The Weekly Planet - Thor (2011) - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

The concept of Thor always worked wonders within the pages of a Marvel comic or in Norse Mythology or in a 1988 Incredible Hulk telemovie but translating it to the big screen would prove to be a massive gamble. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and released in 2011, Thor Just Thor managed to rope in a terrific cast including Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Rene Russo as Frigga and more. Combining magic, technology and myth it became a key part of the MCU paving the way for over a decade of appearances from the character. But the eyebrows were bad. Thanks for listening to our Caravan Of Garbage review!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/B61eneLRtMsHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.

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Now, in the spirit of comic book movies of old, Mason. Oh, you have the ancient times? Exactly. Should we start this video with a portion of the video from later in the video, and then we build back up to that part in the video so people are like, how did we get here? Sounds like a lot of work.

Sure. I mean, we could just, you know, Ben or Lawrence could put in a random clip. I think it would be fine. Sure, okay. Do you remember when movies used to start like this, though? I mean, Iron Man started like this. Deadpool did this. You know, it's that thing of like, oh, my God, a big thing.

Other non-superhero movies presumably have started like this. Yeah, exactly. And will continue to this day. I think Rick and Morty made fun of that in an episode, didn't they? Oh, certainly, yeah. Like three days earlier or whatever and so forth. James, there is not a single entertainment industry trope that they won't absolutely skewer,

my friend. You are not wrong. I hope they don't come for the podcasters, though. Leave us be. We're ugly. Leave us alone. Yeah, come on. So we're talking about Thor, of course. Thor from 2011. Original Thor. Not the original Thor, but the one that counts, I guess.

Thor 1. Thor 1. Original recipe Thor. That's right. We're going to be doing this. Then we're going to be doing second Thor. Zinger Thor. Then we're going to stop for a bit, and then we'll probably group the last two together.

I don't know. We're doing the first two, all right? Leave a like if you could. Who are you going to stop for a bit and then we'll probably group the last two together. I don't know. We're doing the first two alright. Leave a like if you could. I thought you were going to say leave us alone. Leave a like then. Watch the video in the background while you're doing something else. In silence if necessary and then leave us alone. That's right. We know how people view these.

So Mason, you might be thinking, how did we get here in terms of Thor movies? I can give you a little bit of a run up if you don't mind. I'd love to. obviously he was in the 70s and 70s and 80s he was that mean he was in the thor was no in the 80s he was in that he's in an episode of the incredible hulk exactly yes they were attempting to build some sort of spin-off universe and we got a daredevil episode which we've talked about i think exactly we've got one uh with thor where he's very brown and doing a lot of running about.

I'm a big fan. And, of course, he was a comic book character prior to that. That's true. But Sam Raimi... And prior to that, a man of epic myth and legend. That is also true. Boring! Yeah, I agree.

So Sam Raimi, he actually wanted to direct a Thor movie in the 90s. That didn't end up happening. Matthew Vaughn was actually on board for a time in the mid-2000s. He went on to do Kick-Ass and various other properties, including what I think is one of the best X-Men movies. Guillermo del Toro was considered after Matthew Vaughn left, and he wanted to do this version that was closer to the Norse mythology of Vikings and mud, and he wanted to build an Asgard like that.

Oh, GDT wanted to do a real gross Asgard. What a shock. What a shock from him. Where everyone's eyes are on the back of their head or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I'd be very interested to see. He's doing some extensive research into Norse mythology. He's like, is there a guy who's got weird eyes?

And he goes, ooh, peekaboo. Ooh, look at me. I'm a freak. Oh, there's not. I'm out. Yeah, bye. I'm going to do the Hobbit movies and then leave the Hobbit movies. That's my play.

But then, of course, we've got Kenneth Branagh, who I think is the perfect choice for kicking off something like this. He's a Shakespearean fellow. And I think bringing that Shakespearean element to this kind of gives it a bit of gravitas, which they throw away a few movies later. Sure, yeah. But I think it totally works for this.

What's interesting, I think, is that a lot of people, if you ask them to rank the Marvel movies, they will, and they will put... They've already done it. They've already done it, and they usually put the first two Thor movies towards the bottom. Yeah.

And I don't understand that. Well, I mean, I get it. I think because people on the internet love to rank things, stuff has to inevitably be on the bottom. I insist on it. Yeah, and these ones get the short end of the stick. But I watched this today and I was entertained.

