House of R - 'Thor: Love and Thunder' Deep Dive | Plus: Director Taika Waititi

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

Jo and Mal step into the shadow realm for another MCU deep dive: This time it's 'Thor: Love and Thunder'. They talk about their initial thoughts of the film and how it stacks up in the 'Thor' canon and the MCU as a whole (06:23). They then dive into the characters of both Thor, and Mighty Thor (48:32). They also tackle Gorr the God Butcher and Christian Bale's captivating performance (107:18). Then, Joanna is joined by the film's director, Taika Waititi, to discuss comics influence, queer representation, and much more (2:20:05). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Guest: Taika Waititi Social: Jomi Adeniran Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Addition Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Charles Holmes, the Ringer Music Show. And I'm Cole Kushner from Dysect, and Charles and I are teaming up to create Last Song Standing, a new show where we determine an artist's single best song by debating our way through their entire catalog. And for our first season, we're covering Kendrick Lamar. We're talking good kids, a pimple butterfly, Dan, Mr. Morow, the mixtapes, the Lucy's, and the features. Listen to Last Song Standing on the Dysect podcast feed only on Spotify.

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Let me tell you the story of the space Viking. Thor Odinson. He was no ordinary man. He was a god. After saving planet Earth for the 500th time, Thor set off on a new journey. Well, he got in shape. He went from Dad Bod to God Bod.

And after all that, Milia, he reclaimed his title. As the one and only, Thor's the one and only, Four. Oh, spoke too soon. Jane? And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer podcast network.

I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to the Shadow Realm, but also to join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished RASVP, being to Zeus's orgy. It's my House of our co-host, Joanna Robinson.

You know, this makes the Panflaps joke that I was about to make sounds so much worse when you put it in proximity to the unimitensity orgy. Well, you know, House of Arir contains adult content. It's invite only. It's an honor to be invited. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, boy. Folks, we have a full. pod for you today, including a fun chat with a special guest at the end of this episode. Joe, you want to tell the people who you got today? Oh yeah, he's got a small part in the film. He voices the character of Corg. It is actor and sometimes director and writer Tycho Waititi is here for just

like a little chit chat. Just a little chit chat with Tyca at the end of this episode. So yeah. Stay tuned. Amazing. Amazing. Can not wait. to hear that before we dive in to our love and thunder chat today and to our fellow omnipot city visitors. Some programming reminders. Thor talk everywhere right now. If you have not yet listened to the Midnight Boys,

Biu! Instant reaction on Thor, Love and Thunder or Joanna and Sean's chat about the film over on the big picture. Check out both pods as soon as you wrap up here today. and then come right back to the ringerverse because we're not done. We're not through. We're fueling up on scoops of sugary goodness from infinity cones. And we're coming back to Pod some more because House of Ar will be returning on Tuesday with part two of our Thor 11th under conversation.

That will be the mailbag pod and the theories pod, much like you cannot contain the power of Thor. not contain our Thor takes. And then on Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will have their instant reactions to the Miss Marvel season finale. And then we will have our episode six Miss Marvel thoughts for you in our deep dive on Friday. So lots of pods this week on the ringerverse as usual. You can also catch up on the Midnight Boys Boys finale chat if you haven't heard that yet. Joe, how can the people follow all of that? Oh my gosh. Well, here's what I recommend. First of all, why don't just follow the podcast? easy peasy, lemon squeasy, show up on all your devices. But because we heard Marvel say Thor Levin Thunder should be less than two hours and we were like,

ha, ha, ha, but we will do nine hours of content on your movie. You might want to follow us on social as well to make sure you catch not only our coverage, but as you mentioned, the big pick because I think they're coming back for a second bite of the Thor Apple this week as well over the big pick. So a lot of Thor chat all over the ringer network. So Riggerverse, at Riggerverse, on Twitter. Everywhere. On Instagram.

Everywhere. TikTok, on Reddit. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Get with the program on Facebook. Everything everywhere all at once for Riggerverse social. That's Jomey. There's many different versions of Jomey and he's on every single platform.

Just putting out the memes in the hot dog finger world. It would be tough to tweet from the hot dog finger universe. Wouldn't it? I would like, well, no, they use their feet. They have prehensile toes. So the social media managers in the hot dog finger world are just like big, big on foot content. That's again,

Rigverse contains adult content. Okay. Bear that in mind. And of course as well, bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning because today's podcast will feature plot details from the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe phase four movie. Thor Love and Thunder the entire MCU run to date

and Marvel Comics canon. All of it. So proceed with more caution than Thor and the Guardians did when they loaded tooth nasher and tooth grinder into the Benatar. That was an error.

That was not a great move. Our beloved goats need a... They need room to roam and to shriek freely. I think everyone's on Nebula's side when she's just like, should I? And this here and now. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

How dare she? All right, Joe. We're here to talk about a little movie called Thor Love and Thunder directed by Tycho Atiti, written by Tycho Atidi and Jennifer Caten Robinson. No relation, as you like to say. No religion. We've got a Giacino score. We've got all sorts of metal needle drops and some mena. We've got a tight two-hour runtime, 159, for sure shorter than multiple ringer pods on this very film.

This is the 29th movie in the MCU. It is the sixth film in Phase 4, which is interesting because, of course, phases one and two were six films in total. Phase 4 is longer and has many television shows in it as well. But we're, you know, right around that halfway point here in Phase 4. And this is, of course, the fourth standalone film in the Thor franchise. Our guy Thor has been in many other MCU movies, but four standalone Thor properties. We're going to begin with some big picture chatter and our little open-end snapshot. You know, the hammer is going to pull us off here at the top of the chat.

Get us started. Get us going. Frazing. As corgwood note. As corgwood note, phrasing. overall impressions to set the stage here for our pod today, Joe, on Thor, Love, and Thunder. What did you think of the movie? So I liked it apparently a good deal more than some people did.

I had a great time with it. Do I hear and see the critiques that people have? I do, and we'll talk about some of them for sure. It's not like top, top tier Marvel for me, but it's not even, it's not mid-marvel for me. It's above mid-marvel. I want to pronounce that correctly because over the weekend I was at a party and I was talking to someone about the show Miss Marvel. And then someone came up and was like, I love that show. I was talking to us for a good while.

Then he's like, wait, did you see the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? And I was like, absolutely not. We've been talking about two entirely different shows. Should we talk about Lenny? Lenny some more right now? Get into some Lenny Mitch talk. But is Thor Mid Marvel? No, I don't think it is.

That's not where I am. I would call it like a B-plus Marvel for me and that's pretty good. Where does it rank for you among the four Thor films? You don't have to give a full MCU ranking. I think that we should plan on a check-in at a later date on that. But what about for the standalone films? I think it's pretty easy for me. I think it's Ragnarok, this, Thor one, and then a lot, like, underrated cinematic classic Thor the Dark World.

A cross-country journey and then Thor the Dark World. Boy, no one I'd rather share a cross-country journey with in Maliketh the Accursed, you know, my fellow Mal. fellow Mal the accursed. Oh, I forgot I had nicknames for us for this podcast. Is mine Mal the a curse? No, it's King Mallory. Yeah, King Mal. King Val.

I love it. What's yours? Dr. Joanna Foster. Great stuff. Great stuff. We can call you the mighty Thor. Call me that, but you can go or if you can't get it out, Dr. Joanna Foster will do. The fact that Valcure.

and you and I already texted about this last night, but the fact that Valkyrie does some major fighting in pajamas makes her your cinematic twin in every way, I think. Top tier hashtag life goals stuff right there. I mean, just remarkable. As you know, it's my great aspiration to do all meaningful work in pajamas or, you know, I'll stretch it to at leisure wear and showing up in the shorts and the Phantom of the Opera Tea

and the wellies. The outerware that's definitely, you know, inside wear, really. I just loved it. Loved everything about it. Couldn't have loved it more. I think we're in a similar spot on the movie. I really enjoyed the film. I had a great time at the theater.

I've seen it twice. You're ahead of me. You've seen this movie three times already at the Cineplex. My goodness. The third time was just yesterday. I went to the Alamo Draft House, and that was a blast, watching it with, like, a group of, of people that were all in and also not on their cell phones.

It was a great time. Indeed. Indeed. Yes, I had the pleasure of seeing it with some of our Ringervor's colleagues and pals at the screening the first time and then went this weekend to see it again with my husband and really enjoyed it both times. Certainly, of course, we have some some nits to pick as always. And there are some questions about the film and some questions about the overall wear phase four. right now that we'll get into in a few minutes. But I had a good time at the movie.

I really enjoy the Taika Thorverse in general. I enjoy the blend of tones and the blend of genres. I certainly understand that mileage may vary on that and that the sheer volume of genres and tones that are present in this film, which you and Sean had a great chat about on Big Pick, can make this feel a little maybe unwieldy or undefined for some viewers.

I really like the blend of pathos and introspection and raucous levity and vibrant color inside the movie. I love Gore. The Gore comic run is one of my favorite comic runs ever, which we'll chat about later. And while this is a, you know, certainly a different version and an adaptation that's specific to the film, quite a viewing delight. And I think I have the same overall ranking of the Thor films. Ragnarok number one. I'd put this second, you know, I've said it before, I'll say it again. I'll get dunked out every time. I have, I enjoy rewatching Dark World. I still put Thor, the first Thor film ahead of it. And I do acknowledge that Thor the Dark World is one of the handful of

lowest-ranked MC movies, even on my own personal power rankings. But you know what? When I return to it, I still find a lot of stuff to like. I really like the Thor and Loki stuff in that movie. That's a big part of it for me. Absolutely. That stuff is great. It's just such a shame what they did with their villain in that film because even, you know, rereading the Mighty Thor, the Jason Aaron Mighty Thor run, like, Malacinth is so a blast in the comics. So fun. So fun in that comic. You're like, how? How did you miss the mark with a great performance? I mean, Chris Freckleston is not who I would cast for the comics version of Malikith. But like, Chris Freckleson is phenomenal. A? The character is phenomenal in the comics. How do you? we get here. That's the question. Yeah. Anyway. Taika thoughts and feelings, both inside of the MCU and more

generally as a filmmaker and a creator. Yeah. So, Sean and I did talk about this a bit over on the big pick, a little more detail, but I'll just say that, like, Tyca, I have a complicated relationship with Taika Waititi's films. I think, not to sound like an insufferable hipster, but I think

some of his early independent stuff is the stuff that I respond to you the most. Boy, I really love the imagination of. Because he's so imaginative. And sometimes those really imaginative people, like, you know, we were referencing everything everywhere all at once, a movie with not a tremendously high budget, but really wildly imaginative directors. And they're the kind of directors where you're not always sure you want them to have an unlimited budget because you like the creative things that they're forced to make

within some sort of constraint. And so I think that's where Tyca's real sweet spot is, is some of the, you know, very inventive stuff that he's had to do in some of his early works. And so when you see him have such a massive budget to work with in this film, I think people have pointed out like the omnipotence city, a sequence especially, which is just so, it's creative, but it's also just very pixel CG feeling in a way that you can't access the wonder and creativity as much as intimately, if that makes sense. But in terms of like humor, I mean, humor, New Zealand humor is something that I absolutely love. It's an awkward humor.

It's a very dry humor. And I'm a big fan of. And then his commitment to emotionality, which, you know, as you touched on, like, does it always blend with the humor? Not always. But I was thinking, you know, I was listening to the Midnight Boys talk about the blend of humor and drama in this film. And I was thinking about, as I mentioned on the big pick, hunt for the wilder people, my favorite. Tycho Waititi movie. And in that,

that film opens with pretty near the beginning of the film, there's a funeral. And it's a devastating moment for like our two main characters. Sam Neal and Julian Donison are like sitting there. They're devastated. And then Tyco Waititi shows up to play the like, the priest at this funeral. And he does this ridiculous eulogy.

And it's hilarious. And like, and then everyone just doesn't know how to receive it. And you at home are laughing, even though you know this is a terribly sad moment. That is like the quintessence of Taika nailing the absurd humor and the pathos. And when he does that, there's nothing like it. So that's my long answer.

How do you, what's your relationship? I really enjoy his work. You know, I think that I have actually not seen wilder people. So after listening to you on Big Pick, I, I jotted it down, you know, high up on the, to watch list. So I'm very excited to check it out. Oh, my God. You're going to love it. I'm not really excited. Yeah, I suspect so. I'm really excited to check it out. And in general, I, you know, I love his work. You know, love what we do in the shadows. Obviously, a huge IG-11 head over here in the Mandoverse. You know, I think there's a case to be made that his greatest contributions to the MCU are the team Thor and team Daryl shorts for all our little bit, which are just like absolutely incredible. It's, it's fun to, you know, we'll probably hit this again later in the Easter eggs, but seeing Daryl as a tour guide and.

New Asgard and like bringing the team Thor shorts, the three, there's part one, part two, and the team Daryl, into the official MCU canon, just a delight. And of course, those are available now and like repackaged as one shots on Disney Plus. So that's just thrilling to me, even though there are parts of that. They're absolutely like canon shattering in terms of the Bruce Banner of it all. Don't care. Just a delight. Love it. And yeah, it's that, that blend that Taika brings that I enjoy so much. And I think the really just specific sense of personality and vibrancy. And there's something like really unapologetic about the approach that he takes in his movies,

which I really like this is, you know, the 9,000th time somebody on the Ringer podcast network alone, let alone elsewhere on the internet has had this conversation. But like, I think we agree that we can't really overstate the impact that this tweak of Thor, as a character had on the MCU not only inside of the Thor franchise and then, of course, by extension, inside of the Avengers franchise because you're building from Ragnarok into a really central elemental role for Thor and Infinity War. And endgame, which is, I think, more broadly,

for the willingness to reassess tone, genre, approach, sensibility, like, that you don't have to be locked in eternally to an original choice you made. And that's something that we obviously talk about. And you've made some really insightful points over your myriad pods about how, you know, Feige's willingness to kind of like reassess and tweak and continue to update is a big part of what keeps the MCU not only viable, but, you know, in churning, right? Churning and engage in. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about a number of examples, but I honestly still, to this day, I think the best example

is the use of the dark world in endgame and the way in which they used, even to the point of like dredging up some cut Natalie Portman footage to make sure that Jane is in that movie and just making that movie feel important to the entire saga.

