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Title: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Trippy on April 10, 2017, 08:04:23 AM
Teaser is up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7MGUNV8MxU


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Merusk on April 10, 2017, 08:09:04 AM
I had no idea Goldblum was in this. Fantastic.

There's so much more vibrancy in everything since Guardians, too. I didn't notice until someone elsewhere mentioned it.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Stewie on April 10, 2017, 08:22:10 AM
This looks all kinds of fun. Also why is this called a teaser? its a full on trailer.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on April 10, 2017, 08:25:01 AM
This has potential to be either really good or really bad...I think?  That trailer was a little weird. 'He's a friend from work' made me laugh.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Trippy on April 10, 2017, 08:34:11 AM
This looks all kinds of fun. Also why is this called a teaser? its a full on trailer.
Not sure but since that's what Marvel is calling it that's how I labeled it. Maybe cause it's light on story points?


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on April 10, 2017, 08:46:28 AM
I am totally digging the '80's fun vibe in this one. Hela looks perfect.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on April 10, 2017, 09:17:54 AM
 :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart:

That whole "he's a friend from work" made me laugh.  Perfect use of Led Zepplin as well.  Can't wait to see this.

And it gives a reason for Thor having short hair.  I'd seen a pic of him like that and all the comments were about how Thor should have long hair, but this makes sense.  And gives him a reason for the winged helmet, which was a nice touch, too.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: calapine on April 10, 2017, 10:09:45 AM
Random ramblings:

- Black hair doesn't Cate Blanchet, it makes her look old.

- Zoë "Deathproof" Bell does her stunts.

- Thor looks shit with short hair. Ewww.

- That black "Whatshername" woman is the actress playing the board-member in Westworld.

- I am not sure if bringing Hulk into a serious film based on Greek mythology is appropriate.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MahrinSkel on April 10, 2017, 10:20:25 AM
- I am not sure if bringing Hulk into a serious film based on Greek mythology is appropriate.
Shut your whore mouth, Hulk should be in all the movies. Not just all the Marvel movies, he should show up randomly in 'dying cancer patient' chick flicks. If he had a cameo in F8, I might go to see it.

--Dave


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: 01101010 on April 10, 2017, 11:18:34 AM
So much music out there and they go back to Zepplin. On the one hand, it is timeless and does seem to fit.... on the other ffs, move on - try something new.

As for Blanchet, I am well ok with the black hair. I didn't think it made her look old at all.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on April 10, 2017, 11:21:24 AM
So much music out there and they go back to Zepplin. On the one hand, it is timeless and does seem to fit.... on the other ffs, move on - try something new.

As for Blanchet, I am well ok with the black hair. I didn't think it made her look old at all.

That is bar none the perfect song for this trailer, I don't give a damn how old it is.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: 01101010 on April 10, 2017, 11:24:30 AM
So much music out there and they go back to Zepplin. On the one hand, it is timeless and does seem to fit.... on the other ffs, move on - try something new.

As for Blanchet, I am well ok with the black hair. I didn't think it made her look old at all.

That is bar none the perfect song for this trailer, I don't give a damn how old it is.

Which they could use for anything Thor, really... Not saying it doesn't fit, just saying I'm personally broken and think Zeppelin in general has been stretched thin.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Teleku on April 10, 2017, 11:25:46 AM
Yeah, if they went three full movies without using it once, somebody at marvel should have been executed.  Beyond perfect.  Fuck using it for anything else, it was meant for a Thor movie.

I'm game.  Trailer was fun, though I do agree based on the various teasers of the story, it could go really hard in either direction of awesome or terrible.  Not seeing much room for it being one of the meh Marvel films.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Phildo on April 10, 2017, 11:44:40 AM
Who wouldn't get excited about a movie where Jeff Golbdblum makes Thor fight the Incredible Hulk?


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Velorath on April 10, 2017, 12:22:45 PM
This has potential to be either really good or really bad...I think?  That trailer was a little weird. 'He's a friend from work' made me laugh.

Just about everything I've seen from Taika Waititi has been great. Hunt for the Wilderpeople and What We Do in the Shadows are two of my favorite movies of the last few years. He wrote and directed some episodes of Flight of the Conchords also and Jemaine has co-starred in a couple of his movies also so that should give you at least somewhat of an idea of the sense of humor here.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on April 10, 2017, 12:45:46 PM
- I am not sure if bringing Hulk into a serious film based on Greek mythology is appropriate.
Shut your whore mouth, Hulk should be in all the movies. Not just all the Marvel movies, he should show up randomly in 'dying cancer patient' chick flicks. If he had a cameo in F8, I might go to see it.

--Dave

What you merely write in green, I approve wholeheartedly.  Weakling.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on April 10, 2017, 12:54:15 PM
There's so much more vibrancy in everything since Guardians, too. I didn't notice until someone elsewhere mentioned it.

Well it's the same "setting", this is what MCU in space has already been established to look like.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on April 10, 2017, 01:14:02 PM
This looks like fun. Excellent.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Samwise on April 10, 2017, 01:58:44 PM
I've been kinda meh on the previous Thor movies but...

Who wouldn't get excited about a movie where Jeff Golbdblum makes Thor fight the Incredible Hulk?

This.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on April 10, 2017, 02:06:38 PM
This movie can only be improved by the fact that we have a villain who is a recognizable scenery-chewing actor to chew scenery rather than slathering the villain in so much makeup he is unrecognizable and still expecting him to be able to chew any scenery at all.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Sir T on April 10, 2017, 05:06:28 PM
And don't forget having him speak in a silly made up language.

I'm going to have to turn in my geek card as I thought this looked stupid. Hela looked fantastic though.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on April 10, 2017, 06:01:42 PM
I cannot even begin to parse how someone loves the incredible realization of Jack Kirby's design of Hela's headdress and then thinks the rest looks bad. Does not compute.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soln on April 10, 2017, 08:37:20 PM
God damn that was perfect.  There's so much win in that one trailer.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on April 11, 2017, 01:00:37 PM
Great acting or not, the sheer joy in Thor's face when he realizes it's the Hulk... priceless.

(http://i.imgur.com/6yFAjZp.gif)


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on April 12, 2017, 10:49:11 AM
There's so much more vibrancy in everything since Guardians, too. I didn't notice until someone elsewhere mentioned it.

They have really hit the right note about what a comic book action movie should feel like, not taking itself so seriously. There's already too much of that elsewhere and was a problem with the some their earlier stuff.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Merusk on April 12, 2017, 12:50:22 PM
There's so much more vibrancy in everything since Guardians, too. I didn't notice until someone elsewhere mentioned it.

Well it's the same "setting", this is what MCU in space has already been established to look like.

Yeah but Dr ,Strange and Ant Man are not. They are also visually different from the early marvel stuff which risked running DC with their color palette.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on April 12, 2017, 02:26:02 PM
But... but... I have it on good authority that Super Hero movies are played out.

Guardians 2 in May,  Spidey in July, Defenders in August, Inhumans in September, Thor in November, Punisher also before the end of the year... Runaways, Jessica Jones 2, New Warriors, Cloak and Dagger, Black Panther, Daredevil 3, Infinity War, Ant-man and Wasp in 2018 ... and we do not know about John Ridley's series, Luke Cage 2, Damage Control (just kidding), more MAoS (time to put it down), and 2 other ABC series under consideration.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on April 12, 2017, 02:55:27 PM
There's so much more vibrancy in everything since Guardians, too. I didn't notice until someone elsewhere mentioned it.

Well it's the same "setting", this is what MCU in space has already been established to look like.

Yeah but Dr ,Strange and Ant Man are not. They are also visually different from the early marvel stuff which risked running DC with their color palette.

Dr Strange and Ant Man are not set in MCU space, only this movie and GOTG have had the same setting so far.  They've already established that MCU space has that campy colorful vibe, it would be weird to change it.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Merusk on April 13, 2017, 04:05:17 AM
I didn't say they were in MCU space. I said they were using the additional color and vibrancy that Guardians had introduced.

Iron Man 3, Thor TDW, Cap II Vs Ant Man, Civil War and Strange.  Different looks and more colors in the group after Guardians.  Ultron is in this weird space between them where the physical effects and costumes are old style but the effects were much more punched up. Ant Man has some of this, too, but there's so much CGI you see more of the color shift than the muted approach.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: calapine on April 15, 2017, 04:24:24 AM
I am getting used to the black hair, maybe was overly critical.

Btw, interesting that Galadriel has the same smile:

(http://i.imgur.com/3IjICMa.jpg)


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on April 15, 2017, 06:13:39 AM
Never trust an Elf.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on April 15, 2017, 10:22:32 AM
Cate Blanchett smiles like Cate Blanchett, how's that interesting :P


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Father mike on July 22, 2017, 07:41:57 PM
New Trailer !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue80QwXMRHg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue80QwXMRHg)

Yep, still interested.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on July 22, 2017, 08:18:08 PM
Absolutely.  Looks decent.  Maybe even good.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Surlyboi on July 22, 2017, 08:52:03 PM
Surtur at the end still gives me hope for Beta Ray Bill.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on July 22, 2017, 11:20:59 PM
And now I want to play Nethack.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on July 22, 2017, 11:54:22 PM
Oh...

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!@!!!!!!!

Loving the oversaturated color palettes they are using for the Marvel Cosmic stuff.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on July 23, 2017, 10:40:03 PM
My wife brought this to my attention but if they don't play some version of ride of the valkyries when they are assaulting Helya on pegusi, I will be extremely disappointed.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: K9 on October 26, 2017, 04:30:37 PM
"It's my birthday!"

