MWKarsa, on 15 May 2011 - 12:58 AM, said:
I saw it yesterday and I thought it was decent- not bad but not great. Basically it seems that Thor just needed to get banished to Earth to learn humility by getting tasered, subdued by hospital staff, eating a big breakfast and meeting and falling in love with Natalie Portman in 2 days. After that he wants to sacrifice himself and thus regain his honor and is granted the right to wield Mjolnir again- montage humility learned/honor regained storyline in less than 48 hours.
I loved the action scenes and they pulled off making Thor look pretty badass while fighting- nice Frost Giant fight and when he got to fly around on Earth using the elements was very nice. Thought the storyline was pretty weak and seemed like(which it soley is) a prequel to the Avengers movie without doing justice to a potentially great character. The Loki-Thor-Odin- "Geez Dad you never liked me as much as big brother!

" plotline was generic at best.
Decent movie but could have been much much better.
An odd way of looking at this. If it's basic, it's cause this is the Marvel comics Thor origin story. That said, the Asgard stuff was Shakespearean calibre and brilliantly nuanced...and the earth stuff was lighter, well dialogued and acted all the way through. Thor, at heart, is not a bad person, he never was...just impetuous...he didn't need a life turning point...he needed a slap on the wrist, Odin is aware of that and that's why he sent Mjolnir after him with the spell attached. So yeah, the humility he's learning isn't going to take much really...and the lesson isn't actually learned by any of the things you mentioned at all. The thing that does it is his convo with Loki on earth in the SHIELD compound....finding out the things that Loki says happened as a result of his decisions...is what changes his mind, and that convo was poignant and well acted. Not sure how you missed that being his turning point.
You also can't say it happened in 48 hours...no times were given, just because every minute is not on screen doesn't mean it didn't take longer than that. It kind of boggles my mind when folk assume that a film's timeline is only what is presented on screen (no offense though dude). I'd say these events happened over a week probably, maybe two.
I really gotta take issue with the "prequel comment" though. This is Thor's origin story. Thor came along as one of the last members recruited for the Avengers, so the fact that his origin story overlaps SHIELD and Nick Fury putting together the team is something that kind of has to happen alongside. So it's not a prequel...it's his origin story as it pertains to his first time on earth/midgard. If it WAS a prequel, we would have seen the other members of the Avengers team in some ways (other than the Hawkeye cameo), and it would have concentrated more on SHIELD and the Avenger's initiative in general....SHIELD is only really involved because of the fact that they got wind of Mjolnir being in the middle of a crater in New Mexico....that's it, the hammer. The rest of the story is purely origin.
The Thor-Odin-Loki relationship is KEY to the reasons Loki is evil, Thor is heroic and Odin is so conflicted. It's also one of the main things that makes huge arcs in the comic so worthwhile. I'm not going to assume you haven't read the comic (though your issues with the film kind of speak that way to me), but how is it that you felt that part of the movie was generic when it is so key to the comic Thor's life. Sorry, I don't understand that.
This movie was damn near perfect from end to end in my eyes. I challenge you to tell me how you thought it could have been "so much better"....just curious.
It had everything I love about the Asgard side of things and the earth side of things that I've been enjoying in Thor comics since I was a kid.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon