More Thor: Love and Thunder Pics Seek to be Worthy

With Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness in theaters, Marvel and Disney are now focusing on Thor: Love and Thunder, with two months to get people psyched for something I think many have been dreading since director Taika Waititi let fans know what he thought of the character’s mythos. First, Empire magazine had an image of Thor standing next to Jane Foster cosplaying as Thor:

Thor pics

I really don’t like the aesthetic of Thor’s outfit. I know Waititi loves the flashy 80s motif, but it has its limits, and this getup makes Ragnarok look restrained. It looks more like a cheap Halloween costume than a suit of armor for an immortal warrior god, and it’s another indication that the MCU is well past taking Thor seriously. As for Jane, well, of course, she gets the darker colors and Mjolnir because she’s literally Thor now or whatever. But her armor looks like plastic too, and while it comes off better than Thor’s, it’s not by much. That being said, it does serve as a lovely template:

Then, Entertainment Weekly published an exclusive photo in their 2022 Summer Preview, which you can see here:

Thor pics

This one is leagues better and shows Thor looking like he’s in an actual movie, surrounded by chaos as he watches New Asgard burn. He’s wearing his traditional (movie) costume with a fur pelt over his cape and Stormbreaker in his hand, ready for battle. Now, that’s how you sell a superhero movie! I assume the destruction visited on New Asgard is courtesy of Gor the God Butcher, whom we haven’t seen yet. If that’s the case, destroying the new home Thor created for his people is a good way of establishing the new villain as a legitimate threat, or at least as someone Thor would like to pound into dust.

I think it’s also worth noting how these pictures fit into what I said about the marketing of Thor: Love and Thunder when the posters were revealed – namely that, for all their self-back-slapping over Jane Foster and her Rosie the Riveter role, the advertising is centered on Chris Hemsworth as Thor. The first picture features both of them, and even though she’s got Mjolnir, Hemsworth dominates the image. And she’s not in the one from Entertainment Weekly, which focuses on Thor looking like a badass. The trailer was all about him, with Jane popping up at the end once everyone was already in a good mood. Even her poster had to follow a much better one of Hemsworth, riding his coattails as she is with her entire persona. They know who people want to see in this movie, and it isn’t Thor’s juiced-up girlfriend.

But there’s more to extrapolate from these articles than the pictures. If you read what Taika Waititi says in that Empire piece, you get an insight into modern movie writing, particularly when writing about women:

“You don’t want Natalie coming back and playing that same character who’s walking around with science equipment. You know, while Thor’s flying around, she’s left on Earth, tapping her foot going, ‘When’s he going to be back?’ That’s boring. You want her to be part of the adventure.”

This is a misunderstanding of Jane as a character and what differentiates her from the other women in Thor’s life. Jane “carries around science equipment” because she’s a scientist, not a warrior. That’s what attracts Thor to her; she’s different than Lady Sif or Valkyrie, or any of the other women Thor has encountered. Putting her in a Viking costume (or whatever the hell those things in the picture are) and sending her into battle betrays that and makes her indistinguishable from the others. And I’d add that The Dark World made her “part of the adventure” without changing her (too much; her demeanor is different, putting her on the “tough girl” road, which is also inconsistent with her character); she was the vessel for the Aether, and then she used her scientific know-how to help Thor stop the apocalypse Malekith was causing. Jane can go along with Thor as he travels the Nine Realms and play a role in the story that fits her personality and skillset. But the modern thinking is that a woman isn’t strong unless she’s got super strength and is killing bad guys, so here’s Lady Thor.

Thor pics

In Entertainment Weekly, Waititi first talks about the themes Thor will be wrestling with in Love and Thunder:

“Everyone sort of asks this question in the film: What is your purpose? What is the reason that you’re a hero, and what do you do when you have these powers?”

Then, he discusses Valkyrie’s role as the new “king” of Asgard (because they love women so much that they denigrate anything feminine and replace it with a man’s title):

“She’s got to do all the things that they never tell you about when you’re supposed to rule the people, which is deal with all of the infrastructure and figure out the economy and have delegates visit from other countries… So, she’s spending a lot of her time not fighting, and all of her new battles have to do with ruling her people.”

I get the sinking feeling Thor: Love and Thunder is going to be like some of those Marvel miniseries, where you can see the outline of what the story should have been. From what Waititi says, it would seem like the logical conclusion to Thor wondering who he is and what he should be doing is realizing that he’s delegating his responsibilities to others – Thunder God superheroing to Jane, ruling Asgard to Valkyrie – when he should be doing those things himself, which is what would make him a hero. But do you think there’s a chance in hell that they’ll say a man should be doing what these two women are, even if the movie is named after that man? I don’t.

What do you think of these Thor: Love and Thunder pictures? Are you looking forward to the movie? Will those plastic costumes sell out at Party City because the film used so much of their inventory? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned to Geeks + Gamers for more Marvel merriment!

Thanks again to Empire and Entertainment Weekly for the pictures!

Comments (4)

May 10, 2022 at 8:44 pm

The color scheme is the most comics accurate to date:

https://images.app.goo.gl/vQUApzrkdcZ94Roc9

    May 12, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    I don’t think it works, based on that picture. If they hadn’t infused the gold onto the body, which isn’t from the comics, it might come off better. And the texture of the outfit is huge detriment. In the Entertainment Weekly article, Waititi says the aesthetic was mostly influenced by “movie posters for things like Conan or Beastmaster and the fancy art that you’d see on vans in Venice Beach.”

May 11, 2022 at 11:31 am

I recently heard that in the MSheU *SPOILER**** that Valkyrie and Captain Marvel are dating also. So yay to black gay female kings.

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