I always like this one. I think also it's interesting because when you put things like the silly costumes that they've got in it and, you know, the idea of this crazy looking Asgard and a rainbow bridge and a magic hammer, these things shouldn't translate very well. But I think also something like a Lord of the Rings did a lot of the legwork for this epic kind of scope and this kind of mythology. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's probably like an ad where the Lord of the Rings hobbits go to McDonald's or something. Yeah, exactly. That's the transition, right? No, you're right. What about second Big Mac meal, one of them would say. You know? Absolutely.

And then, of course. And the person in the drive-thru would be like, right, you are, sir. Not like, oh, these idiots. Yeah, again. Sick of this. But then, of course, they do things like there's the big expedition dump at the start. Do you mean an exposition dump? That's how I started again.

Then they do that thing at the start about the big exposition dump. I actually did write expedition. Nice. Anyways. And then they do that thing that I really don't like, the big exposition dump at the start about, like, frost giants and, you know, and there's a magic frozen box and there's a war and whatever.

I've completely forgotten about the magic frozen box. But the thing is, right, all of those things that I've mentioned is very much what they did with Green Lantern, which came out the same year. Oh. And yeah and this movie just doesn't pretty wild right yeah i mean it's amazingly cast do you think that you know that plays a plays i think it is yeah even the minor roles like it's all it's all good i agree yeah the characterization of thor though yes go on the man himself the myth himself yes that the god himself is an alien this is the point in uh in in the

marvel universe where they're just like no there's no magic it's all technology now they're like no there is magic which is it's separate from the separate different magic but thor is magic we still we think we're pretty we're pretty sure he's a lightning man but the characterization of thor in this i mean they've done the comic book version they've translated it mostly you know faithfully, using a lot of the Jack Kirby art and bits and pieces and other influences. But even things like getting that costume right, it's wild that they translated that.

Isn't it, though? Yeah. Yeah, I'm loving all the costumes in this. Just the Warriors 3, they've got some great costumes. Yes. Not a joke. Just enjoy them, yeah. I enjoy that one of them is like a dwarven warrior

and one of them's, you know, D'Artagnan. Yeah, one of them's not Zachary Levi yet. That's correct, yes, that's right. Yeah, no, I completely agree. Just beautiful colours in those costumes. Well done, the costume designer, I think. One thing they did put in the bin, though, was the idea of Donald Blake.

Yes, as his mortal identity, he's cast down to Earth as a mortal man. He forgets he's Thor. Then he goes on holiday and he finds a stick in a cave. Yeah. And then Thor's back, baby. They're like, that's...

No, thank you. Well, they nearly did it. Well, he's also... Also, they have to pay two guys. Well, yeah. They actually... They nearly cast Kevin McKidd in the role. He's a blonde guy.

Is he a little blonde guy? He's littler than Chris Hemsworth, but he's not little. Everyone's littler than Chris Hemsworth. That's true. Not one of Chris Hemsworth's brother, maybe. That's true. Not the one from Westworld who is definitively littler than Chris Hemsworth. That's true.

Yeah, maybe Liam, who was actually considered for this, Liam Hemsworth. So was Tom Hiddleston, right? He was going to be, maybe he was going to be Thor. There's footage of that. Yeah, you see him wielding the hammer, but that, I mean, he's amazing, but that doesn't work, right? They made the right call there. Even the fact you'd have to dye your hair that colour.

And his eyebrows. God, okay. That's one thing I'm not on board for. Those bleached eyebrows, and you see it in the beard as well. It's not a good look. From some angles, the whole thing looks fine, and I guess you settle into it, but my goodness. It's a good thing they went to just...

It's a good thing that everybody in these movies became big enough stars that their agents could just be like, he's just coming in in his regular clothes and his regular hair today. That's right. We're not changing anything. You're going to have to CGI around all of that. Yeah, I think. Yeah, wild decision.

It also implies that Thor is dying his eyebrows. Sure, yeah. In universe, I guess. He's got putting a little just for gods in there. That's right. I think also this movie is a really good example of building out a wider universe. And I'm talking about Asgard specifically. But also building out a wider universe. And I'm talking about like Asgard specifically, but also building out a wider universe in terms of,

does anybody recognise any of this and what could our next movies be? Right, sure, sure, sure. Odin's Vault I'm talking about. Oh, yeah, right, right, yeah. There's a bunch of stuff, you know, in there, which most of it's thrown in the bin. You know, what I guess a lot of people have talked about in the past is how much of these movies was just kind of Iron Man

and the early ones were just sort of like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck. And I think a lot of people responded to the appearance of the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin's treasure room and was like... We know it's not real. We know. Here's the clip and whatever. But yeah.

