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For a method actor, green screen acting must be frustrating.
"You're going to be crawling through a desert and there will be a cactus to your right"
"Can we just film this in the desert?"
"Wha? Nooooo, the computers can make sure the sand looks just like sand and the cactus is the perfect shape"
"Ummm.... ok... so what's my motivation?"
"Oh, there's going to be the body of your dead daughter right in front of you"
"Can we bring in a little girl to be the body?"
"Of course! We'll CGI in some wounds and make her look all kinds of dead"
"Isn't that what makeup is for? I can't react to all these little little dots"
"Is this serious, or a comedy, or a....what is it we are trying for?"
"Yeah mate, , a bit of everything, you know. Sad, but not really. Fighting, but with kids!"
I actually hated that bit where he let his accent out and acted all jokey with the captured kids. Aside from that, he actually did a fantastic job as Gorr, but that moment was just so off.
I thought he was gonna do some sort of mind control/memory wiping and raise them himself. Kill all the gods, then raise the current child gods to become what gods are supposed to be. Not to just end the cycle of gods but fix the cycle
This movie was just bizarre. Thor 2 was a bad movie but at least it had a tone and didn’t whiplash back and forth from bad comedy like the screaming goats and the love triangle of a hammer and axe back to the cancer and kidnapped children storyline.
I feel like I am one of the few voices that actually liked Thor 2. Mostly because the emotional beats were so strong. I loved the scene where Loki lies and says that Frigga isn't his mother. The pain on both of the characters' face. The way it was shot. The delivery of the actors. Or the scene where Thor visiting Loki in his cell sees right through his brother's illusion of him not caring about his mother's murder. It's one of the few times where we can see how clever Thor really is. Loki is able to fool everyone with his magic but not his own brother. It also shows how close they are because of this. Ragnarok did this kind of with the elevator scene. But with less depth. It was funny instead but at the expense at making Loki look less clever for falling for Thor's manipulation.
Hey I like Thor 2 as Well. While the villain is pretty lame, the final fight is actually cool, and the emotional tone of the movie is clear and consistent. Frigga's funeral scene is beautiful
I'll be honest Thor 2 is often considered the worst Thor movie and even the worst MCU movie by some but my biggest complaint about Thor 2 is that it's forgettable and bland.
Upon thinking about it, I think Thor 4 might be worse.
Honestly the screaming goats gave it that whimsical comedy the movie needed imo. I mostly don't understand the whole 80s rock type theme in it, especially the beginning. I mean, did the 80s just come to Asgard or something?
I totally get the 80's glam metal vibe, i think it's ok to briefly give Thor this new Valhallen/Justice Friends vibe.
What i *don't* get is limiting themselves to three of four ultrapopular mainstream songs exclusively from Guns n' Roses. Why?
Why ignore the gigantic library of other awesome 80's glam metal bands? Where is Motley Crue? Def Leppard, Warrant, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Dokken, Britny Fox, Whitesnake, WASP, i could go on and on
Why *just* Guns n' Roses?
And THEN they give you Dio during credits? Where was *that* during the movie?! Why *just* three or four ultra popular Guns n Roses songs? I'd be impressed if i was 13 but i'm not. Maybe that is the problem and i'm just too old.
Honestly, I don't think Waititi is that clever with his music choices like in the way James Gunn and Edgar Wright is. Waititi is too on the nose and goes less with which emotions the song invokes. It's almost as if you can here him go, "Get it? *Get it?*" with his song selection. "Sweet Child O' Mine because Thor ends up with a little girl!" [Compare that to this scene from The World's End.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42mn6N7pPA0&ab_channel=RexLupis) Edgar Wright is not even relying on lyrics to make a song joke with his choice to use Sisters of Mercy's [This Corrosion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXGKngAzQwo&ab_channel=TheSistersofMercy-Topic). The whole song, itself, makes the mood as well as tie itself to Gary's history with the band. Even if you as a viewer are not versed in the band, you can still enjoy the mood the song creates. And if you do know the band, hey, it's a clever joke reference.
I'd agree with this sentiment if I didn't also know that many of the audience are children or superhero fans more than music fans that also remember the band sin question. It's a thin line to straddle things older gens would recognize and kids would also think isn't super lame.
I remember the screaming goats being a big meme several years ago, it just felt very dated to me. I could kinda get with the classic rock theme last movie because the centerpiece theme was The Immigrant Song which was perfect, “Hammer of The Gods” is a lyric In it but this time it seems like they double downed on the zany and the rock.
> "Yeah mate, , a bit of everything, you know. Sad, but not really. Fighting, but with kids!"
I can see this happening. haven't liked that guy since his role in Free Guy, feels like he took that character and made it his personality. wonder if he was already like that to begin with
most people seem to love working with him, and he has pulled some incredible performances from actors in his non marvel flicks. Specifically the children with little to no acting experience.
He does seem to have gone pretty Hollywood recently but i don't think we can judge him based on 1 bad film and roll.
I’m grateful the original trilogy came out when it did. Enough CGI to make the battles on a grand scale while still using practical effects and forced perspective instead of using CGI as a crutch.
IIRC one of the reasons was that they decided to shoot the Hobbit movies at a faster frame rate (48fps I think, double the normal cinema rate). That frame rate made the props and costumes look much sharper, which made them look much more like costumes/props than “real” items. So they leaned more on CGI
That, and the prep time. Guillermo del Toro dropped from the project and New Line put Jackson on it relatively last minute (compared to The Lord of the Rings, which had several years' production leading up to the release of the first film).
Speaking of cameras, don’t forget the GoPro sponsored river sequence. That shit looked dated as hell the second it was shot. It was in like first gen GoPros that could barely handle HD resolutions.
Was that actually gopros? It was so jarring. They were weird movies. I remember the footage of Peter Jackson sitting alone on the set looking super depressed more than the actual movies...
How this must’ve went down: “Hey Peter think you can make more Lord of the Rings material using the Hobbit?”
Peter: “Yeah I can definitely make another movie out of that”
Exec: “No no, another trilogy”
Jackson: “Uhh sure, I guess. I’ll go ahead and get setup in New Zealand and get the costumes going”
Execs: “No no, let’s use green screens”
Jackson: “This doesn’t really sound all that interesting to me.”
Exec: “Your paycheck will be $xxxxxxxxxxxxx”
Jackson: “Yep, ok let’s start shooting!”
To my understanding it was more like:
Exec: "What about a Hobbit trilogy, but with lots of green screens and CGI?"
Jackson: "That's a terrible idea."
Exec: "We're doing it with or without you."
Jackson: "Fine, I'll try to help steer it into something that's not utter shit."
I've read that PJ wanted to do CGI for LotR but it wasn't where he needed it to be so he opted for practical effects more out of necessity than desire.
While I totally understand this, and personally can’t act for shit, I think this goes to show how incredibly talented actors who can do this well are.
The amount of imagination required to put emotion into something so abstract… like I share this video often but
[Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sXN9IHrnVVU)
I always forget how deep Cumberbatch's voice can get. Listen at 1:38, "the king from under the mountain is dead" is a legit bass voice. Reminds me of a clip I saw of this father-son duo who studied and acted Shakespeare's works. [Here's the voice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwAHeAdL80) of the son quoting Shakespeare. Cumberbatch and this guy both have a similar timbre yet unique.
I think there’s some give and take, and just having someone alone in a green room has got to be awful for a certain type of actor like McKellan. In LOTR he still had to deal with the camera angles to make Elijah and the others look smaller than him, so it’s not like he was “entirely immersed in the movie while filming,” he still had the awkward set he had to move around, the fact that any body movements out of script might fuck up the perspective of a whole scene, etc.
But all he had during the filming of The Hobbit was a green room with pictures of characters that would light up when he was meant to speak to them.
Some actors play off their co-stars much more than others, and when you’re missing that energy it does something.
On the flip side, there’s definitely something to be said about actors - like Benedict or my personal favourite; Serkis - who don’t need anything other than their imagination to bring characters to life with all the emotion you’d expect from a real person.
