The Case for Pre-Ragnorak Thor

  The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become such a fixture of pop culture that it’s difficult to imagine that the whole ordeal was a massive crapshoot.     

               The biggest conceit of the MCU has been its ability to straddle a thousand different heroes—each with their own stories, casts, and universes—into one cohesive whole. It’s a balancing act like nothing that’s ever been attempted before in the hundred years of filmmaking. A lot of the brand’s success can be attributed to the way that each individual story adheres to the rules of its own specific universe. The Captain America movies serve a different purpose than the Spiderman movies, and all the movies in the Captain America trilogy have to feel like they belong together.

       Embedded in this discussion is the question of individual directorship within the MCU. In a network of films that all exist to set up other films, how much creative authority does the director of any one of these films actually have? 

To be fair, that is a common complaint lobbied against the franchise. Interrogating the validity of that argument across the MCU would take a lot more space than I can provide in this essay, and I’m certain others have attempted to do that very thing already. But overall, the goal of the MCU appears to be one of cohesion–to have all these directors trained on how to make the same kind of film so none of them broke the illusion of unity. This makes the Thor situation interesting ...

Once upon a time, I considered Thor to be my favorite Avenger, which was not super common in those days, even back when there were only like six options as opposed to the sixty you have today. But Thor has gone through something of a renaissance in the last five years or so. I write this just as Thor: Love and Thunder is poised to be one of the biggest hits of the summer.

A lot of credit has been given to Taika Waititi who, in addition to directing “Love and Thunder,” directed Thor: Ragnarok, often hailed as the turning point in the character’s PR image. Waititi’s experiment with “Ragnarok” completely goes against the corporate ethos guiding something like the MCU. He made a Waititi film first, and that film happened to work with the larger MCU framework. As someone who supports the power of the author over the corporation, I should in theory be really happy about this little factoid. In theory … 

I call the Thor situation “interesting,” but if I’m being honest, I have absolutely never liked what Waititi did with Thor.

    Now, hear me out a moment: it’s not that I don’t think Taika Waititi is a talented storyteller–I liked Jojo Rabbit just fine–I just don’t like what he’s done to my favorite superhero. Thor used to read like Superman with a much more interesting character arc, but the Thor that everyone celebrates today is closer to Hot Rod than any superhero. Which makes all these thought pieces about how he "saved the Thor franchise" fall very, very flat for me.

      Let me show you what I mean by drawing attention to Thor’s culminating moments in both his original film and in "Ragnarök."

          In “Ragnarök,” Thor’s lowest point comes when he battles Hela in Asgard’s throne room. Hela gets the better of him for a moment, Thor gets an internal pep talk from Odin’s ghost, and he starts exuding lightning in a pyrotechnic display that can only be underscored by Led Zeppelin, and the audience starts to cheer. By most accounts, it’s a perfect superhero moment. 

            But compare this to the equivalent moment in the first film: Thor gets knocked out by the Destroyer after offering himself up in exchange for the city, his friends look on in horror, Jane cries over his presumably dead body, the scene decrescendos. Then we cut back to Mjolnir starting to stir, it breaks free from the earth that was encasing it, then bursts forth from its mount. Anticipation builds as Mjolnir rockets back toward Thor. Jane’s friends pry her off Thor’s body. We know what we want to happen, but we’re also not sure what will transpire when that hammer crashes into Thor. The orchestra picks up, and at the last moment, Thor’s fist rises to greet the return of his master weapon. Lightning abounds as our hero is restored to his godly form. 

            The two scenes serve the same narrative purpose, but they draw on different emotional banks. The difference between the two moments, and the two arcs, is the difference between awesome and inspiring awe. In the grand scale of moviedom, neither is necessarily better than the other, but I can’t help but feel like in this story, going from one to the other is a step down.

            I’ll confess, I don’t even really know who I’m writing this piece for given that everyone under the sun, even Chris Hemsworth, seems to prefer this new face of Thor. But faced with another round of Ragnarök hype, I am confronted with how I actually really miss what Thor prime represented.