Cracked me up


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: K9 on October 26, 2017, 04:41:26 PM
Overall: More fun than pretty much everything else since the first GotG, and far better than Thor 2, but still a ways from Marvel's best.

The Good:

The film is funny in a bunch of different ways. It's not as painfully childish as GotG2 (although it skirts real close at times). Chris Hemsworth clearly loves playing Thor and brings a lot of life to the character. Tessa Thompson is great and plays a slightly different type of character to what we've seen before. Tom Hiddleston is great as ever and does one of his best turns as Loki. Jeff Goldblum does an amusing turn as the Grandmaster and I wasn't sure if I wanted more of him or got just enough. A lot of the bit characters (like the Kiwi rock monster) are lovable and well drawn.

The Bad:

Cate Blanchett's character is completely one-dimensional. She's bad because she's bad and she does bad things. She's the least compelling bad guy in the film. Karl Urban is chronically underused in his role; he's a far better actor than what he got here. I can't even remember his character's name which is worrying since he got a pretty serious amount of screentime. The combat is (mostly) terrible; everything is CGI'd to the max and feels utterly insubstantial and weightless.

The OK:

Mark Ruffalo puts in the work as Hulk, but the way they take his character just felt a bit off. Seemed like a misstep.

ALSO:

Don't bother sticking around for the end-of-credits short; it's dull and irrelevant beyond belief. Save yourself 6 minutes or whatever and just go home.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on October 26, 2017, 05:38:01 PM
The character Cate Blanchett plays in the comics literally IS one-dimensional. She's more a primal force than an actual character.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on October 26, 2017, 06:52:03 PM
I want to object to that but I can't, it's pretty much right.

Gods and goddesses of death, I don't really see why they're always the bad guys. I just read a fantastic fantasy novel about Koschei the Deathless, a "life god", where he's arguably as sinister as the god of death. There was a fantastic Marvel "cosmic" story a while back where the universe where death has been defeated opens up onto the regular 616 universe and it's a complete nightmare--life is a cancerous, Cthulhu-ish plague that rots and infests everything.

It's a reason I hate Thanos, really: "In love with Death" is a fucking lame motivation for a cosmic bad guy who supposedly understands a lot about the way the universe works. It's fine as a motivation for a nasty little serial killer, maybe, but not a star-spanning monster.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on October 27, 2017, 12:23:29 PM
Wait, this is out?


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 27, 2017, 12:43:00 PM
Yes.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Merusk on October 27, 2017, 01:09:49 PM
Wait, this is out?

Marvel has decided for a few years now that Europe gets first dibs. It's out in the US next week.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on October 27, 2017, 01:15:40 PM
Someone here (Jeff, I think?) noted that releasing in Europe first was to increase excitement to see it in the US.  I forget the exact mechanics he was explaining.

https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Marvel-Opens-Its-Superhero-Movies-Overseas-First-71409.html

Apparently it's based around European holiday targeting, and also a way to generate more excitement in the US due to word of mouth from European watchers.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 27, 2017, 02:38:02 PM
I will be attending with family tomorrow.  However, I usually refrain from posting before St Sugden can pitch in.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Phildo on October 27, 2017, 06:43:50 PM
I will be attending with family tomorrow.  However, I usually refrain from posting before St Sugden can pitch in.

I demand you contribute to my hype ASAP.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 28, 2017, 01:08:22 AM
It's Thor and Loki.  I may just drown in the theatre.  They're rather liked in the Scottish Female Community.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on October 28, 2017, 08:49:49 AM
It's Thor and Loki.  I may just drown in the theatre.  They're rather liked in the Scottish Female Community.


The thought of a mob of scottish women frothily piling onto chris hemsworth is terrifying.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 28, 2017, 10:03:03 AM
That was weird.

Like, I don't even know what to say.  That was a weird film.


Two things :

1 - Ruffalo was fucking awful.  He played Mark Ruffalo in this film.  It was a truly terrible performance.
2 - There were 4 women to every guy in that theatre.  I know I made the joke, but the reality was strangely bigger than my joke.  Not that they were disappointed;  Beefcake was very, very, very much in evidence.

That was weird.


I enjoyed it, so by all means go see it.  But it made GotG 1 and 2 look positively normal.

Weird.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Merusk on October 28, 2017, 12:07:46 PM
I enjoyed it, so by all means go see it.  But it made GotG 1 and 2 look positively normal.

If this plays out, it'll be my favorite film.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 28, 2017, 01:38:39 PM
I think that'll be true for a LOT of people.  It's certainly not the Thor you're used to, which I'm given to understand is a big draw for some.

Still not sure about what I think tho.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: eldaec on October 30, 2017, 01:12:52 AM
It  is getting decent reviews based on the director managing to subvert the forumla a bit. But I've heard that a lot ahead of marvel films. 


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 30, 2017, 04:44:12 AM
I cannot understate how massively entertaining it is.  And how genuinely funny it is.  The Director has been clear 'This is a comedy' and he's not wrong.

But it's weird.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on October 30, 2017, 11:47:41 AM
Did you mean overstate?

Or is this some weird Scottish idiom I'm not familiar with.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on October 30, 2017, 12:18:04 PM
He just has to be very accurate about his stating - not over, not under, but just right.  Like the baby bear.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on October 30, 2017, 01:00:03 PM
The mum in that story always gets fucked with cold porridge.  I've never really understood that.

But yes, it's a fun film.  Bear in mind when reading any of my posts that even though I don't drink anymore, it's still leaving my system after decades, so....


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on October 30, 2017, 03:01:34 PM
... and she is married to a bear that won't share a bed with her and is quite clear that he likes it hot and hard.  Move on, girlfriend. Being furry doesn't mean you have to be a beard.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: NowhereMan on November 02, 2017, 09:16:06 AM
Saw this in Imax and it was very good. I would say the action is sufficient to warrant a big, big screen. I'm not quite sure if this is setting up a Cosmic MCU side thing but this one definitely moved things away from previous films. It really wasn't what I was expecting either but if you enjoyed GotG at all, you'll really like this.

Oh and to add: I think this had the best climactic battle of any Marvel movie so far.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on November 03, 2017, 08:09:18 AM
This was great and funny, I didn't have any problems with Mark Ruffalos very limited appearance. Great cameos.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Merusk on November 03, 2017, 05:59:39 PM
That was weird.

Like, I don't even know what to say.  That was a weird film.


Gloriously so. It may not be as watchable on multiple viewings but it was worth the time. I had a blast and yes, it was weird.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: SurfD on November 04, 2017, 03:31:08 AM
Loved it.  Only major complaint I would have is that having previously read all of the Planet Hulk stuff, as well as seen the Animated movie they did adapting it, I just can't get over Korg's voice.  Every time he talks in Ragnarok, I had to stifle an overwhelming urge to giggle.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on November 04, 2017, 04:12:56 AM
You're meant to ;  watch the interview with the Director where he talks about where he got that voice.  It cracks me up.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MediumHigh on November 04, 2017, 09:06:20 AM
This was good and I hope its the reason why justice league does poorly.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on November 04, 2017, 01:14:44 PM
This is great.  The whole family loved it.  Go see it at once.

That is all.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on November 04, 2017, 01:45:48 PM
Saw it today and absolutely loved it. Best use of a Led Zepplin song ever. Loved the fight scenes, especially the big climax battle.

"I've been falling for thirty minutes!"


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on November 04, 2017, 09:03:19 PM
I went and saw this today. It was hilarious, fun, over the top and clearly a comedy.

Ironwood was right. It was SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPER weird. Like really fucking out there. New Zealander out there. I enjoyed it but I'm still trying to process if it was a good "Thor" movie. I kept waiting for him to lose an arm and pick up Executioner's axe. Karl Urban was kind of wasted as Executioner, as they had the look down perfectly but he really only got to do one thing (though that one thing was pretty awesome). The Doctor Strange scene was pretty good and they had a lot of good one liners. I actually think Hemsworth had better lines than Hiddleston which he should considering he's the star but still... Loki usually steals the show and he didn't here.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on November 04, 2017, 09:14:49 PM
One thing I like is that it actually follows the mythology fairly nicely.  Ragnarok does see the end of Odin, and a bunch of others, but many of the younger generation did escape to start anew elsewhere.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on November 04, 2017, 09:45:32 PM
. Like really fucking out there. New Zealander out there.

More please.  Perhaps most enjoyable Marvel film ever. Taika Waititi is fucking hilarious and when I saw Rachel House I instantly thought 'she's from Moana!'  :drillf:

Tessa Thompson in the words of my son is a 'badass'  :drillf: :drillf:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on November 04, 2017, 10:30:22 PM
Oh yeah, he is HILARIOUS. I thought the voice of Korg was done by Murray from Flight of the Conchords but it was Waititi. And I saw him reading some mean tweets or something and he was great.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: SurfD on November 05, 2017, 12:21:36 AM
got a link to the Interview where he explains where he got the idea for the voice? 


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Surlyboi on November 05, 2017, 12:47:33 AM
One of the champion heads was Beta Ray Bill. Not the cameo I wanted but I’ll take the nod.

As for Korg? All I heard was this: https://youtu.be/3cPs2SzShNc


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 05, 2017, 02:49:01 PM
Great film. Lots of fun. The only downside for me was that it made me really really really want a Hulk solo film.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 05, 2017, 05:34:50 PM
Tons of fun, wholly satisfying.