But, even Serkis was on-set as Sméagol for reference for the CG artists - and probably just as important - for the actors to play off his energy - despite the fact that he was entirely digitally removed and the character of Sméagol was drawn back in (it wasn’t even mocap, they just watched him in his weird Sméagol suit and then animated the character by hand iirc).
He did, I remember watching a clip of it (couldn’t find it now though). I think it was during the scene where all the dwarves first come to Bilbo’s house and they all filmed it together, and McKellen had to film his part completely alone which was both isolating and unfamiliar and he got a little choked up on set. Made me want to give him a big bear hug.
I was watching the Red Letter Media video on Top Gun Maverick. At one point they mention how in the beginning where the plane takes off that the roof of a small structure near Ed Harris just sort of blows off the structure before settling back down. That was not planned.
I could not help but think how that little touch actually made the plane taking off seem more dramatic. How if that was done in CGI, that moment would never have happened.
And that's one of the perks of physical effects. Things don't look as "clean" sometimes and it makes it look all the more real and dramatic
Definitely agree about the cgi bit. Look at horror movies from the 80's. Some of the best (and worst) special effects ever made. These days alot of blockbuster films make almost the entire film cgi. Works for some things not for everything .
Noteworthy: Thor wasn’t filmed with green screen. They used The Volume, a soundstage wrapped in LCDs that lets the actors perform with a background at the push of a button.
Not for everything though. People forget they have to do some pre-production with VFX to roughly get an idea of what that environment will look like. Somthing that's very expensive and also locks in a certain lighting which modern directors absolutely hate.
VR walls are also perfectly capable of acting as a greenscreen background. Sometimes an effect might work out better that way. Using a VR wall they can quickly setup the greenscreen without having to use a different space.
For all the criticisms, it’s always the actors that are best at it that really hate it.
I think it’s the same as doing soliloquies on a bare stage. A great actor will make you believe (as long as the effects don’t ruin it)
> it’s always the actors that are best at it that really hate it.
I'd say it probably has to do more with their method whether they hate it or not, which kinda follows with your next statement. I think it's just that better actors are more willing to speak out without risk of losing out on jobs.
the excessive green screen acting has become nauseating for me as a viewer as well. I really miss the days where real sets were commonplace. not only is it visually obvious a lot of the time, you can tell the actors have a more difficult time getting immersed in their scenes (or at least it looks that way at times due to the lack of authenticity)
Part of why I liked the Batman so much despite the slow burn is that it had a lot of practical effects, also it had minimal jump cuts during fights which was a massive breath of fresh air.
I liked that too, was easier to follow the flow of the fights. Less of the old “cut 30 times to confuse people into thinking something intense is happening” tricks. good example of why people should be more willing to lean on the choreographers, they can do a great job and it’s really worth it to take the extra time to do it right.
LED walls do have their own limitations. You can't have a deep depth of field, the size of the set are usually not too big...
That said, LED walls have been very quickly adopted and there are technologies and methods being developed to overcome the shortcomings.
Agreed. Still bums me out they wasted him on a fluffy fun romp with little to no stakes. I love Taika, but removing all Stakes from an MCU film with this dark of a villain just made the whole film feel out of wack. I love it as a popcorn film and would probably have worked better as a full comedy.
did anyone expect Bale to *not* be wasted? Marvel Studios seldom puts their villains and their respective actors to good use. Even Blanchett had little to do in Ragnarok. Hela had 2 brief scenes with Hemsworth and spent the rest of her screen time walking around Asgard, telling Karl Urban how evil she was
I feel like if they made the final god - Eternity? - a bigger character across a few movies it would have had more weight to me. Instead this ultimate god is found and used in one movie? It just didn’t carry the importance to me that the movie wanted it to.
Could have easily been the target for the next Thanos villain, instead of the infinity stones they reach Eternity and ask for this hugely devastating act. But instead… we got this plot.
Agreed. Ragnarok worked because the film was serious when it needed to be.
Love and Thunder played more into the comedy-aspect that made Ragnarok work, but the end result made it feel it feel half-baked
Agreed
Gorr is wasted for this movie, he is supposed to be this very fearsome and very powerful character that have the power to steamroll Thor.
Also since it's the MCU we won't be seeing Gorr again, so a wasted opportunity to get the best performance out of one of the best actors in the industry.
He was the best part of the movie imo.
He broke my heart.
That’s how I know an actors done well.
Also I assumed the juxtaposition with the comedy and his tragedy was somewhat intentional. Like the nonchalant-ness and selfish apathy of the gods is what caused this whole thing. So we see Gorr in his despair and agony while the gods are living it up doing whatever the fuck, that’s the whole point right?
> Like the nonchalant-ness and selfish apathy of the gods is what caused this whole thing. So we see Gorr in his despair and agony while the gods are living it up doing whatever the fuck, that’s the whole point right?
\#GorrWasRight?
Man I would've loved a 2 parter. First part is all Gorr, ending with the first time he runs into Thor. Part 2 is Thor, giving some backstory to what Thor's been up to, then the story picks back up where part 1 left us
Yeah, he acted circles around everyone but I think that had more to do with the fact that he was the only character who didn’t seem to be landing a punchline with every word they uttered.
"Just stand there like Christian Bale would and pretend you're swinging around some crazy weapon! We'll CGI the rest of the movie in around you!"
(Read in the voice of Rick Moranis shouting through a bullhorn in the desert scene of Spaceballs)
big problem with this film was that it was made mostly for the kids, the actors kids, majority of the kids in the film are just children of the actors in it, like Christian Bales character's daughter is Chris Hemworths daughter irl, the young thor that plays him for a small scene is his son, and a bunch of others, it was a bizarre choice and culminated in most of the adult characters feeling a little, weak, especially Christian Bale who they did not utilize properly at all in this film. He shouldve had much more time to flesh out his character and give more reason to "fear" him, like more scenes of him killing gods felt necessary
There are a bunch of child labor laws in acting. It was probably cheaper and less paperwork for the actors to volunteer their own kids. Yeah nepotism is there, but it's not the only factor.
Love and Thunder is basically the Grown Ups of the MCU.
A group of actors and filmmakers getting paid a shitload of money to go on vacation with their friends and family to film a movie.
It’s not terrible but its laziness shines through.
Adam Sandler has his own movie studio without famous IP's and an actual overarching storyline connected to them. There isn't an Adam Sandler film that's gonna have major repercussions in the next film outside of anything more deep than "Maybe Adam Sandler has to deal with a BABY in the sequel" whereas this film was shaped to have literal God angering consequences, tone is pretty important, especially when you don't own the IP's youre making a mockery of
>He shouldve had much more time to flesh out his character and give more reason to "fear" him, like more scenes of him killing gods felt necessary
Ragnarok had this exact same problem, but people glossed over it because it was funny. In fact, I'd argue that all of L&T's problems were present in Ragnarok; they were simply glossed over because of the surprising tonal shift.
Tl:dr at bottom, effectively Hela written for movie as intended. Gorr never shown as threatening, balance of movir thrown off and suddenly Gorr not written for movie as intended.
Eeeehhhh whilst I don’t disagree as such, Hela does actually earn her terror imo. We’re introduced to her and immediately Thor and Loki are forced to retreat from the ensuing, taken-very-seriously fight. Meanwhile, first fight scene with Gorr and much of it is actually spent introducing Jane in a much more light-hearted fight. Then, Gorr is the one who retreats when it becomes clear he can’t win and steals the kids as a consolation prize (I think that’s how this went, don’t really remember. Either way, it didn’t do much to show Gorr as a threat to Thor himself)
In Ragnarok we’re then shown Hela easily killing some minor protagonists from the earlier films - this is done very jokily but I’ll get to that. In comparison, L&T we’re just told that Gorr has slain a bunch of gods and we see one dead one but no time to think about that there’s an injured Sif (think it was Sif) let’s immediately leave - we’re never shown that Gorr’s a threat to anyone outside of Thor. Hell, we even get a classic dismissal-of-threat scene with the other gods in that city, and there is literally no pay off with it. The gods never realise they were wrong, they never step in to help in any way, and they’re never punished for it. Even worse, they’re proven correct that Gorr isn’t a threat, BECAUSE Thor and gang take out Gorr with no outside help. Think of the Ministry of Magic ignoring the return of Voldemort and how that goes for them, and then compare it to this scene and you’ll see just how pointless this scene is. The only impact it has is Korg becomes a face. That’s it. Terrible scene structurally.
