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 $200 million from the domestic market making the global total to over $650 million. 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.
Thor: Ragnarok was undoubtedly the best movie out of the all three Thor movies and has made Marvel Cinematic Universe the first ever franchise to earn over $5 billion at the domestic box office.
The movie introduced the most powerful female villain in the MCU and the fans were really excited to see Kate Blanchett as Hela kicking Thor’s ass. But she there was another villain that was supposed to be there in the movie. According to Pearson, the earlier version of the movie had Hela taking on an immensely powerful Destroyer. Pearson said:
“I always want the villain to be really … not-Disney. I want to give them moments where they’re really massacring or crushing people, and she has that great entrance where she takes everybody out. [Originally it was extended,] and they were like, ‘This is a bit repetitive, and we don’t have the days to shoot it.’ There was [also] a scene where she thought they were hiding the sword in the armory, this big fortress. She goes up, and the destroyer armor comes out to take her out, and she just rips that thing apart too, just to call back the destroyer armor. And it just felt like an extra beat that we didn’t need. We needed to get Thor pushing back to Asgard as fast as possible.”
Pearson also fought for Blanchett even before she started taking apart the forces of Asgard. He said:
“When they told me Cate Blanchett [was cast], I was like, ‘Guys, don’t you want to see her give a speech? Don’t you want the best in the world to come in as cool as she is and just tell everyone what she’s going to do? And they’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ And so I got to write a speech for her. And then Taika, of course, comes in with the brilliant way to take the piss out of it at the end.”
This was not the only scene which was cut from the final version by Marvel.
Thor: Ragnarok had many callbacks to other movies in the MCU but there was this one particular Hulk-centric callback from The Avengers which was edited from the final version. 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.”
Recently, Tessa Thompson who played the role of Valkyrie also revealed that the scene which would have addressed Valkyrie’s sexuality directly also didn’t make it to the final cut. Here’s what she said:
“There’s this great illustration of them [Valkyrie and anthropologist Annabelle Riggs] in a kiss.”
“There were things that we talked about that we allowed to exist in the characterization, but maybe not be explicit in the film,”
It’s unfortunate that Marvel studios developed cold feet on featuring an openly bi-sexual character onscreen. But they had no issues whatsoever in showing the extreme violence of Hela where she is slaughtering the entire female warrior clan, one amongst them is Valkyrie’s lover. Here’s what she said about that shot:
“There’s a great shot of me falling back from one of my sisters who’s just been slain. In my mind, that was my lover.”
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