So here we are, the last MCU movie that I have to cover before I see Avengers Infinity War. I really should have done this sooner but you know, life, ironically when I'm talking about a movie named after the end of the world. In terms of chronological release; right after a less then exceptional homecoming party for everyones favorite neighborhood Spider-Man we saw what is undoubtably the best Thor movie in the franchise. Also the closest we'll ever get to an adaptation of Planet Hulk though with a much more lighthearted execution and set up. Not to say that Planet Hulk isn't a good story (from what little I've heard it really is) but with what the MCU has set up they did a great job with what they had.
So as we open on Thor in a cage with a skeleton he exposits to his imaginary friend that after Age of Ultron he decided to travel the realms to learn more about the infinity stones before Thanos brings his big purple ass to our door step. But apparently that was unsuccessful so he also got the idea that while he was out and about he might as well stop Ragnarök. Thus he traveled to the realm of Surtur to kill him and stop the whole shebang at the source. During Surtur's whole 'evil plan monologue" he says that to destroy Asgard all he has to do is place his crown into the Eternal Flame in Odin's vault and BAM! Now normally Odin would have that on lockdown but according to Surtur Odin's not in Asgard anymore.
After kicking Surtur's ass, retrieving his crown and nearly becoming Smaug's chew toy Thor finally makes it back to Asgard. No thanks to Heimdal's non union replacement Skurge (played by Karl Urban) who only got the job because Heimdal fled Asgard before he could be sentenced by "Odin" for betraying the throne and was too busy showing off his Midgard swag to some ladyfriend company of his. Thor, finally catching up with everyone who saw the end of Dark World exposes Loki and demands to know where he stashed the All Father, which turned out to be in an old folks home! Or at least that was where Loki left him last. Thankfully someone knows where Odin is, Dr Stephen Strange, sorcerer supreme, keeper of the time stone and newest smug asshole of the MCU.
After some fun at the twos expense Dr Strange teleports the two to Norway where Odin is. They arrive just in time to hear his last words to the two before he dies, warning them that with his death, his daughter Hela (played by Cate Blanchett) will be freed from her imprisonment and that once she makes it to Asgard she will be unstoppable and conquer not just the nine realms but all of existence. Literally after Odin died Big Sis is loose and is not playing around, as demonstrated when she crushes Mjolnir literally single handedly!!!! Of course that was just an appetizer, once Loki opens the Bifrost Bridge to try and escape her, she serves the main course by knocking the two out of the beam leaving the two flying though the depths of space. Then for her next trick she goes to kill the Warriors three and most of Asgard warriors, save for Skurge who rather prefers keeping his head on his shoulders instead of bleeding on the floor.
Hela's mood doesn't improve once she's seen what Odin's done with the palace. Back in her time she helped him conquer the nine realms, all but securing his rule. Then once she decided that nine realms were small potatoes Odin then decided to play the virtuous uniter and tried to banish her. Once Hela was out of the way he decided to cover Asgards bloody past with lies of unity and diplomacy (sound familiar?) Once that was all cleared up Hela found the eternal flame and used it to resurrect her army of Ancient Asgardian warriors and her giant wolf Fenris.
At first she planed to then immediately get on with conquering but Heimdal stole the sword to the Bifrost and has gone into hiding with the resistance so now she has to deal with that. Thor eventually lands on a junk planet called Sakaar when he's captured by Scrapper 142 (played by Tessa Thompson) and sold as a "prisoner with a job" to the planets ruler, an eccentric nut job called the Grandmaster (played um by um um Jeff Jeff Goldblum). Thor isn't up for Grandblum's bullshit so now he has to compete in the Contest of Champions and defeat the Grandmaster's champion so he can earn his freedom and return to Asgard to stop Hela. No thanks to Loki who somehow landed on Sakaar a few weeks ago before Thor showed up which was only just a few minutes ago!
Oh and he's also got into the Grandmaster's good graces. But does he do anything to help Thor, nope he's too busy humoring someone who's even more nuts then he is, thanks bro you're a big help! But Thor's not alone, he's got a sentient pile of rocks named Korg and a bug with knives for hands named Meek, so he's all good. Especially once he makes it to the Champion himself, The Hulk! But he's been on Sakaar for two years as the Hulk so Bruce isn't in control and has been in permanent smash mode.
Waking up after the Jörmungandr sized beatdown he received from the Hulk Thor plans his escape via the discovered Quinjet and a vision from Heimdal. Though he knows that alone he'll get his ass kicked again so he asks Hulk and 142 for help but they're not interested for various reasons. Hulk's a famous gladiator and his strength is loved on Sakaar as opposed to being hunted and feared on earth. As for 142, she was originally a Valkyrie, the only remaining Valkyrie after all of her comrades were slaughtered by Hela when they were sent by Odin to stop her. Thor's escape plans are slightly derailed when Hulk unintentionally destroyed the Quintet but a recording of Natashia's last transmission finally reverts Hulk back to Bruce Banner.