            Thor – God of Thunder

    The first Thor movie was actually a really big gamble, but one that the MCU needed to make if it was ever going to live up to its promise. The majority of Phase 1 MCU films, like most superhero movies of the day, were light sci-fi earthbound action pics, but that’s not the terrain of extraterrestrial invasions and magic sorcerers, both of which exist within the Marvel comics. Establishing early on that the MCU would also be the playground for gods and monsters opened the rainbow bridge to allow secret spies and alien pirates to exist within the same franchise. In a lot of ways, Thor was the most important movie of Marvel Phase I, something that becomes less and less appreciated as time goes by.

          People who champion “Ragnarök” will directly or indirectly cite its strong directorial flavor–they love it because Waititi makes really fun movies. Meanwhile, the artistic flavor of Kenneth Branagh, who directed the first Thor film, may not be quite as strong or distinct as Waititi’s, but Thor has felt like a Branagh film ever since I grew old and discerning enough to detect a director’s influence, and Branagh was one of the first directors I can remember connecting to.

In addition to the first “Thor” film, he also helmed Disney’s remake of Cinderella–the gold standard by which we judge the rest of their remakes–and even recently won a best original screenplay Oscar for his mostly autobiographical film, Belfast. Still, he is perhaps most known for his Shakespeare epics from the 1990s, his unabridged 1996 Hamlet adaptation being something of his magnum opus.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

    If I had to describe what it is about his style that I admire so much, I might use the term “intimate grandeur.” Branagh’s films often boast lavish and extravagant backdrops which only amplify the tender emotions of the story into something glorious. Even his more experimental offerings feel so sincere that I can’t bring myself to hate them. (Though I do get really close with his borderline necrophiliac take on "Frankenstein" ...)

    Branagh brought this same sensibility to the superhero realm. Observe not only the glittering grandiosity of Asgard, which recalls the shimmering halls of Elsinore Castle, but also how he presents it visually. See the sweeping shots that rise over the palace as Patrick Doyle’s thundering melodies underscore the sheer majesty of it all.

    But Branagh brought more than just spectacle to the film. The emotional blood of the characters is on display in a way it never really is again. Note the scene where Thor finds he cannot lift Mjolnir. The shots of Thor crying in agony and humiliation, as Jane watches helplessly, fade to views of the cosmos, his defeat echoing across the universe. This is also the one film where we actually see Loki crying onscreen. We’ll never see god of mischief, perpetual deceiver and trickster, and occasional terrorist be this vulnerable again.

Thor as a character navigates two worlds in this film: the imperial awesomeness of Asgard what with its deities and castles of gold, and the rundown groundedness of New Mexico, Earth. These are two functionally different spheres that don't interact naturally, and so forcing them together is what gives this film much of its volatility. Thor is a king in his own world who is forced to walk among the little people, and this is deeply humiliating for this arrogant son of a gun. This is also where the film gets most of its humor.

There is, for example, something both deeply amusing and deeply befitting in seeing the brutish Thor vowing to deliver retribution against the hospital staff manhandling him only to immediately go limp against the window as they sedate him. There is great synchronicity between the low-brow nature of the gag and what we know about the character and his situation: this mighty God of Thunder is no match against a sedative administered right to his royal hindquarters. The humor here is very motivated, far moreso than what we'll see from Thor later on.

That sharp divide in tone between these two worlds spurs a chemical reaction within both the audience and their viewing experience and the character arc of Thor himself. Thor doesn't have access to his regular godly arsenal, so if he's going to get what he wants, he will have to get his hands dirty and learn to live among the humans, and this is where Thor will learn those much needed lessons about humility and compassion that he was missing.

Even today, I have trouble describing what specifically it is that makes me love the first Thor movie so much. I suppose part of it is just the tender age at which I first watched it. Phase 1 of the MCU was in operation when I was a teenager, when I was in what most would call the target demographic for superhero movies.

    I think that Thor hit more deeply than either Captain America or Iron Man in part owing to this grandiosity–this mythological element that dared to take itself so seriously. “Your ancestors called it magic, but you call it science,” Thor explains to Jane. “I come from a land where they are one and the same.” We tend to discuss superhero films on a continuum of being serious or fun, with something like Shazam! on one end and Batman v Superman on the other. But Thor drops a whole new axis onto the conversation. It's not just a matter of the movie being either gritty or silly, it's its own thing. Its own glorious thing.