Speaking of Beta Ray Bill, the ship everyone ends up on at the end looks awfully like Scuttlebutt, Beta Ray Bill's intelligent ship. And the situation of the Asgardians is rather like Beta Ray Bill's people, really.  I assume given the number of Easter Eggs that this is 100% on purpose. Haven't seen that in the Easter Egg roundups so far, but it struck me as pretty unmistakeable.





Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 06, 2017, 04:18:08 AM
I did realize that there's one other oddity here, which is


Oh, and while I'm at it,



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on November 06, 2017, 04:23:07 AM
got a link to the Interview where he explains where he got the idea for the voice? 


https://youtu.be/tzNT2N6ugKg



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: NowhereMan on November 06, 2017, 06:43:39 AM
I did realize that there's one other oddity here, which is


In response to this (cause it was something I was thinking about in the film):



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on November 06, 2017, 07:14:38 AM
Time on Planet Hulk goes at different rates depending on the portal.  Valk woman could have got there 10 days ago or not.  It didn't matter much, but it wasn't a plot hole as such.  They explained it well enough.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on November 06, 2017, 08:09:54 AM
Everyone in Asgard knew about the Valkyrie because it was a well-told bedtime story, at least that's the way Thor made it sound.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 06, 2017, 08:17:25 AM
Forgot about the time-dilation thing, that's a good out.

And yeah, it did seem a bit like "these were the legendary warriors of a forgotten time", so it's cool.

Interesting also that



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on November 13, 2017, 01:59:29 PM
Whew. Saw this last week, but took my time coming to this thread just in case you guys were hating on it...   :awesome_for_real:

That said, I almost hated it, but ended up loving it. The thing is I'm pretty good with living under a rock in regards to promotion. I hadn't seen any trailers and went in mostly spoiler free (I did know the Hulk would be there somewhere, but that was about it). So I had no idea it was going to be a madcap buddy comedy that takes its inspiration from Big Trouble in Little China, and then dials it up. So it took me a bit to shift mental gears enough to really appreciate the jokes.


It helped that the jokes and physical comedy were really, really funny to me. I saw no bad chemistry at all between characters, and really had no idea that Cate Blanchett had that much humor in her. The whole "pulling her hair back like a middle aged housewife about the clean the toilet" mannerism she had going kept cracking me up.

And as for plot holes and MCU continuity, remember that, although they dropped the affectation pretty quickly, the movie starts with voice over by Thor explaining the situation. So as far as I'm concerned the whole thing is from Thor's point of view as he is retelling it at a bar somewhere/somewhen. I think it would be accurate to call him an unreliable narrator.

Criticisms: I did love the humor. I did. But. I liked the Guardians of the Galaxy approach better, and I think it is more sustainable for future movies. Taika Waititi just has no respect. There is no scene too poignant to not crack a joke during to break the mood. There is no way he could do a Drax/Mantis scene, or Yondu's funeral. He'd have to have somebody fart or something. James Gunn knows how to dial it back and get serious for a minute, Waititi just doesn't care.

That said, I didn't care either for the length of the movie. I just don't want that to become a thing.

And since it wouldn't be me without some otherwise unobserved conspiracy theory/fan headcanon (no mention of The Milano here either!):



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on November 13, 2017, 02:20:50 PM
Well...



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on November 13, 2017, 02:34:49 PM
Well...


Hmmm. So an even deeper conspiracy then.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 13, 2017, 06:54:32 PM
Current thinking is that the entire MCU is heading towards a giant reboot after Avengers 4--I almost wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with some version of "some cosmic dude has been pulling your strings to get you ready for Thanos, so...portals".


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: SurfD on November 14, 2017, 01:22:12 AM
Well, In the original planet hulk story, the portal that sucked stuff onto the planet was a construct that had been specifically created to attract powerful beings so that a faction of the planets natives could use them for their own purposes (the portal had an effect attached that severely weakened anything that passed through it, allowing easy capture of anything that survived the trip).   I did kind of like the twist they did for the movie, where they sort of turned Sakarr into a cosmic garbage collection center, with hundreds of portals just dumping stuff on it.  Wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine the Quinnjet just getting randomly sucked up by an unstable portal.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on November 14, 2017, 09:30:48 AM
Sigh.. Another friend said he just assumed Dr Strange did it.

 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on November 14, 2017, 10:05:30 AM
It's actually possible that Strange was involved with getting Hulk off of Earth.  He said that the sorcerers are watching for individuals they consider dangerous, and the Hulk certainly qualifies.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 14, 2017, 10:11:32 AM
They also clarified in Dr. Strange that they worry only about mystical threats - and Hulk is not (while Loki is).


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Jimbo on November 16, 2017, 01:05:16 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7i3YtGs7gc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMyx3cVUr6s

Lol not sure how they could do this, but would be a cool Jimmy Fallon and the Roots like they did with Metallica.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Goumindong on November 16, 2017, 01:21:48 PM
I did realize that there's one other oddity here, which is


Oh, and while I'm at it,




All of that is true and, i think, 100% intentional. This is a movie about coming to grips with colonialism. The Valkyrie get remembered in the same way we remember things from our per-colonial eras despite not having an actual connection or even understanding of what they did


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 16, 2017, 03:19:02 PM
Yeah, I think that's right. The seriousness of the underlying story is being ignored by some viewers.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 16, 2017, 05:30:12 PM
I'm not so sure the undercurrent beneath the story was as intentional as many assume it was. I think there is a lot in this story that reflects those that created it, but I do not think there were as many discussions about what lies just beneath the surface as some of the commentary on the film assumes.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 16, 2017, 05:53:16 PM
It's 100% intentional. Look up the director. How can you be this interested in this stuff and be missing stuff this fundamental?


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 17, 2017, 12:18:06 AM
If you'd be kind enough to point me to an article where anyone behind the story talks about it being an intentional choice I'd appreciate it. 

I agree the elements are there. The question for me was whether it was an intentional choice or just a reflection of those who created it working naturally into the film. Who the director is supports both possibilities.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on November 17, 2017, 01:35:12 AM
 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on November 17, 2017, 03:19:42 AM
There are movies that are subtle with their undertones, these movies are often taught in film class or discussed and debated for decades to uncover the true motives of the director.  This was not one of those movies.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 17, 2017, 04:12:38 AM
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/11/05/thor-ragnarok-taika-waititi-very-kiwi-comedy

http://mashable.com/2017/11/08/thor-ragnarok-themes-colonialism/#GA59iaKR0ZqN

https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/11/10/thor-ragnarok-marvel-from-a-postcolonial-perspective/

https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/31-10-2017/thor-and-his-magic-patu-notes-on-a-very-maori-marvel-movie/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/magazine/the-superweirdo-behind-thor-ragnarok.html

On and on. Waititi is known for a lot of very deliberate attention to Maori perspectives and to the perspective of formerly colonized peoples, not just in his films but in other work he does, like making PSAs and in community benefits, etc.

The film literally knocks off the old art of Asgard's history off the ceiling of the throne room to reveal the truth: Asgard was built on conquest and pillage and then deceit, so that its younger people don't ever have to think of themselves that way. You think that's an accident? Do you watch a performance of Hamlet and think, "Yeah, but do we have any interviews with Shakespeare to be sure that it's about the psychological experience of indecision? Because that's just an interpretation, you know."


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on November 17, 2017, 05:33:21 AM
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/11/05/thor-ragnarok-taika-waititi-very-kiwi-comedy

http://mashable.com/2017/11/08/thor-ragnarok-themes-colonialism/#GA59iaKR0ZqN

https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/11/10/thor-ragnarok-marvel-from-a-postcolonial-perspective/

https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/31-10-2017/thor-and-his-magic-patu-notes-on-a-very-maori-marvel-movie/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/magazine/the-superweirdo-behind-thor-ragnarok.html

On and on. Waititi is known for a lot of very deliberate attention to Maori perspectives and to the perspective of formerly colonized peoples, not just in his films but in other work he does, like making PSAs and in community benefits, etc.

The film literally knocks off the old art of Asgard's history off the ceiling of the throne room to reveal the truth: Asgard was built on conquest and pillage and then deceit, so that its younger people don't ever have to think of themselves that way. You think that's an accident? Do you watch a performance of Hamlet and think, "Yeah, but do we have any interviews with Shakespeare to be sure that it's about the psychological experience of indecision? Because that's just an interpretation, you know."


For the record, I'm agreeing with this. I thought the colonization aspect was pretty fucking blatant.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 17, 2017, 07:48:43 AM
Did you read those or just do a quick search and link? Because they're almost all entirely about what people not responsible for the film are saying about it. They state their opinion, but it is not a statemental from the pole making the film.

The first four articles contain pretty much no statements from the people creating the film, at all. The last, lengthy one, has a lot about cgi, bringing cultural tones to the set, character decisions, editing and a variety of other topics, but not one statement that says 'colonialism' and comes from anyone making the film. That is explicitly what I am asking about. One tweet. One sentence in an interview. Did I miss the statement somewhere in one of those articles?

If you're missing my dustinction, If you tasked 10 very good authors with writing a short story based upon (and true to) the same outline, you'd get 10 very different works. Even if you asked them to limit their themes to what was described in the outline, you'll see other themes in the stories... some of which may still reflect intentional choices, but some of which are going to be mnifestations of the authors writing from their own experience.

I'm asking whether colonialism was on the wall of the secret brainstorming room.  Was Marvel planning on making a film where a son learns that his father was not so perfect and that he needs to be better (which then evolved into Odin was a conquering jerk who whitewashed history because of who told the story), or did Marvel say, "We want to tell a colonialism tale here... you know who would do it well?  Waititi."  Was this something that was explicitly planned or just a natural evolution?

