Thor: Ragnarok Trailer Thoughts



Real quick, I just wanted to get my thoughts of the Thor: Ragnarok trailer out.

So far, the Thor films have been the weakest of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe's output.  I liked Thor 1 well enough as a film about an adopted child struggling to fit in with his adoptive family and live up to their expectations--it ultimately had a really strong heart and made me empathize with the god that (thus far) is unquestionably the MCU's best villain, Loki.

Thor 2 on the other hand? Without even realizing it, I was pre-disposed to disliking it from the beginning. As an avid comic reader (Bottom of the Pile due up later today/Sunday!), I had been reading Thor for quite some time when Thor: The Dark World arrived in theatres.  Not long before the film came out, the comic's current writer Jason Aaron had just done a story featuring Malekith, the Accursed--the same villain as the one in the movie.  It wasn't the best story I'd ever read, but it was absolutely an excellent arc for Thor, tapping into the character's potential for high fantasy as the Thunder God had to deal with the machinations of Malekith. Essentially a story about deposing the leader of one of the Nine Realms, the story featured comedy, action, and intrigue--and almost felt like a more action-oriented version of Lord of the Rings, as a group of characters across the realms united to see Malekith unseated.   Coming out of that, I sat in the theatre watching The Dark World and felt entirely bored with this decidedly more mundane version of Malekith and the Dark Elves.  Despite the gorgeous views they provided of greater Asgard, the potential they had to make Thor shine as a superhero in a high fantasy universe felt squandered. 

So my hopes going into Thor: Ragnarok's trailer weren't terribly high but...I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong.  Hela leaving her realm in order to conquer Asgard, and Thor seemingly leaving Asgard on a journey to try and either get Mjolnir re-forged or return with an army (or macguffin) powerful enough to send Hela back where she came from.  This leaves Thor heading out to other worlds and thus takes him into the realm of the cosmic corners of the MCU.   Of course, it's not that classic sort of space opera-y Marvel Cosmic but more the brightly colored, more comedic (but still incredibly strange) cosmic that's along the same lines as Guardians.   Still, that kind of cosmic almost seems to suit Thor better--this version of the God of Thunder just doesn't seem to take himself as serious as he would in the comics.  And unlike Guardians where they simply decided the source material was basically wrong, this is just taking a character who already was kinda funny and making the setting match your lead.  It works.


Of course, there's a ton that could go wrong between this trailer and the completed film product, but I'll admit at this point I'm more excited to see this than Justice League, sadly.

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