Branagah said of his work with the first Thor, 

“For me, I thought it was really important that everything we set up there to do with his being banished, his rough diamond beginning, his difficult relationship with his father and his brother. All of those things always were going to have tremendous potential if we could just make people connect with it upfront with the authenticity of the character's feelings. I think they committed completely to it and so did the audience. Then, the world was their oyster in terms of where they might go to. In that sense, there's a parallel with the comics that if you build it, they will come, and somewhere at the center of it we got something right that allowed the characters to fly."

    Thor commits to a style that is easily poked and parodied. It’s the kind of film that can be accused of taking itself too seriously, and yet there’s something ennobling about the way the mythology holds it head high and asks its audience to do the same. Phase 1 of the MCU represented a final push to solidify the superhero film as a genre worthy of the attention of the masses. The way to do that was obviously with the quality of the respective films, but also with the presentation of the movies themselves. It’s significant, then, that Thor should descend upon the field like a lightning bolt from the heavens proclaiming that the superhero film could be something you didn’t just enjoy, but something you felt awe for.

    I'll clarify that no part of me thinks that the Branagh aesthetic should have been the default for all superhero films. Honestly, the rarity of Thor's tone is part of what makes it such a standout, and what's more, different projects have different needs and flourish under the care of different artists. But the MCU had found the conditions under which Thor thrived, and yet the MCU would eventually be peer pressured into making a heel turn into tumultous territory, and Thor would never be the same for it.

 

Thor in the Waiting Room

    After his first film, Thor the character kind of drifted in limbo. In the first two “Avengers” movies, Thor gets the short end of the stick character-wise, usually getting the least amount of screentime and the smallest arc. He admittedly got many of the best lines and a lot of good character moments, but Marvel never really knew how to test his character or make him grow after the first film. Part of this may lie in the massive power imbalance between Thor and every other member of the original Avengers. How do you create a threat that is equally challenging to an ace archer and a literal god? ... Don't draw attention to his godliness, I suppose.

   We also can't escape the reputation of Thor's phase II offering. Prior to last years’ divisive Eternals, Thor: The Dark World had the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in the MCU, and coming on ten years later I still hear this referred to as the worst film of the franchise. Admittedly, the movie plays like it’s on auto-pilot for the first forty minutes. The movie doesn’t become interesting until Jane gets to go to Asgard, and it doesn’t really get going until the dark elves invade. The film also has arguably the weakest villain of any MCU film, and this negative space is made only more glaring since the baddies in the other two Thor films have nearly overwhelming screen presence. But the general consensus around why “The Dark World” is so bad seems to mostly be that it’s just basic. A generic superhero movie without any signature features of its own.

From the outside looking in, it’s difficult to say what specific creative choices contributed to this movie’s general antipathy. This installment was helmed by Alan Taylor who’s worked on critical darlings like The West Wing, Game of Thrones, and The Sopranos, so it’s not as though he doesn’t know how to do his job. What was so different about this film? Honestly, I don't have a definitive answer for that.

    It’s worth observing that this movie went into production only a little while after The Avengers broke all the records and solidified the MCU as a force to be reckoned with. My guess is that the heads at Marvel became wary of any creative decisions that might compromise the machine, so they became ultra-protective of the creative process, dictating to exactness what could or couldn’t happen in this film, regardless of what the director wanted. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy would eventually show Marvel that letting a director do their own thing could actually really work in their favor, but it would be a while before they internalized that lesson.

In the years since, Taylor has been forthright about feeling like his creative vision for the film was compromised,

“I focused all my attention on making a certain movie, and then in the editing process, decisions were made to change it a lot … My regret was that the movie that got released was changed quite a bit. I have a great fondness for some of the things that went away in the original cut. There was a kind of quality of wonder to the thing that was beautiful to me.”

            I’ll acknowledge the film isn’t the best entry in the MCU. But I also wouldn’t call it the worst. I wouldn’t even put it in the bottom five. (I wouldn’t even put it lower than “Ragnorak.”) There are other MCU entries, even tentpole ensemble films, with discernible flaws beyond just being a little toothless that rank much lower in my book. I really think the movie gets a bad rap because it doesn't have a specific quirk or trademark that sets it apart, but it's a perfectly functional gear in this system.