And people were like, what about that Thanos character? Maybe bring him in. Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. I think also they then must have looked back at these movies leading up to Infinity War and go like, okay, how many of the things that we've introduced

could we just say are Infinity Stones? And which ones are, you know? Is there a stone in the box? There's a stone in the box, right? You know, just all that. This is all that kind of stuff going on. But then, of course, we get like a Bruce Banner mention in this and of course hawkeye yes makes his screen debuted what do you think of any of that pretty good is it yes it's kind of nothing though right yes it's kind of nothing

he goes for the gun just so you know come on plank of wood with a nail in it a rock just a rock big big paper bag with bag filled with poo. He considers putting it on Thor's front doorstep and lighting it on fire and running away. But then he goes with that bow and arrow, and I'm loving it. Yeah. He would have shot Thor right through the head, and he does in that What If episode.

He does in What If, yeah. He got Ant-Man'd into that, didn't he? I think he did, yeah. I don't know. I just think the idea that Hawkeye's going to go for the gun. It means literally nothing. Maybe this was when he was sort of just getting into archery. This guy's always been into archery.

He's always been a gun guy, but then he's like, man, I like archery, but the boys at the office are going to laugh at me. So he's like, and he's sort of slowly transitioning to being an archery guy. And then that day he's like, if I kill this guy from like a thousand feet with this, they've got to respect me. They wouldn't call me bloody William Tell, your bloody mum about it. But then he'd have to slowly be lowered from that crate, holding a bow and arrow.

And they're all just like, you went for the bow, did you? That's interesting. I mean, you didn't use it, but you're holding it. That's strange, isn't it? That's true. Why don't you William Tell your mum you're a a bitch there's also some character arcs in this which i know some people have problems with i think really i think the idea that loki you know turns bad i think all that is fine because he obviously orchestrated the entire thing and he was pretending

that he was nice i don't think that's so much of a turn but it's just like yeah he's he's like that and i also think it was in this movie it is kind of a snowball kind of effect because initially he does say that he he uh he just wanted to get thor in trouble yeah he didn't know he'd get banished and then you know he'd uh he starts doubling down on that stuff yeah and then of course in later movies it's revealed of course that the the influence of the fx is the veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost.

Fx's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind.

So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. The Tesseract. It was actually the thing that turned it into a movie. I mean, not in this movie. No, no, no. I mean, he says at the end, he's like, that's cool.

Is there a stone in that? I need to know. Yeah. It's for my boss. It's for work. Is there any stones in this vending machine? Yeah, but I guess what I was talking about, the turn that maybe people might have a problem with,

is Thor's, you know, comes around on humanity and his humility. And it seemingly happens in a day. Like one minute he's like throwing down coffee mugs and the next day he's like making breakfast for everybody. James, why wouldn't you, the first time you encountered the wonders of modern technology? Sure. He eats like five Pop-Tarts.

You're not going to change your view on humanity after eating some Pop-Tarts? I would die if I ate five Pop-Tarts. So I guess I would change my view on humanity. But I just think also for a guy that's 1,500 years old, like that kind of turnaround, it's pretty quick to be, you know, not worthy and then worthy, you know? Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they let him have a go on the computer and he was just like, wow. Wow. Look at all this stuff. I love Encarta. They had Encarta in 2011, right? They sure still had it. It was probably a website.

Yeah. I think also now that you right? It was probably a website. I think also now that you see him, he's a goofy character. He's self-aware. He gets Earth references. He's got a bit of sass and jokes. I think what it is for this character is he's just easily influenced by the things that are around him. Despite being very old, he's like, I'm funny now. I'm a funny guy.

I don't dye my eyebrows anymore. I'm a non-dye eyebrows guy now. I'm all natural. I'm guaranteed all natural. Every part of me completely natural. Absolutely. Okay. Great finding, Chris Hemsworth, though, really.