It's so important. But yeah, I mean, I love that idea. Because there are very few studio heads. Fige, however you may feel about it. Most people feel very positively about him, but like, however you may feel, there are very few studio heads where if your actor comes to you and says, like, I need to change everything about my character or else I cannot go on that they would like listen. And Feige's, Fige's always a very, like, best idea wins kind of guy. So yeah, Ragnarok was a huge, was a huge showing point. Then again,

you know, I think this movie suffers in that, you know, and again, the Midnight Boys are talking about this. Because Ragnarok has the element of. of people being like, wow, I didn't know it could be like this. Then their memories of Ragnarok, and it's a great movie. Like, I don't think anyone misremembers Ragnarok, but the memory of their feeling around Ragnarok is so high. So you come into this, you already know what Hounsworth can do and what Tuyah can do. And if it doesn't match or exceed that first thrill, you know, I think it might be suffering in comparison to that. Yeah. I definitely agree. I mean, I think that, like, the, a lot of the, and is the, is the calculus and the alchemy like one to one,

note for note exactly as successful here as it is in Ragnarok? I don't think so, no. But I think broadly the formula is the same. You know, there's this willingness to lampoon the, the MCU past and the Thor of the past. Like an example in this movie, of course, is the. rapid fire recounting of how the Warriors three were dispensed, which of course was something that Tyga himself did in Ragnarok. And you you imbue that energy throughout the film, you inject it with a lot of levity, a lot of pops of this like candy-coated color and shine, this embrace of a real comic bookie ethos without straying so far beyond the line where the character ever starts to feel ridiculous. ridiculous. Like, it's anchored still in this emotional journey. And I think that, like,

you know, we'll talk later about Thor's arc, but I think that Thor's journey to date in the MCU has really been one of the most engaging and impactful. And the Thor in Infinity War is not cracking the same kind of jokes that the Thor in Ragnarock or this film is, but there's that tonal shift enmeshed and entwined with this, like, deep and abiding sadness. And I think that the legacy of that loss and that grief and the way that it has pushed Thor to assess the family, the team around him or the absence of it and what life looks like without connection, what godliness looks like, what hero work looks like.

All of that mix is present here, too. I think that your expectation point is really essential. And we can go from that into like the opening weekend, the initial response to the film because like Ragnarok was just a total surprise. I mean, I still put that for me and my personal top three. Like, I think I have, I'm always shifting the order from of like four through six, but I don't think my top three has changed it a while. It's still Winter Soldier Infinity War Ragnarok. And if you're going into this movie expecting to feel the way you did when the thing that made Ragnarck feel that way was, yes, of course, what a tight and successful movie

it is, but also Ragnarok has a lot of different scenes and switches and sequences and characters. Like, it's not neat and tidy. It has a lot of the vast sprawling strands that this movie does, too. So I do think the expectation point that you're making is really, really central. And I think that's more broadly at play when we're all processing the newest MCU installments today. It's like impossible to separate our experience of watching a new MCU movie or show from all of the things that we've seen before. It's just not possible. Right. And I think, I mean, I'm guilty of that too. I mean, I didn't walk out of this movie feeling disappointed or like it hadn't met any expectations.

But I am guilty, if you want to call it that, of looking towards this movie and being like, okay, however shaky, some of this MCU stuff might be feeling to me right now. However, like, finding their way, launching new heroes, whatever the case may be, I was like, but when Tyca shows up with Thor, that's going to feel like we're back on solid ground. Like that's a familiar thing with an established hero, and it's something that I know I like. So that's going to feel like solid ground. And it does feel like more solid ground to me. But it's not as much of a knock it out of the park as Ragnarok was.

And so I understand that people who are feeling shaky overall, maybe still feel shaky, or see this as if even Thor and Tyca can't make me feel like we're on solid ground, what does that mean for the larger, for sure? Well, and there's this tension to you between. what solid ground looks like inside of a sort of standalone experience, and then that larger question of the interconnected MCU universe, which feels like very present as a tension point in the conversation in the days following the film's release.

Let's quickly hit the box office, our old pal, Ron Tomatoes, and that phase four angst question for a minute. So we're recording Monday morning, might have, updated box office numbers before we wrap or shortly after we wrap. But at the moment, the latest info that we have is $143 million domestic opening, 159 million international, 302 million global opening per deadline. That's the third biggest opening of the pandemic and the second biggest of 2022 behind, of course. Dr. Strange. Rotten Tomatoes. You've heard our speech before. It's just a snapshot. Don't take it.

as gospel. 68% among critics and an 81% audience score right now. Joe, does any of that surprise you? Yeah, I am surprised by how low that critic score. I mean, yes, I've railed against Rotten Tomatoes, so like everyone knows my feelings about it. That being said, like 68 is wild to me. And Marvel and Disney does not need me defending them.

I'm not here stumping for the massive corporations. They'll be fine. I'm just surprised, especially when you compare it to some of the other phase four scores. And so it really does feel to me like a worm has turned, you know, or like, you know, it feels more cumulative than it does specifically nailed to this one film. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And what do you think is fueling that cumulative angst, whether it's among the fan base or the critics? Is it the larger looming? Where are we heading? phase four question? Is it something else? Allow me to employ a Thor one type of phrase. Like Marvel has been hoisted by its own petard, right? Which is like what makes it so special in the first place. And you just alluded to this. What makes it so special in the first place is the interconnected nature of it. No one else is doing it at the time and no one has done it

as well since, right? But as the as the as the the world grows and grows and grows and grows, it groans under the weight of that interconnectedness. And the last time I felt the weight of all of that actually was another Thor moment, which was Age of Ultron. When there was that weird forward-looking Ragnarok and Ragnarok stuff in Age of Ultron, that we were like, what is this doing here and why? And it takes you out of the story. And that was the first time I remember feeling like the strain of the threads that they were trying to shoot forward and shoot back at the same time. And then they've righted the ship and they figured it out and they like balance it all out.

And now I feel like between the shows and the films, like there are standalone elements to this movie. There's standalone elements to Moon Night. There's standalone elements to Miss Marvel. That makes that like that is great and refreshing. But it still all needs to connect in a way where, you know, if they want to pull Thor into the larger whatever they plan to do, if indeed they're planning to do something, which they say they are, then. he's still got to be in the world, you know? So that's what I think it's a computer, I mean, walking out of the movie yesterday with a friend of mine

who doesn't pay any attention to any of the discourse at all, and she was very met on the movie, and she was like, maybe it's just superhero fatigue. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you can't say that phrase. I can't believe it, you know? And so that's not her parenting anything. That was just like something that she just came up with. And I was like, okay, all right.

That's what I think. I think it's a cumulative, instead of looking at something, it's being like, oh, this is slightly wobbly, but Marvel will write itself. I think there have been enough installments now that feel wobbly for people, that they're like, okay, I'm no longer going to sort of give it the, like the massive benefit of the doubt that I've given it leading up to this. What do you think is going on?

I have a lot of different thoughts on this. I mean, Marvel, we should still say. Yeah. Biggest studio, like, making tons of money immensely popular. This is all relative, right? you know. Yeah. I mean, we've yet to actually reach the, oh, not only have we not reached the,

remember when Guardians was coming out and Ant Man was coming out, these smaller, less like well-established in the fandom characters were coming out. It's strange. You know, are we going to, are these movies going to succeed? Is this where the Marvel Magic ends? And the machine kept churning and gaining momentum and amassing followers in its wake, right? Much like the gods. Gore is chasing.

This feels like a different thing than is Marvel going to be able to bring people to the theater. Now, how much of that is just still the COVID context and the fact that these movies have kind of revived the hope that people will go back to the theater. And so, like, that narrative just feels like kind of out of place and time. In terms of, like, how we compare where we are in phase four to the prior phases. I've like waffled on this just even personally as a viewer because I've had moments where I'm very much like we need to be patient and wait and watch and see what the plan is because it actually took quite a while for the full infinity saga clarity to arrive in the first three phases. And I think that because that is such a clear through line in hindsight and because

were coming out of phase three, which was just dynamite. The number of electric movies and the number of really great movies in a row in phase three is like unparalleled for a studio churning out blockbusters at that size, right? I did a little bit of a rewatch to get set for this. Like I had planned, you know, always, of course, to rewatch the Thor movies. Never missed chance to rewatch Dark World. But I decided to rewatch the Avengers movies too because I'm always fascinated by Thor's presence in the team-up films.

I don't think that this is, I'm not claiming that this is a particularly like potent insight, but it was very top of mind when I was watching these movies. I think there's been a lot of conversation about what is the threat? What is Marvel building toward

in terms of the larger structure? Now I think you and I agree and our ring of verse family members agree. We feel like we're heading towards secret wars. We feel like Kang is going to be, you know, the big bad or at least a big bad. Maybe we'll get Doom as well. Well, the thing that I felt rewatching is it was not at all the pull for the Thanos equivalent.

Because again, you know, you get like the Chitari lens glimpses of Thanos in Avengers, the conclusion of phase one. It's all the way into Ultron until we get the fine, I'll do it myself, incredible mid-credit stinger. Of course, Thanos is very present in the Guardians film. you go back and you have this like sense that the infinity stones were always part of the central design in a way that like a lot of it comes into clarity after the fact with the Tessor Act and the Scepter being the mindstone, all of that, right? So it feels more fully realized than it really was at the moment, which is fine. And what's true about the MCU as a franchise, this film franchise is another thing that makes it different from all other film franchises

is that they like to say that they don't, but they treat it like television. which is good TV writers are reactive and flexible to things that work and things that don't, right? So if a character's working, if an actor is popping, you draw that, that character grows, they become, you know, the second lead or like stuff, you know, and if someone's not working, oops, you kill them off, whatever. So the, and then if you're really good at what you do and the best in the business at this is like Vince Gilligan on Breaking Bad is by the time you hit the end, it's all going to look intentional.

It's all going to look like you plan it this way all along when that is absolutely not the case. It was Agatha all along. It was the plan all along. It was the infinity stones all along. It was absolutely not the case of the MCU, absolutely not the case of some of your favorite TV shows. And that's not bad storytelling.

It's bad storytelling when it doesn't make sense. But it's not bad storytelling to not know where you're going when you start a thing. That's just, that's how TV works in general. And this is essentially TV storytelling. And so when they first did Iron Man, they did not do Iron Man with the concept that they were like definitely going to do the Avengers. And when they do the first Avengers, they're not doing that with the concept that they're definitely going to do this, that, or the other thing. It's just these things grew out of it and they sort of either retconned or fudge things or whatever to pull everything together into a clear line.

Whether or not they're able to accomplish that with how many disparate shows and that sort of thing they have going, I don't know. But an advantage of the Disney Plus era is that, you know, if a show is gangbusters like Loki was for a lot of people, you get a second season. If it's not, it was a miniseries all along. You know what I mean? And we just like, we cancel that run and we move on with our comic book storytelling, you know? Yeah. So I think like to the Avengers point, that's what I was going to say. That was the thing that really kind of stood out rewatching it.

Again, granted, I was rewatching the Avengers movie. So, of course, this was going to stand out. but much, you know, because of the secret wars theorizing a discussion we've had, because of the King presence already and promised for the future as soon as quantum mania, which is now just mere months away, the multiverse from Loki and Dr. Strange and what if, et cetera, as this clear template for bringing these worlds and versions of the characters together, that all feels like, you know, where we're heading. The thing that I felt keenly was that.

not the who's the threat. It was the, what's the team? You know, that was like what felt like the real distinction. And this is part of why I said, like, I'm a little bit, like, at odds with myself over this, because I feel very strongly and really deeply believe that meeting all of these new characters, all of these new heroes is actually, like a real gift of Phase 4, that broadening the story set and introducing all of these new aspects of the canon and all of these new characters who we will grow attached to in new and meaningful ways,

into our lives as viewers is like a great and wonderful thing and also very much of a piece in TV and movie form with what it means to be a comic book fan, which is that it's this vast, sprawling, uncontained behemoth, and you find the parts of it that work for you. The challenge, of course, is that you're not expected as a comic book reader to consume every single thing in order to be able to necessarily put the pieces together or track what happens. And if that's going to end up being the case with the MCU, then it becomes like a different sort of equation. So what is the team? What is the team up? When does it come? Or is it like we've discussed before? Are there five teams? You know, is it all is it is it whatever the new Avengers group looks like and young Avengers and

Pet Avengers and Fantastic Four and X-Men, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Like, when does that clarity come? Because I think that's what people are longing for. I read a really fun theory about this that I'm excited to talk about tomorrow on our theory pod. So like a tease. I love it. That being said, I think eventually down the road, we're going to have a lot of conversations about what feels like essential viewing and what doesn't in retrospect, right? Like down the road, people are going to be like, you don't really need to watch Hawkeye because you'll have gotten to know Kate Bishop here. You don't really need to watch Moonnight because Oscar Isaac was decided never again.

I don't want to do more or whatever. You know, I don't think that's what's going to happen. But like, it could happen that some of these feel... Moonnights in the M in the opening Marvel wordmark. You can't opt out now. I mean, he can, but he definitely is there. But, like, it's possible that eventually some of this stuff starts to feel in essential. Like, if they just drop Eternals and never go back to them, I don't think that's what they're

going to do, but if they do, you know, then, like, five years from now, someone's like, do I have to watch all 50 of these movies in order to, like, you're like, well, you can skip Eternals. You can probably skip this. You can skip that sort of thing. And so, but right now, as you say, because we don't know what we're aiming towards, people are like, is all of this must see TV? Is all of this I have to see it?

in order to understand. And even if I watch everything, do I then have to sit through like three core recaps about what went on so that I can understand the context of the film that I'm currently watching? So it's just starting to feel like,

it's starting to feel like a lot. I'm in it because I'm like all the way in it and podcasting about with you about it on the regular basis and doing all the comics reading and watching all the shows multiple times and all this sort of stuff. But like to the casual viewer,

like I get why it's starting to feel, you know, sort of untenable in, in, in a way. Well, again, I think it's, like some of it is doesn't feel untenable and some of it is just that inherent tension because and not everybody feels this way but I think you and I have always agreed that it's immensely refreshing actually when an MCU installment feels like a standalone thing feels like it lives and breathes in its own storytelling space and so I like that this movie as the as has largely

been the case with the Thor franchise in general of course there are connections the whole is in Ragnarok, et cetera, right? Loki is a primary Thor figure who then extends into Avengers, et cetera. But one of the bits of dissonance comes in, I think. The Guardians are an example of this. You end end game with Thor heading off with the Guardians. Like the Guardians and Thor, I mentioned this many times before, that was a bit of unexpected magic for me in Infinity War

that I absolutely loved and never tire of revisiting. So you get to endgame and they're setting off on an adventure together. We get to this movie and they are very quickly acknowledged because they have to be because the last point with both of those character sets was them together. So we have to pick up there. But it had, then they're gone, right? And there's like a thematic note of resonance in terms of Thor's desire to find family be a part of the team.

