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May. 7th, 2011
Thor: Insert Clever Title Here
May. 7th, 2011 04:18 pmOne of the interesting things to me about the movie is that it wouldn't have existed without Iron Man and the Marvel Cinematic Universe that sprung therefrom. I'm not saying that Thor wouldn't have been adapted into a standalone film in the absence of the idea to spawn a metafranchise, but it wouldn't have been adapted in this way and the results probably wouldn't have been nearly as pretty.
Because this isn't the Mighty Thor being adapted for the big screen in general; it's the Mighty Thor being adapted for the existing cinematic world of Tony Stark and Nick Fury. And it works. It works far better than a movie based around the comic book character of Thor has any right to do.
A comic book universe is an anything goes kind of place to begin with. Movies have to be both more firmly grounded and more narrowly focused. In figuring out how to fit a character who is essentially a big mash-up of Shakespeare, superheroes, Norse religion and legend, and Jack Kirby's ineffable love of gods-as-aliens-with-stupid-hats into the same world as the Iron Man of Iron Man, the filmmakers have discovered the perfect lens for translating the character in a way that we not only can believe, but... and this is the important point in a genre like superheroes that depend so heavily on willful suspension of disbelief... that we will want to.
So how did they make it all fit? By only slightly increasing the "Sufficiently Advanced Aliens" angle of the Marvel characters. The nine worlds are rendered as actual planets spread out across the universe but linked in a cosmic configuration (visualized by the Asgardians as the World Tree, Yggdrasil) that allows for wormhole travel between them. Earth, as Midgard, is one of the "realms" in the configuration.
For all the "Stargate" influence here, it never becomes obnoxious. We don't have a bunch of high tech aliens with scienterrific prowess who for some reason dress up like wizards and play pretend. The Asgardians, with their mastery of science that is indistinguishable from magic, see things differently than we do: they don't distinguish between the two. In an interesting reversal of the usual superior-aliens-chuckling-at-the-primitive-culture, the Midgardlings immediately set about deciphering what's going on in scientific terms while the Asgardians are like, "Lol, what's the difference?"
There's the line in the promos: "Your ancestors called it magic. You call it science. Where I come from, they are one and the same." The movie hews to that perfectly. There is never a moment where the curtain is pulled back and we see circuitry. They never stop to do any complex computations. Their technology is magic and magic is their technology. The only slight exception to this is their method of travel, which they know as the Bifrost bridge and the Midgardlings know as the Einstein-Rosen bridge... both its apparatus and its effects are a bit techier-looking than anything else in Asgard.
But given its uniqueness and importance in the narrative world, that works, too.
For Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, this film delivers the connections you crave: apart from Thor and Fury, we have one Avenger named and appearing on-screen, one Avenger name-checked, and one Avenger referenced in urban legend fashion.
Shield agent Phil Coulson continues to be an unexpected delight. I mean, if you were delighted when he threatened to tase Tony Stark and go watch reality TV, you'll continue to be delighted by him. It's interesting to see how his polite spook routine plays out differently when dealing with underfunded, slightly-hippieish civilian scientists than it does against a billionaire defense contractor/terminally-ill rockstar superhero who is probably pathologically incapable of giving a shit what anybody in a suit wants from him. I hope we get more of him in the future. I know he's confirmed for The Avengers but that's going to be a crowded movie.
And I do hope we get Thor sequels. I know that the Thor/Loki plot will continue in The Avengers, but there's so much more there. Like Heimdall. There is a lot going on with Heimdall, but it all is done... well, quietly, but also booming. Heimdall is presented as a god of few words and deep conflicts, so there's a lot about him that is left unsaid. It would be a shame if this one movie is all we get to see of him.
Because this isn't the Mighty Thor being adapted for the big screen in general; it's the Mighty Thor being adapted for the existing cinematic world of Tony Stark and Nick Fury. And it works. It works far better than a movie based around the comic book character of Thor has any right to do.
A comic book universe is an anything goes kind of place to begin with. Movies have to be both more firmly grounded and more narrowly focused. In figuring out how to fit a character who is essentially a big mash-up of Shakespeare, superheroes, Norse religion and legend, and Jack Kirby's ineffable love of gods-as-aliens-with-stupid-hats into the same world as the Iron Man of Iron Man, the filmmakers have discovered the perfect lens for translating the character in a way that we not only can believe, but... and this is the important point in a genre like superheroes that depend so heavily on willful suspension of disbelief... that we will want to.
So how did they make it all fit? By only slightly increasing the "Sufficiently Advanced Aliens" angle of the Marvel characters. The nine worlds are rendered as actual planets spread out across the universe but linked in a cosmic configuration (visualized by the Asgardians as the World Tree, Yggdrasil) that allows for wormhole travel between them. Earth, as Midgard, is one of the "realms" in the configuration.
For all the "Stargate" influence here, it never becomes obnoxious. We don't have a bunch of high tech aliens with scienterrific prowess who for some reason dress up like wizards and play pretend. The Asgardians, with their mastery of science that is indistinguishable from magic, see things differently than we do: they don't distinguish between the two. In an interesting reversal of the usual superior-aliens-chuckling-at-the-primitive-culture, the Midgardlings immediately set about deciphering what's going on in scientific terms while the Asgardians are like, "Lol, what's the difference?"
There's the line in the promos: "Your ancestors called it magic. You call it science. Where I come from, they are one and the same." The movie hews to that perfectly. There is never a moment where the curtain is pulled back and we see circuitry. They never stop to do any complex computations. Their technology is magic and magic is their technology. The only slight exception to this is their method of travel, which they know as the Bifrost bridge and the Midgardlings know as the Einstein-Rosen bridge... both its apparatus and its effects are a bit techier-looking than anything else in Asgard.
But given its uniqueness and importance in the narrative world, that works, too.
For Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, this film delivers the connections you crave: apart from Thor and Fury, we have one Avenger named and appearing on-screen, one Avenger name-checked, and one Avenger referenced in urban legend fashion.
Shield agent Phil Coulson continues to be an unexpected delight. I mean, if you were delighted when he threatened to tase Tony Stark and go watch reality TV, you'll continue to be delighted by him. It's interesting to see how his polite spook routine plays out differently when dealing with underfunded, slightly-hippieish civilian scientists than it does against a billionaire defense contractor/terminally-ill rockstar superhero who is probably pathologically incapable of giving a shit what anybody in a suit wants from him. I hope we get more of him in the future. I know he's confirmed for The Avengers but that's going to be a crowded movie.
And I do hope we get Thor sequels. I know that the Thor/Loki plot will continue in The Avengers, but there's so much more there. Like Heimdall. There is a lot going on with Heimdall, but it all is done... well, quietly, but also booming. Heimdall is presented as a god of few words and deep conflicts, so there's a lot about him that is left unsaid. It would be a shame if this one movie is all we get to see of him.