He's really good. Yeah, and I'm glad they kind of leaned into the comedic stuff later on because I don't know whether this is a sustainable character. Is this interesting over the long term? I guess we'll never know. If Thor was still doing this, would we be as excited oh i think no see i think if we were 10 years into this and thor was still like get me a steed i need a steed good car salesman the guys like we just have cars this year yeah people would be like you've been on earth 10 years what are you

yeah we know nobody rides horses anymore yeah your. Your eyebrows look ridiculous. How dareth thee? Don't hit me. I don't even like this job. Don't hit me. A second Big Mac for thee. Oh, God. Here's something that I think is great. In this movie?

Yes. Great. Does it have to be? No, just say nothing you like. I'll stick to the movie for now, but I might come back to something else. The Destroyer is terrific. I agree.

Seeing something like that. You know what? There are many things that i like about this movie but i think perhaps something that has been lost in the marvel studios production line is i feel like this movie has both special effects that are that are there's there's some real due care and attention to these special effects whereas i think perhaps in in some of the newer movies uh they're just like yeah the nan the nanotechnology puts his helmet on. Yeah, yeah. It's fine, whatever. Yeah.

The Destroyer looks great, I think. You can see him, you know, building up the old fire in his belly. I think that looks incredible. It looks like a, it looks real, man. It's amazing. But there's also like a real kind of luxuriating in stuff that was in the, you know know in the early marvel movies like when

you see iron man suit up for the first time and it's a real kind of it's a it's a real scene in and of itself but there's you know there's moments in this where we see the team get fired out of the the dimensional canon yes another to another to another realm and we see the whole situation take place and it's really you know we see the whole the whole, the sword and the thing and the turning and the lightning and the spinning and the laser and what have you. And now it's just like, bam, you're in another dimension. Yeah. You're right.

Because I think also we've slowly built up to much crazier things and they cut out all those. There's no time. Yeah, there's no time. And, you know, I think a great example of that is when Sif, like, stabs it and, like, T-1000's, like, inside out to turn around. I think that's really fun. Yeah.

This movie does. Do you think that was Branagh's idea? Yes. Do you think it was, he was like, he was like, we did a little something on the Scottish play that was very similar. What was the play?

Terminator 2. Yeah. I assume. It's got a lot of T-1000. Here's what I did. I dressed as a woman. Very similar, right?

That's classic. Yeah. How about we just have a robot that turns around, Kenneth? That's also good. Terrific. I love it. I think that also despite the budget of this, which we will talk about, there is a quaintness and a simplicity to it.

Yeah. I mean, and also everything's like this. It's on an angle. Everything's Dutch angled, yeah. I think that's important that we point out. That's a Kenneth Branagh signature. Original? Yeah, yes.

He was the first one to do it, as far as I know. I've only ever seen Marvel movies. Okay good excellent yeah do you think uh before we do some green trivia the helmet seems to be and I know they thought about this in every kind of piece and Thor's helmet yes that's right and I know they thought about this in terms of like every piece of armor and every weapon like it's more of a ceremonial thing like he doesn't wear it outside of when they're like you're great Thor this is a thor parade you know okay sure yeah is this something you want to see kind of come back because i don't mind the design of it you know uh i mean we are certainly getting something to that effect yes or love and thunder yeah uh big

feathery wings is what i'm saying yeah no i would like to see some big feathery wings yeah feathery not metal yeah i think that would be good and know, I love the fact that Marvel costumes are continually evolving. Yeah. And I reckon try them out in another one, even if it doesn't work. You can have Beats headphones next time if the helmet doesn't work. That's really great. Beats branded headphones. Yeah.

I feel like the ones you had in... Or Raycon. Or Raycon. Not an official sponsor of this channel. No. If you're going to buy any headphones, I don't care which one. Mason, it's time for green trivia. I love green trivia.

Did you know, you might have seen this, when Odin arrives to save Thor on the ice planet. He's on a sleep near the magical eight-legged horse that Loki gave birth to. That's something I definitely didn't notice the first time I saw this movie. Same. So I know people are like, what, Loki's gender fluid now and whatever, and he's kissing himself from another dimension? He birthed that horse.

What do you think of that? Yeah, that's never been brought up, but I wonder, it's got to be eventually, right? I think so. Also, when they come back to Asgard, the horse is gone. Where's it go? We see regular horse.