It's like, oh, wait, this actually isn't conducive to the story that Taika wants to tell and so are these promises. Yeah, exactly. Or James Gun for volume three, which is very soon. And it makes me think a little bit of the chat that you and Sean started to have about the stingers and we'll hit the stingers later in the pot, obviously, but we're like on a real run of stingers that, I thought you put this wonderfully, you summed it up really nicely, like the stinger no longer just sets up the next movie.

I'm now just quoting you to you. It promises something in the future with a real, a real. like big name, star-powered arrival, whether that's Charlie Sterron or Harry Styles or shout out our dude Roy Kent.

Brett Goldstein's Hercules. He's incredible stuff. Real rigor core right there. When will these things come into play? It's like impossible to say. And so we appreciate the moments where the story goes from being vast and so big that we can't put our arms around it

into feeling more like focused and intimate and oriented around specific relationships and characters. And I love that about this movie. And I love that about MCU stories in general. And then you swing back internally inside of your own mind and heart as a viewer to like, wait, but then how does this connect to the larger world? And when there are those little beats of connection, it of course makes you inclined to ask those questions. And so I think that is fueling. That is fueling the desire that people have to see the roadmap. But I don't, that's all to say, like, I'm not particularly panicked. I think that obviously phase four has been less successful than phase three. I don't think

that's really debatable. But I've still enjoyed a, you know, not all, but many of the movies. And I'm not, not all, but many of the shows. I'm not panicked. I'm just like, it's, it is an interesting, like, um, Harry Styles was the first time that I felt like this whole, like, we might start getting teases that never pay off. Because, like, if they decide not to do in Eternals 2, like, Harry, you just put Harry Styles in a costume and are not going to use them? Like, maybe they will and probably they will because it's not like that's never happened before, right? Like the Adam Warlock thing will now finally pay off, but how long have people been waiting for that? I was literally just Googling release date of Guardians of Galaxy News, right? So it was 2017. Since Adam Warlock and like

since I wrote my Adam Warlock explainer, like who's this guy? And I wrote an explainer for VF. But the thing is, we're going to have to rewrite that explainer because, you know, people aren't even going to remember that Elizabeth Debicki spray painted gold was like had her very own Zeus and Hercules talk at the end of her movie, you know? So exactly. That of Morlock thing is, is wild to be. So part of, I mean, part of that's the COVID juggle schedule, right? Like, tis better to pitch towards whatever it is Charlize is going to be doing than a movie that might move on your schedule and you don't know when it's coming out.

But I do think that like some of this pitching forward, like, Guardians 2 is the worst of it, right? Because wasn't, weren't there like eight stingers on that movie? Like, there were so much. Okay, too many. James Gunn. Too many. And then Wanda Vision was similar. It had like three stingers, right? And they were pitching towards various things.

And so it's just like, I don't know. Let's just keep our eye on the prize. That being said, I'm thrilled to see Brett Goldstein as Hercules. I have this word theater erupted. Erupted when that happened. I'm just like, well, but what also happened is that in my last screening, it ends with, you know, if there's the Valhalla sequence, and then the title card. that says, like, Thor will return.

And some girl in my road just goes, when? Oh, my God. I love it. When and, you know, probably some other shouts and other theaters of which Thor, we certainly got some mailbag questions asking that. So speaking of which Thor, let's provide another just snapshot

of our personal fandom and history here before we dive into the character dive. Comics Corner. What's your history with Thor as a comics character? Yeah, so he's not my favorite, favorite comics character. And mostly, most of the Thor comics I've read have been, like, Thor and Loki focused. Because, like, and we'll talk about this later, but, like, Thor through the lens of Loki is the Thor that I'm most interested in, usually. That being said, the two Jason Aaron runs that were the main inspo for this film are two of the best, like, comic runs I've ever read in my life.

I think they're incredible. Give the people the details. Well, I was going to let you do it because I know you're big fans. So go for it. Yes, I am. I love, I love these comics. The Thor God of Thunder run from Jason Aaron and Isad Ribic is an incredible run in general. The Gore arc that opens this run, the 11 issues that center on the Gore of the God

Butcher storyline. Incredible. I just sincerely cannot recommend them highly enough among my favorite comic reading experiences ever. It was so fun to reread those issues this weekend. Just incredible. And like some of that ports over directly into this movie and some of it doesn't. There's a triple timeline. We've got three Thor's. There's young Thor, you know, even more brash than you would expect Thor to be, hasn't, hasn't become worthy enough to lift Milnear yet. There's Avengers Thor. And then there's King Thor way in the future. And it's just devastating.

He's all alone on Asgard. No one there. Just him and his despair and his loneliness and his regret that he hasn't been able to thwart Gore and that Gore won't even let him die because he wants him to be there at the end to watch the god bomb. just an unbelievable run. We'll talk about some of the gore differences and similarities, I think, when we hit Gore later. And then the Mighty Thor run from Jason Aaron again and Russell Dauterman, just a delight.

It's just a joy to read. And when Jane initially emerges in the comics as Thor, it's a mystery. That was such a fun, like, concept. Yeah. So who's the female? So as Thor in the comics is trying to figure out who the mighty the woman wielding his hammer is, and we should say that like the mighty Thor, that comic sort of comes right off the heels of the end of the Gore story, right? Where Nick Fury whispers something to Thor and we find out what it is later, Gore was right, etc.

And that's when Thor like drops the hammer and decides that like he's not worthy. he's not Thor anymore, but someone has to pick up the hammer. And that idea, that doubt had been plaguing him through the gore conflict. And so someone has to pick up the hammer. It's such a strong story and you're like, I almost wish that were the case here. But then you realize that in the MCU, like, that's where we started with Thor in the franchise. You know what I mean? Is like the lack of worthiness and all that sort of stuff.

And it's cyclical for Thor. But anyway, so yeah. So this, so some woman picks it up and Thor is going around, Detective Thor, trying to figure out who this woman is. As readers at home, like, it's so fun to read those letters, the letters section in the back of those issues where people are writing in their theories about who, I mean, like, a comics mystery is rare and really fun. And it was a time when Marvel was doing such a lot of, like, really interesting experimentation

with its heroes, like, you know, Miss Marvel, they were just Miss Marvel or, you know, Sam Wilson is Captain America at this point. And, like, you know, they were just trying to, like, broaden their horizons here. And this is such a, like, fun light. But then also there's a cancer story line element, you know, to it. Comic to read, a big fan of it. And Jason Aaron, so Jason Aaron author, both of these runs, has a credit in this film. His name is in the credits.

I think it's, like, creative consultant or something like that. And we talked about this with Matt Fraction and Hawkeye, where, like, before, And the artists definitely deserve, you know, especially when they're taking direct frames from the comics and putting them in their movies and their TV shows. The artists definitely deserve, definitely deserve credit and definitely deserve compensation. So I hope that that is the case as well. But it is even new at all that anyone on the comic side is getting credit for these movies because before – and I asked Tyke about this a little bit. But like before the MCU worked so hard to not do direct adaptations, of storylines from the comics.

And this isn't a direct, direct, direct adaptation, but it's much more direct the way that the Hawkeye show was a much more direct adaptation of the fraction run. And that's an interesting trend, I think. And it has to do, in a boring way, it has to do with the consolidation of the comic side and the film entertainment side on a business side of things. But for us, fans of comics and fans of film,

to see some of our favorite storylines directly adapt, did. Like, what a, what a treat. And to end as we're looking for breadcrumbs to find that roadmap. It's, uh, it's something to keep in mind, certainly. Sure. Cough, secret wars. Cough. Jason Aaron did a, a great interview with, with E.W. Christian Hollub has a piece on, that account for, for both of those different comic arcs and the similarities and the differences. And it's just fascinating to hear Aaron talk about, like, some of the influences that spark the run and the gore idea in the first place. So definitely check that out if you haven't. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything

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Find two good creamers at your local retailer in the creamer aisle. Let's dive into characters. Don't butcher these arcs. That's what we're calling this segment today. Hands off, Gore. Okay, let's start with the Thor's. I forgot. My plan was to be drinking meat while we do this

because I have a bunch of meat in my fridge that I've made myself. Morning meat. Wait, you make your own meat? Yeah. But it's incredible. Is it delicious? Ferrys from batch to bash, I'll be honest with you. Is it a taste like the nectar of the gods?

It's pretty easy to make meat. It just takes a lot of, you just need a lot of like honey and spices and apple juice and time. But that stuff is so potent. And I was just like, I have another pot after this. I was like, I can't do it. Morning mead. That's a lot. Do you watch the television, the Netflix television show, Ragnarok by chance?

No. Oh, it's great. It's wonderful. Highly recommended. There's a, there's a tremendous mead guzzling sequence for our young hero in that show. We love to quaff some mead. Yeah. I can't believe I just, I just learned you make your own mead. This is, you're a, you're a fascinating person. You really are. I'll, I'll bring you a bottle. The bottle labels that we have right now are lost themes. So they've got the Dharma logo on them. Anyway, um, wonderful. Meads, meads so much. easier to make them like beer. I'll tell you that much right now. It's, it's, it's, it's so easy for things to go wrong when you, when you make beer. Was there any mead down in the hatch in the, in the, in the, the, the, the, the drama. Well, there should have been is the point, you know what I mean? They had box wine, but they didn't have mead, so what's going on? My God. From one mead enthusiast to, to another. Let's, let's start with the Thor's. Thor's Odinson and Dr. Jane Foster the mighty Thor. Let's begin with the Odinson. Where we find

Thor at the beginning of this film. We're enjoying the Enya. We're listening to Cork Storytime and Thor is searching for belonging. And I mentioned this already earlier, but this is really like one of my favorite things about the MCU to date. Thor this flashy,

fun, meat-loving God. is so defined. Feels weird to say. I love that he's defined by tragedy, but tragedy is really so central to his story, loss and grief. And I really like

think about whether it's when Thor is mourning, somebody specific, or talking about getting a team back together, and you've got, like, again, how that plays for a bit in Ragnorox A, with like, the whole Revengers thing.

but it's like this really anchoring, grounding element in his arc. He's a god. And that could feel really inaccessible to us. But despite the fact that he's immortal and in many ways because of the fact that he is immortal and so many of the bonds and ties that he forges are fleeting definitionally, in the grand scope of his life, there is so much pain and so much longing. his mother in Dark World, his father in Ragnarok.

Shout out Odin. Always just piecing out, whether it's into the Odin's sleep or Valhalla, right on the precipice of a very pivotal event. Boys, it's time for me to go. By the way, you have a sister. She's the goddess of death.

Good luck. Asgard, the place, albeit not the people, but the place in Ragnarok, that choice that he has. had to make to unleash Sertr, half of his people, the Thanos and children of Thanos attack on the ship that fled Asgard, the new statesman at the beginning of Infinity War, watching Heimdahl die in Infinity War, watching Loki die many, many, many times, but in Infinity War, most decisively

of all, at least in that particular timeline, Tony and Nat in Endgame, Jane, here. His eye. His eye and then, you know, a body without infection as he put the other eye, the cybernetic eye that rockets smuggled up his ass into his eye socket. That was a tough one. Molnir, exactly. Loss after loss after loss. How do you feel about that aspect of Thor's journey, particularly given the broadly raucous tone of the Thor movies? the Tychothor. Well, of the Tykathor movies.

Yeah, I mean, so I think that we're going to, if we have time, we're going to do like a Norse mythology corner at some point. You can also drop the mythology nuggets. You can sprinkle them throughout like Odin dust. That's what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to sprinkle a little Odin dust on you and say, something is so interesting about the Norse myth. And there are some, like, definitely I'm not a world mythology.

expert and definitely there are some comparable events in other mythologies. So all those caveats aside, I will just say that the Norse mythology, much more so than things like the Greek Olympiad or the Egyptian pantheon, etc. is marked by loss and death because of the Ragnarok event. Because Ragnarok is such an important part of Norse mythology, and I have a couple of Norse mythology books that I really like, but the Neil Gaiman Norse mythology book that I was sort of rereading, it's a really fun one that I was rereading last night. In his intro, he's got this great line about how, like, growing up on Norse mythology, he's like, I was never, he was like, when I was a kid, I was never clear, is Ragnarok something that's going to happen, or is it something that's already

happened or what's going on? And he's like, and as an adult, I'm still not sure. And like, the MC Ragnarok is a fixed point in time. But in Norse mythology, it's just this, like, reboot that is, like, did it already happen? Is it right around the corner? What exactly how permanent is this? What are we feeling here? Like, the Norse mythology has the concept, of course, of Valhalla, which is mentioned several

times and seen in this film. So, like, they have an afterlife to their, but, like, the idea of God's dying on mass is baked into the concept of Norse mythology. And in that way, the idea of, like, mortal immortals is more potent here than it is in other mythology. And I think that's so interesting. So I think it's really fitting that this is something that Thor has had to deal with over and over and over again.