    For one thing, I like how our earth cast in this film is more actively confronting the threat. In the first film, Jane was the first to believe that there might be a world beyond earth, and so it’s really satisfying when she gets to be rewarded for her faith by experiencing Asgard firsthand. Where in the first film, Jane and company were more there for emotional support, here they actually get to put their scientific knowledge to use to actively aid Thor in the fight against the dark elves. This is not only a natural progression of their relationship, it also shows what Thor has to bring as a future leader of Asgard. Enlisting the help of the mortals is something that someone like Odin would have never thought of or consented to.

And Thor starting to act independent of Odin here marks a key jump in his own internal journey of finding out who he is. He’s not in direct opposition like the first film when Odin was framed as an all-knowing pillar of goodness, but we see Thor learning to trust his instincts and really come into his own as a hero. Even if “The Dark World” lacks a specific punch, the machinery of the film itself checks out just fine, which has always made its online punchline status really odd to me.

           Just the same, the movie did mark Thor, both as a brand and as a character, as the MCU's big underachiever. A lot of voices would retrospectively pronounce that Thor as a character just couldn’t connect with audiences during this phase. (I have some trouble swallowing this narrative. I was on the internet back then, and I promise you there were Thor memes in 2014.)

    This left Marvel with three options: retire the character (perish the thought!), continue producing Thor films on his current trajectory and hope for the best, or reinvent the character.

            Which of course leads us to the favorite MCU movie of everyone except yours truly …

Thor’s Midlife Crisis

            A few things to note about “Ragnarok”: the superhero landscape had completely flipped by 2017. Superhero movies were here to stay. They knew it. Everyone knew it. They didn’t necessarily feel the need to prove their merit the way they did back in phase 1. You could argue that the MCU had gone too far the other way, almost insecure with its own success and feeling the need to laugh at itself before anyone else could (and indeed many have).

            The MCU had also started indulging in pure comedy with films like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. The latter film especially had an influence on the development of the third Thor film, with Hemsworth going as far as saying that he wished the Thor installments would take a leaf from the lightheartedness of “Guardians.” Kevin Feige apparently took his wishes to heart and enlisted Taika Waititi to helm the third Thor film.

            Taika Waititi made his mark as a director of comedy films like What We Do in the Shadows or Hunt for the Wilderpeople. From this, it wasn’t entirely clear that the new Thor film would be a comedy, the Russo Brothers had also done work on shows like Community and Arrested Development, but Marvel was clearly in the market to rebrand Thor. Force him back into the public eye in a big way. Waititi has said,

“For me this is my ‘Thor One.’ I've seen the other films and I respect them, but I can't spend too much time thinking about this as a three-quel because then I'll get tied up too much in respecting what went before and respecting what's to come after. [Thor: Ragnarok] has to be a standalone film because this could be the only time I do this. I just want to make it [my] version of a Marvel film in the best way possible.”

    And it turns out, people were really into that. Richard Propes wrote that this movie was, "really the first time that Hemsworth has really lived into the fullness of Thor's potential," and also "not only the best of the Thor films, not exactly a challenging task, but it's damn near one of the best of the Marvel films to date." And this was the general consensus behind the film.

    This movie seems to go out of its way to distinguish itself stylistically from what came before. Much of the cast from the first films, including Natalie Portman, are nowhere to be seen. Even Thor’s buddies are not only eliminated but killed in such a casual, incidental fashion. Thor has been friends with these guys for thousands of years, yet he never acknowledges nor processes their skewering.

            But the biggest shift in style was the tone of the story itself. Comedy plays a much bigger part in this movie than it did in almost every other Marvel film, and certainly more than it did for either of the first two Thor films. So already, we're seeing a deliberate breakdown of what was supposedly the MCU's secret sauce: internal consistency, weaving all these disparate spheres together by allowing each little island to have its own clear flavor. Noteworthy: not only did this bother absolutely no one, it actually fed into the narrative around why this film was so great. We could leave behind the old Thor once and for all and ride this parade into the sunset.

    But it’s not just the inclusion of humor that’s noteworthy, or even the way it seems to knowingly rebuff and retcon the first two-thirds of a trilogy, but the way it steps on the toes of every attempt at sincerity--that sincerity which those first films really excelled at. See, the scene where Thor attempts to sway Valkyrie to join his cause, and him telling her “I choose to run toward my problems instead of away from them,” is immediately followed by Thor tossing a bowling ball at the window, which then ricochets and hits him in the face. One argument that I hear often is that this film "humanizes" Thor, which as best as I can tell means that it actively sabotages any chance the audience has to take him seriously. The humor here is way less motivated than it was in not only that first Thor movie, but any other branch of the MCU.