Go back and look at what Tolkien had to say about his Middle Earth books and whether they were an allegory for the World Wars. Countless pages are written on what he intended...
How the ring is the bomb.  How the Hobbits are the French.  How Rohan is America.  Only problem? Tolkien says he never intended any of it.
That doesn't mean it is not there, only that it came into being as a manifestation of the world he saw rather than as an intentional choice that he made as he wrote the story. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html)


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on November 17, 2017, 07:55:36 AM
Thanks for those articles Khaldun, they were great. Ack so many easter eggs I didn't pick up on.


On another note having the older Hemsworth brother playing his brother in the play.. :drill:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on November 17, 2017, 09:41:18 AM

I'm asking whether colonialism was on the wall of the secret brainstorming room.  Was Marvel planning on making a film where a son learns that his father was not so perfect and that he needs to be better (which then evolved into Odin was a conquering jerk who whitewashed history because of who told the story), or did Marvel say, "We want to tell a colonialism tale here... you know who would do it well?  Waititi."  Was this something that was explicitly planned or just a natural evolution?

Go back and look at what Tolkien had to say about his Middle Earth books and whether they were an allegory for the World Wars. Countless pages are written on what he intended...
How the ring is the bomb.  How the Hobbits are the French.  How Rohan is America.  Only problem? Tolkien says he never intended any of it.
That doesn't mean it is not there, only that it came into being as a manifestation of the world he saw rather than as an intentional choice that he made as he wrote the story. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html)

Thank you for that. I was coming here to post something similar, but you did it better.

Look, Waititi obviously used the themes and symbols he was comfortable and experienced with using, and personally I'm really happy he chose to make the nice guy Asgardian Empire founded on conquest and colonialism. But saying Thor:Ragnarok was *about* dealing with the end products of conquest and colonialism is about the same as saying Big Trouble in Little China was *about* the value of multiculturalism.

It's intellectual wankery, and not even the good kind, and I'm disappointed this thread has descended into it.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on November 17, 2017, 10:04:51 AM
Heh.  Glad you didn't post if he did it better.

You're wrong.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on November 17, 2017, 10:22:46 AM
Heh.  Glad you didn't post if he did it better.

You're wrong.


What? Because I agree that Thor was a madcap, silly comedy taking place in a science fiction setting founded on Asgardian Imperialism? That part is pretty obvious, and maybe ballsy considering that some viewers will be offended by casting the Asgardians in anything other than a noble light, but what insights did Waititi actually bring to the table here on the subject? The Asgardians claimed their protectorate by conquest. Okay. Got it. Odin kinda regrets it, but not so far as to allow self rule -- except for Earth, which for some reason is the planet in the Nine Realms that they have a hands off policy to.

This is a setting, not a discussion, not a revelation. It's not what the movie is about. It's a subtext at best, and a good one, but it's not deep. But neither do I say it's not there.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 17, 2017, 11:01:37 AM
To be clear - When I say I am not so sure it was an intentional choice, I mean I am not sure.  It could have been, it might not have been - and I am looking forward to hearing more about how the story was developed.

Did Marvel want to tell this as a colonialism tale and that intent influenced the choice of director?  Did they bring him an outline of a family drama between Odin and Thor where Thor learns his father created Hela through bad parenting - only to have TW pitch it back to them that Odin wasn't just a bad father, but was complicit (along with all of Ashgard) in Hela's conquering?  Or did they never discuss colonialism at all and it just manifest on the page as the way in which Odin did wrong in the past (a natural manifestation given the director)? 

I'm legit curious about how this developed.  I'm just not making assumptions.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on November 17, 2017, 11:24:09 AM
Are you even serious right now?

Hela specifically said that they got all of the gold that covers everything in Asgard by pillaging and raiding the 9 worlds for it.  Until Odin had a change of mind/heart.

That's so Spain/Portugal/Belgium/France/England that it hurts.  I'm sure I am missing a few.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on November 17, 2017, 11:45:39 AM
And it probably flew right over the head of 95% of people who watched it, and probably the mavels execs too.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 17, 2017, 12:35:01 PM
1. It doesn't matter if it's intentional, it's there.
2. It's intentional, given who the director is and his outlook on things.
3. MCU's production staff likely don't care one way or the other as long as the film doesn't mess with the brand image in a way they can't undo. They probably cut Waititi more slack to do what he wanted because the first two Thor movies were not critical successes and performed at the low end of their box office spectrum. They'd probably be more wary if the next Captain America director said, "i want to make a movie where Cap punches a Donald Trump-alike in the face".

Tolkien's position on allegory and reference is a by-product of his literary (and otherwise) conservatism and of his frankly rather peculiar views on the nature of fantasy. Anybody using Tolkien's views of his own fiction as a general guide to the interpretation of literary or cinematic work needs to get out and read a bit more.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 17, 2017, 01:03:32 PM
1. It doesn't matter if it's intentional, it's there.
2. It's intentional, given who the director is and his outlook on things.
The same two things were often said about Lord of the Rings being an allegory for the World Wars - when it was not intended at all by Tolkien.  The allegory to the World Wars is clearly there - it just wasn't an intentional choice on his part.  It was just a reflection of the dominant experiences of his life.
Quote
...Tolkien's position on allegory and reference is a by-product of his literary (and otherwise) conservatism and of his frankly rather peculiar views on the nature of fantasy.
Or, perhaps it was an author saying, "Huh.  Yeah, I can see what you see and why you see it, but that wasn't on my mind when I wrote it."   In fact, it was literally just that and not some by-product of conservatism.  That doesn't even make sense.  Because he's 'conservative' in some way he didn't know why he was writing something?  Huh?  And, as for his peculiar views of fantasy, the genre he pretty much created... seriously?  He is often referenced as the father of the genre.  How can his views of it be peculiar?  They're inherently foundational!
Quote
Anybody using Tolkien's views of his own fiction as a general guide to the interpretation of literary or cinematic work needs to get out and read a bit more.
So the specific example brought up to demonstrate something *can* happen requires us to go out and read more because... why?  If it happened there, it can happen elsewhere.  That is why it was brought up.  It proves the matter for which it was asserted.  Shitting on Tolkien doesn't invalidate the argument.

He was brought up as an example where people - for a long time - claimed it was plainly obvious that he wrote books specifically as an allegory for the World Wars and he then said it just wasn't true.  He was selected as the prototypical example of this well known phenomena.  It is directly on point here to show that it can look blisteringly obvious that something is intentionally being created to comment on a particular thing, when, in fact, the creators didn't even think about it - and that it was just created that way because they think in those terms and it was a byproduct of their thought process, rather than explicit intentional commentary. 

This stuff happens all the time.  Head strong people that think they know everything about what an author intended.  They go to book signings and ask authors about some perceived symbolism in the book... and the author laughs at them for assuming things the author never intended to parallel.  If you think there is no other possible explanation in the world other than TW sitting down and saying, "Now I'll write this Thor movie as an allegory for colonialism,"... well, if you can't imagine any other possibility, it doesn't matter what I say. 


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on November 17, 2017, 01:17:08 PM


That's so Spain/Portugal/Belgium/France/England that it hurts.  I'm sure I am missing a few.

Like, maybe the Vikings?

Maybe part of my disconnect here is that, in my own headcannon, this is exactly as I would have thought the Asgardians forged their realm. Marvel has already shown us that the overall universe is not a very peaceful place -- having the inspiration for the earthly Vikings being spacefaring plunderers is, well, not exactly edgy.

It's just weird that people are slapping their foreheads and going "Woah! He really snuck some heady social commentary in there! Bet nobody noticed but us smart folks!" when it's actually kinda stereotypical. And Waitiki even put all the bad stuff in the past -- if they want to be really risky make it plain that the Asgardians are still hated everywhere else *but* Asgard.

They may still do that, and I would approve.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 17, 2017, 02:04:48 PM
Man, I don't think I have the energy to fucking muck out the entirety of this stable right now. Tolkien didn't create fantasy--he'd be the first person to tell you that, for one, given that he saw himself as reworking Beowulf, the Eddas, and so on. Fantasy as a literary genre in the 20th Century has many other fathers and mothers: Lord Dunsany, Eddison, Lovecraft, Howard, Burroughs, Lewis, Baum, etc etc; Tolkien's blueprint has been very influential but it's not the only thing there to look at.

Whether intentionality matters, and the ways in which it matters, is literally one of the pre-eminent major issues in literary analysis over the last century, debated from a huge range of perspectives. But even the people who are big on finding out what an author intended don't think that's the single or solitary thing that determines a reading of a text. You don't have to find Shakespeare saying "I intend for The Tempest to be a reference to early modern European colonialism" in order to confidently read the ways in which that play references the experiences of early modern European explorers and conquerors. It's all over the play, sometimes in ways that can be traced very explicitly to events and personalities being discussed in public culture in Elizabethean England. A writer or artist can work in references that aren't consciously and programmatically allegorical, and can also be making references that they themselves don't entirely know they're making. Writers and artists also sometimes have reason to be coy about whether something's an homage or reference: they don't want to be accused of ripping someone off, they don't want to be too simplistic or on the nose about their politics, they're playing a game with their audiences (or with friends they're referencing/ripping off). A writer can deny that they meant to refer to something and either be lying or be in some sense wrong (e.g., they may not entirely understand their own creative process, or may have forgotten what they were thinking about as they were working).

