This Week In Retro: Thor (2011) (Patreon)

May 6, 2011: Marvel gambles on the God of Thunder

by Diamond Feit

Here in 2021, superhero movies are standing at a crossroads. The ongoing pandemic has made the prospect of going to the multiplex less desirable than ever, and more studios are eying digital distribution direct to consumers as a viable business model. Just look how much social media chatter was generated by Zack Snyder's Justice League and WandaVision. Marvel says Phase 4 will return to theaters this year, but what happens in 2022 and beyond is anyone's guess.

10 years ago this week, the budding Marvel Cinematic Universe was only three movies deep but the gambit had already been laid bare: Four classic superheroes would each get their own big-screen origin story as a leadup to an Avengers team-up film. Iron Man and Hulk took their turns in the spotlight, but in May of 2011 it was time for Marvel's biggest challenge. The mighty Thor needed to step up and answer the question of whether mainstream audiences would buy a fantasy tale about quarreling gods.

From an elevator pitch standpoint, the initial MCU films had a low bar to clear. Iron Man is Bruce Wayne with a bigger budget, and Hulk is just a Jekyll & Hyde metaphor (and was already famous thanks to his 1970s television series). Even if Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are genius-level scientists, their character struggles are relatable to everyone. They have obvious weaknesses, and are ultimately only human.

Thor is different. Looks aside, he isn't human. He's super strong, summons lightning bolts, carries a magic hammer, and is borderline invincible. He's not the God, but he's arguably a god. More than that, he's a prince living in a fabulous faraway kingdom. He's a rich, Shakespearean Superman without the Kansas charm. How could audiences connect with such an inscrutable being?

The answer turned out to be simple: Take away his godliness and strand Thor on Earth, grounding his otherworldly adventures and placing him in a fish-out-of-water romance. In a very video-game-like storytelling decision, our hero appears at full strength in the first act, only to be reset and forced to build himself back up again. In this case, Thor is humbled and banished from Asgard by his father Odin. Stripped of his powers (and his hammer), Thor spends the bulk of his first film as a mortal, albeit a very handsome one capable of fighting and hard drinking. Only in the final few minutes does Thor regain his mightiness, just in time to end the threat with a few swings of Mjolnir.

Trapping Thor in New Mexico sans all superpowers accomplishes another feat, as it allows for a surprisingly low-stakes adventure. Most Marvel films before and after Thor pit the heroes against large-scale threats, fighting for the lives of countless innocent people. Yet Thor is only in danger for a brief scene in the third act, and even then the Destroyer is targeting him more than anyone else. A strip of Main Street in a small town and several SHIELD vehicles get roasted, but otherwise humanity is never at risk. The biggest danger in Thor is faced by the film's ostensible villains, the Frost Giants, and Thor saves them thanks to his new-found empathy and compassion.

Of course, all the screenwriting and special effects in the world wouldn't have mattered if Thor hadn't found the right people to bring these characters to life, but Marvel (and veteran actor/director Kenneth Branagh) loaded the cast with gold. Besides obvious aces like Anthony Hopkins as Odin and Idris Elba as Heimdall, Natalie Portman (coming off her Academy Award-winning work in Black Swan) injects a lot of heart into the role of Jane Foster. Her role doesn't have much substance—she's there to deliver exposition and fall in love with Thor—but Portman sells the romantic relationship at the film's epicenter, uplifting the rest of the story.

Then-unknown Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston play Thor and Loki, respectively, and they end up carrying the movie. Hemsworth is the focal point of the picture, and he makes portraying a superhero look easy. Thor goes through a real journey, both metaphorical and literal, and Hemsworth is believable throughout. Hiddleston's Loki is a genuine surprise though, as the character could have easily turned into a snarling monster, yet he instead feels like the star of his own story. As such, Loki becomes the rare Marvel villain to actually stick around for multiple films, and he will have his very own series later this year.

Arriving the same week as the film was Thor: God of Thunder, an officially-licensed video game for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and DS (a 3DS version followed in the fall). The third-person hack-and-slash game radically departs from the film's story; no doubt the publishers balked at the idea of an interactive version of Thor losing all his powers and spending hours stuck in New Mexico. Instead, God of Thunder is an epic multi-realm battle with a variety of classic Asgard-haters, including a few who would eventually appear in the film's sequels.

Each version of the game has its own distinct features—Nintendo's hardware lacked the graphical horsepower that the early HD consoles offered—but the DS game stood out as unique as it eschewed 3D entirely for 2D side-scrolling action. Developed by WayForward, God of Thunder on DS uses the platform's double screens to pit Thor against giant-sized enemies crafted with pixel-art instead of polygons. While no one rated God of Thunder especially high, it was this DS version which ended up with the best overall reception. It seems that critics in 2011 weren't looking for a God of War clone starring Norse deities, at least not until the actual God of War took on Asgard in 2018.

Revisiting Thor this week, I had forgotten just how different it felt from the other MCU pictures at the time. Thor is a hero, sure, but he's also vulnerable in ways that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner never were. One year later, when he returned for The Avengers, Thor would take on more of a charismatic role, but in his first film he's rough around the edges. He's still powerful and capable of performing great deeds, but what impresses those around him are the lessons he learns and the small choices he makes.

A decade later, I am grateful for all that Thor gets right, even if it's low on my personal list of Marvel movies (and Thor: Dark World is even lower). I was never a big fan of the character, unlike every other Phase 1 hero, and yet I came away from his movie with a newfound appreciation for him. Looking ahead, I'm even more excited about the upcoming sequel that finally puts the spotlight on Jane Foster. I just hope when Thor: Love & Thunder's release date arrives, Disney executives believe movie theaters are still worthy.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.