    Marvel's own Guardians of the Galaxy has often been held as an analogue to "Ragnarök," the case for why this approach really works, actually, and "why didn't we do this earlier?" But what every one of these arguments sidesteps is that "Guardians" has a lot more pathos than casual discourse acknowledges--and is much stronger for it. Even before the opening titles disco onto the screen, that film opens with a kid watching his mother die right before his eyes. Where Guardians of the Galaxy has some emotional dialogue, “Ragnarok” is mostly here to have fun.

    But critics of the franchise insist that it's not just that “Ragnarök” is more entertaining than previous films, the movie itself is just a stronger offering--The writing is tighter, the plot is better, Thor himself is a richer character in this film. I've heard these lines a lot, and they've never rang true for me. No matter how hard people have tried to look for it, neither Thor's internal nor external journeys here have the same engine as the first two films.

There’s certainly a shock factor when Hela crushes Mjolnir, even if you did see it in the trailer. But even without his hammer, Thor’s success rate is mostly level with every other film we’ve seen him in. He technically loses the match against Hulk, but he was actually holding his own pretty well before The Grandmaster tased him. He's being kept down by an external factor, not any personal failing. Actually, Thor never runs into an obstacle that he can’t overcome without his hammer, he generally just has to wait for the right moments to make his move.

Likewise, Thor’s resolve or worldview is never really tested, nor does it ever waver. Even the revelation of Odin’s history as a warmonger never makes him question what he’s fighting for. Thor's job in this film isn't to walk the audience through any kind of spiritual revelation. Mostly he's just here to do what every critic of the superhero movie has said and just spout off fireworks in between one-liners.

Thor’s storyline in “Ragnarok” has echoes of his arc in the first film. In both outings, Thor is suddenly cut off from everything that he used to associate with power and worth and has to reassess what those mean, but his journey is much stronger in that first film.

    There, Thor’s external conflict (his banishment from Asgard) was a direct reaction to his internal conflict (his lack of compassion and responsibility). He recklessly stirs up war with the Frost Giants because he thought they ruined his party, and so Odin putting him in time out and taking away his toy feels like a natural consequence. Once he’s on earth, Thor initially sets out to resolve his problems through either charm or force, as he would have before his banishment. Thor learns this is insufficient when, after reaching Mjolnir through physical superiority, he discovers that Mjolnir no longer recognizes him as its master because he is no longer worthy.

  Recognizing this compels Thor to actually wrestle with his character flaws and turn over a new leaf. He retrieves Jane’s scientific journal for her even when the act offers no advantage to him. He just recognizes that she’s been far more patient with him than he deserved, and this is a small way he can try to repay her. He’s starting to act selflessly, correcting the flaws in his character that elicited his banishment in the first place. He gets the chance to prove his development when Loki sends The Destroyer to eliminate the city and Thor offers his own life in exchange for that of the entire city, and it’s this act of selflessness that restores his hammer and his godly power.

    This comes to a head in the climax when Thor is faced with the choice of destroying the Bifrost, his gateway back to Earth and to Jane, in order to stop it from destroying the realm of the Frost Giants. The weight of his decision is made even stronger because he’s not just giving up power or something he would have coveted before his banishment. He’s come to care for Jane as he’s become a better person, and so we’ve come to link Thor’s heroism with their union. Thor choosing to destroy the means by which he can return to her reveals just how committed he is to his new way of living, and we the audience buy it because we saw the steps he took to get there. (But, nah! just write out the single most important factor in changing his course ...)

Thor’s arc in “Ragnarok,” by comparison, doesn’t have quite the same meat to it. I suppose that deciding to nuke his homeland instead of saving it has the reversal one would expect from a compelling character arc, but I wouldn’t say that revelation was built on anything Thor did or learned in this movie. All the time Thor spends trying to return to Asgard, it’s never made clear to Thor or the audience that it’s the people he’s trying to save and not the physical space it inhabits. He never has to modify his methods in order to reach his goal, he just kind of hops around Sakaar until he’s gained enough allies to get what he wants. Then at the right moment, Ghost Odin drops some vaguely philosophical one-liners, and suddenly Thor has all the answers, which is why the revelation that Thor is more than his hammer has always felt somewhat forced to me. I’m not saying Thor’s arc in “Ragnarok” is bad, per se, it’s just not nearly as strong as people want to give credit for.