Tolkien had a bug up his ass about perceptions about what he was referring to because he thought some of those perceptions were simplistic or literal in a crude way (Saruman = Hitler), and because near the end of his life he especially disliked some of the hippies/counter-cultural types who thought he was on their side. But the notion that hobbits are basically idealized yeoman farmers from pre-industrial Yorkshire or the English Midlands is a reading he readily copped to, and his dislike of the industrial-seeming contrivances of Saruman was certainly a feeling he had about 20th Century life in general. It's up to a reader to decide whether LOTR amounts to an *intention* to use fantasy to advocate turning your back on industrial modernity--Tolkien wasn't a polemicist in that sense, so that's possibly an overreading of his own views, and LOTR is also a pretty lousy polemic in those terms. Tolkien thought fantasy was largely an end in and of itself, but you're not obliged to read his fantasy and stay strictly inside the lines he set for himself. You can do as you like with it.

If you watched Thor: Ragnarok and said, "This is a polemic that calls out for the overthrow of the former imperialists of the West! It's intended as a secret message of affection for ISIS or as a work of postcolonial theory!" then congratulations, you're an idiot. Not because that's not the intention, but because that's not the movie's tone, it's not the nature of its reference to colonialism. It's not a polemic--it's a light-hearted adventure. But it's still working with the sense of modern colonialism as a "secret history" of the contemporary world to inform its underlying narrative. Even if somehow a Maori director who is deeply involved in contemporary rethinkings of New Zealand's imperial history and the relationship of Maori people to it somehow didn't know he was doing that--a frankly stupid and insulting suggestion--that material is without a doubt present in the finished product. Whether Marvel executives intended that or knew that is a secondary question and I can't see that it matters all that much except if you want to know whether they deserve some of the credit for it or not.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on November 17, 2017, 03:00:45 PM
There is a touch of irony here in you revising Tolkien's stated truth to suit your own ends, KhalOdin.

And to say that someone does something without *intent* is not the same thing as saying they did it without *knowledge*.  That doesn't seem to be something you're understanding here.  If, at any point, under any reasonable fact pattern possible, someone asked TW is there was a parallel between Asgard/Odin's story and the whitewashed colonialism of... well, 90% of the fucking world, he'd say it was obviously there.  Nobody is fucking debating that shit.  Everybody seems to be 100% fucking clear on that point. 

The question, and I get to say what the damn fucking question is BECAUSE I FUCKING ASKED IT, is to what extent it was an intentional decision to build the story around it.  When and why did that underpinning enter the story?  I could see it being there way back in 2011 when Thor III was put on the secret Marvel whiteboard.  Or I could see it being added in a revision of the script when they saw an opportunity to turn a Shakespearean family drama into something more.  I could see TK coming to Marvel to pitch the idea that Odin and Asgard were conquerors before they were 'benevolent rulers', or I could see it being something he just worked into the script naturally without fanfare and everyone accepted without much, if any, conversation because it seemed so fucking natural for the story.  If you can't see more than one narrow possibility... well, why do I need to waste my breath?

I'm done.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 17, 2017, 04:03:04 PM
Lot of goalpost moving there. Sometimes it's easier to just say, "Oh, ok, I get it."


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on November 17, 2017, 05:31:58 PM


That's so Spain/Portugal/Belgium/France/England that it hurts.  I'm sure I am missing a few.

Like, maybe the Vikings?

Maybe part of my disconnect here is that, in my own headcannon, this is exactly as I would have thought the Asgardians forged their realm. Marvel has already shown us that the overall universe is not a very peaceful place -- having the inspiration for the earthly Vikings being spacefaring plunderers is, well, not exactly edgy.

It's just weird that people are slapping their foreheads and going "Woah! He really snuck some heady social commentary in there! Bet nobody noticed but us smart folks!" when it's actually kinda stereotypical. And Waitiki even put all the bad stuff in the past -- if they want to be really risky make it plain that the Asgardians are still hated everywhere else *but* Asgard.

They may still do that, and I would approve.

Being disliked by most of the rest of the Nine Realms is even a basic part of Norse mythology. As are the Aesir being morally dubious sorts in some ways. Even in the mythology of the people who worshipped them, they're sort of dubious sorts, although their enemies aren't really any better. Which would probably be Odin's justification that differs from Hela's bloodthirstiness--that he was bringing peace to the Nine Realms, etc.--but even that's pretty consistent with Western colonialism in the 19th Century (oh, we're here to kill and humiliate these people because we want them to stop fighting with each other) plus it's a classic split between the people talking a somewhat lofty language back in Europe and the people actually doing the colonizing out there in the world.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MahrinSkel on November 17, 2017, 06:24:07 PM
Quote
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: lamaros on November 19, 2017, 04:41:00 PM
I'm done.

Mate you never even got started.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: calapine on February 05, 2018, 01:53:37 PM
I am at Thor meets Hulk and damn, this film is taking the piss.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Tale on February 05, 2018, 02:32:05 PM
I am at Thor meets Hulk and damn, this film is taking the piss.

I mean, it's directed by the preacher in this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32QcvEuJYFA


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on February 06, 2018, 07:52:11 AM
I am at Thor meets Hulk and damn, this film is taking the piss.

I mean, it's directed by the preacher in this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32QcvEuJYFA

Who also directed this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR2rGt_4T4A


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on February 06, 2018, 08:23:37 AM
That reminds me I really need to watch that movie too.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soln on February 06, 2018, 10:25:57 PM
That reminds me I really need to watch that movie too.

Wasn't bad.  NZ kind of regional humor.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: lamaros on February 07, 2018, 05:20:59 PM
I was so-so on it. It has some funny bits and quotable lines that people like to reference, but the overall feel was skit-show made movie length. I did watch it on a plane, though.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Hoax on February 07, 2018, 07:52:28 PM
Finally saw this, wanted to catch it theaters but that didn't happen.

I was close to really liking it and I think I would have in theater and considering thor and esp hulk are far from my favorite heros normally (though movie thor is pretty great) i'd def call this a success. I'd still say Homecoming was the best marvel movie of 2017.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on February 08, 2018, 03:18:07 AM
Nah.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on February 08, 2018, 04:26:50 AM
Between this, homecoming, Logan and Wonder Woman it was a pretty good year for super hero movies.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on February 08, 2018, 07:18:30 AM
Between this, homecoming, Logan and Wonder Woman it was a pretty good year for super hero movies.

Guardians 2?


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on February 08, 2018, 07:33:57 AM
Was very meh.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 08, 2018, 08:21:45 AM
Was very meh.

It was fun in the theatre but had some tonal issues that kept me from ever being that invested in it. Like, every time it kinda got serious, it had to make a joke as though they were scared.  Climactic battle with starlord turning into pacman or the hasselhoff cameo are prime examples.  Gunn built a great world with characters people really liked but seemed too insecure in the second one and had no confidence that dramatic moments with these characters would resonate.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on February 08, 2018, 08:51:14 AM
I disagree with what you said.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Hutch on February 08, 2018, 11:49:14 AM
The Hasslehoff cameo, while cute, was evidence that Ego was using emotional manipulation to get Peter's cooperation.

The Pac Man moment was, frankly, Gunn doing the same thing to those of us in the audience who are old enough that we played those games in the arcade. Or the grocery store. Or Pizza Hut.

The franchise is built, in part, on Peter's encylopedic memories of 80s pop culture. Don't be surprised if Galaga and an aged-down Alyssa Milano show up in the third chapter.

It would be pretty funny if the actual Alyssa Milano has a cameo in Infinity War, but I digress  :grin:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on February 08, 2018, 12:44:25 PM
I fell asleep during gog2 at the movies, and then again when we rented it at home.

MEH! Those 4 i mentioned kicked its arse...frankly WW outside of Gal Gadot was meh too.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Tale on February 08, 2018, 07:10:07 PM
I am at Thor meets Hulk and damn, this film is taking the piss.

I mean, it's directed by the preacher in this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32QcvEuJYFA

Who also directed this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR2rGt_4T4A

And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8KAaf45g5U


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Teleku on February 08, 2018, 07:38:55 PM
.....Thought GoG2 was easily the best superhero movie this year.  I haven’t seen Homecoming yet because pretty much everybody shit all over it as being one of the worst marvel films made, and then forgot it existed.  Thanks for the reminder though, I’ll try to give it go!


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 08, 2018, 09:11:55 PM
I won't say got2 was a terrible movie or nitpick it to death like SOMME people would...

Just for me personally there were moments where they interjected humor that absolutely threw me out of the movie and while I wish it weren't so it just kinda soured an experience that I wanted to be great but ended up being good.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Velorath on February 08, 2018, 11:01:15 PM
Just for me personally there were moments where they interjected humor that absolutely threw me out of the movie

Wait, we're talking about the sequel to the movie where the bad guy was distracted at the end by Chris Pratt dancing right? I think the humor in GotG2 was pretty consistent with what was established in the first movie.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on February 09, 2018, 07:55:56 AM
Yeah, nothing about the humor in GOTG2 should have been surprising at all. One should be more surprised that Raganrok ended up being a buddy heist comedy.

Also, don't believe the haters, Teleku - Spider-Man Homecoming was really good.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on February 09, 2018, 11:35:48 AM
I haven’t seen Homecoming yet because pretty much everybody shit all over it as being one of the worst marvel films made,


Whaaaaat? Homecoming was a solid movie, and bears up over rewatches. It was also great fun.

I do remember that some folks seemed to have issues with the approach it took to canon, but others most decidedly did not (sorry Uncle Ben). But as a lifelong Spiderman fan, this was the most Spiderman of all the movies so far.

And GoG and sequels were always set up as dramadies, with the emphasis on the a (com)ady. I thought the tone was exactly right, even if rapidly shifted.