And it can be challenging to blend those tones, the Taika antics. And that's exactly what I'm saying. It's like, I think in Ragnarok, it's blended super well in here. Slight hit or miss. That's so interesting. I always love when you take us to Mythology Corner, one of my favorite recurring through lines of our recent podcasting experiences together. You know, the search for a team, obviously very present here in the Thor Guardian's opening stretch, this need for Thor to put this mask up, the keep him in arm's length, as he actually says to Quillow of one of the bits in the movie. but like that shared desire that is one of the things

that brings Thor and the Guardians together, something that I do really like, even though the Guardians didn't really belong in this movie beyond when they were here, is one of the reasons that I like that these characters kind of found each other. You think back to Quill and Guardians with his legendary,

I look around at us and you know what I see losers. I mean, like, folks who have lost us. And we have, man, we have, all of us. that is that is so true for thor too and again like obviously that's a james gunfilm guardians but across these character sets this blend is so present and so you take the humor and the heart of a moment like that and then you spin ahead to one of my favorite scenes across the infinity saga the the flight the trip to nidivir when thor and rocket have their heart to heart and again it pays off in the humor at the end of rocket's like well you know i could lose things

like me personally, I could lose things, but that absolute despair of Thor recounting everybody that he's lost and then trying to muster his own strength by telling himself, he's theoretically talking to Rocket, but he's telling himself, you know, fate wills it so. And that just heart-wrenching conclusion when Rocket asked him, what if you're wrong? And he says, well, if I'm wrong, then what more could I lose and wipes away the deer? Just devastating. And, you know, you mentioned, like, one of the real kind of shocking successes

of Endgame. I'll tell you something, Endgame. What a great movie. My God. Ever heard of it? Amazing. Amazing how they did it. The Frigga Thor Exchange

has this really beautiful, moral when Thor is so, because there's this way that loss and failure are entwined for Thor. because of the guilt that he carries and the blame that he shoulders and puts on himself. Could he have done more? And then, of course, how does that impact the way that he views himself as a hero and a god moving forward,

the ability to protect and help and not lose more people himself directly, but also New Asgard, Midgard, the cosmos at large, the nine realms at large. And I love that little moment with Frigga and Thorne Endgame where he's talking about failure and being an idiot. And she says, idiot, no, a failure absolutely. He says, well, it's a little bit harsh. And she says, do you know what that makes you just like everyone else? To which she, of course, replies, I'm not supposed to be like everyone else, am I?

And she says, everyone fails at who they're supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person of a hero is how well they succeed at being who they are. And that idea feels like foundational for this movie. You know, like who is this Thor? Thor Odinson supposed to be. Who does he want to try to be? and how do the people around him and those experiences that he shared, of which we have glimpsed a microscopic sliver

in the vast history of his life, which will go on eons into the future. And that's, again, one of the things that's so present in the comics that I love is just the thousands and thousands of years, not only of Gore's quest, but of Thor having to confront what it means to not have been able to stop this foe. To go back to the mythological roots of Thor, like, one of the most famous, like, one of the most famous and, like, first Thor myths that you learn is about him confronting this giant king, Utgar Loki, and he fails. He and Loki and everyone in their party are tricked by this giant king who just teaches them a valuable lesson.

And the whole, like, sort of story that, like, and, you know, think about it, like, most, that's not, like, the first. The first Zeus story you hear is about, you know, whatever maiden he decided to impregnate while impersonating an animal. You know what I mean? Like that's, it's not, it's not how did I fail? How was I tricked? And so like the idea of Thor, that idea that is encapsulated so beautifully in endgame of like not becoming enraged over a failure, but learning that everything is not in your control and learning sort of like who you can be in the face of that. is such an important foundational Thor lesson, both in the mythology and in the comics.

And for Thor, both inside of the MCU and more broadly, like the idea of worthiness doesn't connect to just strength or bite. It's humility, right? It's internalizing and processing that lesson and recognizing what strength really means for him and for the people that he's trying to work for and protect. I like, like, one of the things I've really, really loved about Ragnarok and about this movie is the new bonds that forge, that Thor is

forging. Like, the guy just love Corg and, you know, we still got some, some Meek goodness to, a little scratchy taking the minutes. But Cork is just such a source of joy for Thor and in these movies. And it's like, again, it's not just laughs because you think of the fact that like, Korg and Meek were next to Thor on that couch every day during those five years where he had the defining presence in his life was his depression and his regret and then their friendship and the presence that they had for him. And same for Val too, right? And like Val is just an incredible character who we'll talk about more later, but she's not afraid to call Thor out on bullshit when it sprouts up, but also she's there to encourage and support him. She wants him to be happy. She

wants him to pursue love and connection. Yeah. It's so interesting because, like, Thor is a character. Tyka has called this like a midlife crisis movie. And, like, I'm a little too young to have a midlife crisis. But what I will say is that, like, I think a lot of us, especially in the pandemic stretch of the last few years, still ongoing, had a lot of time, if we were fortunate enough to have time, I suppose,

to ask some bigger questions of like, what are we doing here? What is this all for? What am I working towards? What is my legacy? What is my whatever? And something that I notice is that a lot of my friends who are having that sort of existential crisis with me were people who had chosen or not yet had kids, whereas the people who had kids were usually too busy to stop and like have because they're like, I don't know, try to protect a small human in this world.

But I think that that can be like a really easy. The idea of parenthood, which we're going to return to in this podcast a couple of different times, is so strong in this movie. And it is, we talked about this a little bit with Dr. Strange Multiverse a Badness. I don't like the idea that being a parent is the only thing that can confer value onto a person at all. But it is true that like a lot of people who are searching are, are, often find that answer, perhaps, in growing a family of their own or anchoring themselves to something like that. And I think that's such an interesting journey that Thor himself goes on. You know, we meet him. He's lost so much his family. The guardians are their own found family,

and they like Thor fine, but they don't really want him around. Like, not really. You know what I mean? And so the movie ends with him creating a new family for himself. And that's such an interesting story to tell in a comic movie, you know? Yeah. And I mean, family has always been such a central part of Thor's MCU arc, not only the loss that we just talked about, but just what the relationships look like with the people in your family. Obviously, Odin is a very complex figure inside of the MCU, one of the part of the MCU pantheon of bad dads, right? We already talked about Thor and Frigga, but so much of the way that Thor assesses his worthiness, his potential readiness to be a king, which he ultimately

decides he does not want, or a leader of value and consequence comes from his relationships with Odin and Loki and Frigga. And then there's this interesting contrast of his relationships with like Sif and the Warriors 3 and the way that he's like a different version of himself with those people than he is when he's having an exchange with Odin trying to. to convince his father that he's a son that he can be proud of, and that's obviously like a really big part of the first two Thor movies. But, you know, there's no character who's more, you tease this earlier, who's more central to how Thor sees himself or how we see Thor than Loki.

And this is the first Thor movie without Loki. Now, of course, that makes sense because in this MCU timeline, Loki is dead. But, you know, we're in the multiversal era of the MCU. There are plenty of ways that we could have gotten to Loki in this movie if they wanted to do that. So how did you feel about that? And did that change the way that you felt about the Thor movie going experience or seeing Thor as a character without Loki there as a foil? I was thinking a lot about this because I remember having some heated discussions with people.

You and I were not podcasting at this point. But I was having some heated discussions with people about the Loki TV series and how some people really wanted Thor to show up in that movie and that show. and some people did it. And I was just sort of like, it felt important to me to not have Thor in that show because I was really interested in the journey that you like to talk about a lot, which is like,

what does a multiversal story allow you to learn about yourself if you meet different versions of yourself? So that Loki going on an arc in that show is learned discovering the most about himself through the lens of meeting Sylvie, another version of himself. And, you know, a few other variants. With, I will say, I think I miss the Loki prism for Thor a bit in this movie,

because I don't think there's really, there isn't really someone that Thor can look at in this movie and sort of like really help him understand himself. There's a few things. There's like what Quill says to him at the beginning of the movie about feeling shitty about, you know, the Quill version of Tis better to have loved than Lonely Lost than Never Love at all, right? all of that. But in Gore, Gore is not a character

that is not the kind of villain who's like a mirror of our hero or a dark mirror of our hero. He is actually, but he's a dark mirror of Jane. He's not a dark mirror of Thor. Yeah. And so what is Thor reflecting on

that is putting him on that journey? And it's here and it's there, but it's not as as strong, I would say, as the Loki solo outing. What do you think? I'll always miss, Loki in a story, I agree with you on the Loki TV show and why it was important to not have Thor show up in that movie and what actually could spring up in the void that Thor would

have otherwise occupied. I think that it's important for these stories to evolve and grow. And part of what is really central to Thor's journey is learning how to think about himself and his choices and his relationships through the lens of where he is and who is around him in that moment in time and not just, while he carries, of course, the lessons and the pain and also the happiness of his prior experiences

that those cannot be the only things that he hangs on to or he'll never be able to move forward. And so I think in a way, if Loki had just popped back up, then you're kind of like moving backward in time instead of forward following Storebreaker through the By-Frost, you know, just like Storebreaker needs needs the gimmick ship from the amazing new Asgard rise to as a conduit to like harness the power.

Thor needs something to harness and focus his journey moving forward. And I feel like as much as I long for Loki and love him in any story and, you know, certainly hope to see them together again one day. I wonder if it would have been more difficult to feel like we were moving forward. If he was here, that said, when they move forward together, it's like a beautiful thing. I mean, one of my favorite parts of Ragnarok is the elevator ride where, you know, Thor says, I'm like, I thought the world of you. And it's so heart-wrenching, not only for us, but to see, like, Loki process that.

And so, you know, I certainly would never apply that they could only move forward independently because I think the ways that they could take steps forward together are, like, really impactful. To be honest with you, in the boring years of Thor, which there were many, his love for Loki was sort of the most, like, related. Like, because Loki is kind of the most us of the superheroes, like the most like, I'm going to fuck up and I'm going to be insecure and I'm going to do all, you know, and oops, I've instigated a battle of New York. Whomst among us, right, has not triggered a Chittari invasion of New York. But the fact that Thor for all his rigid morality and decision, like in the early, in the early Thor installments, the softness and the leeway or even the ability to be tricked again by his brother. is one of the most human. Like, that's what we love him in, like, in Avengers.

He's there because Loki's there and he's like, yes, I want to stop him, but also I need to take him home. Like, I don't want to kill him. I want to take my brother home with me. And so... And the whole speech and cutting back and forth to see the plan in Dark World so that they won't be tricked because he knows Loki's going to trick him doesn't in any way prevent him from weeping over his corpse when he thinks that he's lost him. Right.

And so we're going to get to, we're going to hop over to Jane now. Like a hour and a half. We did get Loki and the back tat. And a hard to have it to this podcast. Yeah, take us, take us through where we find Jane. But I want to say that like, Jane and Thor has never been like the love story of Thor. It's Thor and Loki is the love story of Thor. So that's, you know, that's his own thing.

So Jane Foster. Dr. Jane Foster. Jane Fonda, Jody Foster. Whatever the case may be. We meet her and she's in the hospital. I found it really fascinating that they don't say the word cancer until like an hour and a half into the movie. She has stage four cancer of the cancer, but like they don't specify what kind of cancer

and they don't say when. And, you know, I think it was Charles and the Midnight Boys is sort of like, and I prefer it that way, which is fine. But Darcy comes in, Darcy had a huge round of applause when she showed up in my, in like all of my screenings. Always a treat to see Darcy. Yeah. Yeah, so Jane is sick, but what I love about the introduction, the very first moment that we had to spend with Jane here, is that it's, and the film throughout revels in her heroism as a scientist and just does not ever, I remember there's this, there's a really funny story when they were casting Jane Foster in the first place.

And, you know, so Kenneth Brenna was like going through like who, who, who. we wanted to play Jane Foster. And he's like, what we really want to avoid is Denise Richards nuclear physicist, right? Which, like, that's a stale reference. But back then it was pretty fresh. And it's in reference to Dr. Christmas Jones, the character that Denise Richards played in a James Bond film. And so basically, like, we want someone, like, who you can, like, really believe is a scientist.

And what I love about the Thor movies is they've always made her science, like, important. as opposed to like some superhero girlfriends in in other films. You know, it's like she's got her own thing going on. And I love that. I love that about her. Do you want to talk about, since you're the Dark World Defender, do you want to talk about the ether and Jane and that relationship? Oh, I can.

It was just, you know, it was on my mind because, you know, so in the comics, we learn that Jane has breast cancer. and the cancer spreads. And much like in the film, one of the really, like, devastating reveals is that Milnear is inhibiting her healing. There's an explanation in,

I believe it's issue one, actually, of the mighty thoron. As soon as I pick up the hammer, that was all for nothing, the transformation neutralizes the effects of the chemotherapy. It purges the poison from my body. She arrives at a similar,

point across the comics run where there's this clarity of what it would mean to pick up the hammer one more time to be the mighty Thor one more time. And there's also this refusal in the god of thunder run to receive any sort of like magical elixir, a magical fix from Thor because, you know, and this, again, as we said earlier, like all of this is really worth a read. But she understands that there would be some sort of cost to that, some sort of trade-off, some sort of price. And one of, I really agree with what you said about the way that Jane's science and her brilliance and her scholarship has always been so essential to her character, even in many MCU and Solman's in which she was not present, but we get to hear about the impact that she's making. We get to see the way that her research is still permeating the world at large. I just love it because, like, we've seen so many instances of, like, the superheroes in the MCU meeting their fanboys and fan girls.

And so for it to be, like, Dr. Jane Foster's scientist meets a fan boy in chemo. Yeah, reading her book. That's great. Yeah, it's amazing. And, you know, particularly in a movie where Thor tells the young asgardians that the young members of new Asgard since there's a couple of them note, they're not as guardians. But they're still, they are. They're new Asgardians. You know, never meet your heroes.

but if it's Jane. You mean Jane Foster. She might rip a page out of your book. You needed a 3D model, you know? And you needed that amazing, interstellar reference, incredible stuff. In the comics, when Jane rejects the magical elixirs and stuff like that,

in that scene starts with Thor being like, what has happened, who has put an enchantment on you? What is this magical affliction? Who do we fight? What do we do? And this is when, like, a house of our listeners should get their bingo cars ready because I'm going to talk about Buffy Vampire Slayer in a second, which is that one of the most famous episodes of Buffy Vampire Slayers in season five, when Buffy's spoilers for season five of Buffy's vampire slayer, Buffy's mom, Joyce, dies. And it's an episode called The Body. And it's an incredible episode television because she just has a brain aneurysm. There's no supernatural reason why she dies. And all of these superpowered heroes who we've been following for, you know, five seasons now have to. to confront the fact that, like, this isn't a monster they can fight.