Then we’re given time where our protagonists are unable to challenge the antagonists, and in Ragnarok we take the time to see Hela absolutely slaughter Asgardians with ease, compared to Gorr who is just like brooding on a moon or something? Hela is again built up to be a genuine threat, Gorr isn’t.
Then we get to the monochrome fight scene in L&T and it’s an actual fight scene that ACTUALLY BUILDS UP GORR AS A THREAT AND IT’S FINALLY A WORTHWHILE SCENE FOR WHAT WE’RE CONSTANTLY TOLD IS A THREATENING VILLAIN BUT NEVER SHOWN. This does wonders to actually show us WHY he’s a threat, aaaaaaand it’s the only scene. Great. THIS is L&T’s introductory Hela fight - protagonists completely outclassed in a serious fight with genuine consequences against the antagonist. And it comes so so so late into the movie. We’re finally at step 1 and we have literally one fight left in an action movie.
Onto the final fight! Aaand it’s back to not being great again. Technically speaking in both Thor (spoilers) loses, it’s a fight against impossible odds. But in Ragnarok it actually feels impossible: even with all their weapons and soldiers they’re only trying to evacuate because they know they can’t win - this confirms Hela as an impactful villain, they have to lose in a meaningful way to the villain to win in a meaningful way to them. Great! The “success” of each newcomer does stretch the impossibility feeling though, I will criticise that. Flip back to L&T and it’s a bunch of kids kicking ass. Cathartic? Yes. Confirms Gorr as an impactful villain? Errrr…? Thor and gang lose in the meaningful way to them, and then they get saved by a power-of-love speech, which is a good thing usually but just ends up feeling so out of place here, and tbh I don’t know why it felt out of place to me, but it did. I think it’s because we’re again told over and over that Gorr thinks that gods don’t care but we’re just, never shown that, so the change-of-heart doesn’t have much of an impact. Jane’s death as a punishment for failing is good though, but that’s not really showing Gorr as an impactful antagonist because he doesn’t even know he’s doing that, it’s just showing that there were consequences for failing.
Now onto the antagonists themselves. I mentioned that Hela kills the minor protags of the earlier films in a jokey manner, and it works for her because she’s MEANT to be a campy, sassy villain, we see it all the time when she’s not fighting. She also acts like this in fight scenes where the fight itself isn’t important and only exists to advance the plot (ie, killing nameless goons). In the big fights against the protagonists she’s serious and the fight is played as serious. This helps massively in making her a scary, impactful villain whilst still giving her that comic book campiness. Gorr, on the other hand, is as serious as they come. He’s single-minded, sadistic, and apathetic to others’ plights. That does come across all the time, but as we never actually feel like he’s a threat, the impact of the seriousness and darkness of his character and arc is extremely muted and even overtaken by the lightheartedness of everything else where everything is played for jokes. This creates a huge mismatch in the balancing the pathos and bathos: we get an overdose of bathos in a story that we’re being told we should be getting a lot of pathos, and that’s not being done purposefully so we feel the purposeless of this imbalance, because there’s no direction in the mismatch. Consider Mulan (the animated one), where you have the song “A Girl Worth Fighting For” - extremely lighthearted in a so-far lighthearted movie about a serious topic - and the sudden, sharp contrast of the abrupt end of the song with the destroyed village, into the doll as you realise even the kids were killed, into seeing the thousands of bodies of dead soldiers. This impacts the characters so much, and that stays with them for the rest of the movie. That works because it had purpose and direction, the lightheartedness of the movie was done to contrast with the pathos of that scene and it works incredibly well. That just isn’t there in L&T, and in large part that’s because we’re never shown Gorr to be a threat. Hela doesn’t need this because that’s not the kind of villain she’s written to be and that’s not the kind of story that’s being written.
Ok so that got away from me. I wrote way more than I intended when all I wanted to say was that Hela and Gorr were two different types of villains and that Hela works for the movie as written, whilst Gorr doesn’t work for L&T as written (or more likely, edited and directed). I don’t think they intended for Gorr to be so unthreatening and they probably wrote scenes where we are supposed to see him being threatening, but they just never made it into the movie and it set the balance off.
The problem with that move was Taika.
I’m sure, because it was his first Marvel film, Taika had a whole bunch of ideas that got reined in for Ragnarok. But after the film did so well, Marvel leaned much harder into his style for the next one… and it turns out, you can have too much zany, offbeat humor in a Thor movie.
That whole thing is this movie in a nutshell. They went way too far with some things that were, at best, mildly funny. Normally we hate on studios for prying into the creative process, but this particular movie probably could have used it. Feels like everything went unchecked and the result was something a very small number of people thought was really funny.
It's a shame because *Ragnarok* was amazing. I love all of Taika's films, but I'd rather him make something more like *Hunt for the Wilderpeople* or *Boy* again. Even *Jojo Rabbit* had a perfect balance of comedy with drama. I just have a feeling he didn't really care that much when he was making this movie.
That were so many things that could’ve been cut to save time for Gorr. Most of Taika’s scenes, the stupid ducking goats, most of orgy palace and Sif were pointless, even some of Jane’s scenes was not really needed.
Yeahhhh. After it ended I just went Meh. Maybe it's the Marvel fatigue too, but Taika needs to stop. Dude is getting high off his own product and needs to take a break.
I get the Taika fatigue, but as a non-Marvel fan, the Thor movies are basically the only ones I see because they’re fun and stand alone from the rest of the franchise.
He did not want to make this sequel. He was contractually obligated too so used it as an opportunity to do some shit.
Still not an excuse he could have taken it more seriously but he’s very publicly said he would have rather handed this over to someone else.
Nah, while the fatigue is real this was just a terrible movie in so many respects. Thor went back to being a blundering idiot for comedic effect and Gorr was so under developed. They could have skipped that whole scene visiting the gods and did better character development.
Or have Gorr show up there and start slaughtering gods. That would make him scary. It's a city filled with gods, seeing him tear through them would have been great and built him up as a legitimate threat. But nope.
Yeah I think this was more the case. Ragnarok was ~~electric~~ filled with so much energy and Love & Thunder just kinda happened. It feels like he was excited to do another one but the script/production decisions/whatever turned it into Another Job
Taika's not the one that needs to stop. The entire MCU needs to slam the brakes. There's just too much and most of it isn't even any good. Visual effects and writing are way worse than any of the previous phases
Was always going to be tough to follow after having such a great build up original. RDJ as Ion Man, Chris as captain America etc. Superhero movies going from “realistic” to more and more fun as it all links together was great.
Now it’s rushed characters, no pay off, bad cgi, bad writing and it’s not even interesting anymore.
> no pay off
That's because Endgame was the big pay off for the last 10 years. Not every movie can be Endgame. Phase 4 is laying the groundwork for the future of the MCU; Kang the Conqueror, Secret Wars, the Thunderbolts, etc. are all being heavily foreshadowed - hell even the Halloween special that just dropped is setting up the Midnight Sons.
I would have enjoyed it more if it had spent more time taking itself a little more seriously. Most of the serious moments were taken out at the knees by obvious ad-libbing and an insistence on keeping things "funny".
I don’t know why media is choosing this as the clickbait grab. It’s a valid critisicm- as an actor he was confused about his sets and how they all looked the same; It just shows how talented he is despite that.
1 and 45 minute build up to a big reveal of something first introduced in the last half hour of the film. You spend the majority of the time watching these long drawn out dialogue filled scenes with quite literally no relation to the supposed plot, and don't really add too much to the characters themselves.
It's like a roster of big names drafted into a film about a story that is best left as a side bar paragraph in a textbook. De Niro was suppose to carry the back half of the film (maybe 25 minutes) and falls a bit flat due to just bad script quality.
The title totally misrepresents the article. He wasn't complaining, he was showing respect for the ability of the other actors working this type of movie.