Back to Thor...

I enjoyed the hell out of the movie, but I do have to note one canon shift that I wish the director/writer did not make.

This is the only movie where the Asgardians take the "god" thing seriously.

In fact, in the first Avengers movie Odin makes a point of chastising Loki for trying to appear as a god to Earthlings, while making the point that we are all mortal, Asgardians and Earthlings alike (prompting Loki to make the counterpoint of, "Sure, if humans lived five thousand years").

Every other instance in the MCU has the Asgardians presented as very advanced aliens, but not gods (though easily taken as gods by primitives, as apparently happened on Earth when one of their wars spilled over through Scandinavia in early medieval times). Agents of SHIELD even had an episode centered around the fact that some humans had taken to worshiping them as gods and were trying to ascend to their level by using their old left behind artifacts, much to the contempt of the one very non-godlike Asgardian featured in the show.

Thor:Ragnarok has them totally taking their own godhood seriously, which has some pretty troubling future implications and frankly I hope they just ignore it in future installments.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MahrinSkel on February 09, 2018, 12:06:42 PM
They kind of covered that, in the sense that Asgard was built over the "neutron star balanced in an Einstein-Rosen Bridge" wormhole, the other end of which was the Devil's Anus. And this was the source of power for the "godlike" abilities of the High Asgardians like Thor and Hella.

--Dave


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MediumHigh on February 09, 2018, 12:22:07 PM
Actually the best part of Thor Rag was actually expanding on the "god" aspect of the character. Because Thor SHOULD be the god of thunder not longed lived alien iron man.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on February 09, 2018, 12:30:14 PM
By the end of the movie, there's really only four surviving Asgardians who have "god" identities: Thor, Loki, Heimdall and Hela.

The rest of the Asgardians are just long-lived human beings--there really aren't any others left who have extraordinary powers along with some kind of special identification with some property of the universe (storms, magic, vision, death). I suppose Sif counts if she's still alive somewhere else. Maybe Valkyrie, though she just seems like "badass warrior".

Plus I'm guessing that it's not going to be long before the Asgardians are a moot point entirely--things aren't looking good for them if that's Thanos' ship in the postcredits scene.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on February 09, 2018, 01:27:07 PM
They kind of covered that, in the sense that Asgard was built over the "neutron star balanced in an Einstein-Rosen Bridge" wormhole, the other end of which was the Devil's Anus. And this was the source of power for the "godlike" abilities of the High Asgardians like Thor and Hella.

--Dave

I'm okay with "godlike." They were talking themselves up as actual gods. "You are the god of lightning, not the hammer."

But I won't belabor the point -- it's minor to most people's enjoyment of the series I imagine, and also in my own head I take the entire movie as something Thor drunkenly related in a tavern somewhere (after they escape from whatever that was at the end -- and yes I think I know), so okay he kinda inflated everything a bit.

As a side-note, saying my powers come from The Devil's Anus -- yeah I'd probably just claim to be a god too and skip that part.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Sir T on February 12, 2018, 04:53:29 PM
So your saying Thor isn't a god, he is just full of shit?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: TheWalrus on February 13, 2018, 12:45:16 AM
No, he's not clergy.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on February 13, 2018, 03:03:05 PM
God is just a label. 

In the MCU, magic is a different form of technology.  They make that clear in Thor and Dr. Strange.  Being a God basically means you have technology that is embedded into you.  Hulk might start calling himself a God. 


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on February 13, 2018, 05:17:54 PM
Though note how much of what's going on in the MCU involves McGuffins that are NOT inside of beings, but are instead objects of power.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MahrinSkel on February 13, 2018, 06:18:56 PM
Though note how much of what's going on in the MCU involves McGuffins that are NOT inside of beings, but are instead objects of power.
And we have lampshading of objects that are both (Jane Foster and the Aether, Vision and the Mind Infinity Stone).

--Dave


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on February 14, 2018, 12:52:36 PM
Though note how much of what's going on in the MCU involves McGuffins that are NOT inside of beings, but are instead objects of power.
Yeah - and someone might call themselves a God when they possess those items (whether attached to them, worn, carried or applied rectally).  It is just a label.  Thus my hedging with the word "basically". 

Labels do not mean much of anything. 

If I were to start a discussion of Gods, it would begin with the idea of worshippers.  As there is no real discussion of Worshippers of these Asgardians, I think the God label is odd, but the comics never really spend too much time on Thor's worshippers.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on February 14, 2018, 02:13:55 PM
It's silly to label anything in the MCU as science, since their idea of science obeys basically zero laws of physics.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: MediumHigh on February 14, 2018, 02:22:24 PM
There is an actual pantheon. Their just heavily tied to the idea of being super powered primordial beings with the power of cosmic which is basically magic for the syfy aspect of the Marvel Universe. Power Cosmic allows guys like Adam Warlock and Silver Surfer to be viable characters in a universe were galactic spanning empires spam spaceships capable of destroying life on earth in 24 hours. Which is the same power of the physical gods of the marvel universe such as the Celestial, the Watchers, etc.

Guys like Doctor Strange manipulate the power cosmic to do magic but its more of a gateway to the power that flows between dimensions as oppose to say how Odin uses it, who has the potential to melt a planet and generally wields it with the force of a hammer to break or build. They (the marvel pantheon) are god's but they're not GODS and they are definitely unique to the way marvel doesn't really like talking about magic but too lazy to not call it magic and treat several aspects of their actual science like magic. DC has a much better distinction and most of their magic.y stuff is defined as being separate from their space opera stuff and other genres with very few cross overs.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on February 14, 2018, 02:54:19 PM
There have been a number of times in the comics where Thor in particular has been shown to lead humans who worship him as a God, he calls himself a God and such.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on February 14, 2018, 05:47:53 PM
It's a simple concept. (https://youtu.be/vb5-LLQ3FjY?t=1m17s)


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on February 15, 2018, 07:07:21 AM
There have been a number of times in the comics where Thor in particular has been shown to lead humans who worship him as a God, he calls himself a God and such.
Yes - the comics don't spend too much time on the idea of him having worshippers, but they have gone there on occasion (most of the stories with worshippers Ihave seen are set in other time periods, even).  My point is that the "Church of Thor" is not something that drives Thor comics on a regular basis the same way that Jane Foster, the Warriors Three, Donald Blake, or any of the other commonly appearing elements resurface as an integral part of the Thor story for prolonged periods.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on February 15, 2018, 07:38:34 AM
The way i always saw it was that Thor is the god of lightning because of his lightning powers, he doesn't have lightning powers because he is the god of lightning.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on February 15, 2018, 11:50:08 AM
There have been a number of times in the comics where Thor in particular has been shown to lead humans who worship him as a God, he calls himself a God and such.

Which is why I try to always say "in the MCU." The comic canon is more often than not not MCU canon, thank Feige. Hell, in the original comics Thor was some sort of astral being that aggressively possessed some poor crippled human, robbing him of years of life and memory.

I've always been happy with the MCU's presentation of magic as just super high technology from aliens that understand how to manipulate multidimensional power sources that we can barely conceive of. My observation after Thor:Ragnarok is that Waititi came damn close to presenting the high ranking Asgardians as more metaphysical gods -- creatures who believe their power gives them actual rightful dominion over the elements and that which relates to said elements.

I admit that presenting themselves that way would be quite the effective tool to keep control of the "lesser developed" inhabitants of the Nine Realms, which may have been just what Waititi intended since he was presenting the Asgardians as having a history of violent conquest that they had grown away from. So Odin chastening Loki in Avengers was to remind him that they had socially evolved away from such methods, but then in his dotage Odin reverted to the old times in his head, rambling on about the condition of godhood to his impressionable son.

And of course Hela has been pinned up since those violent old days, and has never even had the chance to progress from the old Dominionist bullshit of the early days of Asgard.

Sure, I can buy that.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Brolan on March 11, 2018, 01:46:58 PM
I waiting for this to get to the "box" since I missed it in theaters.  I was surprised at how good it was.  Liked the increased humor, but they strayed dangerously close to pure camp at times.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 12, 2018, 02:28:59 AM
Rewatched this last night for Mothers Day.

It's still funny. I love how funny it actually is.  Oddly, I'd missed the first time around how Cate manages to deliver her lines as if Taika just said 'Hey, have fun with it' and she totally seems to.  I think the first watch, I was mostly in 'oh right, baddie chewing scenery, don't pay much attention' but for some reason on the second watch she just cracked me up.

Also, Get Help is possibly the finest thing Chris and Tom have ever done.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: TheWalrus on March 12, 2018, 08:21:26 AM
Oh god. Get help. That was so great.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on March 12, 2018, 09:37:48 AM
Get help is pretty funny, but I like this one a bit more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpy22Yosp04


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 13, 2018, 04:47:00 AM
It's the Brick in Get Help though, where they're at the end fighting and desperate on the Bifrost and they're about to die from the God of Death and a Dog and Loki turns to Thor and says with Genuine fear and desperation "I'm not doing Get Help."


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Shannow on March 13, 2018, 07:14:04 AM
It's the Brick in Get Help though, where they're at the end fighting and desperate on the Bifrost and they're about to die from the God of Death and a Dog and Loki turns to Thor and says with Genuine fear and desperation "I'm not doing Get Help."


This.

I've watched three times in the last two days (my own rewatch, watching with daughter,now wife is watching) and enjoyed it immensely each time. So many good lines.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Mandella on March 13, 2018, 10:17:43 AM
If you haven't yet watched the deleted scenes, do so. I haven't seen them all myself but what I've had time to watch are dementedly over the top, even for this movie.

