Thor Ragnarok is the upcoming Marvel movie inspired from Jack Kirby’s Ragnarok comic wherein Asgard is burned to the ground and rebuilt from the ashes. The plot revolves around Thor’s struggle to stop goddess of death from destroying his home planet. The critics have heaped massive praise on Taika Waititi direction style and the fun elements introduced in the movie. The first reactions from the audience is very positive and everything from visual effects to storytelling is just impeccable. The movie is sitting on 96% on Rotten Tomatoes at present.
Apart from the usual cast including Chris Hemsworth (Thor, God of Thunder), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Anthony Hopkins (Odin) and Idris Elba (Heimdall), the movie also features two-time Oscar award winner Cate Blanchett (Queen Elizabeth, Blue Jasmine, Carol etc) as the powerful new villain Hela (leader of Doomeo i.e Asgardian Hell); Jeff Goldblum (Independence Day, Jurassic Park) as the eccentric grandmaster who is an elder of the universe, he is sometimes called as “Inter-galactic Cosmic Pleasure-seeker”, he possessed the mind-gem until Thanos took it away from him; Tessa Thomson (Creed, Selma) as the classic hero Valkyrie who may play Thor’s love interest; Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Star Trek trilogy) as Skurge who is a powerful warrior and Mark Ruffalo (Avengers, Foxcatcher, Spotlight) as Bruce Banner/ Hulk.
We know that we will see a version of Planet Hulk story-line within the Thor movie. In comics, the story revolved around how the Hulk crash-lands to a different planet ruled by a tyrant who forces him to fight against powerful creatures of the realm. He will be involved in gladiatorial games organized by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) wearing his one-shoulder armor just like in the comics. At Disney D-23 Annual Expo, a new poster for Thor: Ragnarok was unveiled which offers a better look at gladiator armor and the epic battle between Thor and his fellow Avenger “The Hulk”.
In the past, there have been two independent Hulk movies, in the first one Eric Bana played the green monster while in the second one Edward Norton was “The Hulk”. Finally, Hulk was re-introduced into the MCU and Mark Ruffalo is our near perfect Bruce Banner/The Hulk. For years fans have been demanding a Hulk solo movie since the franchise was left midway without proper closure. In a recent interview with Cinema Blend, Mark Ruffalo said Thor: Ragnarok is the start of a new Hulk trilogy and that Avengers 3 and Avengers 4 will be sequel and threequel. Here’s what he had to say:
“So basically, Kevin Feige pulled me aside before this, and said, ‘If you were gonna do a… if we were going to do a standalone Hulk movie, what would it be?’ And I said, ‘I think it should be this, this, this, and this and this, and ends up like this.’ And he’s like, ‘I love that. Why don’t we do that in the next three movies, starting with Thor 3 and then we go into Avengers 3 and 4.’ And I was like, ‘That sounds great!’ And so we are at the beginning of this arc.”
He added: “Hulk speaking is the start to separating of these two individuals, these identities in this split-identity person, and where that’s going to end up going. So it was really interesting to me. He’s like a baby! He’s like a five year old or six year old. So he has the same syntax, he has the same world view, and so it was fun. It’s like Chris Hemsworth – we all got to reinvent our characters in this.”
Marvel Studios is now ramping up its marketing campaign for Thor 3 and released a new TV spot which has mighty Thor putting together a team of Asgardian warriors against Cate Blanchett’s Hela to save the Kingdom of Asgard. We know that Thor and Gladiator Hulk will battle it out in the arena, they would survive and would go on a “cosmic road-trip”. But their plans to save Asgard from Hela’s forces will take a massive beating and Asgard will be devastated in a huge battle. In the official trailer of the movie released by Marvel, the Goddess of death Hela is seen holding Mjolnir. In comics, once she possessed Twilight sword and threatened to destroy all nine realms. As a result, she was banished by King Odin.
Recently, a picture was released which basically confirmed Dr. Strange showing up in the movie. It was confirmed in the post-credits scene of Doctor Strange that he will help Thor in Ragnarok. The God of Thunder will travel to Sanctum Santorum in Greenwich village, New York to learn more about Infinity stones. It is also possible that he needs to know how to travel through realms something which Dr. Strange has mastered through magic and mystical arts. Further, in the Japanese trailer of Thor: Ragnarok, we see Dr. Strange and he is issuing a dire warning to Thor.
He said: “Thor, I sense a great change in your future. Destiny has dire plans for you, my friend, to which Thor responds, I have dire plans for destiny.”
In addition to Hulk and Dr. Strange, it’s now revealed that there is a cameo of Black Widow at a critical moment in the movie. Apparently, there will be a reunion of Black Widow and The Hulk who was last seen in the Age of Ultron, where Black Widow would sing “lullaby” to Hulk to calm him down and bring back Bruce Banner.
According to We Got This Covered, Black Widow’s appearance is brief but important in Bruce’s journey as he is attempting to escape Planet Sakaar. Thor and Hulk found Quinnjet that he used to leave Earth but it’s not activated for the last two years and he has not been transformed into Bruce either. When they board the jet and activate the engines, the pre-recorded message from Black Widow plays out:
“Nice work, big guy. We don’t know where Ultron’s headed, but you’re going very high very fast so I need you to turn this bird around, ok? We can’t track you in stealth mode, so… I need you to help me out, ok?”
This is really impactful as it brought a sense of calm and turns Hulk into Bruce Banner.
Infact, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi recently revealed that if he were given a chance to direct a movie, he would like to do Black Widow comedy flick. Here’s what he said:
“In all honesty, I reckon I could probably bring something pretty unique to any of the franchises. So, I’d love to see Black Widow. I’d like to see Black Widow as something crazy and a bit funnier than we expect it to be. Because we know her story and it’s very sullen and very dark and her history is very dark. But! What’s the funny version of that? What’s the more entertaining version of that?”
There are two ways to look at these comments – Firstly, the idea of Black Widow solo movie is old and will get Marvel fans hugely exited. Secondly, the idea of a comedy seem out of place with Black Widow in it, one would imagine a Bourne Ultimatum kinda movie for her. But Taika is this master film-maker who got elements of comedy work extremely well in Ragnarok as well. He doubled down on his previous comments and said:
“I really go for the underdog. And I think there’s a way in with any of the characters. You just have to find it and find what honors what’s already there with the source material but also brings it into a more entertaining form for the audience.”
Here’s the official synopsis of the movie:
“Imprisoned on the other side of the universe, the mighty Thor finds himself in a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against the Hulk, his former ally and fellow Avenger. Thor’s quest for survival leads him in a race against time to prevent the all-powerful Hela from destroying his home world and the Asgardian civilization”.
The movie will be more action-packed and it will also be the shortest ever Marvel movie. In continuing with the traditions of Thor movies, Kenneth Branagh’s Thor was 114 minutes, Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World was 112 minutes long but Thor: Ragnarok will just have 100 minutes runtime. Taika Waititi said to Collider:
“The cut right now, I reckon it’s about 100 minutes. It’s not gonna be a very, very long film. I think that stories are better when you leave them wanting more, and this film moves at a clip, it’s got stuff happening all the time. I think people are still gonna feel exhausted by the end; they’ve been on this big journey and stuff, so I don’t think we need the film to be three hours”.
From the look and feel of it, it seems there are all the ingredients present in the movie to become a huge blockbuster. The movie will hit theatres on November 3, 2017.
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