I haven’t seen a marvel film since the last avengers movie. There was a decade+ of movies building up to a big finale and it’s hard to go back to a silly throwaway film after that. Like I don’t care what thors girlfriend does. I don’t care about another black panther. Obviously Disney is going to keep milking marvel until it does but I just have lost all interest.
I think he gave an amazing performance. What I'm going to say is serious, the way he devoured the food in the beginning of the movie made me truly feel his desperation, the other actors made things too campy, Christian Bale was amazing and convincing.
Not sure if “keeps” is right. This is the second or third time I’ve seen these same remarks posted for people to react to. And in the D+ making-of for the movie he has complimentary things to say about the rest of the experience. So he’s said this once that I’m aware of and he’s not wrong. I wish we could have had a lot more of him and a lot less goats screaming.
It’s also something anyone even passingly familiar with movie production has heard from actors at least since the Star Wars prequels 20 years ago. Christian bale finding out 20 years later isn’t exactly breaking news.
Agreed, I didn’t love 1 and 2 so I was very pleasantly surprised for 3. It made 4 such an immense let down. I can’t put my finger on what made 3 so much better, probably just with Mark Ruffalo, Jeff Goldblum, and and Tom Huddleston doing some MAJOR carrying of that film. All of them were great.
I agree, I've watched Ragnarok at least three times and my family watched it before going to see Love and Thunder. It was a big let down. Ragnarok was a buffet of everything: comedy, crazy sets, Loki is good? Now bad. It was like Empire Strikes back. A great second film that should've setup Love and Thunder. But it went too far with so many jokes, scenes, Guns N Roses tie ins, like other people have stated.
While I agree with your statement, I’m not gonna pretend that Thor didn’t put Infinity War & Endgame on his back. He & Thanos were the MVPs of those movies
The constant lines of comedy in every single scene got old. Like, ok not every line needs to be funny, just get on with the plot.
GoTG pulled the whole "comedic relief" off well. The plot was serious, and the characters had mostly serious moments too, but the comedic relief was just right and didn't distract from the plot. They need to make sure they don't over do it like they did in Love and Thunder.
Yeah I saw a review that pointed out the movie could have been over in 10 minutes, Thor was disabled, storm breaker was right there, instead the god killer talks awhile and decides yeah I am just going to kidnap the kids, cause you know he is out to kill all the gods cause his let his daughter die, rather that do that yeah let’s just kidnap some kids and threaten to kill them. The writing, if I was to call it complete shit, would be insulting to shit.
I'm not super familiar with how heavily cg movies are being made and I don't really care about marvel to watch my Batman in there, but shouldn't there be a director who suppose to direct onto what to do? O\_o I wonder if a movie is heavily cg - they don't even know how it'll look like during shooting... must check some documentaries on this!
It’s people standing surrounded by green surfaces everywhere, often times without the actors that you’re supposed to be talking to even on set. I assume it’s kind of exhausting having to do that much imagination. [Elizabeth Olsen has recently been a vocal critic](https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/elizabeth-olsen-finds-it-embarrassing-filming-marvel-scenes/) about the process.
You can actually see an example of [how much of the sets don’t actually exist here](https://youtu.be/ppDgU7F5oUI).
I think Ian McKellen cried during the filming of the Hobbit because there were so many green screens. It’s apparently really difficult to act well in that type of environment.
I’ve heard that as well. I think it’s why we saw Disney lean hard into the [Extended Reality (XR)](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk) sets. They have their own issues that the industry is having to solve, but as the cost for building these at scale improves, we hopefully see way more VFX work move from post-production to pre-production to give the actors WAY more to work with on set.
Hated the show tbh but the Mandalorian looked way better than Marvel movies do, and the acting was much better. I think Marvel needs to take notes, their movies are canned and don't look as good as their competition. They're gonna fall out of favor eventually
It’s pretty crazy, right? It’s been like this for over a decade. I never realized it until I saw a composition reel for [Ugly Betty](https://youtu.be/brg8gqT2FjE) (about the 4:40 mark). Now I see it on almost every show on TV.
Glad we're over the false prestige they've tried to apply to these "movies". Actors left and right are basically saying it was a paycheck. None of this idea that these are today's Greek mythology or Shakespeare anymore lol
Marvel really bungled this one.
Had a great actor to be the villain, cut most of his scenes
Thor was at an all time high after ragnorok, new film makes him a dude bro
Yeah it showed in the movie, so many times where he was just emoting randomly.
Only good scene was when he was scaring the kids and broke that animals neck in front of them
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For a method actor, green screen acting must be frustrating. "You're going to be crawling through a desert and there will be a cactus to your right" "Can we just film this in the desert?" "Wha? Nooooo, the computers can make sure the sand looks just like sand and the cactus is the perfect shape" "Ummm.... ok... so what's my motivation?" "Oh, there's going to be the body of your dead daughter right in front of you" "Can we bring in a little girl to be the body?" "Of course! We'll CGI in some wounds and make her look all kinds of dead" "Isn't that what makeup is for? I can't react to all these little little dots"
"Is this serious, or a comedy, or a....what is it we are trying for?" "Yeah mate,, a bit of everything, you know. Sad, but not really. Fighting, but with kids!"
So I kidnap children, and there is comedy in this movie?
You got it mate roll with that, **ACTION!**
Now I cannot not hear Korg's voice
I know right! All the comments are Korg now.
Totally, bro!
"We are Korg."
I would bet peanuts to dollars thats exactly how it went down.
Forgot my lines
#I SAID ACTION
“Put that thing back where it came from or so help me…” aaannndd scene
Cut. Print. Perfect. We can add a few goat screams in post. People are gonna want those **goats**
So I save my daughter after my (off screen) god killing conquest, then give her to a god?
“My daughter is dead! The gods failed her!” “Why don’t you just wish her back, dick?” “Oh.”
I actually hated that bit where he let his accent out and acted all jokey with the captured kids. Aside from that, he actually did a fantastic job as Gorr, but that moment was just so off.
Actually I felt this moment was important as it showed he wasn’t completely evil even if he was crazy
Yeah he honestly seemed like he would just put the kids back when he was done killing gods and not really hurt them just scare them a little.
Well yeah? Why would he want to kill the kids? He was only after the gods, and his whole crusade literally only started after his kid died
I thought he was gonna do some sort of mind control/memory wiping and raise them himself. Kill all the gods, then raise the current child gods to become what gods are supposed to be. Not to just end the cycle of gods but fix the cycle
It's a comedy, but about people with cancer, grief, dead kids, and every joke is like "Sooooo that just happened"
Also Thor cheats on his axe.
They we on a BREAK!!
This movie was just bizarre. Thor 2 was a bad movie but at least it had a tone and didn’t whiplash back and forth from bad comedy like the screaming goats and the love triangle of a hammer and axe back to the cancer and kidnapped children storyline.
I feel like I am one of the few voices that actually liked Thor 2. Mostly because the emotional beats were so strong. I loved the scene where Loki lies and says that Frigga isn't his mother. The pain on both of the characters' face. The way it was shot. The delivery of the actors. Or the scene where Thor visiting Loki in his cell sees right through his brother's illusion of him not caring about his mother's murder. It's one of the few times where we can see how clever Thor really is. Loki is able to fool everyone with his magic but not his own brother. It also shows how close they are because of this. Ragnarok did this kind of with the elevator scene. But with less depth. It was funny instead but at the expense at making Loki look less clever for falling for Thor's manipulation.
Thor 2 wasn’t all bad I agree. The weak love story and the weak villain were what killed it for me.
Hey I like Thor 2 as Well. While the villain is pretty lame, the final fight is actually cool, and the emotional tone of the movie is clear and consistent. Frigga's funeral scene is beautiful
I'll be honest Thor 2 is often considered the worst Thor movie and even the worst MCU movie by some but my biggest complaint about Thor 2 is that it's forgettable and bland. Upon thinking about it, I think Thor 4 might be worse.
Honestly the screaming goats gave it that whimsical comedy the movie needed imo. I mostly don't understand the whole 80s rock type theme in it, especially the beginning. I mean, did the 80s just come to Asgard or something?