           I believe Waititi when he says he has respect for the first two Thor films. Apparently it was his idea to bring back Natalie Portman for his second Thor film (a good choice, in my opinion, since they were careless in writing her out to begin with). And it’s not like “Ragnarok” is wholly without moments of dramatic weight. Odin’s final scene carries an emotional charge as he says goodbye to both of his sons. This scene twists the knife for Loki especially, with whom Odin always had a, let’s say, turbulent relationship. And there are a few small throwbacks to the previous films, “Ragnarok’s” final scene even brings back some of Doyle’s score from the first film.

            But these moments are swallowed up in the striking shift in tone, and with it an insistence that Thor should never be taken too seriously. Even Bruce’s culminating moment in this film is played for laughs. Bruce is about to confront his demons in order to Hulk up to save his friends, and just when you think it’s going to have an emotional pay-off, he literally belly-flops onto the bridge ...

    I've always felt the reason why people are quicker to embrace a film like Thor: Ragnarök, especially in comparison to the tone of the first two Thor movies, has a little to do with the quality of either face of Thor, and more to do with the way that audiences generally go for more entertainment that requires less vulnerability. Marvel gave audiences exactly what they were asking for from this character, I suppose, but in the process, the film ends up becoming exactly what critics of the superhero film have always said about the genre: a fun night out, but no substance or even attempt at reflection of the human condition.

The Apartment (1960)

    It's not as though comedy has to step on the toes of solid character development. Film history is full of comedies that also pull off some of the most satisfying character arcs put to screen. Comedy can absolutely be grounds for empathy. I also don’t see this as a fault in Waititi’s directing ability. He hits some pretty heavy beats in Jojo Rabbit while also pulling off a successful comedy. And I'm also not putting Thor at the top of the film pyramid, but something was absolutely lost once his character got his makeover.

    Regal Thor could have worked if that’s what audiences were interested in, but that’s not what we got. Dare I say? The rebranding itself is part of the appeal of “Ragnarok.” I’ve observed that as much as people love Thor’s style in this film, they love that Thor shed his skin and finally learned to stop being so high on himself.

            I’m generally annoyed by “Ragnarok,” but I acknowledge its internal cohesion and general competency. Its action scenes are well-choreographed, the cast all seem like they’re having fun, and it has a clear vision guiding its thematic and stylistic choices. But it did give Marvel permission to go beyond reinvention to outright desecration.

 

Thor's Plummet

       “Infinity War” Thor is actually really fun, this largely owing to “Infinity War” being the first ensemble film where Thor feels truly present in the action. (The way this film pulls it off, ironically, is by having him go off on his own with only Rocket and Groot for most of the plot.) Still, this isn’t the Thor from past films. This isn’t the Thor who amusedly noted how “you humans are so petty. And tiny,” or who gives courtesy laughs to Rhodes’ attempt at a joke, as a gentleman would. Thor is hardened, coarse. I might attribute some of this newfound hardness to the trauma Thor just endured from seeing his kingdom slaughtered, but Endgame will take a definite stance on how Thor processes trauma, and, well …

            There’s a lot to this conversation that I can’t really unpack here (like whether it’s appropriative for a Hollywood Adonis like Chris Hemsworth to sport a fat suit for laughs without having to worry about compromising his marketability or endure any of the prejudice faced by those who are actually overweight). But in short, I’m really surprised that Marvel thought this joke was acceptable.

            I see where the idea germinated from. Even more than the other action figures on the shelf, Thor is inextricably linked with his godlike build. Because humor is born out of discrepancy, there’s a huge disconnect in playing Thor without his signature god bod. That said, no matter how “funny” a joke may be, it’s still incumbent on the storytellers to ask themselves what messages they are sending about the subjects of the joke.

    So let’s ask: watching Thor’s godly gut spill over his sweatpants as his friends grimace in repulsion, how is the audience made to feel about Thor’s weight gain? How do we feel seeing Rocket try to squirm out of Thor’s embrace as he gets a face full of gut? Or when we hear his observation that Thor looks “like melted ice cream”? Or when the other Avengers--the good guys--continue to make derisive comments about his weight gain throughout the rest of the film?

