Thor Ragnarok is on a record-breaking spree and getting an amazing response from Marvel fans in particular and comic-book lovers in general. It is the funniest Marvel movie ever and best Thor movie for sure. The movie has opened to a massive opening weekend and has raked in over $170 million already. The first reactions from the audience are very positive and everything from visual effects to storytelling is just impeccable. The movie is sitting on 93% 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 as the powerful new villain Hela (leader of Doomeo i.e Asgardian Hell); Jeff Goldblum 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 as the classic hero Valkyrie who may play Thor’s love interest; Karl Urban as Skurge who is a powerful warrior and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/ Hulk.
Thor: Ragnarok has many callbacks to other movies in the MCU but there was this one particular Hulk-centric callback from The Avengers. Recently, Empire spoke with the director Taika Waititi about the secrets of the latest movie. According to Waititi, a scene where the Hulk punches Loki just like he punched Thor in the first Avengers movie was cut from the final version of the movie.
The scene where the team lines up on the bridge also didn’t make it to the movie despite being used during the marketing of the movie. This is what he really said:
“They all land on the bridge — Thor, Loki and then Hulk, they stand for a second. Then Hulk just smashes Loki, punches him out of the frame — just like in Avengers, when Hulk did it to Thor. It was a crowd favorite, but we just had to get rid of it for time.”
Taika Waititi also revealed that the scene featuring Odin on Earth and then the scene where Hela destroys Thor’s hammer in the alley were also cut from the movie. This lead to reshooting of the scene where she destroys the Mjolnir which was also used in the trailers.
Apart from this, there was an alternate post-credit scene in the movie that couldn’t make it but may make it to the DVD and Blu-ray version of the movie. The director himself suggests that making it a part of the DVD version along with the Hulk-Loki callback scene is a real possibility.
“It might be on the DVD,” Waititi said.
Lastly, there was also a cameo of Beta Ray in the early cuts of the movie but it wasn’t included in the movie. According to Marvel Studios President, Kevin Feige, Beta Ray wasn’t in the movie because the movie didn’t have enough of him.
While speaking with Crave Online, Feige explained why it wasn’t the great time to introduce Beta Ray Bill in the movie. He said:
“There was a Beta Ray Bill, but it was so quick that you would have the same complaints that you have now,” “he was in it a little bit more and it just didn’t do justice. And the feeling is, if you can’t do it justice, do it later.”
The movie is inspired by 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.
Although there were many aspects borrowed from comics, for instance, Hela’s powers are taken from Aaron’s character Gorr aka God Butcher. On the other hand, there were major differences between movie and comics. In the comics, Thor’s power is tied to his hammer Mjolnir. In fact, in Marvel comic titled The Mighty Thor # 12, the history of God of Thunder was rewritten only to show how special Mjolnir really is.
Many many years ago, when Odin met the powerful cosmic force known as God Tempest, he used dark magic to trap it inside Uru metal and ordered the dwarfs to forge it into the hammer. In fact, the hammer is so powerful that anyone who is worthy can lift it and become Thor. Lately in comics, Jane Foster has become female Thor. But in the movie, Thor discovered that the real power lies within and Mjolnir was just the conduit.
Moreover, we saw Thor becoming the new king of Asgard while Hela is not really dead but incredibly wounded and people of Asgard are safe for now. There were two post-credit scenes and only the first one was consequential.
Thor and Loki are discussing if they should visit Earth or not and suddenly they are interrupted by the massive ship. We could not see who was inside but Kevin Feige confirmed that it belongs to mad Titan himself. It is known as Sanctuary II.
It’s very likely that this scene will be the first scene of Avengers Infinity War. Why is Thanos interested in Thor’s ship? Well, at the end of Thor Ragnarok, when Loki went into treasure room to bring Surtur alive, he looked at Tesseract and must have grabbed it because he is God of mischief. The ship will probably be destroyed by Thanos and Loki will gladly hand over the Infinity stone to him.
Moreover, the footage for the Infinity war movie shown at Disney’s D23 begins with Guardians of the Galaxy finding Thor floating in space unconscious without a space suit, Thor asks them about their identities. Let’s wait for the trailer to arrive.
The movie has all the ingredients to become a massive blockbuster. CHEERS!
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