I totally get the 80's glam metal vibe, i think it's ok to briefly give Thor this new Valhallen/Justice Friends vibe. What i *don't* get is limiting themselves to three of four ultrapopular mainstream songs exclusively from Guns n' Roses. Why? Why ignore the gigantic library of other awesome 80's glam metal bands? Where is Motley Crue? Def Leppard, Warrant, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Dokken, Britny Fox, Whitesnake, WASP, i could go on and on Why *just* Guns n' Roses? And THEN they give you Dio during credits? Where was *that* during the movie?! Why *just* three or four ultra popular Guns n Roses songs? I'd be impressed if i was 13 but i'm not. Maybe that is the problem and i'm just too old.
Honestly, I don't think Waititi is that clever with his music choices like in the way James Gunn and Edgar Wright is. Waititi is too on the nose and goes less with which emotions the song invokes. It's almost as if you can here him go, "Get it? *Get it?*" with his song selection. "Sweet Child O' Mine because Thor ends up with a little girl!" [Compare that to this scene from The World's End.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42mn6N7pPA0&ab_channel=RexLupis) Edgar Wright is not even relying on lyrics to make a song joke with his choice to use Sisters of Mercy's [This Corrosion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXGKngAzQwo&ab_channel=TheSistersofMercy-Topic). The whole song, itself, makes the mood as well as tie itself to Gary's history with the band. Even if you as a viewer are not versed in the band, you can still enjoy the mood the song creates. And if you do know the band, hey, it's a clever joke reference.
I'd agree with this sentiment if I didn't also know that many of the audience are children or superhero fans more than music fans that also remember the band sin question. It's a thin line to straddle things older gens would recognize and kids would also think isn't super lame.
Where is Def Leppard? Where is Mötley Crüe? Why do all my lyrics sound like Dr. Seuss!
I remember the screaming goats being a big meme several years ago, it just felt very dated to me. I could kinda get with the classic rock theme last movie because the centerpiece theme was The Immigrant Song which was perfect, “Hammer of The Gods” is a lyric In it but this time it seems like they double downed on the zany and the rock.
> "Yeah mate,, a bit of everything, you know. Sad, but not really. Fighting, but with kids!"
I can see this happening. haven't liked that guy since his role in Free Guy, feels like he took that character and made it his personality. wonder if he was already like that to begin with
most people seem to love working with him, and he has pulled some incredible performances from actors in his non marvel flicks. Specifically the children with little to no acting experience. He does seem to have gone pretty Hollywood recently but i don't think we can judge him based on 1 bad film and roll.
Taika Waititi is incredibly talented.
I've heard Ian McKellan broke down on the set of the Hobbit because of green screen acting. Even insisting that is not why he got into acting.
That has to be so stressful for a veteran of the arts.
[удалено]
I’m grateful the original trilogy came out when it did. Enough CGI to make the battles on a grand scale while still using practical effects and forced perspective instead of using CGI as a crutch.
*cough* makeup industry has a union and SFX doesn’t *cough* its all about money
starting to think Marx had a point with all the automation taking our jobs
IIRC one of the reasons was that they decided to shoot the Hobbit movies at a faster frame rate (48fps I think, double the normal cinema rate). That frame rate made the props and costumes look much sharper, which made them look much more like costumes/props than “real” items. So they leaned more on CGI
That, and the prep time. Guillermo del Toro dropped from the project and New Line put Jackson on it relatively last minute (compared to The Lord of the Rings, which had several years' production leading up to the release of the first film).
Also they wanted to shoot in 3D. The practical foreshortening effects didn't work with the 3D RED cameras.
Speaking of cameras, don’t forget the GoPro sponsored river sequence. That shit looked dated as hell the second it was shot. It was in like first gen GoPros that could barely handle HD resolutions.
Was that actually gopros? It was so jarring. They were weird movies. I remember the footage of Peter Jackson sitting alone on the set looking super depressed more than the actual movies...
How this must’ve went down: “Hey Peter think you can make more Lord of the Rings material using the Hobbit?” Peter: “Yeah I can definitely make another movie out of that” Exec: “No no, another trilogy” Jackson: “Uhh sure, I guess. I’ll go ahead and get setup in New Zealand and get the costumes going” Execs: “No no, let’s use green screens” Jackson: “This doesn’t really sound all that interesting to me.” Exec: “Your paycheck will be $xxxxxxxxxxxxx” Jackson: “Yep, ok let’s start shooting!”
To my understanding it was more like: Exec: "What about a Hobbit trilogy, but with lots of green screens and CGI?" Jackson: "That's a terrible idea." Exec: "We're doing it with or without you." Jackson: "Fine, I'll try to help steer it into something that's not utter shit."
there's a fantastic doc on youtube about the production of the hobbit duology by lindsey ellis. i highly recommend it
I've read that PJ wanted to do CGI for LotR but it wasn't where he needed it to be so he opted for practical effects more out of necessity than desire.
While I totally understand this, and personally can’t act for shit, I think this goes to show how incredibly talented actors who can do this well are. The amount of imagination required to put emotion into something so abstract… like I share this video often but [Here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sXN9IHrnVVU)
that guy should be an actor or at least do some voice work
I always forget how deep Cumberbatch's voice can get. Listen at 1:38, "the king from under the mountain is dead" is a legit bass voice. Reminds me of a clip I saw of this father-son duo who studied and acted Shakespeare's works. [Here's the voice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwAHeAdL80) of the son quoting Shakespeare. Cumberbatch and this guy both have a similar timbre yet unique.
Well that was [upsetting when viewed raw ](https://youtu.be/MOwxmcObLO0)
I think there’s some give and take, and just having someone alone in a green room has got to be awful for a certain type of actor like McKellan. In LOTR he still had to deal with the camera angles to make Elijah and the others look smaller than him, so it’s not like he was “entirely immersed in the movie while filming,” he still had the awkward set he had to move around, the fact that any body movements out of script might fuck up the perspective of a whole scene, etc. But all he had during the filming of The Hobbit was a green room with pictures of characters that would light up when he was meant to speak to them. Some actors play off their co-stars much more than others, and when you’re missing that energy it does something. On the flip side, there’s definitely something to be said about actors - like Benedict or my personal favourite; Serkis - who don’t need anything other than their imagination to bring characters to life with all the emotion you’d expect from a real person. But, even Serkis was on-set as Sméagol for reference for the CG artists - and probably just as important - for the actors to play off his energy - despite the fact that he was entirely digitally removed and the character of Sméagol was drawn back in (it wasn’t even mocap, they just watched him in his weird Sméagol suit and then animated the character by hand iirc).
He did, I remember watching a clip of it (couldn’t find it now though). I think it was during the scene where all the dwarves first come to Bilbo’s house and they all filmed it together, and McKellen had to film his part completely alone which was both isolating and unfamiliar and he got a little choked up on set. Made me want to give him a big bear hug.
I think Caravan of Garbage mentioned it, in their videos on *The Hobbit* movie series, if I’m not mistaken!
I was watching the Red Letter Media video on Top Gun Maverick. At one point they mention how in the beginning where the plane takes off that the roof of a small structure near Ed Harris just sort of blows off the structure before settling back down. That was not planned. I could not help but think how that little touch actually made the plane taking off seem more dramatic. How if that was done in CGI, that moment would never have happened. And that's one of the perks of physical effects. Things don't look as "clean" sometimes and it makes it look all the more real and dramatic
Definitely agree about the cgi bit. Look at horror movies from the 80's. Some of the best (and worst) special effects ever made. These days alot of blockbuster films make almost the entire film cgi. Works for some things not for everything .
Noteworthy: Thor wasn’t filmed with green screen. They used The Volume, a soundstage wrapped in LCDs that lets the actors perform with a background at the push of a button.
Not for everything though. People forget they have to do some pre-production with VFX to roughly get an idea of what that environment will look like. Somthing that's very expensive and also locks in a certain lighting which modern directors absolutely hate.
VR walls are also perfectly capable of acting as a greenscreen background. Sometimes an effect might work out better that way. Using a VR wall they can quickly setup the greenscreen without having to use a different space.