Maybe he mushed a bunch of horses together, like through the big rainbow beam. It was like a fly situation. Yeah, maybe. We can only hope. He got back and he's like, fucking put this down. This is horrible. Put the screens up like it's the Melbourne Cup. Bang.

So, as mentioned earlier, he beat out his brother Liam Hemsworth for the role. Here's some other choices. Daniel Craig was first in line. He was nearly enough. At that McDonald's? That's right, yes. To get a second Big Mac?

Yes, after he did James Bond. He's like, I'm getting fat. I don't want to be James Bond and have abs anymore. So yeah, he was top of the list. He was very nearly in Multiverse of Madness, which we talked about. He was going to be Thor's brother in that, the rumor is. Was he going to be Baldur, right?

He was going to be Baldur, yeah. Charlie Hunnam was considered. Tom Hiddleston, we mentioned. Alexander Skarsgård, his father is in this, of course. And Joel Kinnaman. From Robocop. From Robot Cop and other things, but mostly Robot Cop. That's correct.

Yeah. So around the year 2000, which is a year we experienced, this movie was going to be a made-for-television special produced by UPN, and Tyler Main was approached to play Thor. You might know him because he played Sabretooth in the first X-Men movie. I see. So, yeah. I think that was also in the year where they went,

we can't make a regular actor take steroids can we can we which which which wrestlers can act which wrestlers will do this but yeah i think he's definitely you know he had the look for it but i'm glad they went in this direction uh stanley actually said at the time that he always wanted to stanley stanley oh yeah stanley our friend stanley our friend stanley said at the time that he always wanted to play Odin but he was happy to let that slide and hand it over to Anthony Hopkins. Instead he's Guy in Truck

He's Guy in Truck which is a great role Blue Harvest etc so forth that joke Mason and the Norwegian village we see in this at the start in Flashback is the same one the Red Skull invades to see the Tesseract in Captain America the very first time he was an Avenger. Incredible. Incredible indeed. Now you might be

like what's the budget for this? That's the thing I was wondering. Well the budget for this Mason is 150 million dollars. Great. I thought I was sure that this was like under a hundred but I guess they built a lot of real big golden rooms. It's true they did, yeah. At least two. They probably blew up a Dunkin' Donuts. Probably. Well, they built that town. Yeah. That whole town they built for this movie.

That's actually a bargain for $150 million. I think so, yeah. And to flatten? You kidding me? Ew. God, practically making money, which they did. Hey, can we have some of this low-income housing to live in? Nah, we're going to blow it up.

We're going to blow it up for Hollywood. And we're going to have a big cocaine party on the rubble. Which you will be in because we're blowing it up before you leave. This, of course, was not a huge box office success, but did pretty well. It made $449 million. Now, I think this movie, one of the things it did right among many things is it didn't go for broke.

It was a smaller piece in a larger story that they were telling and because really all of this eventually paid off in the avengers you know the first one and then so on and so forth from there there's a lot of things in this which which add up to a different thing which i know is tiresome now a lot of the time but this was a i think a very clever piece of this puzzle agreed Agreed. That ended up being whatever they're doing now. A million Disney Plus things. That's correct, yes. All at once.

We'll, of course, be back, won't we, Mason, next week? Will we? But for what? Great question. Oh, next Thor movie. Next Thor movie. I haven't seen that since the movies and all the times they visited it in Endgame.

For sure, yeah, yeah. So I'm looking forward to seeing what I think of that now. Great. Very exciting. And if you do want to see that early, Mason, well, you'll record it with me, so you'll have a pretty good idea of what's going on. That's true. But for everybody else, if you head over to BigSandwich.co, that's our private Patreon.

Early videos, including Caravan of Garbage. Bonus podcasts. Exclusive, by the way, Mason. Whoa. Movie commentaries. Oh, my goodness. We're going to do one for Ragnarok, aren't we, Mason? Yes.

For Ragnarok. Yes. There's a huge back catalogue there, including our podcast, The Weekly Planet, where we talk movies and comics and TV shows. That's also got its own YouTube channel, Apple, Spotify, all those things that you can look for a podcast on. Yes. Great. Do you have any thoughts on Thor? Tell us what that is.

Tell us what is that thoughts you have on Thor. Thor? Tell us what that is. Tell us what is that thoughts you have on Thor. You say to us what that is. You tell us your thoughts you have on Thor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Thanks, everybody.

Thanks. Grab that gem, you guys. We'll see you next week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy,

which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.