Journalism!

You can safely listen to this one, we love it pretty solidly.

I really enjoyed the conversation of story and character here. Strong work everyone.

To my understanding that's how he approached PRISONER OF AZKABAN, as well.

I'd call bullshit except, well, it seems to work for him.

There is so much sex in this show I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant now. AND I DON'T KNOW WHOSE IT IS.

I read the first book in advance of the show and am holding off on reading the second, to pace myself. But I loved it, I thought it was a fascinating and well-realized world of a scope and scale to rival Middle Earth, and George R.R. Martin is actually a good writer to boot.

The show is phenomenally well-done and actually clarified a few things that kept confusing me in simply reading the book, now that the characters have faces. And despite being a monster of a book, the filmmakers are actually finding time to add scenes that do not exist in the book but which get across important information that was in the book but not spoken by characters, or to condense/concentrate/clarify character relationships. They have the luxury of 8 more hours than your typical film gets, which allows them to strike the balance of being both true to the plot and true to the story.

I'm loving the show thus far and I'm really looking forward to seeing the concluding episodes of this season. Y'all should check it out once it hits blurry.

I think you're misunderstanding the objection. I, for one, have no problem with implementing pirate/seafaring lore in a rollicking high fantasy adventure. The first movie established a world where supernatural seaman's legends are all true, so all of that is perfectly allowable. Hell, if you're going to tell a story with that setup, you'd BETTER sail off the edge of the earth at some point or I'm gonna ask for my money back. The problem is that the story around those cool crazy happenings is incoherent, which is not what I signed up for, especially when the first movie was so tightly written.

Every character's existing arc is abandoned and replaced by a new one, laden with retcons, and wrapped up halfheartedly amid the whirlpool fighting.

More power to you if you can enjoy it, but the first one is brilliant and the sequels are a mess that flail wildly from one half-baked storyline to the next. They're only "better" if you use that word to mean "more spectacular and expensive." Which, to be fair, a lot of people do.

In terms of having neither a distinct hero nor a clear structure, they were completely successful. In terms of that being a wise move toward making the film entertaining and engaging, not so much.

This might be a core issue, for me. The problem is that the Frost Giants are so underdeveloped that I don't really see it as committing genocide. I literally see it as practically equivalent to trying to exterminate all the spiders in ARACHNOPHOBIA. Or even the Orcs in LOTR (doesn't help that they look very similar). The good guys could have killed every last one of the Orcs in Middle Earth, on screen, and based on the way the story was constructed, they still would have been HEROES.

I'm totally cool if Thor wants to learn the value of life no matter what its form, but that sure as hell wasn't a journey he went on in this movie. Maybe the movie could have done a thing where he thought every creature that wasn't Asgardian was contemptible, and maybe had a poor impression of humans from wars fought or whatever, so that in spending time with humanity and learning we're not all like that, he would be able to extrapolate that, holy crap, maybe the Frost Giants aren't all alike either. Then I could buy his concern for them. But the Frost Giants had nothing to do with what he went through, and like you said yourself, his time on Earth was fraught with emptiness and nothing to drive him as a character.

Part of the problem was that there was a lot going on in Asgard but once Thor got to Earth we spent most of our time there. Fair enough, since he's the titular character, but I think the Asgard story was far more interesting and wish that had been the majority, even the entirety, of the movie, and clearly developed all the things that instead we had to read between the lines.

I know, right?! He should be all like "ASGARD FUCK YEAH" and throwing mead and whores at Thor for startin somethin. Dying in battle was the ONLY THING Vikings thought was worth their time. When did Odin become a fuckin liberal? I like it in my real politicians but NOT MY WARRIOR GOD-KINGS.

SOME SPOILERS AFOOT

Anyway, I pretty much agree with Teague's post. Scene-to-scene, character objectives are clear. How things add up (or rather, don't) is where the film falls apart.

The premise-writing formula I've heard is "What does the hero want, what's standing in his way, and what terrible thing will happen if he doesn't succeed?"

When you apply that to THOR, you get this:

What does Thor want: To reclaim his power (in the form of his hammer) and return to Asgard.
What's standing in his way: Ultimately, his own arrogance, which has made him unworthy of the power (IOW he has to learn great responsibility to earn back his great power). And also S.H.I.E.L.D., I guess. Sort of. Not really.
What terrible thing will happen if he doesn't succeed: ...you got me there. I have no idea.

I mean, okay, you've got Loki usurping the throne from Odin (at least the movie treats it that way, but he's actually got the legitimate claim; see below) and giving Asgard over to the Frost Giants. Let's leave aside for a moment that he's not actually doing that and pretend he is. What if Asgard was taken by the Frost Giants? I mean, that sucks for Asgard, but how does that suck for Earth? Anybody? I guess the Frost Giants would start attacking Earth again, since Asgard is apparently all that stands between them and us. But how did the Frost Giants get to Earth before without the Bifrost?

Now let's come back to the part where he's actually not letting the Frost Giants take over Asgard. Why the fuck does he pretend he is? Just to amuse himself by punking the Frost Giants? He doesn't seem amused, he seems like he's going to fucking cry in just about every scene. To impress his father by defeating/destroying them? Even accepting that Odin can see and hear everything even while he's in a coma (oh, did I not mention he's in a coma? Because he is, for no reason. Except that there'd be no movie if he wasn't), how does Loki expect to impress his father and show up Thor by doing the exact thing that got Thor banished to begin with? And why does he try to destroy Thor and Earth when all he has to do to win is leave them alone?

The climax of the movie comes down to Thor trying to stop Loki from destroying the Frost Giants' planet with the Asgardian rainbow bridge, which is for some reason a rainbow laser when Loki wants it to be. This is like Aragorn deciding he has to stop Frodo from destroying the Ring -- not because he's being mind-controlled by Sauron or the Ring's power, but because he's decided that Orcs are people too -- and we're expected to root for Aragorn despite the rest of the story. The Frost Giants are the enemies of Asgard and that's all we ever know about them. They also have nothing to do with Earth. Earth is not threatened in any way by the outcome of the film's climax.

Thor succeeds: Earth is fine. Thor fails: Earth is fine. Why is Earth even IN this movie?

Asgard is fine in both scenarios, too, for that matter. If Thor never returns to Asgard, Loki pretends to be giving Asgard to the Frost Giants but isn't, and wipes them out of the universe completely. The threat of the Frost Giants eliminated, Asgard is peaceful for the rest of eternity under Loki's legitimate rule. Odin banished Thor and then fell into a coma, both of his own accord -- if their system of passing the crown works anything like ours, Loki is the heir to the throne when he takes it.

So the only thing threatened at the climax of this movie is the planet of the faceless bad guys. None of our characters are in any danger, short or long term, at all.

Wanted to like this. Was looking forward to liking it based on the reviews. There is genuine humor in the movie and the characters all felt like real people, to Branagh's credit. But what they want, and why we should want it too, doesn't ever connect.

Meh, they've been doing that for a while. I usually just rip the movie and send it back right away. I figure if it's good enough for me to care about commentaries or BTS after that, it earned my purchase. Netflix is just my viewing portal for the films themselves.

Yeah, the whole thing about the prequels and SEs is that those ARE, in Lucas' mind, what Star Wars was supposed to be.