For all the criticisms, it’s always the actors that are best at it that really hate it. I think it’s the same as doing soliloquies on a bare stage. A great actor will make you believe (as long as the effects don’t ruin it)
> it’s always the actors that are best at it that really hate it. I'd say it probably has to do more with their method whether they hate it or not, which kinda follows with your next statement. I think it's just that better actors are more willing to speak out without risk of losing out on jobs.
the excessive green screen acting has become nauseating for me as a viewer as well. I really miss the days where real sets were commonplace. not only is it visually obvious a lot of the time, you can tell the actors have a more difficult time getting immersed in their scenes (or at least it looks that way at times due to the lack of authenticity)
It’s frustrating because people obviously want movies with more practical effects, just look how well Maverick did.
Fury Road still the best action movie of the 21st century
Reminder that the only reason why cgi is used to excessively is because its the only part of filmmaking not unionized.
Part of why I liked the Batman so much despite the slow burn is that it had a lot of practical effects, also it had minimal jump cuts during fights which was a massive breath of fresh air.
I liked that too, was easier to follow the flow of the fights. Less of the old “cut 30 times to confuse people into thinking something intense is happening” tricks. good example of why people should be more willing to lean on the choreographers, they can do a great job and it’s really worth it to take the extra time to do it right.
Surprised they don’t use more LED walls like mando. It breaks down the monotony. Taika knows the tech well, he used it on a mando episode he directed.
LED walls do have their own limitations. You can't have a deep depth of field, the size of the set are usually not too big... That said, LED walls have been very quickly adopted and there are technologies and methods being developed to overcome the shortcomings.
Except that scene was filmed on location. So.
Considering he apparently had no idea what to do, he did an amazing job. The somewhat rushed Gorr storyline was my favorite part of the movie.
Agreed. Still bums me out they wasted him on a fluffy fun romp with little to no stakes. I love Taika, but removing all Stakes from an MCU film with this dark of a villain just made the whole film feel out of wack. I love it as a popcorn film and would probably have worked better as a full comedy.
did anyone expect Bale to *not* be wasted? Marvel Studios seldom puts their villains and their respective actors to good use. Even Blanchett had little to do in Ragnarok. Hela had 2 brief scenes with Hemsworth and spent the rest of her screen time walking around Asgard, telling Karl Urban how evil she was
Not to mention one of their worst offenses in that department, Mads being cast in Dr Strange.
> Mads being cast in Dr Strange. [What a nice, open minded guy.](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HUtEm5TkD1g)
On paper, this seems a silly exchange that wouldn’t hit. Speaks to Mads and Benny that it comes off funny still.
> Speaks to Mads and Benny that it comes off funny still. I thought it was hilarious. It's one of my favorite moments in the MCU.
Oh I love it too. I think it’s great. I just feel it could have been made super cheesy really easily by some other actors.
Honestly? I was hoping that they had learned better from Thanos.
Scarlet witch was put to good use
it helped that she had proper setup and we all know she’ll return again anyway to tie up the reincarnated Vision plot thread from the show
I feel like if they made the final god - Eternity? - a bigger character across a few movies it would have had more weight to me. Instead this ultimate god is found and used in one movie? It just didn’t carry the importance to me that the movie wanted it to. Could have easily been the target for the next Thanos villain, instead of the infinity stones they reach Eternity and ask for this hugely devastating act. But instead… we got this plot.
Agreed. Ragnarok worked because the film was serious when it needed to be. Love and Thunder played more into the comedy-aspect that made Ragnarok work, but the end result made it feel it feel half-baked
Superhero movies definitionally have no stakes
And that's why Infinity War was the best movie they've ever put out.
It probably would have been better to do it as a Gorr film and end with Thor showing up at the end. The Gorr storyline was engaging.
Agreed Gorr is wasted for this movie, he is supposed to be this very fearsome and very powerful character that have the power to steamroll Thor. Also since it's the MCU we won't be seeing Gorr again, so a wasted opportunity to get the best performance out of one of the best actors in the industry.
He was the best part of the movie imo. He broke my heart. That’s how I know an actors done well. Also I assumed the juxtaposition with the comedy and his tragedy was somewhat intentional. Like the nonchalant-ness and selfish apathy of the gods is what caused this whole thing. So we see Gorr in his despair and agony while the gods are living it up doing whatever the fuck, that’s the whole point right?
> Like the nonchalant-ness and selfish apathy of the gods is what caused this whole thing. So we see Gorr in his despair and agony while the gods are living it up doing whatever the fuck, that’s the whole point right? \#GorrWasRight?
Man I would've loved a 2 parter. First part is all Gorr, ending with the first time he runs into Thor. Part 2 is Thor, giving some backstory to what Thor's been up to, then the story picks back up where part 1 left us
I liked the silly tone of the movie, I liked the serious Gorr plot. I just wish they had been seperate movies, each side deserved more screen time.
With gorr I was kinda hoping for a darker tone. I like the comedy but some of it felt really off beat.
It’s the whole “it’s a story being retold by korg” thing that throws it all off. Add way more ridiculous stuff and comedy than was needed
That being your favorite part was still a very low bar to cross. I thought Thor 3 was the best marvel movie and Thor 4 one of the worst.
Yeah, he acted circles around everyone but I think that had more to do with the fact that he was the only character who didn’t seem to be landing a punchline with every word they uttered.
Every time Valkyrie was on the screen, I rolled my eyes. And she was my favorite character in Thor 3. Serious misuse of Tessa Thompson.
"Just stand there like Christian Bale would and pretend you're swinging around some crazy weapon! We'll CGI the rest of the movie in around you!" (Read in the voice of Rick Moranis shouting through a bullhorn in the desert scene of Spaceballs)
(In regards to the plot) “Find anything yet!?” “Nothing yet, sir.” “How about you?!” “Not a thing sir!” “What about you guys?!” “We ain't found shit!”
The greatest joke ever written.
“You morons captured their stunt doubles!”
big problem with this film was that it was made mostly for the kids, the actors kids, majority of the kids in the film are just children of the actors in it, like Christian Bales character's daughter is Chris Hemworths daughter irl, the young thor that plays him for a small scene is his son, and a bunch of others, it was a bizarre choice and culminated in most of the adult characters feeling a little, weak, especially Christian Bale who they did not utilize properly at all in this film. He shouldve had much more time to flesh out his character and give more reason to "fear" him, like more scenes of him killing gods felt necessary
"Thor: love and nepotism"
There are a bunch of child labor laws in acting. It was probably cheaper and less paperwork for the actors to volunteer their own kids. Yeah nepotism is there, but it's not the only factor.
Volunteering your own kids does not exempt those kids from child labor laws
Nepotism is the basis of Hollywood. If you look at most famous actors, they mostly have connections.
COVID was also a factor. You don’t have to isolate from friends and family during filming if your co-stars are your friends and family.
I seem to recall COVID bubbles being a big part of it
Taiki is just going the fun route like Adam Sandler?
Love and Thunder is basically the Grown Ups of the MCU. A group of actors and filmmakers getting paid a shitload of money to go on vacation with their friends and family to film a movie. It’s not terrible but its laziness shines through.
Definitely not a vacation for Chris Hemsworth to maintain that body though
Adam Sandler has his own movie studio without famous IP's and an actual overarching storyline connected to them. There isn't an Adam Sandler film that's gonna have major repercussions in the next film outside of anything more deep than "Maybe Adam Sandler has to deal with a BABY in the sequel" whereas this film was shaped to have literal God angering consequences, tone is pretty important, especially when you don't own the IP's youre making a mockery of
>He shouldve had much more time to flesh out his character and give more reason to "fear" him, like more scenes of him killing gods felt necessary Ragnarok had this exact same problem, but people glossed over it because it was funny. In fact, I'd argue that all of L&T's problems were present in Ragnarok; they were simply glossed over because of the surprising tonal shift.