This isn't a curse they can undo. This isn't a supernatural thing that they can find, you know, the right incantation for. This is just what happens to people. And it's a huge, huge, huge, huge television episode. And I have to believe that some of that conversation in the Jason Aaron comic is inspired by that, that really seminal piece of television. Yeah. Yeah. the way that Jane has embraced,

because so many characters, they can't see or recognize. Selvig even starts in this position in the Thor franchise. You can't recognize magic. Can't open your mind to that because you're so rooted in science. And one of the things that I've really actually

always enjoyed about Jane's character in the MCU is the embrace of this shared, the shared embrace of science magic, right? Like, she actually directly invokes the Arthur C. Clark idea in the first Thor film, magic's just science that we don't understand yet. And that's always been really central to Jane. And so when there is that rejection of Thor's offer, that feels really heavy and consequential.

And the reason that I was going to mention the ether is because I think it would be very natural as a viewer of the movie to wonder if the fact that Jane had an infinity stone, the reality stone, the ether coursing through her human body had in some way. led to her cancer, made her sick. And I think it's a, I was really glad that the movie never went there. Because of course, cancer is something that can happen to anyone and has, has influenced many, many, many, many, many, many people's lives. And I, I just felt glad that there was like not an effort to make her illness. supernatural. Supernatural in its origin. And obviously her family history,

we see the way that she has experienced losing her own mother to cancer. And that is like a foundational part of her life and her history. So there is, of course, the magical element of Milnear's call. And Jane hears Milnear whispered to her. We get the rustling of the pages of a book.

Who has not wanted, Joe, as a reader. And a lover of fantasy dail to be to be called by a magical item such as Milnear. Do you think Dr. Jane Foster and one Mr. Stephen Grant have a mythology book book club? I hope so. That would be amazing. Can they compare their stacks of mythological tomes? That would be an absolute delight. Yeah.

Love revisiting the stacks and stacks of tombs in Stephen Grants. incredible London flat, wonderful stuff. Thor we learn had enchanted Milnear, much as we saw Odin enchant Milnear regarding Thor's worthiness in the first Thor film, there is this protective, love imbued element. And this is, of course, a through line and the theme of the film, the power of love, choosing love over hate and destruction,

choosing forging something instead of tearing something down. And I like this being connected to Milnear here because one of our introductions to Milnear in the MCN, you is like Odin talking about how it's a weapon of no equal either as a tool to build or a weapon to wield, right? And so that felt like very present here. And you get the comedy of Thor having to confront the fact, you know, seeing his ex with his ex, C and Jane with Mileneer. And there's a lot of comedy as Thor is processing what it means that Jane is Thor. Also, the incredible through line of the Stormbreaker is jealous of Thor.

Such a good thing after Milnear bit, which I just thought was incredible. But again, this mix of heart and humor, because we know having seen this, that the love that Thor feels for Jane is what led Milnear to call out in the first place. And that will be the central defining thing. even as he's like literally like, what? And what's happening? I think he says that loud multiple times. How did you feel overall about seeing Thor and Jane reunited?

You said earlier that they're not the central couple of the Thor story to you. And I think many people would agree. Did you opt in a little bit more to their relationship in this film than you had previously? I did find myself feeling more invested in no small part because of that incredible montage. Thor Love and Thunder went full up on us with this. like, you know, a handful of minutes long rapid fire sequence of these consequential moments in a person's life and a couple's history. And I just felt like not only did that answer some key questions about what happened because we get the, you know, it was a mutual dumping

line in Ragnarok. And we get the timeline clarity here of Jane thinking, okay, it was three years. Thor says it's eight. She blipped. He didn't. It did all make sense, right? But this is like a real open wound for both of them. They're parting. And I just love it. seeing those moments with them together because it helps us understand their relationship and all the wrong, but also, again, like, I think making a God's story and as guardian God's story feel relatable

is like a pretty hard thing to do. And the, like, moving away from each other on the couch stretch, I'm like, that is just the most relatable human shit. Like, most people watching that will know what that feels like either because you're growing apart from someone or you're afraid that you will. And so because of that fear, you do. We've all been there.

Tough to watch. Sad. Well, there's a couple things I want to say. Yeah, let me talk about that in a second, but let me zoom back to your touching on the Milnear's call thing because I think there's a couple things there that I want to talk about. First of all, this idea that we touched along a lot in face four, the passing of sharing of the torch, right?

This is a concept that we talked about with Hawkeye, with Black Widow, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so what I love about this is. is that this is that and also not that. And the pains of that, which is not something that I feel like we've really gotten with those other, you know, like,

it's not always easy to pass the torch or share the hammer sort of thing. Yeah, especially if you're watching it. The calling aspect is one of many Jane Gore parallels that I really love. But, like, when you see, you know, we're going to get, obviously get to go in a second, but like when you see gore in the desert and he hears that cussuration of whispers,

like the sword is calling him into this oasis. And same with the wrestling of the pages for Jane. And so these magical weapons calling to them, I love that parallel. Thor and Jane, not my favorite MCU couple. I've never bought the chemistry at all. The montage works. I don't know if it's the Abba. I don't know if it's just like this always needed to Mon.

I don't know if it's the pan flaps. I don't know what it is, but like, it all works. It's fantastic. The protective spell that Thor unwittingly, drunkenly puts on Milnear one Halloween evening. And a hot dog suit. Incredible. Classic Lily Potter love protection spell. And the updating of Mielnir is very like Juan chooses the wizard, which is also a part of the comics with this like sentience of the hammer. The hammer is so interesting because the brooky. broken apart hammer that comes back together. Something that's so interesting about Milneur in the mythology is that it was considered broken from the start.

So in Norse mythology, it's not that Odin gives bequeaths the hammer to Thor. It's all part of this like Loki prank where Loki cut all of Lady Siff's hair off. This is alluded to in the Loki TV show. He cuts all of her hair off. Thor's wife in the mythology. And Thor's like, how fucking dare you? Get some new hair for my wife. And so Loki goes to the dwarf smiths and is like, hey, can you make some hair for Sith?

And while you're at it, make three of the finest gifts ever for the gods. And if they are considered the finest ever, you can take my head. But if not, then you don't get to take my head. Classic Loki gambit that we don't understand at all. But he turns us all to enormous fly and just basically torments. the dwarves as they're making these items. And so the handle of Milneur is way shorter than it should be for a warhammer. And so Loki's like, I've won because they came up with this dumb-looking hammer with a short handle that won't work at all.

And the dwarves are like, here, Mighty Thor, here's this hammer. It works like a boomerang so you can throw it and it'll come back to you. And Thor's like this thing rules. And so what I love about Milneur is that it was always sort of. janky and broken. And so to manifest that as this, as the like cracked apart shard elements that Jane wields and it looks so cool the way that she sends the shards out. I really, I love that aspect.

And in terms of their love relationship, something that I love, that fear of losing her gave me strong Anakin vibes, right? Like, did not, does that not feel like, I mean, I don't know if it's just because Natalie Portman was there. But just that idea of like, I love this thing so much and I'm so afraid to lose it that I'm that I'm going to just fucking burn it to the ground myself, you know? But yeah, I think that's an interesting comp because, of course, while Thor does ask her to stay, asks her to not pick up meal near again, you know, we get a couple really moving sequences. We get their conversation when she tells him that she has cancer when they're sort of. pouring through the cosmos.

We get some space whales instead of dolphins instead of space sharks, a little update of aquatic cosmic life there. And then, you know, the hospital exchange where he asks her to stay with him, but he doesn't ever go to the Anakin place of deciding for her. Like he makes his, he implores her, but he then ultimately respects the choice that she makes. And when he, when she shows up at the gates of eternity and, pulls the shattered remnants of all black, the necrosword into Milnear. And you get this real symbolic manifestation of how it is not a broken thing.

It's this tool that you can use and this powerful thing that you can amend and update and make work for you. He's like, it's a pretty heartbreaking moment, the look on his face. And that made me think back to one of the... I can't believe I'm mentioning Dark World. again. I'm so sorry. But there are a couple of my favorite... Okay, you love that ether.

Yeah. Okay. A couple of my favorite moments in Dark World connect to other characters forcing Thor to confront the fact that Jane is mortal and he is not. And sometimes it's just like pure dickery, right? Classic Odin shit.

One of my all-time favorite MCU moments is when he walks in and he's like, my words are mere noises to you that you ignore them completely? So funny. Anyway, the real point, the germane part for this conversation is that Thor says to him, she's ill. He is a person telling his father that somebody he loves is ailing. And Odin's responses, she's mortal.

Illness is their defining trait. Like, how devastating would it be to hear that from the person you're turning to for help? And then there's the great conversation between Thor and Loki when they're heading to attempt to entrap Malikif in their ether extraction plot. And Thor is touting Jane's strength. And Loki's reply to that is say goodbye. This day, the next 100 years, it's nothing. It's a heartbeat.

You'll never be ready. The only woman whose love you've prized will be snatched from you. Like, that is a heartbreaking reality of Thor's existence. That the people that he forges these connections with are not. going to be around as long as he is. And like one of the really kind of awe-inspiring parts of the godbature comic run is like Thor's in our monologue about how many people he doesn't even remember. People he knows he loves, people he fought beside and he can't remember their faces. He can't remember their names. Now that's obviously not like Jane is like a different thing and that's

part of why it's meaningful. But that is just such a fascinating part of his existence. It's hard-wrenching to see him have to confront it here. It really, really is. Does he pass the Huey test for you in terms of this love of his life? Absolutely. We should have the powers. We should contextualize this, right? So if you don't watch the boys and you're listening to this podcast, there's a character called Huey who exhibited some insecure toxic masculinity issues around his superhero girlfriend. And I also talked about this in the context of Stranger Things and Mike Wheeler on Stranger Things and 11.

So this is just recurring. What I loved about this was that it was more about his jealousy of the hammer not being his. Like, she got the dog and the breakup or whatever than it was about him being like, a girl can't be a superhero or I'm insecure about my abilities around her abilities or whatever. I far preferred that. As he told Valkyrie and Ragnarok, he's very pro-woman, not in a creepy woman. and not in a creepy way. Lodge women.

Yeah, and the fact that, like, Val is there, and he's not, you know, and he made Val King and all and stuff like that. Like, you know, he, it all, it all feels easy, breezy. But I think that, to your point, the choice that he knows is her choice to make, right? And the looks that he gives and the looks that she gives, which are just very like,

man, you chose but not like, I'm angry you chose this but like, I'm devastated that you chose this but I also think you're incredibly boss which she is, you know, so yeah. You know, Thor, like Quill said

and we as viewers, we get to feel very shitty as we say goodbye to Jane until the stinger when we say hello again. Would you pick Milnear or Stormbreaker? Stormbreaker is part Groot so I pick Stormbreaker, even though I think Mielnir is the better looking weapon. Okay. I think Storbreaker is very, very cool.

Love Groot, love to summon the bye for us, love to think of Eitree shouting, It needs the X! But it's got to be Mielnir. Mielner. The O.G. A one of one, I mean. Stormbreaker can, like, the fact that it can grow roots,

I'm just like, could it grow itself into a little root? Like, could... I know. If Thor hadn't pulled it out of the soil. Who knows? It's like a Groot sapling. Well, Stormbreaker is now in love's hands at the end, and then Thor has Milnear again.

So maybe that's a team up too. New Groot and love in future installments, who can say? Listen, all sarcast, honestly. Who can say? In addition to having to confront mortality, our Thor's and Val and Corg have to confront something else,

which is the reality of the guy. the garished attachment, the self-preservation instinct above all else that is on display in omnipotent city. We're going to talk about this more obviously through the Gore lens in a couple minutes, but from the Thor, the mighty Thor, core Val perspective here, any omnipotent city thoughts that you want to share, anything about Thor confronting whether Gore might have a point? Do you want to just talk about Russell Crow's Zeus for a few minutes? The accent decisions. Oh, something. A fun fact that I learned from the Empire Podcast Instant Reaction episode is that Chris Hewitt was saying that Tyca told him that they filmed each of Russell Crow's scenes, all of his scenes, twice, two ways.

One with the Greek accent, and I'm putting air quotes around the Greek, and one with the RP, the received pronunciation that, like, you know, Anthony Hawkins used as Odin. And they just decided to go, like, full Greek. every time he gets cooking on that accent in every audience that I've been in, people are like, I'm not sure. It's a bold choice. I was incredibly entertained by Russell Crowe's use in this movie. When he says,

chill baby cake, I mean, the baby cake, the flick, a lot of orgy talk. I mean, it's... Okay, wait, wait.

My favorite line, actually, it's a line that has never gotten to laugh a single screening that I've been in. And I think it's because most Americans don't know what a corset is, but when he flicks off Thor's clothes and court goes, it's like a shy corgette. And it's definitely, he's definitely talking about Thor's dick. For sure. And I think Americans just don't know what a corgette is.

So they just like roll on with their day. But that line really got me. Incredible stuff. I have some notes about this whole sequence that I sort of, I talked about on the big pick, but I think I agree with Sean that like this felt like a little too, you know, so they shot, they shot a lot of this movie in the volume, you know, which we've talked about a lot in our coverage of the Star Wars shows. And this is the moment that felt the most like, like there's a sequence where Thor and Jane are walking down when they're doing their catchphrase conversation,

which by the way, I think is like the main bit that does not work for me in this movie. Because now the thing is, I think Natalie Portman can be really funny. Tyka does awkward humor. That's his thing. Like, you have to live in the awkwardness and stuff like that. And Natalie is funny in other aspects, but not necessarily in nailing the awkward humor. And so when she's like fumbling over her catchphrase, and she's talking about that, like, that made me cringe not in a like, I'm having a good time laughing at the awkwardness of these people. But as I've mentioned here and elsewhere, I think, Natalie Parma was walking on like an elevated platform to be the same height. as Chris Hemsworth. And so they're walking, they might have been walking on a treadmill or walking down, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure they CGI

like rear-projected Valky and Cork behind them because of the way they're all, and so like if you watch this movie again, please watch that sequence or they're walking down into O'Nipotent City and watch Tessa Thompson's acting of I'm supposed to be watching

two people have a conversation, but I'm pretty sure she's not actually behind them because she's just like making meaningful looks and nodding and it's pretty funny. But in terms of the like, this feels a little too, I don't know, just like, it should be lush and it should be big and it should be exciting, but like, I don't know, I felt a little detached from everything was going on because of the setting in a way that I didn't in the fighting arena in Ragnarok for some reason, even though that's similarly like massive and opulent and obviously digitally created.