Writer Sylas K Barrett shared his experience watching fat Thor in Endgame, 

“I’ve always struggled with body image for other reasons, including society’s general unrealistic beauty standards, and the fact that I’m a transgender person who suffers from pretty intense body dysphoria. But although I’ve experienced seeing myself as bigger than I am, I’ve never before existed in the category of people who are frequently shamed by others for their size and weight. But when the audience laughed at Thor in that moment, vulnerable and shirtless on screen, when I saw that even Bruce and Rocket, his friends who were being so gentle and compassionate with him, grimace in disgust… they might as well have been grimacing at me … 

“In the end, we need Mjolnir to fly in to show us that Thor is worthy, because the movie sure isn’t telling us that he is."

            Thor’s fatness is also linked to a certain incompetency and even awkwardness. "Ragnarok" Thor was more comical, yes, but that humor mostly came from one-liners and/or Thor finding himself in impossibly awkward situations. In that film, Thor is framed as maybe more accessible, but still on top of his game and, above all, still desirable. Fat Thor, meanwhile, is the kind of character who gets into shouting matches with children over the phone when he loses at a video game. We weren’t seeing this degree of incoherence from him before he became plus-sized. In "Endgame," Thor is the awkward situation.

            But let's also not forget what even spurred Thor's weight gain in the first place. In addition to losing half of his kingdom in a mass slaughter, Thor is sinking in the shame of his failure to kill Thanos. Thor was the last card in the deck, the last chance The Avengers had at stopping Thanos, and because he did not capitalize on his moment, half of all life in the universe was dusted. In the five years since, Thor has been filled with so much guilt and self-loathing that it physically transforms him. The jokes practically write themselves, right? ...

I’ll give credit where it’s due: Bruce, who has always been one of the most empathetic Avengers, at least has the decency to ask if Thor’s doing alright. But his other friends won’t be so understanding. Note the awkward side glances everyone gives when Thor is reporting on the Aether and starts blubbering about Jane breaking up with him. 

    Black Widow’s Alexei is subject to a similar joke, but take note at where the laughs are focalized. Thor’s massive weight gain in “Endgame” is a response to grief. This not only links weight gain to failure, but it also turns that failure into a spectacle. Alexei … he just sort of let himself go. Middle-age got to him, and whatever he tells himself, he’s not the thirty-something bachelor he wants to be. I’m also not saying that this presentation of fatness is beyond reproach or question, but there is a distinction. With Alexei, the joke is on his ego. With Thor, the joke is on his shattered psyche. This is another reason why I've never bought the narrative that new Thor is more "accessible" or "relatable" to viewers. Audiences aren't meant to respond with empathy, his failure is purely on display for a cheap and reliable laugh that doesn't let you think too deeply about the implications of the joke or its subject.

Jurassic Park (1993)

   I see a lot of online voices praising the film for "daring" to feature a fat superhero, but what statement is the film really making? That fat people deserve to be seen as long as they're here to amuse us? Because we've seen lots of funny fat guys in film before. It's basically the only space in which fat people are allowed to exist onscreen. No barriers broken here. Again, the internet wanting to find insight or boldness where there just isn't any.

    Yes, "Endgame" puts forth the narrative that, even in his defeat, Thor’s "still worthy” to wield the hammer, but to call his resurrection a phoenix moment when his fall is played entirely for laughs … it’s very dissonant. And I’m not even sure how empowering this is when apparently anyone can wield the hammer now. (I hated it when Vision grabbed the hammer in “Age of Ultron,” and I hated it even more when Steve grabbed it in “Endgame.” Literally stealing his thunder …) 

            But what’s really irritating about “Endgame” Thor is the way he decides to confront this pain, or rather, how he decides not to. The Infinity Saga concludes with Thor giving up the crown and deciding to wander the cosmos so he can find himself, like he’s a college freshman figuring out what major he wants to go into and not the ruler of a country whose people have just been displaced and then massacred and desperately need leadership. This is not a logical progression of his ten-year character arc, nor is it an honest reflection of the process of self-improvement or actualization.