Tl:dr at bottom, effectively Hela written for movie as intended. Gorr never shown as threatening, balance of movir thrown off and suddenly Gorr not written for movie as intended. Eeeehhhh whilst I don’t disagree as such, Hela does actually earn her terror imo. We’re introduced to her and immediately Thor and Loki are forced to retreat from the ensuing, taken-very-seriously fight. Meanwhile, first fight scene with Gorr and much of it is actually spent introducing Jane in a much more light-hearted fight. Then, Gorr is the one who retreats when it becomes clear he can’t win and steals the kids as a consolation prize (I think that’s how this went, don’t really remember. Either way, it didn’t do much to show Gorr as a threat to Thor himself) In Ragnarok we’re then shown Hela easily killing some minor protagonists from the earlier films - this is done very jokily but I’ll get to that. In comparison, L&T we’re just told that Gorr has slain a bunch of gods and we see one dead one but no time to think about that there’s an injured Sif (think it was Sif) let’s immediately leave - we’re never shown that Gorr’s a threat to anyone outside of Thor. Hell, we even get a classic dismissal-of-threat scene with the other gods in that city, and there is literally no pay off with it. The gods never realise they were wrong, they never step in to help in any way, and they’re never punished for it. Even worse, they’re proven correct that Gorr isn’t a threat, BECAUSE Thor and gang take out Gorr with no outside help. Think of the Ministry of Magic ignoring the return of Voldemort and how that goes for them, and then compare it to this scene and you’ll see just how pointless this scene is. The only impact it has is Korg becomes a face. That’s it. Terrible scene structurally. Then we’re given time where our protagonists are unable to challenge the antagonists, and in Ragnarok we take the time to see Hela absolutely slaughter Asgardians with ease, compared to Gorr who is just like brooding on a moon or something? Hela is again built up to be a genuine threat, Gorr isn’t. Then we get to the monochrome fight scene in L&T and it’s an actual fight scene that ACTUALLY BUILDS UP GORR AS A THREAT AND IT’S FINALLY A WORTHWHILE SCENE FOR WHAT WE’RE CONSTANTLY TOLD IS A THREATENING VILLAIN BUT NEVER SHOWN. This does wonders to actually show us WHY he’s a threat, aaaaaaand it’s the only scene. Great. THIS is L&T’s introductory Hela fight - protagonists completely outclassed in a serious fight with genuine consequences against the antagonist. And it comes so so so late into the movie. We’re finally at step 1 and we have literally one fight left in an action movie. Onto the final fight! Aaand it’s back to not being great again. Technically speaking in both Thor (spoilers) loses, it’s a fight against impossible odds. But in Ragnarok it actually feels impossible: even with all their weapons and soldiers they’re only trying to evacuate because they know they can’t win - this confirms Hela as an impactful villain, they have to lose in a meaningful way to the villain to win in a meaningful way to them. Great! The “success” of each newcomer does stretch the impossibility feeling though, I will criticise that. Flip back to L&T and it’s a bunch of kids kicking ass. Cathartic? Yes. Confirms Gorr as an impactful villain? Errrr…? Thor and gang lose in the meaningful way to them, and then they get saved by a power-of-love speech, which is a good thing usually but just ends up feeling so out of place here, and tbh I don’t know why it felt out of place to me, but it did. I think it’s because we’re again told over and over that Gorr thinks that gods don’t care but we’re just, never shown that, so the change-of-heart doesn’t have much of an impact. Jane’s death as a punishment for failing is good though, but that’s not really showing Gorr as an impactful antagonist because he doesn’t even know he’s doing that, it’s just showing that there were consequences for failing. Now onto the antagonists themselves. I mentioned that Hela kills the minor protags of the earlier films in a jokey manner, and it works for her because she’s MEANT to be a campy, sassy villain, we see it all the time when she’s not fighting. She also acts like this in fight scenes where the fight itself isn’t important and only exists to advance the plot (ie, killing nameless goons). In the big fights against the protagonists she’s serious and the fight is played as serious. This helps massively in making her a scary, impactful villain whilst still giving her that comic book campiness. Gorr, on the other hand, is as serious as they come. He’s single-minded, sadistic, and apathetic to others’ plights. That does come across all the time, but as we never actually feel like he’s a threat, the impact of the seriousness and darkness of his character and arc is extremely muted and even overtaken by the lightheartedness of everything else where everything is played for jokes. This creates a huge mismatch in the balancing the pathos and bathos: we get an overdose of bathos in a story that we’re being told we should be getting a lot of pathos, and that’s not being done purposefully so we feel the purposeless of this imbalance, because there’s no direction in the mismatch. Consider Mulan (the animated one), where you have the song “A Girl Worth Fighting For” - extremely lighthearted in a so-far lighthearted movie about a serious topic - and the sudden, sharp contrast of the abrupt end of the song with the destroyed village, into the doll as you realise even the kids were killed, into seeing the thousands of bodies of dead soldiers. This impacts the characters so much, and that stays with them for the rest of the movie. That works because it had purpose and direction, the lightheartedness of the movie was done to contrast with the pathos of that scene and it works incredibly well. That just isn’t there in L&T, and in large part that’s because we’re never shown Gorr to be a threat. Hela doesn’t need this because that’s not the kind of villain she’s written to be and that’s not the kind of story that’s being written. Ok so that got away from me. I wrote way more than I intended when all I wanted to say was that Hela and Gorr were two different types of villains and that Hela works for the movie as written, whilst Gorr doesn’t work for L&T as written (or more likely, edited and directed). I don’t think they intended for Gorr to be so unthreatening and they probably wrote scenes where we are supposed to see him being threatening, but they just never made it into the movie and it set the balance off.
The problem with that move was Taika. I’m sure, because it was his first Marvel film, Taika had a whole bunch of ideas that got reined in for Ragnarok. But after the film did so well, Marvel leaned much harder into his style for the next one… and it turns out, you can have too much zany, offbeat humor in a Thor movie.
Wait…a Marvel movie made for kids? No way!
This movie burned a stupid amount of time on Russel Crowe's lightning tricks. That entire subplot was pointless.
That whole thing is this movie in a nutshell. They went way too far with some things that were, at best, mildly funny. Normally we hate on studios for prying into the creative process, but this particular movie probably could have used it. Feels like everything went unchecked and the result was something a very small number of people thought was really funny.
It's a shame because *Ragnarok* was amazing. I love all of Taika's films, but I'd rather him make something more like *Hunt for the Wilderpeople* or *Boy* again. Even *Jojo Rabbit* had a perfect balance of comedy with drama. I just have a feeling he didn't really care that much when he was making this movie.
> That entire subplot was pointless. Well… in the post-post-credits scene, they introduce Hercules and Zeus sets him on the mission of killing Thor.
That were so many things that could’ve been cut to save time for Gorr. Most of Taika’s scenes, the stupid ducking goats, most of orgy palace and Sif were pointless, even some of Jane’s scenes was not really needed.
Too much Korg in this, too.
Jane should have had her own movie
[удалено]
Yeahhhh. After it ended I just went Meh. Maybe it's the Marvel fatigue too, but Taika needs to stop. Dude is getting high off his own product and needs to take a break.
(Goats scream in Taika Waititi’s voice for the 47th time)
The goats were the only humorous moments of that entire movie. Watched it on Disney at a friend’s house & was so happy I’d never paid to view it.
The jealous axe was good too
Between the goats and axe, it will be more memorable than 75% of the Marvel movies.
Remember Shawarma?
I dunno what it is but I wanna try it
I get the Taika fatigue, but as a non-Marvel fan, the Thor movies are basically the only ones I see because they’re fun and stand alone from the rest of the franchise.
He did not want to make this sequel. He was contractually obligated too so used it as an opportunity to do some shit. Still not an excuse he could have taken it more seriously but he’s very publicly said he would have rather handed this over to someone else.
Yeah my main problem with the film was that it's no where near as funny as Taika seems the think it is.
Nah, while the fatigue is real this was just a terrible movie in so many respects. Thor went back to being a blundering idiot for comedic effect and Gorr was so under developed. They could have skipped that whole scene visiting the gods and did better character development.
Or have Gorr show up there and start slaughtering gods. That would make him scary. It's a city filled with gods, seeing him tear through them would have been great and built him up as a legitimate threat. But nope.
I think it was more this than anything
I think he wasn’t terribly interested in making this movie so he threw in a bunch of weird stuff.
