Thor: Ragnarok Preview

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: up to this point there has yet to be a great Thor movie. The first one was alright—though it mostly just established who Loki was—and the second one…happened. Yeah, really there wasn’t much to take from it, besides a not unique in the slightest villain doing bad things because he’s bad. That’s it. No more explanation than that. I suppose you could say that up until now, it’s been a bit of a Thor spot for the MCU.

Now that that’s done we can get to the good stuff—namely everything about this movie that we’ve seen (except for Thor’s haircut…). The ad campaign to date has been bright and flashy like Guardians of the Galaxy. We’ve seen the humorous moment of “He’s my friend… from work!” Which honestly felt like a Guardians style joke. Thor has been (ironically enough) one of the more grounded heroes (excluding the whole flying via magically powered hammer blessed by his dad thing). He stayed true to the whole “there are magical rules in place with certain things in this weird, physics-lacking domain that I will rule over once dad dies” routine. So, it’s certainly a different feel for this franchise—and certainly a welcome one considering how terribly ok the other two movies have been.

In terms of villains, we know that Jeff Goldblum plays the Grandmaster—aka a dude with crazy powers that include traversing time, space, dimensions, being really good at every game in existence, and putting on really bad makeup. He is the “brother” of the Collector (who we saw in Guardians 1) and one of the last surviving members of the original inhabitants of reality. Basically, he’s an immortal guy who likes to make people fight for the heck of it.

Then there’s Hela. She’s the scary chick who looks like she murdered a big black metal deer and put its antlers on her head. Also, she’s the one who blew up Thor’s hammer. An impressive feat. She’s on a mission to destroy Asgard. In short, she’s an angrier, stronger, smarter, meaner, eviler, female version of Loki in the first one.

When it comes to heroes, we know for sure we get to see Thor (that’s kind of a given) and his freshly shorn scalp. Then there’s Hulk. Still pretty much just Hulk—though to be fair, we should get some explanation of what happened after Age of Ultron. We’ll get to see the Warriors Three, who hopefully do more than just get their butts handed to them (again). We know Loki’s in here somewhere, though whether he’s a hero or a villain remains to be seen. A few other people will also be showing up, including Doctor Strange, Stan Lee, Heimdall, Valkyrie, Skurge, and Odin.

POSSIBLE SPOLIERS AHEAD!!!

Who do I think is going to die?

The Warriors Three.

They really serve no more purpose in the franchise, they aren’t that great of characters, they’re kind of a joke—oh yeah, and the director says that they get an honorable death, so that makes it pretty easy to guess.

Odin.

He’s an old man banished to Earth set to roam the earth while his kids have power battle. Yeah, that ought to be enough to kill the guy.

Loki.

We’ve seen a lot of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. We’ve also seen him fail to serve his masters repeatedly. Loki has messed up a bunch and may finally come back to bite him in this movie.

 

Crazy theories I found include:

Odin’s eye is the last infinity stone.

No, no, no, no. That’s literally just a cheap throw away to reference fury’s other eye in Winter Soldier.

We get to see Thanos steal the infinity gauntlet in this movie.

Nope, James Gunn already said there are two gauntlets.

Thor’s hammer has the last Infinity Stone.

Ok, I could get behind this one. If the last stone is in the hammer and Hela blows up the hammer to get at the goods inside then… yeah that’s plausible.

Cap can lift the hammer now.

This one’s a little out there but bear with me. We saw Cap try to pick up the hammer, and he moved it, but he couldn’t fully lift it. There are those who speculate that he couldn’t pick it up because he was lying about knowing how Tony’s parents died. Now that that’s out in the open- Cap can pick up the hammer.

The Guardians of the Galaxy Show Up. Considering the promos, tv spots, and ads all feel a lot like a guardians movie, it wouldn’t be crazy to see them (possibly as a post credits scene or something), though there is another part to this theory that states the Guardians are Thor and Hulk’s ride back to earth.

Double- Double- Agent. Basically, Loki helps Hela take power, then turns his back on her, then helps Thor get the last Infinity Stone and defeat Hela, then turn his back on Thor to give the Infinity Stone to Thanos in exchange for protection during Infinity War.

Thor Ragnarok debuts in theaters Friday, November 3.