          As we learned in “Ragnarok,” a character twist doesn’t actually need development if you can spin a vaguely philosophical one-liner justifying a new direction. And, as we were reminded with Wanda’s turn in “Multiverse of Madness,” if Marvel really wants to play with a storyline, not even the most ironclad character development can stand in their way. And all it takes is Frigga’s “Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be. The measure of a person and of a hero is how well they succeed at being who they are,” to convince Thor that maybe the throne just wasn’t for him. 

Self-love isn’t the worst thing to explore in a superhero movie, but of all the characters in the MCU, you know which character didn’t have a problem with loving himself? Moreover, by presenting this as a logical next step for Thor, “Endgame” implicitly suggests that Thanos’ genocide was his fault. This also buys into a scheme of predestiny. Leadership isn’t something that a person can attain, but rather something that some people are only “supposed to be” and an elect few simply “are.”

    I’m not saying this turn can’t work in any story, but it also can’t work in just any story. Thor’s entire arc was predicated on him learning that true heroism comes from putting the needs of others before yourself, even when it was difficult. Especially when it was difficult. His position as Prince of Asgard wasn’t just a cushy gig for Thor, it was the means by which he learned that as a person in power he had a responsibility to fight for people who depended on him.

This movie thinks so highly of itself that it tries to rewrite the ascent of the hero on a foundational level. It’s subversive, sure. It’s also nihilistic. And totally in line with the new face of Thor. Where once Thor urged us to live as our best selves, Thor today gives us “stop taking everything so seriously, man!"

            From this side of “Love and Thunder,” I’m not sure what the final word on Thor’s aimlessness is going to be. It looks like Thor is going to start being a hero again, and he might even reconnect with Jane. But I doubt that Valkyrie is going to pass the crown back to him. We can probably expect him to continue his Endless Summer style vacationing.

            I suppose we owe something to “Ragnarok” for creating demand for a fourth Thor film. He’s the only one of the MCU’s Phase 1 headlining heroes still making solo films, and this is a good ten years after his introduction. That said, it’s something of a pyrrhic victory given how much of his original character has been remade. Because the paradox of new Thor is this: Everyone “loves” him, but no one admires or even respects him. 

Here Lies Thor ...

Changes to characters and stories are inevitable, especially across such a long-running narrative like the MCU. I don’t take issue with the fact that Kevin Feige didn’t keep up with my specific tastes, what I wanted Thor to be, across multiple movies spanning over a decade. But at the same time, Marvel has done a pretty good job at landing in the ballpark of what feels right for each character. (Mind you, I committed to writing this before Wanda’s little murder jamboree.)

    Look at where everyone else ended up in “Endgame.” Bruce gets his Hulk under control. Tony gets to have a family with Pepper and find closure with his father before proving that he is “the guy to make the sacrifice play,” countering Steve’s aspersions about him in the first Avengers film. Natasha and Clint get to bring their relationship full circle with Natasha ratifying her long-earned status as a hero in a big way. Even if I think Steve getting to live his life with Peggy is kind of cheating, it’s at least connected to a story arc that has been around since his first film. With Thor, it was signaled early on in his run that his running arc would have him finally learn how to be a just and noble ruler like his father, but wow did that plotline get lost ...

Come the final minutes of the Infinity Saga, Thor not only loses his title, his people, his girlfriend, and his dignity, he gets hoodwinked into thinking that this is what he wanted all along. (I mean, he gets to be a Guardian of the Galaxy for a moment, I guess, but goodness at what cost.) With this shift in design has come a loss of emotional depth. We love him as long as he makes us laugh, even if he has to turn his own shame into a spectacle to do so. He’s made the jump from character to caricature.

   I still enjoy that first Thor film, and I’m grateful it’s not one of those situations where the original is “ruined” by what came after, because that’s not always the case. Just the same, I won’t deny that a part of me feels like I’m suddenly out of place at my own party. People are finally celebrating my favorite Avenger, but not for the reasons that actually made him so cool. Most of all, I'm left stewing over how Thor's personality makeover and Thor's complete breakdown as a character ... these two things didn't just happen incidentally. One caused the other.

Thor 2011 featured a godly superhero abounding in divinity and power and toppled him off his pedestal to become one with the humans he serves. Six years later, Thor: Ragnarok rebranded Thor from angelic guardian of chivalry to dude you might find passed out in the endzone seating of a college football game. Even as I lament this devolution, I am helpless to acknowledge just how tragically poetic the whole thing is.

--The Professor