

I now know what a Dutch Angle is.

Having said that I was reading about it on wiki and found this that it is used by "Terry Gilliam (in Brazil, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)"

Given that I love those movies it explains why I didn't notice it in Thor.

It's also often referred to as an oblique or canted angle.

It's usually used to make a scene feel abnormal, off-putting, dream-like, uneasy, etc, which is why that list of movies makes sense. It just didn't make sense for how it was used in Thor. It was one of those things where once I noticed it I just couldn't stop and the whole movie became about that.

This is the first Thor?  I finally only just saw this, too.  I never liked the characters of Thor or Captain America so I expected to not like either movie.  Having seen both movies only recently, I was right on one account.  I didn't like the Captain America movie at all.  However I was surprised by Thor, it turned out to be pretty good.  Hemsworth made a very charismatic Thor.

My GF pointed out that his eyes are too close together. I couldn't unsee it and it detracted greatly from the film.

Looks fine to me.

Mighty Fine.

Did she also tell you that your penis is "just the right size for her" as well?   :drill:

lol

#1: It is impolite to listen on others conversations.
#2: That was his Mom, not his GF.

What a strange turn of events.

(http://s7.postimg.org/sji4bxo5n/Screen_Shot_2014_03_20_at_9_55_17_am.png)

Guess my penis might do the job for a lot of people out there!  :grin:

Ehh...he isn't really my type, but this is getting into "2/10 Knees to sharp" territory. Personal preferences aside he looks great.

Yep, Lamaros is officially crazy.  Carry on.   :awesome_for_real:

Hey, I'm just standing up for my GF. She can't help it if my eyes are magnificently spaced...

And yeah, I never said he was an unattractive guy. Margalis notices dutch angles, my GF noticed his eyes. Lets all stop calling me crazy (et tu Teleku?) and carry on feeling emasculated about his 100% naturally produced musculature instead.

Hey, you can be crazy about a topic and still be friends! 

That is just.... perhaps one of the weirdest criticisms I've heard about somebody except for the stereotypical 'sharp knees' comment.

Maybe because you're used to hearing guy criticisms, not girl ones?

Yeah nobody blinks an eye about people getting nitpicky over pretty women. The reaction when it's the other way around would be funny if it wasn't predictable.

There are plenty of people who blink plenty of eyes when other people get nitpicky over pretty women.  It's just gets tiresome calling all the nitpicky people idiots.

I worded it poorly; I agree with you.

I'm going to raise the BS flag a little.  If people were commenting on his unit, buttocks, or any other typically objectified male component, I'd be right there with you.  However, this was a jump out of the blue about the distance between a person's eyes.  If I dropped over to one of those Serious Business threads and interjected a comment on one of the photo threads about how the girl in photo 16574 was weird because her eyes were too close together, it'd get similar comments to the above, I'd bet.  Of course, it'd be mixed in with the usual crap, too.

And, frankly, the eyes being close together adds to his 'Norse Glare'.  It was probably seen as a boon.

FWIW, it's also a sign of adult use of HGH (the skull grows but the eyes stay put).

--Dave

And yet if you google it it's a common criticism girls have about him (and I assume other guys). I really have no idea why you're getting touchy about it? Lots of girls I know make pedantic comments about guys that have nothing to do with what you might consider to be typical physical things they should care about.

This is a high quality conversation.

What's HGH ?

Human growth hormone.

Oh Dear God.

Lamaros, my point was that people were adding gender issues to a situation that was not inherently gender based. There are enough crappy things in the world to handle for us to stretch yo find more.

I swear to fucking god, you people can shit up any conversation.

Wanna see my honeycrisps ?

I'm sorry that the thread about a movie that was released a few years ago, already has a sequel and had devolved into a discussion of eye distance was ruined.  I have notified FEMA.

Good.  Maybe they can clear your sandy regions.

Unlikely.  It is pretty nasty down there.  It has been called the Kryptonite to Superfund.

This thread won't end until we get a dick pic.

Then I promise you it will end.

(http://media.npr.org/news/images/2007/jun/28/nixon200-70bb3c1aa60f183a7760e2d8aa3936f7942863d2-s3-c85.jpg)

Tricky.

(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cywg7wzfIBs/Rmbxn9oejvI/AAAAAAAAAVU/3k2vU2ePtNM/s320/A-3140-1098542910.jpg)