Thursday, May 19, 2011

Thor!!!

I really really liked it!  I hadn't read any Thor comics before I saw the film (although by the time this post goes live I should have my grubby mitts on at least one trade) and so I didn't really know what to expect from it.  It soon became apparent that the Marvel story is very different to the Eddas (I wasn'nt surprised) but it was fun nontheless.

Heimdall was ace.  As was Looki and Thor.  All the actors were great and Thor and Heimdall were huge!  Thor is also really fucking hot.  I got quite excited.  Asgard was impressive as was bifrost (although I'd have preferred something a little more ethereal and lighter in colour).

Thor was all gung ho until he lost his hammer, and the poor guy just deflated.  He looked utterly crestfallen.  the final fight was great fun!

In terms of the female characters, Sif was a warrior in this, not the earth goddess I thought she was, and Frigga was, well, not named.  I mean, what the fuck?  She's the Queen of the Gods and not once was she named in the film.  Ahe was stately and regal (and handy with a sword), but she wasn't NAMED.


Add to this the secret scene at the end of the film where it's the male scientist who gets invited to SHEILD, depsite the fact that Jane is the major character in this film, and I get cross (again).  This casual sexism makes me angry.

Apart from that, it was good.  Jane was a typical eccentric scientist type (this is usually a male character) and the comic relief was female (again, usually male).  One of my male friends commented that he was annoyed the way the comeptent female characters tend to get sidelined as love interests (at least that's what I think he was saying).  I'm not sure that's appropriate in this film's case but I thought it was an interesting view.

I also got to see the Green Lantern trailer on the big screen!  It still has it's problems but I am now really really excited to see it!

7 comments:

notintheface said...

I could have sworn I heard somebody call her "Friga" in the film. I think it was Sif, but I'm not completely sure of that.

Saranga said...

Ok, if I discover I did mishear, I'll be really embaressed. :o

Lord Runolfr said...

It's not true to "real" mythology, but it's very true to the comics mythology.

And Thor wasn't really crestfallen until he discovered that he couldn't lift the hammer anymore. Even as a mortal he was gung-ho up to that point. He apparently figured that the "test" of his worthiness was just getting to the hammer without his Asgardian powers.

notintheface said...

Also, I don't want to sound like Mr. Sexism Apologist, but I got the feeling that the male scientist Eric might have ALWAYS been in cahoots with Fury, even before Jane and her work got onto SHIELD's radar. In other words, from before the start of the movie. I could be wrong, but that's my takeaway,

Eyz said...

Isn't Sif always a Warrior? then again, I only know Thor from JMS recent reboot...

I cannot wait to check it out! So far the reception (with comic fans) seems to be pretty good.

Saranga said...

@ Lord R: Yes, you are right about when Thor lost his enthusiasm. That was a poor choice of words on my part.

@notintheface: That doesn't make you sound like a sexism apologist at all. Yesterday I was chatting to friends about the Iron Man 2 movie, and they said the secret scene at the end of that was the same as the one for Thor. So with that in mind and considering how Eric knew about SHEILD your take is probably right.

Saranga said...

@Eyz: I have no idea what Sif is like in the comics, and I'm not that knowlegdable on Norse mythology, but I think that a lot of the Norse deities were meant to be warrior like.