But that being said, I think the root truth about Thor in mythology and in the comics is that unlike the other Norse gods, and apparently unlike every other god in every pantheon, he cares about humans. It's sort of like in Doctor Who, where like the Doctor in Doctor Who is a Time Lord who cares about humanity. He is a protector of Earth, whereas all the other Timelords are like humans. why would we possibly give a shit about them, right? And so to have Thor be the one interacting with this Gore the God Butcher's storyline where Gore is like the gods are the worst, right? Thor's like, from a certain point of view, you know, as someone who's fond of humans, them talking about the mortal sacrifices to their, you know, at their altars is not great.

So, yeah, that worked really well for me. How about you? I like the omnipotence city stretch. And as I said, I chuckled at the Russell Crow, Zeus orgy of it all. Obviously, like a treasure trove of Easter eggs. I did find myself longing for a little bit of the, you know, so much of the deployment of Omnipotent City in the comic run is around the library and the librarian and these scrolls of knowledge. And like, I don't know that the movie can like slow,

down really enough for that. But I did miss that element a little bit that it's like in the comics it's less recruiting trip and more like the quest of looking for clues and trying to understand and it connects to this larger like recognition aspect of the story that then gets to the confronting the reality of the gods aspect too because it's like one of the lines that I love so much in the comic is when Thor is realizing what is happening. And he says, what does it say about the gods in this universe that no one has ever even noticed or cared, that all of this is happening, right? That all of their fellows are being butchered, et cetera. And that aspect of the comic is definitely not as present in the film. Like, certainly not. But because of that, it's actually

really important to have this distilled version of it where, of course, we're now setting up, you know, the stinger was Zeus sending Hercules after Thorne. You get the moment earlier in the movie where Thor is like, well, you know, it's probably like all those gods are going to be pretty pissed and chasing us down because I sent Thunderbolt, the lightning bolt through Zeus's chest. Like, whoops, not everyone's going to be thrilled about that. But he has to confront the fact that the heroes that he worshipped. Yeah. Says he's modeled a lot of his work off of Zeus are a shell, you know, like just a hollow, hollow version. of the thing that he thought they could be

and to have his own version of what Gore is experiencing and what other people throughout the galaxy are going to experience when they say why has this person or being or God or superhero that I've worshipped forsaken me? And I think it's interesting the way that in the stinger

we get the the Zeus jealousy aspect of it where oh now we used to be we used to be big headliners, and now everybody turns their attention to the superheroes. But there's this meta aspect to that that's so fascinating, too, both inside of the fictional universe and for us as viewers, and the boys obviously is like elementally built on this, but what happens when the superheroes become the gods, right? And for Thor as a character who was both of those things, there's just a like a really

rich text to parse there. So even though it was contained, I like the ideas at the heart of that setting. The added meta narrative to that is, and by the way, when Russell Crow is using his thick, air quotes, Greek accent, and he says superhero, it sounds like superhero. The added meta aspect of that for me is also the like the perpetual conversation in Hollywood of like all everyone wants is a superhero. Like we can't get our stories made. like Russell Crowe belongs to an earlier generation of movie star where like, you know, you can be in Gladiator and you can be in a beautiful mind and you can be in all these various movies. And now it's like if you're not at a superhero property, is anyone going to pay attention to what you're doing at all? Which I thought was like slightly laced in there.

I thought that was interesting. Yeah, for sure. Dad Thor. I will tell you this. I've seen the movie three times now. still every time core ignorations at the end says

they're known as love and thunder and the guns and roses sweet child of mine is playing and the title comes up little tears springing to my eyes I can't explain it yeah it's happening right now just see what you talk about it

it's happened both types of see the movie too it hits it really does I don't know why it hits so hard firstly and secondly it also carries with it because I don't know I need to continue to interrogate emotionally why hits me so hard, but like intellectually it reminds me of, I won't spoil it if case people

aren't not caught up with stranger things, but like how much intellectual thrill you and I got out of like the way, the tidy way that volume one of Stranger Things wrapped up this season where like everything felt like and you're like, it's the name of the movie. I love when they say the name of the thing and the thin. Yeah, I loved it. I love a, I love a, especially. Especially because, not just because, you know, obviously, like, as many people have said, this is Chris Hemsworth's real daughter playing Love here. And so their dynamic felt really, like, natural and fun and sweet. But the cyclical nature of Thor losing Odin at the beginning of Ragnarok

and going through all these things and wallowing in a man-child state for all of this. Man-children are Taika's speciality, you know what I mean? And then the way in which he's stepping into the Odin role in this film,

repeating the Whomsomever shall hold his hammer sort of Odin moment, you know, becoming the daddy lot, like finally stepping out of being the son into the dad role. I thought that was like a beautiful graduation for this character. And to do it on his own terms, right? Like he's not ruling because he didn't want to.

And fatherhood, parenthood, building his family, it's not in Odin's image at all. I mean, at all, there could not be a starker contrast. You can't really imagine Odin making pan flaps for Thor or being okay if they had, if Loki or Thor had painted. his weapon, you know, he's just there to say, to pit them against each other by saying, you know, they're both meant to rule, but only one of them again. So I think that contrast was just a really cool thing too. And also just, you know, there is the through line, of course, of the fact that Odin

takes Laufi's child, takes the little baby icicle, Loki, and raises him. But of course, one of the really, like, harrowing reveals when Loki pushes him and pushes him and pushes him. him and pushes him for the heart of the truth is, because he starts, well, you were a baby, you were alone. It's like, why did you really do this? Because I thought one day I could use you as a bargaining chip to bring our realms together. And like nothing like the, of the latter aspect of that is present for Thor at all. It is because this child needed love. And as Jane was dying and as Gore was dying and as he implored Gore to choose love over destruction and to make that choice, Thor was then able to make it too, even as he suffered another great loss.

So that was a really cool and lovely thing, and it was just very charming to see them together with the boots and the breakfast. It was just really delightful. So I'm excited to see, I'm excited to see how Dad Thor is deployed in the MCU moving forward. We have a lot of like what comes next interesting elements here on the Thor front with, with that relationship, Love and Thunder. I think we will talk in our part two pod more about love. That sounds like theory.

Yes. And just loves power. hours to and the eternity of it all and what that might mean for love as a character. We'll hit that in part two. We can't move on from Thor, though, before we talk about the fashion and the wigs. Oh, yes. Of course. Okay.

So wig watched. By the way, I think one of the best things that happens in Ragnarok is that they get that fucking wig off Chris Hensworth said. I love short-haired Thor. I love short-haired Thor. And so, like, long-haired Thor came back. And at first, when he was with the Guardians, it looked kind of great. He had these little side braids going on, and it was very, like, fluffy, and it worked well with his, like, really cool, like, Ravager Jacket vests, you know.

I love the Ravager vest. Drasel, graphic T, like, Big Trouble, a little T. Like, yeah, like, all of that, like, all of that look worked. But then he goes back into the Thor outfit. I like the first one, the, like, black leather with the fur. But then when he's, like, giving us the Simonson era, like, gold and blue, to like out Thor, Jane costume. And then the stringy fucking updo is back.

I was like, no, we worked so hard to get away from this. This is not it for me. So I'm anti that wig. I'm pretty pro the Jane Foster blonde wig. I'm kind of anti the Jane Foster Burnett wig. I feel like they could have done a few more passes on that one to make it better. That's my wig. my wig,

maybe we watch. No wig's on Gore though, Joe. That we know of. Otherwise on the fit front. Yes. What do you make of the fact? What do you make of fact

of this shot of, we get this shot of Jane Foster is standing in front of the shattered Mielnier exhibit in New Asgard and it's a shot of her back as she's looking at the exhibit and it is almost identical

to the shot of Killmonger's back looking at the exhibit in Black Panther at the beginning, Eric. both wearing denim jackets to the museum. Is that intentional? Or do you think it's just like, if you're a costume designer, you're like, what would someone wear to a museum exhibit?

I know. A light denim jacket. Ooh. I don't know. I'm going to guess the latter. Have you ever worn a denim jacket to the museum, I guess, is my question. I wear denim jackets. I wear.

Well, in the limited occasions when I leave my home, I wear. When you, when you, like, ever over the gym jams? I'm not as as enthusiastic of a layerer as Chris Ryan or Adrian Brody on Succession, but every now and then. Every now and then. No one has ever matched Adrian Brody on Succession. Other than Chris Ryan. Yeah.

Man loves a layer. Should we talk about Gore? Oh, my God. I'm thrilled to talk about. Let's talk about my favorite part of this entire movie. The God Butcher, Christian Bale, joining the MC Villain Pool, Discuss. Okay. I think I agree with Van that this is the best

MCU villain performance from any actor ever. Wow. If you count Loki as like an anti-hero more than a villain. Okay. Who would you put above Christian Baal? I loved Christian Baal.

I thought he was tremendous. I thought the rendition was riveting. He's not in the movie enough for me. I don't think to just put him there. I'm not saying he's the best Marvel villain. I'm saying this is the best performance of an act, which is the distinction Vandam was making.

Do you what you mean? Yeah, I have to think about it, I guess. I guess. Yeah, if you take Loki out of the mix, I'd say he's not eligible, then, ooh, I mean, I think Michael B. Jordan's killmonger is tremendous. I think

Keaton's tombs, his vultures, tremendous. I really love that performance. I don't know. See, it's like, it's still stuck in my brain that I don't count those Sony Spider- Man movies in the MCU list, but maybe I should get over that.

Something that I read that Christian Bill said is that one of his inspirations... He said one of his inspirations for Gore was this A-Fex twin music video for Come to Daddy, which I then watched, and it's one of the scariest things I've ever seen. But there's a lot of... Don't watch it. Well, by scary, I mean, it's just like unnerving. unsettling. And one of the main features is there's a lot of shots of this guy's mouth, and he's holding his mouth in a way where it's just a very teeth forward thing. And I'm like,

oh, this is why, because like in the great sequence in the shadow realm, which a lot of people shout out is like their favorite part, the second and third time I watch it, I was fascinated by the way in which, and this isn't true in every single scene, but in that scene in particular, he's holding his teeth, his mouth, his lips back so that the teeth are bared at all. all times while he's talking, which is no mean feat. We get the incredible, I'll call the X when you call the dentist. Line from Thor, which was like, got it. Great stuff from Thor, but like, even Christian Bale, like, slipping into, like, are you the factory?

Like, even when he says stuff like that, like, the teeth are out. Yeah, that was great. And, um, he's having a blast. He's just, oh, just crushing it. Chewing the scenery with those bared things. Yeah. And with the inky black goo coming out of his mouth. loved it.

I also love how every time he enters, when he enters in shadow before the light hits him fully, his face looks like a skull, like in the design of his makeup and whatever digital effects they used. I just found him haunting. I love everything about his costume. I love everything about his design.

I love his long fingernails in the way that he's like articulating, you know, his fingers and like all of it. It's just so creepy and so good. It's an incredible physical performance in addition to the liner delivery. deliveries. Yeah, I agree. I thought he was, I thought he was tremendous. I guess I'll have to think about the acting top performance question. I'm not sure I'm ready to give my answer, but it is, this is,

this was wonderful. Wonderful to watch. Even in the, even in the intro, I mean, it might be that because Bail is going so, because Gore as a character has to go so hard for him right from the beginning. He has like, the part where he's talking to his God about in the oasis, about his, and he goes, the way he delivers the line, my daughter died, which is different than most actors would do it. He just puts his hand on top of his head and, like, stares in the middle distance, like, he still can't believe that that's real, that that happened.

Just a freaking genius performance. So, so good. I thought that was an amazing opening scene. I loved that the movie opened with that sequence. This is the crux of the conversation about tone, because it opens with the death of a child. That goes way harder than almost anything that's ever happened in the MCU, right? And then it has to switch.

So then you get the credits and the opening Marvel logo credit starts with like some slow strings and then moves into the fun metal, you know, riff. And then you get the Guardian. and Thor stuff, which is the antique, like, funny action stuff. And so the way which they used that opening logo and the musical bridge to bring us out of one very sorrowful place into this like, hey, the guardians are here is like one of the wildest U-turns at the movie pulled. But there's like even a tonal shift just inside of that opening because when the, when

the All Black summons him into that oasis with its call, there's like, there are the flower people, it's like almost like you're in annihilation for a minute with the like visual palette. And then of course the, you know, complete, uh, lack of awareness from the gods from Rappu. And then the recognition that it's not a lack of awareness. They just don't care. Like there's this, you know, we get the, the first glimmer of like the gold blood that will see return in unipotent city. Like there's a lot of like, there's a lot of different threads of tone even just inside of that opening stretch. But you're right. It's an incredibly, uh, dark and heavy opening note. The little flower gods reminded me of like Miyazaki, like little, or avatar, like little spirit realm sort of things. Yeah. What did you, what did you think of the all black, the necrosword that we got here in this movie?

And we should, we should clarify a couple things if anyone's confused, because Hella in Ragnarok, her weapons are called the Neck. Acro swords. But it's a different version than this one, which is like, I think even when they did that in, in, in, in Ragnarok, it was like, how is this exactly going to connect to the eventual inevitable introduction of the symbiote? But we don't get any symbiote mentions, which is pretty.

key because, you know, in the comic, All Black is the first symbiote. And Null, the creator of the symbiots, forged it. There's a severing of the celestial head. We had a lot of celestial heads as Easter eggs in both the omnipot city stretch and then at the gates of eternity at the end.