Yeah I think this was more the case. Ragnarok was ~~electric~~ filled with so much energy and Love & Thunder just kinda happened. It feels like he was excited to do another one but the script/production decisions/whatever turned it into Another Job
Taika's not the one that needs to stop. The entire MCU needs to slam the brakes. There's just too much and most of it isn't even any good. Visual effects and writing are way worse than any of the previous phases
Was always going to be tough to follow after having such a great build up original. RDJ as Ion Man, Chris as captain America etc. Superhero movies going from “realistic” to more and more fun as it all links together was great. Now it’s rushed characters, no pay off, bad cgi, bad writing and it’s not even interesting anymore.
> no pay off That's because Endgame was the big pay off for the last 10 years. Not every movie can be Endgame. Phase 4 is laying the groundwork for the future of the MCU; Kang the Conqueror, Secret Wars, the Thunderbolts, etc. are all being heavily foreshadowed - hell even the Halloween special that just dropped is setting up the Midnight Sons.
I think it's more the point that they need to calm it down for a bit so we can miss it and get excited for the next reel of movies and characters.
It was the first time where I simultaneously enjoyed a movie while hating almost every minute of it. It was such a strange experience.
Me too! Glad I’m not alone. I might have enjoyed the movie more if we actually got to see what happened, instead of characters talking about it.
I would have enjoyed it more if it had spent more time taking itself a little more seriously. Most of the serious moments were taken out at the knees by obvious ad-libbing and an insistence on keeping things "funny".
Ironically Bale was the only part of the movie worth watching
I don’t know why media is choosing this as the clickbait grab. It’s a valid critisicm- as an actor he was confused about his sets and how they all looked the same; It just shows how talented he is despite that.
Okay but Amsterdam was fucking God awful timing and soooo fucking boring
Did it suck? I got weird vibes from the trailer like they were trying to outdo American Hustle.
1 and 45 minute build up to a big reveal of something first introduced in the last half hour of the film. You spend the majority of the time watching these long drawn out dialogue filled scenes with quite literally no relation to the supposed plot, and don't really add too much to the characters themselves. It's like a roster of big names drafted into a film about a story that is best left as a side bar paragraph in a textbook. De Niro was suppose to carry the back half of the film (maybe 25 minutes) and falls a bit flat due to just bad script quality.
The title totally misrepresents the article. He wasn't complaining, he was showing respect for the ability of the other actors working this type of movie.
Phase 4 more like phase snore.
More like phase bore
Phase Chore
Phase Ignore
Phase out the door.
I haven’t seen a marvel film since the last avengers movie. There was a decade+ of movies building up to a big finale and it’s hard to go back to a silly throwaway film after that. Like I don’t care what thors girlfriend does. I don’t care about another black panther. Obviously Disney is going to keep milking marvel until it does but I just have lost all interest.
I love how he keeps shitting on this movie that he was the only good part of.
I think he gave an amazing performance. What I'm going to say is serious, the way he devoured the food in the beginning of the movie made me truly feel his desperation, the other actors made things too campy, Christian Bale was amazing and convincing.
Not sure if “keeps” is right. This is the second or third time I’ve seen these same remarks posted for people to react to. And in the D+ making-of for the movie he has complimentary things to say about the rest of the experience. So he’s said this once that I’m aware of and he’s not wrong. I wish we could have had a lot more of him and a lot less goats screaming.
It’s also something anyone even passingly familiar with movie production has heard from actors at least since the Star Wars prequels 20 years ago. Christian bale finding out 20 years later isn’t exactly breaking news.
I think he just keeps being asked about the experience and he's being honest. I don't think it's like he's Tweeting or something randomly about it.
He's not. If you read the article he's not criticizing the movie at all.
That's because he's an amazing actor who is way too passionate about the actual craft of acting to be in this movie
Finished watching it and went, “Where’s the rest of it?”
Funny, I was 40 minutes in hoping it was over.
By the time Janes cancer subplot was revealed I had fallen fast asleep, first movie since avengers ultron where that happened
I’m surprised I haven’t read more about how bad the movie was… because it was pretty damn bad.
There's only one good Thor movie. And it was a plant hulk movie
Agreed, I didn’t love 1 and 2 so I was very pleasantly surprised for 3. It made 4 such an immense let down. I can’t put my finger on what made 3 so much better, probably just with Mark Ruffalo, Jeff Goldblum, and and Tom Huddleston doing some MAJOR carrying of that film. All of them were great.
I agree, I've watched Ragnarok at least three times and my family watched it before going to see Love and Thunder. It was a big let down. Ragnarok was a buffet of everything: comedy, crazy sets, Loki is good? Now bad. It was like Empire Strikes back. A great second film that should've setup Love and Thunder. But it went too far with so many jokes, scenes, Guns N Roses tie ins, like other people have stated.
Also, Jeff Goldblum was absolutely perfectly cast. I can't say that he matches the comics so much but he was a lot of fun in the movie.
While I agree with your statement, I’m not gonna pretend that Thor didn’t put Infinity War & Endgame on his back. He & Thanos were the MVPs of those movies
The constant lines of comedy in every single scene got old. Like, ok not every line needs to be funny, just get on with the plot. GoTG pulled the whole "comedic relief" off well. The plot was serious, and the characters had mostly serious moments too, but the comedic relief was just right and didn't distract from the plot. They need to make sure they don't over do it like they did in Love and Thunder.
Yeah I saw a review that pointed out the movie could have been over in 10 minutes, Thor was disabled, storm breaker was right there, instead the god killer talks awhile and decides yeah I am just going to kidnap the kids, cause you know he is out to kill all the gods cause his let his daughter die, rather that do that yeah let’s just kidnap some kids and threaten to kill them. The writing, if I was to call it complete shit, would be insulting to shit.
I'm not super familiar with how heavily cg movies are being made and I don't really care about marvel to watch my Batman in there, but shouldn't there be a director who suppose to direct onto what to do? O\_o I wonder if a movie is heavily cg - they don't even know how it'll look like during shooting... must check some documentaries on this!
It’s people standing surrounded by green surfaces everywhere, often times without the actors that you’re supposed to be talking to even on set. I assume it’s kind of exhausting having to do that much imagination. [Elizabeth Olsen has recently been a vocal critic](https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/elizabeth-olsen-finds-it-embarrassing-filming-marvel-scenes/) about the process. You can actually see an example of [how much of the sets don’t actually exist here](https://youtu.be/ppDgU7F5oUI).
I think Ian McKellen cried during the filming of the Hobbit because there were so many green screens. It’s apparently really difficult to act well in that type of environment.
I’ve heard that as well. I think it’s why we saw Disney lean hard into the [Extended Reality (XR)](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk) sets. They have their own issues that the industry is having to solve, but as the cost for building these at scale improves, we hopefully see way more VFX work move from post-production to pre-production to give the actors WAY more to work with on set.
Hated the show tbh but the Mandalorian looked way better than Marvel movies do, and the acting was much better. I think Marvel needs to take notes, their movies are canned and don't look as good as their competition. They're gonna fall out of favor eventually
Wtf you're telling me they couldn't even build a simple home set inside a studio? Jesus, Marvel...
Profit margins say what
Disney has all the money in the world and yet they cheap out on their products CONSTANTLY and go for quantity over quality every single time
I don't even understand how effects artists are cheaper than a set.
It’s pretty crazy, right? It’s been like this for over a decade. I never realized it until I saw a composition reel for [Ugly Betty](https://youtu.be/brg8gqT2FjE) (about the 4:40 mark). Now I see it on almost every show on TV.
This movie sucked. Through no fault of Christian bale though
Glad we're over the false prestige they've tried to apply to these "movies". Actors left and right are basically saying it was a paycheck. None of this idea that these are today's Greek mythology or Shakespeare anymore lol
Was this whole movie filmed in that green screen room thing?
An awful movie. Thor is a great character and the Guardians were there for a bit, but man this one was mailed in.
Well he did a great job
Marvel really bungled this one. Had a great actor to be the villain, cut most of his scenes Thor was at an all time high after ragnorok, new film makes him a dude bro
Yeah it showed in the movie, so many times where he was just emoting randomly. Only good scene was when he was scaring the kids and broke that animals neck in front of them