"Dumbo, Dumbo! DUMBO!!

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on March 13, 2018, 01:20:37 PM
I'm waiting for one of these movies to have a fight set in Disneyland where they totally destroy the park.  Maybe we'll get that in Thor 4 ... which I'm betting will be 2021 with a recast Jane Foster picking up the story...


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Riggswolfe on March 18, 2018, 01:05:34 AM
The part that always kills me in this movie is the scene with Banner leaping out of the spaceship. "You wanted to know who I am? Watch this."

*cut to wolf charging across the bridge and Banner hitting the bridge. Wolf sniffs his broken body then moves on*

It kills me everytime.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 18, 2018, 01:28:41 AM
It also looks really, really sore.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Teleku on March 18, 2018, 10:45:13 AM
I just purchased a massive and overtly expensive high end TV.  To break it in, watched this finally.

Loved it.  Going full GoG with Thor is the best way to handle its lore for movie adaptation.  Jokes had me laughing all the way through, and it was just pure entertainment.  Yet another reason why Marvel is so much better in the movie realm.  DC would have tried to play this shit straight, and it would have been awful. 


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 18, 2018, 01:48:51 PM
That's such a big part of the Marvel success.  I watched that WRETCHED Fantastic Four remake recently and I once again just couldn't believe how fucking awful it was.  At every turn you could see how Marvel would have fixed it.

Didn't help that Killmonger was in it.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: schild on March 18, 2018, 02:31:28 PM
in a world where dc movies are as good as marvel movies

it would require they retcon the characters and powers for every single fucking hero and villain in the entire brand

it's impossible

and the only time a DC movie is good is when a random guy is like "I'm gonna win an oscar playing the joker but first, suicide"

dc sucks


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 18, 2018, 03:06:10 PM
They've done passable and enjoyable cartoons just fine.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on March 18, 2018, 03:30:36 PM
I keep coming back to this, but the MCU has tons to do with Feige. They got a guy to be the central figure who wasn't embarrassed by comics. DC/Warner got guys who wanted to think of themselves as great DEEP thinking visual auteurs etc who were embarrassed by comics. If you've watched that horrible wank thing Snyder made that was his personal dream project, you got it right away: this is a guy who is a middle-of-the-road art school guy who has convinced himself he's a fucking genius and no one wants to tell him otherwise. But Goyer, etc., are the same way: dudes who have been handed the wheel who don't like the car they're driving.

Basic takeaway is: find a talented guy but make sure he likes the stuff you're asking him to adapt.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 18, 2018, 05:48:12 PM
I keep coming back to this, but the MCU has tons to do with Feige. They got a guy to be the central figure who wasn't embarrassed by comics. DC/Warner got guys who wanted to think of themselves as great DEEP thinking visual auteurs etc who were embarrassed by comics. If you've watched that horrible wank thing Snyder made that was his personal dream project, you got it right away: this is a guy who is a middle-of-the-road art school guy who has convinced himself he's a fucking genius and no one wants to tell him otherwise. But Goyer, etc., are the same way: dudes who have been handed the wheel who don't like the car they're driving.

Basic takeaway is: find a talented guy but make sure he likes the stuff you're asking him to adapt.


There's a reason Iron Man 1 did as well as it did, Jon Favreau was a comic fan himself.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Teleku on March 19, 2018, 02:10:44 AM
All of that has been very important, yes.  But it's also how they approach adapting ridiculous comic book characters for the big screen.  Things like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor are ridiculous camp.  I would have told you 10 years ago that there is no way they could film them without looking utterly stupid.  So instead, they acknowledged how ridiculous the settings are, and ran with them as comedies.  Make fun of the actual IP itself.  The other Thor movies aren't the best, but they still made sure to keep a good amount of jokes and physical comedy in to set the right tone.  Ragnarok is how they should have handled the Franchise from the get go.  I mean, part of the marvel formula is that all of their movies are fairly light hearted and infused with humor to balance things out.  But they seem good at identifying the IP's they can tell more serious stories with, vs the ones they need to adapt a different way, which is a big part of the success.

DC, on the other hand, has no range between movies.  It's always standard 'serious hero is serious', with the grim dark ramped up lately.  Which is hard to pull off when you have characters that look totally silly when removed from the pages of a comic and put into a filmed real world setting.  If they were smart, they would give Aquaman the exact same treatment as Thor.  However, we are going to watch them spend millions of dollars trying to convince me god damn Aquaman is totally cool and bad ass later this year.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 19, 2018, 02:42:30 AM
I actually don't agree.  If Thor had taken a different tack in the first movie, the Avengers film wouldn't have worked with him in it.  Imagine the current Ragnarok Thor attempting to do the heavy Avengers Brother and Responsibility stuff.  It plain wouldn't work.  The only reason they get to lighten up Thor now is because of what came before.  Thor Ragnarok works so well because it's comic relief.  It's the comfort of known characters and the funny duality of them acting the same but different.  It simply would NOT have worked otherwise unless they'd let Branagh do his thing and let Tom and Chris work themselves into the characters.

Though I will say that the humour was always there (thinking of the Pet Store scene here) ready to be unleashed.  I suspect Dark World was so bad because apart from 2 Broke Girls and Mental Streaker, it was pretty unfunny.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Teleku on March 19, 2018, 07:57:52 AM
Ah, that's fair.  I was concentrating on the lore itself rather than the larger world, and I agree with your assessment.  Still, as you say, after the first movie it would have worked better (IMO) if they had upped the comedy, rather than going more serious like they did.  Maybe this was a (good) over reaction to that, heh.

I still think the point is overall valid in how you approach adapting really campy comic shit to movies.  Again, Aquaman is going to be a thing.  A serious thing.  Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but arrrrrrggg


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 19, 2018, 08:20:51 AM
Yeah, well, I'm with Schild on DC and Movies.  It's truly terrible.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Goumindong on March 19, 2018, 11:45:25 AM
I keep coming back to this, but the MCU has tons to do with Feige. They got a guy to be the central figure who wasn't embarrassed by comics. DC/Warner got guys who wanted to think of themselves as great DEEP thinking visual auteurs etc who were embarrassed by comics. If you've watched that horrible wank thing Snyder made that was his personal dream project, you got it right away: this is a guy who is a middle-of-the-road art school guy who has convinced himself he's a fucking genius and no one wants to tell him otherwise. But Goyer, etc., are the same way: dudes who have been handed the wheel who don't like the car they're driving.

Basic takeaway is: find a talented guy but make sure he likes the stuff you're asking him to adapt.


Nah. Snyder liked the stuff he was adapting. It’s just the stuff he was adapting was grimdark shit from a butt.

The Watchmen, his best movie, is a pretty decent adaption of the comic. The Watchmen is also the least grimdark book he attempted to adapt.

The problem isn’t that the DC folks don’t like comics it’s that they like shit comics.

The folks at Marvel are barely even adapting comics compared to what is happening at DC. At Marvel they take the theme (maybe) and the broad strokes heroes and villains and tell a newish story. They’re willing to change beats, motivations, etc to make things work for a different audience.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on March 19, 2018, 12:38:21 PM
DC movies have improved because Goyer and Synder are not as involved as they were during the BVS shit, but the creative guy in charge is Geoff Johns. He is good comics writer but he does suffer from a fixation on darkening up stories that didn't need it.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: NowhereMan on March 21, 2018, 12:47:27 PM
I'd say from Goum's post the difference is that the Marvel guys wanted to capture the fun and excitement of the comics and the characters. Snyder and the DC guys wanted to capture the grimdark moments of some takes and line for line reproductions of some of the big double page splash screens from the graphic novels.

One of those, surprisingly, didn't make for great blockbuster cinema.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on March 21, 2018, 02:54:36 PM
I'd say from Goum's post the difference is that the Marvel guys wanted to capture the fun and excitement of the comics and the characters. Snyder and the DC guys wanted to capture the grimdark moments of some takes and line for line reproductions of some of the big double page splash screens from the graphic novels.

One of those, surprisingly, didn't make for great blockbuster cinema.

Nolan was able to capture grimdark DC, the recent crop of dceu movies are a weird hybrid of wanting to be both grimdark and flashy blockbuster and end up failing on both.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on March 21, 2018, 03:14:06 PM
Nolan did so well with the Batman series because he treated it like a film noir crime movie that had a guy in a bat costume in it. The DCEU are trying to make superhero movies based on works that specifically deconstructed the concepts of superheroes (Watchmen/Dark Knight) with a filmmaker/screenwriters who just aren't good enough to understand what that means beyond the surface, or why that's not a good approach to tentpoliing a big budget franchise.

I still maintain there is nothing inherently wrong with DC characters that precludes them from making as good a set of movies as Marvel. Sure they are more over the top in some instances. Warner Bros. executives are the root cause of the movies being what they are - when they succeed, it's in spite of the WB execs (Wonder Woman) not because of them.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: jgsugden on March 21, 2018, 03:32:43 PM
Wonder Woman is a good example that things can be done right.  While not perfect, the imperfections are things we can see how to work around. 

However, DC does have two problems that Marvel doesn't need to fear as much:

1.) Dated characters.  A lot of the DC characters were made so long ago that they are inherently dated.  They have been 'updated', but a lot of them still have a core that feels older than Marvel, in general.
2.) Excessive power levels.

It can be done, but it is just harder. 


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 22, 2018, 02:39:57 AM

I still maintain there is nothing inherently wrong with DC characters that precludes them from making as good a set of movies as Marvel.