This is just a Sony thing, right? The fact that we don't get any symbiote language here. Yeah, Sony owns the rights to the symbiote. storylines because of the Spider-Man adjacent properties that they own. So, yeah, we don't, like, in the comics, the swords are like, the necrosword, the all-black, whatever, is, like, you know, a goop that forms off of Gore's hand versus this sword. And he's got to, like, threads and and, yeah, yeah, there's a symbiote. Coming off of him. Very, very venomy. But, like, I think that I love the design of this sword. The way it, like, floats and feels.

feels like it has a mind of its own, the way it comes up out of the ground to meet him a couple different times. I like the connection between the necro sword in this and the Ebony Blade that we saw at the end of Eternals, the like sort of shifting black light on the blade itself and then the whispering, the calling.

Maybe we'll do some theorizing on that tomorrow because that felt like a pretty intentional similarity. Yeah, absolutely. And the, you know, in the comics, not only is gore-wielding the subduit to stab and to turn into chains and knives and blades, etc., but he's creating this army of black berserkers. And we get the film's version of that are these, like, shadow monsters. And obviously the idea of shadows is so central not only because of the shadow realm sequence

that was absolutely visually riveting and just incredible to watch, also one of my favorite parts of the movie. but again, like, feels like very thematically rich because, you know, you have this, um, this, this, like, line about how this is where color, the fears to tread, right? And like the kind of indictment of an idea like the shadow realm or a character who would live and exist in the shadows inside of a, a rainbow sprinkles, Skittles movie like this, where there's so much vibrancy and brightness and flashes of color and the by-frost is a rainbow and Thor is brightening his comics accurate costume, etc.

Like that contrast is just so stark. And so even though our heroes are only able in that Shadow Realm sequence to bring in the little flashes of color, the gold of Thunderbolt, or the blue hue in the cracks of Mule Nier, like those were such visually arresting moments. I thought that was incredible. It was like watching a lightsaber fight, honestly, like watching those various colors pop. But even more so, like, even just. just like when Jane is poking around the weird, like, vinyl tent flap structure that Gore is, I guess, constructed for himself.

And, like, she's using Milnear as a flashlight and the glow of it onto her and the way that it, like, colors her up. I mean, that's just gorgeous, really cool visuals. Very, very cool. So what about the whole, you know, you can raise your Thanos right mug that you got on the set of Hawkeye and ask? what about the whole Gore was right aspect of this character? And again, we've already mentioned a few times how the seed of that idea, penetrating Thor and causing a lot of doubt is very central to the comics run. How does you think the movie handled that aspect of it?

Because there's just, of course, like a lot less time, not only because of the number of comics in the run, but again, the number of years over which Gore is operating in those first 11 issues, and he appears in other comics after that 11 issue, but that primary Gore-the-Gobacher run where he's working on, the god bomb and the three Thor's are working to challenge him. The number of gods who he is felling, the swath of time that this saga covers, there's just so much more that we get to witness than what we do here. So they have to, again, very much distill and present this idea to us.

Did that, did that work for you? To interrogate one thing that the Midnight Boy said on their great episode, they were talking about Tyca having a blank check carte blanche for this movie. that's absolutely not the case, maybe more leeway than he got with Ragnarok, but, you know, there was a mandate to bring this movie in under two hours, so this comes in under two hours. They cut a ton of stuff out of this movie.

And, like, you know, Tykes on record is not believing in directors cut. He's like, usually, like, usually if stuff was cut, it was cut for a reason. That being said, like losing that, we know that Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, Lina He, and Seven Russell Beal, who shows briefly as Dionysus, he has, like, two lines, but, like, he also has a credit, like, above the credits credit in this movie. So, like, definitely he was supposed to be in this more. And so definitely we were supposed to see Gore come in and kill a bunch of other people.

And specifically, like, Jeff Goldblum, like Peter Dinklish, like people that we have met before. Lydia Heady, I'm sure, would have crushed it as whatever, you know, whatever she was supposed to do. So maybe that would have served two purposes. Maybe it would have underlined Gore's right because Jeff Goldblum was like a real piece of shit, right? So like him dying, you know, maybe we're agreeing with him that. But then like, Dinklage wasn't. So maybe it just overcomplicated everything or I don't know. We certainly would have gotten to spend more time with bail, which I would have liked to have done.

But I do think ultimately the movie fails to interrogate what does it mean to be a God? What is your role as a God as a God as a person? protector? What is your job? Like Thor maybe learning, like discovering more for himself what he defines his role as a god to be in terms of protecting humanity. But get a little bit in the end fight when he's like talking to love about like the defense lifts, you know, aliens and and they're outnumbered and like help the good guys, like, you know, sort of thing. But I think ultimately it missed a, missed a trick in making that part of the final confrontation. What does it mean to be a god?

Do the gods deserve to live? All that sort of stuff. It gets kind of brushed to the side in a way that I'm not mad because I like the way it all ends. But like in that final confrontation, it's just like choose love. You know, what do you think? This was really the thing I wanted more of in the movie, like this most of all. And in part because, again, I really loved Bales Gord. So seeing more of him would have been a treat.

and I've very much accepted this point that Marvel movies are not going to be one-to-one adaptations of the comic runs and I was not expecting that to be the case here. But this particular element, I think is central to why I love the comic run so much and would have loved for it to be more present here, both in the way that you just described,

which I really agree with, and also in how that then builds toward Gore's hypocrisy being so central to his downfall. Like there's, you have these really rich moments where you as a reader and Thor as a character are confronting, oh my God, is this guy like onto something? Very few gods of poetry and flowers. That's one of my favorite gore lines in the comics, though I killed those just the same. And, you know, the number, he's like makes the point about how he's killed a lot of gods of war, right? You build toward a moment like his confrontation with Volstag.

He is enslaving the people of Asgard for years, gods upon gods, to build his god bomb. And Volsag is the first one to voice this. He says, in the end, there will still be one god left. Won't there, Gore, you? And then the moment where Gore himself has to confront that in the final showdown is like, that's one of my favorite comic stretches ever. I just think that is so expertly executed. And you get a little bit of Gore having to confront hypocrisy and make a choice and the choice that he makes when he does reach.

He does reach the gates of eternity and he is in front of eternity. And he has to decide, is he going to make at that wishing well the choice to annihilate all of the gods in one fell swoop or the choice to bring back his daughter, bring back love. He does make that choice. And it's a powerful one, but it's through that specific lens, as you noted. And I did long for and felt myself missing that large. or really meaty, philosophical and existential text. It's a much less egregious example, but it reminded me a little bit of our conversation,

spoilers for Obi-Wan Kenobi around the character of Riva in Obi-Wan-Kan-Kinobi and this idea of the hypocrisy of him kidnapping and terrorizing children when, you know, he's inspired by the loss of his, you know, so when he's like sitting there in the cage with him, he's like, I had a daughter once or whatever. Like there's no interrogation in that, which Christian Bill would easily be able to

confront the complexity of that as a performer. The central to the gore, I mean, you just brought up Star Wars, and central to the Gore character is the Obi-1 to Anakin. You have become the very thing you swore to destroy energy, right? So I longed for a little bit more of that, and I think we'll never get the four-and-a-half-hour cut, but the four-and-a-half-hour cut that has another hour of gore is one I would give a lot to see one day what a treat that would be.

Any other gore thoughts or, Vail thoughts or villain thoughts that you want to share before we swing to Val? I don't think so. I'm really ready to talk about Valkyrie. Let's do it. My best friend. Take us away. I really, really liked Tessa in Ragnarok.

I loved her in this. I thought she was even better in this. Still not, like people saying that she wasn't enough. I agree. That's true of Christian Bale as well. And that's because this is a shorter movie than Thor Ragnarok was. Like, you know, there's like, there's a lot of plates bidding. And so everyone gets kind of a short.

Trift, to be honest with you. The question that we want to ask, though, is, was this movie as queer as we were led to believe it would be? And it's, you know, the Midnight Boys, like, led by Van, we're saying, like, I think largely, like, this is a step in the right direction. How much can we expect from Disney in terms of queer representation? All that sort of stuff, which I can on one level agree with. But I think if that's going to be the case, if you're going to be good, if you're going to be

unshy about your queer representation, then it is important that the people promoting the movie not set up expectations around that. So when at Comic-Com, when they initially announced this movie and Tessa Thompson says, like, a king needs her queen, like all that sort of stuff, there was a lot of conversation around Valkyrie finding a queen and how that was going to be part of this film. And then even, and so maybe that was an earlier version of the film that they were going to do. Maybe there was a lot more queer stuff in that. And then over the time it got cut, and that happens. And that can be frustrating or whatever.

But then at the London premiere, which was, I don't know, the third premiere. Like, they had already premiered the film. They already knew what the film was. And they were asked by the audience, like, how gay it was. And Natalie Portman says, it's super gay guys. And everyone's like, yay. I'm like, would you in any universe call this a super gay film? No, I would not.

And so I think it's great that, you know, Valkyrie's smooches, you know, a Grecian maiden on the hand. And I think it's great that Corg has found a partner, a male partner and like all of that. But I don't know, like, I'm kind of tired of like gay parents being the token that they're going to give us and they're not actually going to give us actual queerness in a movie. So that's how I feel about it. Yeah. No, I agree. And, you know, I think Charles was was voicing the same.

and really saying, well, like, show us, then really show us these meaningful relationships fully realized. And obviously there's a lot of discussion in this movie. You know, we have the Val and Corg conversation about Val's past girlfriend. And you mentioned the little moment in Omnipotin City and Cork talking about his two dads. Interesting on that front is Cork had, of course, mentioned his mom and her boyfriend in Ragnarok when he was talking about the pamphlets and the revolution. and Corgan Dwayne at the end here,

it's obviously not, you know, Tesla Thompson's not making the movie and getting final cut. So it's like, that line is, of course, like one that we and a lot of people are resurfacing because it was that really early, like, promise. It's obviously not, you know, I'm to hear what the final version of the movie

is going to be. That's obviously not what we're saying. But yeah, I mean, I think the version of this film or hopefully future stories where we get to see Valky in that relationship, really, really, really in that relationship living her life. You know, I think that like the point about how the more that these aspects of queer life just become routinely embedded into the story, the better.

And that's obviously true, but that can't be the only thing. I think that's the point that we're making. I think I've just been a little on edge ever since. So like when I was shown some Black Panther footage really early before Black Panther came out, And it was a scene that never made in the movie and has never seen the light of day between Akoy and I.O. Florence Kasumba's character and Denai Guerrera's character where they were like overtly flirting with each other. And I remember I wrote it up for VanityFair.com and then I was driving home from L.A. And I got a call from Disney PR and they were panicked that I had written about this footage.

And they were like, please take it down. You're creating false expectations. And I was like, but you, I just described what the footage that you literally. really showed me. And they cut it out of the movie because, you know, they weren't ready to go there. And that was a really, that was such a disappointing moment for me that like someone was like, take this down. It's too, you're talking about queer stuff. Take it down in the year of our Lord. I think that was like 2017 probably. And still five years later, we're in a similar spot where we're still gun-shy about this. So, yeah.

That's how I feel about that. And the thing is, is like, Tyca would agree, I think. And that's, to go back to the blank check, carte blanche, I think if Tyca had his druthers,

this would be a gay Fantasia of a movie, to be honest with you. So, you know. I wish we had gotten that. I really hope that we do soon. I think that you're right about the expectation setting and the,

you know, the way that this is like consistently release after. release, like disgust compared to what is actually in the films. This is important. This is important to a lot of people. It really is. That being said, Valkyrie rules.

She's amazing. One of my favorite things is when she, so when they go on the, like, killing spree in an omnipotent city, and there's the god of the bloods in Greek mythology is called Iker, and it's this gold, gold substance that flows to those. So there's, like, ikor spurting all. around the joint and they get spattered with it. And what I love is that Valkyrie is spattered with that. Like, they're all a little spatter, but, like, Thor cleans up.

Jane still has some on her costume but is, like, cleaned it off her skin for the most part. Valkyria is just spattered in this godblood for the rest of the time until, like, the training montage at the end. But, like, even when she is, like, handing the thunderbolt over to Thor and, like, tell him to go, you can still see on her gloves that she still got, like, godblood on it. I just love she. After kidney surgery. I love her.

She put her like godblood soaked gloves back on to have this conversation with Thor. I absolutely love her. Had to finally change for that training montage at the end because she had to put on that incredible new Asgardian King's jersey, which I really hope becomes something available for purchase. That was that was amazing. Well, we got some mailback questions about Infinity Cones. We'll talk more about that and the general merch haven that new Asgard. has become. It's a haven of many sorts, including one for all sorts of different people from across

the galaxy, which was a really cool thing to see because it was one of the things that Cork said could happen. And it did, right? And we get to meet a lot of the citizens of New Asgard. We get to see, like, with the Meek Minutes thing, what it's like to discuss at the town hall, the events of the moment in their community. We see, you know, like with the cruise ships and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, like festival rides that they take the boat. Incredible. Cocktail. And then cocktails and dreams signed from from cinematic.

Classic. Classic cocktail. That was incredible. Infinity codes. The Old Spice commercial. Like this was all pretty rapid fire, but gave such a sense in a good way of the passage of time and a thing that would happen. This place, like, you know, the idea that Asgard is not a place.

It's a people. And then you put down roots. somewhere else. Tonsberg, of course, long history and across the MCU, you know, this is a place we've seen a lot all the way back to the Odin and Laofy flashbacks in Thor, the Tessor Act, in Captain America, et cetera, et cetera. Of course, the site of Odin's demise and hella fracturing mule near, and that's why the remnants are still there, et cetera, putting down new roots and endgame. And then because superheroes are the gods of this world of Midgard, it would become this tourist destination. It would become this place that people wanted to visit and gawk at.

And I thought that was so interesting to see that incorporated into the movie. I loved that amid the new industry, our theater troupe, still going strong. Damon, back as Loki. Luke Hemsworth, back as Thor, Sam Neal, back as Odin. Melissa McCartney is Ella. This is just the fact that we got a second little glimpse of them. I did not hear a no. So it's just really made me smile. I always love a play inside of a story. It makes me feel like I'm back on Bravo with Aria. Just a delight.