No, you're still wrong.  Superman is a God.  There's no Good Film that can come of it without other Gods or Green Rocks.

Hell, you know me ;  I had a small liking for Superman 2.  It had some great performances.  But it was really Independence Day 2.  Big Aliens invaded and other Big Aliens stopped them.  Meanwhile, humans were of little or not consequence.

Sure, you can then take Superman away from Earth to make a film and, yeah, that might work, but then you've basically got another Alien-type movie with shit all grounding it.  And that's not counting where they've now taken Superman, as he's now just a shitweasel because of Robin Hood Prince of Fucking Thieves and his moral cowardice.


Also, Flash is a God.  A God we hobble to make us feel comfortable.  Batman, through the ages, has pretty much turned into an unbeatable God and Wonder Woman turned into a God Also.

I have no interest in Bible movies.  Fuck DC characters.  Fuck them.

Also, Sugden ;  Dated Characters ?  That's NOT the issue.  I was the worlds biggest hater of 'Captain America' and LOOK at what Marvel did.  Look at what they fucking did.  He's dated as FUCK and older than the hills in comic terms.  Yet, they took people who believed, put them behind the scenes and then put Chris front and centre with some fantastic support.  He's now one of my favourite heroes and he's Captain Fucking America, previously everything that was wrong with America in my eyes.

Anyway.  No idea why I'm posting.  This is known.  I've been around long enough.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on March 22, 2018, 05:51:03 AM
There is no problem that can't be solved. But it takes recognizing what you've got to work with. DC's universe doesn't benefit from 'realism', it benefits from being more fantastic, more scaled-up, more iconic. Sure, they're gods--so do something with that.

Or 'hobble' them without saying so, but if you do, *have fun* with them. Because that's the other thing they are: a bit simpler, a bit more child-like, a bit more elemental. And there's a workable take in there too--that doesn't mean simplistic or child-like, it just means that what you're doing with DC's heroes should be a different kind of fantasy storytelling than otherwise.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Threash on March 22, 2018, 08:06:43 AM
A big problem DC had is that we were just coming of three really good Batman movies that followed a decade or so of ok to bad Batman movies. The guy that was supposed to tie everything together was the only one on their entire roster that was already played out. Ideally the start of their cinematic universe would be 2-3 Batman movies, but they were unlikely to be superior to the Bale versions.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on March 22, 2018, 05:42:46 PM
Basically, Batman shouldn't ever set the tone for the rest of the DC Universe: when he's combined with other superheroes, he's best as a contrast. EVEN if that's silly, as in the Brave and the Bold cartoon--Batman as paragon, etc.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on March 22, 2018, 06:57:16 PM
The problem with the DC movies is they treated Superman as God - they went with that whole conceit and then tried to deconstruct it in a grimdark fashion, and that's interesting as a one-off Elseworlds What-If type story but it's drab as dishwater as part of a franchise. It also leaves you no real room to play with the character in any sort of interesting way. But there have been many good Superman stories where they've brought his power down to the more beatable level (he's vulnerable to magic, electricity, nukes). Batman is a God on the other side of the equation, the perfection of humanity (which really means he's the ultimate nerd's power revenge fantasy).

There are good DC stories to be told, but not by the people they have in charge, and not with the execs who greenlight scripts and set out a strategy for a franchise universe without really having clue one what that means, or the patience to let it develop organically. They've changed directions so much just in the 5 years since Man of Steel was released at least 4-5 times. You can tell it's a problem because of how many directors they have gone through before movies have even started filming.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: NowhereMan on March 23, 2018, 02:48:49 AM
Yeah, saying Superman is a God shouldn't be a limitation on film versions. He can be as fast as a bullet, he can be strong enough to lift a tank but he doesn't need to be capable of circumnavigating the globe in the time it takes someone to blink. Make his power manageable so there can be real challenges and don't make solving those challenges dependant on him using his powers

Superman's challenge should really be about winning people over, saving the day without making moral sacrifices. Hell the Dark Knight Rises handled that kind of predicament well but with Superman, ultimately, he should be resisting the urge to just snap a neck.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on March 23, 2018, 03:45:26 AM
Basically there are only a few classic superhero story hooks, even Marvel heroes:

a) why shouldn't I take over the world (or me and my pals) to save it from itself? why would that turn out badly?
b) if I can save cats from trees, banks from robbers, women reporters from falling off buildings, why can't I save everyone? how do I live with the fact that people still die?
c) if I can save cats from trees, etc., why can't I save myself and my loved ones? why can't I have everything I want? would it be so bad if I was selfish now and again?
d) why do I feel compelled to do this stuff, considering how little it really changes things? am I the one who is broken or messed up? why do I have to be the guy who guards humanity against threats it doesn't know about or understand that only I can stop? will I ever get relief from this?
e) why does [my archfoe] not want to behave responsibly with his powers/capabilities? what's wrong with him/her/it? can I afford to let him/her/it run free, considering how dangerous they are?
f) I have powers/abilities and I know what's right. I'm going to do whatever it takes. Oh shit, I guess no man is an island and I have to depend on other people/love other people now and again.
g) The bad guy has an intricate plan and a dynamic personality and is more interesting than I am; my only job is to foil it all at the very end, probably through dumb luck/clean living.
h) I am better than I know: I can't act with power until I learn to love myself/uncover my potential/believe in myself. I have to be better and smarter. I need to unlock new powers or have a better technique.
i) I messed up once and people died. That's why a) I'm obsessive to the point of being dangerous and have to learn not to be; b) I'm burned-out and reclusive and have to be brought back to being responsible again
j) I've been doing this for a long time, but my enemies just came up with a terrifying new plot/objective or have finally found a way to stop me/hurt me; I need allies or new powers or to step up my game
k) I serve a cause; my enemies serve theirs. Neither of us is perfectly right; there are moral compromises on both sides. Maybe we can work something out/turn against our causes. Maybe we actually like/love each other, or could.
i) I'm having fun and occasionally I save a cat from a tree in the process. My life is great! Except for that one day when shit really hits the fan. Suddenly I realize that this isn't a game.
j) I will have my vengeance! Wrong things have been done to me!

Some of these are one-time story hooks--the "I'm better than I know" is usually an origin story; "I messed up once" is usually a kind of "reboot origin" story. Some of them are ongoing story hooks (why am I compelled/will I never get some rest). Some of them are twists in ongoing serials (can my enemy and I actually evolve and build a relationship?)

DC heroes are just as open to most of these. The "why am I compelled" is only good, for example, if you care about the character as a person--it doesn't work if the character is abstract, generic, bland or whiny. Old-style Silver Age Barry Allen was just a nice white guy police scientist--if he'd started whining suddenly that he was tired of saving people, you would have been like, "Why? What do you need more time for? The only thing interesting in your life is fighting Captain Cold." But when Iris Allen was murdered (seemingly), you could suddenly sympathize when he said, "Fuck this shit, I had a perfect domestic life and it got my wife killed, I'm done with it." The "why am I compelled" is more potent when the character seems to have a real personality with real personal dilemmas, or when their heroism costs them personally almost every time they suit up.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: eldaec on March 23, 2018, 03:24:31 PM
Yeah, saying Superman is a God shouldn't be a limitation on film versions.

Not just film versions, Lois and Clark managed 87 episodes and it is still the best Superman.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Ironwood on March 24, 2018, 01:15:15 AM
I don't think anyone's saying it couldn't work as a romantic comedy.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Father mike on March 24, 2018, 09:07:04 AM
Basically there are only a few classic superhero story hooks, even Marvel heroes:

a) why shouldn't I take over the world (or me and my pals) to save it from itself? why would that turn out badly?
   .
   .
   .

Did you lead with this one on purpose?  Because, as far as I can tell, it's the story Snyder REALLY wants to tell.  In other words, Injustice: Gods Among Us

But it will never happen, for two reasons.  First, like Haemish said, grimdark Superman works as a one-off, but even casual movie-goers know that's not really the core of Superman's character.  It would damage the franchise too badly.

Second, Snyder just can't bring himself to do it, because, if there's one thing less artistically prestigious than a comic-book movie, its a comic-book movie based on a comic that's a prequel to a video game.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: eldaec on March 24, 2018, 11:55:42 AM
But mostly because Zac Snyder is bad at making films.



Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: eldaec on March 24, 2018, 12:00:52 PM
Basically there are only a few classic superhero story hooks, even Marvel heroes:

THIRTEEN DIFFERENT STORIES HERE

Well ok, but without much effort you just thought of double the number of stories that internet smart arses generally claim exist in all genres combined.

So I'm going out on a limb to say the main limitation on WB's work isn't the number of unique stories that it is possible to devise.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Khaldun on March 25, 2018, 08:14:25 AM
You can do Superman-takes-over-the-world as a one-off without being grimdark--that was basically the plot of the really bad Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Basically just have Supes try to do something more than he usually does, get into a heap of trouble where he realizes he can't do everything, and then give him a way to climb down semi-gracefully.

Though I'd love to see someone really good do Miracleman, except that Alan Moore would probably go on a murder spree if someone tried.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Soulflame on March 25, 2018, 08:48:53 AM
Ridiculous.  Moore wouldn't go on a murder spree.  The people involved would be eaten by giant snakes.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: Teleku on March 25, 2018, 09:18:45 AM
If he hasn’t gone on a murder spree already, he never will.


Title: Re: Thor: Ragnarok
Post by: HaemishM on March 25, 2018, 12:15:25 PM
Alan Moore is just fine with people shitting all over his work in film - I think he sent all his Watchmen money to Dave Gibbons and told Zak Synder to go fuck himself.