Yeah, yeah. Great week for Luke Hemsworth fans, by the way. He's just crushing in a Westworld. Seems like Westworld's back, huh? It's really good. It's really good this week. I love Luke Hemsworth. He's my favorite Hemsworth.

I've said this elsewhere. This is not new information. But, yeah, I think the moment in the return of Damon and Hemsworth that I like the most was Damon misting his face to produce the Loki tears. Really good. Really good stuff.

Or and or Sam Neal crawling off stage after Odin has like become god dust. It's tremendous. I loved it. The kiddos, children very central to this movie in ways that are often

quite harrowing to witness. Axel. Heimdahl's kid. Axel Heimdell's son, instant icon. I feel we don't know exactly what mailback questions were answered, but I feel confident saying we'll be talking about Axel's future in the Young Avengers, given that we've already gotten multiple mailback questions about exactly that.

Just a tremendous character. Kieran Dyer as Axel, fantastic, fantastic kid performance. My favorite moment is when Thor is there and being unhelpful. And he's just like, yeah, just weighs away to go away. I loved it. I thought he was so good. Wonderful. Yeah.

Delightful. I loved it. And it was such an incredible moment when, I found it just like disturbing when Thor temporarily powered up the children and we got to watch them all in that like horror sequence since you know I'm often unsettled by the horror moments in films and television shows. But at the end of that, the toss of Stormbreaker from Thor to Axel and seeing Heimdahl's kid summon the bifrost and lead his people to safety. It was just like a really cool, incredible little moment. And of course it becomes, you know,

even more seismic because Heimdahl himself returns at the end. Do you want to do any other New Asgard or Val or Asgardian children talk before we hit the stingers? Just that in addition to Chris Hemsworth's real daughter playing his daughter, his son shows up as like little Thor in the like montage coming together. And then Christian Bales kids, Natalie Portman's kids, Tycho Waititi's kids are all in the new Asgard children army, which, and then they get like a special thanks in the credit. So if like, if you're wondering if this is parenthood, the movie, it is. Like everyone and their children are here.

They all moved to Australia for the pandemic and they made a movie. But I like that. I thought that was really sweet. The child army, I don't know. I feel a little mixed about it until November rain kicks in. And I'm just like, oh, wow. I watched several YouTube videos about November rain last night, just, just like. because I think I'll talk about it on the mailback episode,

but it's a very thematically pertinent needle drop here. Some wonderful musical accompaniments of this film. Stingers, we already talked about the mid-credit stinger quite a bit. I mean, we'll circle back to it. We get to theorizing tomorrow. Is there any other Brett Coltina's Hercules? This is not a drill. My theater lost.

It's shit. Same. I had no idea this was the thing. I don't know if this was out there. Me neither. I was not aware. I actually, I guess it was out there, but I didn't know because, like, as I progressed with my journey of the ringer, I've stopped looking at spoilers, so I had no idea.

And then I told a friend of mine who was at the press screening I was at, and he was like, yeah, that's been out there. I was like, well, I didn't know, man. And I lost my shit. So there you go. But I think the more intriguing one, again, but again, this might belong in our theorizing chat is Jane and Hyme Dahl involved. Did you want to hit any of your Norse mythology corner Hercules?

Talk here quickly or? Just that Thor and Hercules are sort of analogs in mythology. The way that, like, the way that he meets Zeus in this movie and Zeus is shitty, and it's a reminder that we learned that Odin was pretty shitty in Ragnarok, even though we already knew it, but, like, Thor really learned it in Ragnarok. That's all part of, like, bad dad stuff. And so Hercules and Thor as, like, the strong sons of the king of the gods. There's just some, like, nice mirror imagery there for them. And then in the comics, they have a long history. as well, obviously.

Yes. I'm so excited for this. I really can't wait. I think there's an interesting discussion to have on the like god and pantheon age of the MCU arriving. Obviously, the gods are very present in Moon Night. We also, this can bring us into our Valhalla talk, but we are adding to the list of afterlife realms that the MCU has shown us.

So there's something interesting there, too. And again, we can theorize about the Hercules and Pantheon. expansion of it all, maybe more tomorrow. But what other, what was your read on Jane entering Valhalla and seeing Heimbal? Did you take this as, oh, we will be receiving a story at some point set in Valhalla or more like, okay, this is one more. This is one more bit of closure and one more goodbye, and we can take some comfort in this. So I'm pretty certain.

The only reason I'm not frosty about Jane dying in this movie in a way that one might describe as fridging is because I'm very certain. And then Natalie Portman was like, hello, I can commit to one movie. The old Harrison Ford, I'll come back for the Force Awakens. But you got to really kill Hansel this time. That's not how a stinger works. But much like Harrison Ford showing up the rise of Skywalker, you never, like, basically, this is the question I posed to Catherine Hahn at the end of Wanda Vision, where I'm like, do you think they just like put you on ice so that they could pull you out and use you when they wanted you? right?

Because that's what they did with Agatha all along at the end of Wanda Vision. They're like, she's slightly out of the picture, but we can wake her up and use her whenever we want to. And similarly with Heimdahl and Jane, like, we can pull them out of Al-Halla if we need to to force ghost or whatever it is. We want them to do. But like, for now, if Nally Portman never wants to do another Thor movie again, she has put some beautiful button on her character. I agree. I agree. Part two will be Easter eggs, theories, and mailbag questions. And a lot of the mailback questions are about theories. So that'll all be kind of entwined. Like the branches of Groot or hounds,

the halves of Stormbreaker. Wonderful. Okay. So in that case then, unless you have any other things you wanted to hit on Joe, that takes us to Secret Scroll and then to your interview with Tyka. Who's your scroll? Oh, Darrell. It's Darrell. Great one. Yeah. You know, Thor roommate, Tor guy, Darrell is a scroll for me. How about you? I love it. I love Darrell. And I'm glad. glad that he's in New Asgard and not with the Grandmaster as a very bad roommate. I'm going with the theater troupe. I think, you know, how better to learn how to continue to impersonate key stakeholders in the MCU than to literally play act as them in front of a test audience,

you know? It just seems like a training ground for the scroll. That's my new broader theory that any time we see a play inside of the MCU, it's a scroll in training camp, getting ready, getting into the best shape of their life for the real season. All right. T us up for Tyca. Yeah, I mean, not much to say. A little chit-chat with Tyco Y-T-T himself talking about, you know, gay stuff and corg stuff and all kinds of things.

So have a listen. Hi, Tyco. Welcome to the show. Nice to see you again. Hi. How are you? Yeah, good. I don't want to waste any time.

I've got just a few minutes with you, but I wanted to ask you my favorite question as comic book directors, which is what influences are there on your film outside of comic books, filmic influences? I'm thinking specifically of the sequence of the shadow realm with all the chromatic black and whites, just a really stunning sequence. I was wondering if you had things you were thinking about when you put that together. Oh, well, yeah, you know, Jules and Jim. I heard that, no, but really what the look. I mean, the look is a high contrast, you know, world.

And I wanted this feeling of just, you know, it's a small, tiny little rock that they're on. And so the sun is constantly moving. So the light's always shifting. And, you know, really, like a lot of that look came from technology that my friends developed, which is called plate light, which is really basically like, you have strobes all set up around your stage

that are firing off at such a high rate. and you're using high frame rates when you're shooting, and later on you can control the lighting and post. So you can choose how you want to seem to be lit once you're in the computer, and you can sort of choose that stuff. And so that's how we managed to get all of this shadows moving and the light always changing.

It was really cool and used new tech for that. The Ragnarok is gorgeous too, of course, in its own right, with the pops of color, the Jack Kirby-inspired color of that film. I think something that newer comic, Thor comic fans were so excited to see in both the trailer and the finished product of this film are these frames that were taken directly from the Jason Aaron Thor comics. Yeah. I feel like that's something we're seeing increasingly with Marvel films and Marvel TV shows is, you know, the increasing direct references to art and storylines from the comics. Does that feel different from when you were working on even just Ragnock a few years ago? Or does it feel like it was always this way at Marvel?

Well, you've got to honor those people. You've got to honor like everyone who's gone before. And, you know, Kevin said that basically all these storylines come from existing runs in the Marvel comic. Which is great, you know, and paying homage to, you know, to Stanley and Jack Kirby, you know, the originators of all of this stuff. And then all of the different artists and storytellers, you know, And there's been, you know, you've got to admit, there's, like, some of the best writing in storytelling is, you know,

is in comic books. And then coupled with incredible artists and great graphic images, they really see themselves into your brain, you know. Like, we all remember the, you know, like, you know, the Batman or the Lightning from, you know, from the Dark Knight, the Return of the Dark Night. And so, you know, we remember all these, like, images that kind of, like, pop up when you think of, you know,

I remember, like, you know, they thought astral traveling and like one of these classic old Kirby paintings. And, yeah, I would never pretend that it was my idea if it came from someone else. And like, you know, Jason's stuff was incredible. That whole, the run is so great. Something I love to hear you talk about when you would talk about the Ragnarok is the idea of that film stripping away all these external trappings of Thor.

You take his hammer, you take his cape, you take his hair, all of this. And what is left? What is a Thor without all those things? I thought that was an interesting concept. Now that you've given him back his hair and back the cape and eventually back the hammer, what did you see as the core journey of this film? What were you wanting to explore in the character for Love and Thunder?

Yeah, this movie really, I wanted him to have a midlife crisis. I wanted him to, like, after many, many years of flying around the universe, saving planets, and giving a lot of his energy to, you know, to other people, to get his family, he'd left nothing in the tank for himself. And, you know, these ideas come around from when you start doing therapy. You know, he's lost and he's trying to find his purpose. And he doesn't really, you know, he probably wants to find love or something to love. Doesn't know if he deserves to be loved.

And it's just all of those things that happen when, you know, we wake up now and and we look around and we go, oh, is this it? Is this? I'm a grown-up now. Did I follow that dream? Did I honour the child and me who had big, big hopes and dreams? Or did I give in, you know, or like, is there still a chance for me to, you know, to do the things I really wanted to do?

Or is there a chance for me to make a difference? And, yeah, and that's, I think, a great place for a character who's incredibly good-looking and has got a perfect body. and it's a space Viking and there's a god to see him like that. So now it's stripping him down emotionally and spiritually. Another thing that's really interesting to me about this movie particular is this is the first time we've seen a Thor movie without Loki. It's the first time we've understood a Thor journey without looking at sort of through the lens of his relationship with his brother, which is so interesting. And so I'm curious to you if that presents any challenges or,

if it's just an exciting opportunity to try something fresher? Well, look, he's a beloved character, obviously. You know, and, you know, I was very sad when, you know, his character died. But I'm pretty sure he's dead. For me, you know, I mean, you know, my main concern is the thought character. So, you know, I was okay with him being dead. But, you know, I always think that, well, I mean, you've got the show. Speaking of people being, you know, mostly dead, kind of dead.

When Cork gets hit by the Thunderbolt and collapses, and we think he's dead for a hot second, how much of that was motivated by the fact that you did not want to wear motion cap pajamas on set anymore to play Cork? That's part of the reason. Yeah, that's part of the reason. We actually toyed with him getting a robotic body. I'm turning him into a sort of like a droid robot thing that we decided just to that he would

With Cronin's I guess that they can grow back their bodies Spoiler Speaking as we were of Loki earlier You know you include some really fun Norse mythological moments in this movie Like the pair of goats The screaming goats are straight out of the classic miss As well as the comics

But you know There's some much, much stranger stories like Loki and Slepnir and their sexual relationship and Slepnir is a horse. So I'm just curious, you know, are there weirder, more far out there Norse mythological elements that you would love to put in another Thor movie? If I had my way, I would love to see like some of the more weird a thing because I find all of the stuff culturally like really beautiful. but then just the kind of maybe just an immature kid in me always like to sit there

when you hear things like that about an eight-legged horse I like to step back and go what does that look like? What's the point of that? And it's yeah I just it's part of me that always you know

yeah I want to I wanted this film to just to have so many strange elements in it that you know that that kind of if you put enough weird things into one movie that the combination of them makes it all makes sense, if that makes sense. You know, I've had a lot of people ask me who haven't seen the movie yet if they thought I would like it. And it's been hard to sort of give the elevator pitch for this movie because with Ragnarok, it's so easy.

It's a party movie and it's easy to describe it as a party movie to people. But this has so much more going on. There's horror and there's sorrow and there's joy. and all of it is sort of, you know, asking for your attention. And within there, there's this, you know, a few queer storylines, queer love stories, sort of percolating in the background. And you've spoken so eloquently recently about your work on the H.O. series, Our Flag Means Death, which is sort of one of the most unabashedly queer shows I've seen in a long time,

and how much that representation matters to you, and it matters. that you're a part of it. And so I'm curious, you know, how you feel about what you were able to include in this film. Well, I feel very proud because I think, you know, we have to admit that these movies have probably got the biggest audience in the world. You know, like I think we can do more to normalize same-sex relationships or queerness in film and television by putting them in the most mainstream format you can find. You know, I'm not going to, I'm going to barely have any, like, with my first three or four

independent movies from New Zealand. You know, it's like, that's not really going to change the world. But these ones, these ones can help do that. And, you know, as soon as we get to a place, you know, ultimately, we need to get to a place where we don't have to have these conversations. You know, I like talking about it, but it'll be cool where it's not a weird thing. All right, friends. That is a wrap on today's episode.

but if you ever feel lost, just look into the eyes of the podcasters that you love. Or just come back tomorrow because we're going to have the whole other pod for you. Easter eggs, theories, mailback questions. We will see you soon. Thank you to our as guardian gods, Steve Allman, for producing this episode.

Regina Ramgapal for his additional production work on this episode. And Joe Meadeneron for his work on the social for this episode. And of course, thank you to Tyca for joining Joanna. Please tune back in for our Part 2 pod tomorrow. and head back into the feed on Wednesday and Friday for our Miss Marvel instant reaction and deep dive. But we'll see you next time for another classic ringerverse adventure. Aw. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari.

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