That's when Valkyrie offers her assistance and gives them Loki to prove her sincerity. They then come up with a plan, to get back to Asgard they have to reach the largest wormhole on Sakaar called; I kid you not, the devil's anus. But to survive the trip they need the right ship and who has all of the Grandmaster's access codes, including all of his personal ships? Loki! After freeing Korg, Meek and the rest of the gladiators the revolution is on! Thor and his group eventually make it though the devil's anus and confront Hela.
This time however they have a plan, while Thor, Valkyrie, and the rest get the Asgardians to safety on Korg and Meek's transport ship, Loki will sneak into the place, revive Surtur with the eternal flame, begin Ragnarök and get away while Hela stays behind trying to kill him thus two birds with one stone. Despite some hiccups and Thor losing his right eye the plan works and the Asgardians get away while Hela and Asgard are destroyed by Surtur, thus saving the day. Now that Thor is the new king he plans to move the Asgardians to earth. At least that was the plan but our movie ends with his ship being intercepted by Thanos. Why is he there, well Loki decided to bring along a souvenir from the vault, the Tesseract AKA the Space Stone.
So that was Thor Ragnarök, is it really a surprise that this is the best solo Thor movie? Where as the first two tried to take themselves too seriously (especially Dark World and Malekith) Ragnarök on the other hand embraces the ridiculousness of its source material and gets rid of most of the parts of MCU Thor's mythos that really just didn't work. The Warriors three, not relevant past the first movie, Asgard, cool looking place but not much else outside of the aesthetic, Jane Foster, apparently she and Thor broke up off screen. (Translation apparently Natalie Portman's contract wasn't renewed or something, though speaking of off screen where did Lady Sif go?) Now if you're doing your job right when you take away something you have to replace it with something else.
Well, taking out all the pointless Thor mythos and replacing it with a loose adaptation of Planet Hulk was definitely the right choice on Director Taika Waititi's part, not only giving Thor a unique setting to do his thing and bounce off of people but also giving not only resolution for Hulk after Age of Ultron giving us more things for him to do outside of just smash! Him being stuck in Hulk mode for two years really would have a direct effect on Hulk and Bruce's relationship and we see that happen. Hulk's been in the driver's seat so the usual tactics for calming him down don't work. Hell he doesn't really seem that angry, just more like a five year old with the power of a Tzar Bomba in both of his fists. He sounds dangerous yeah but you could placate him just as easily as you could piss him off.
Hela is also a decent villain for this type of story. (On top of being the first female main MCU movie villain.) Watching this movie again Hela seemed more like what I would think a rebooted Rita Repulsa would be like then what the 2017 Power Rangers movie did, she's funny but it's more derided from her conquest and slaughter of her enemies which really shows what Asgard was like back when she was a necessity for Odin's plans. She was understandably, insanely powerful, able to decimate armies of highly trained god solders and destroy Mjolnir with little effort. Her motivations are also understandable, she was Odin's second in command, helping him to conquer the nine realms, slaughtering countless people who opposed him to only just get rejected because he finally found his conscience and realized "oh dear, maybe slaughtering everyone who opposes me to establish my new kingdom isn't exactly the best way to go about this".
But she never came to that realization that Odin did, instead she's just that old blood thirsty war machine, never realizing that Asgard would not exist without its people, to her she sees only either subjects or victims. Which leads me to the big underlying theme of this movie, a biting commentary on the practice of colonialism and the legacy of nations built on them. Hela and her reaction to the fresco in the palace perfectly exemplify the inherent flaws in conquers and militarization, that underneath the golden idols and talks of peace there's just blood, death and many many corpses used as the foundation for this power-hungy despot's utopia. She is the dark past of Asgard that Odin tried desperately to bury and forget. While Hela is more direct with this interpretation we now look at Sakaar and the Grandmaster.
The Grandmaster may have established and built Sakaar without this bloodshed but he also established the policies that allow him and those he finds favor with to stay at the top while pacifying the populace with gladiatorial combat. While he's not as interested in conquest as Hela he's not doing much to improve the lives of the people of Sakaar, unless its those in his court. He instead choses to use his power to indulge and drown himself in riches and booze while trying to present it as a benevolent rule. Either way when you look at Sakaar you can only say one thing about the Gandmaster's rule.
Sakaar is basically Ancient Rome with spaceships, giant green men, "prisoners with jobs" and tentacle Hentai. So while one is a bloodthirsty dictator and the other is an eccentric, hedonistic weirdo with too much time on his hands we then come to Thor and his nomadic Asgardians. Both Hela and The Grandmaster exemplify the worst possible outcomes of colonialism where as Thor at the end of the movie comes to the same realization that Odin did all those years ago, that Asgard is never the realm but its people. So by letting Ragnarök occur taking both Asgard and Hela with it he and his new Asgard can create their own future, not forgetting the past but no longer letting it define them.
Whatever path he and his new Asgard decides to go with the message is clear, they knows the sins of Asgard's past and will endeavor to create a new legacy for Asgard, just not through the path of the conquerer. Well at last that probably was the plan until Thanos came knocking on his door and will most likely kill everyone on that ship to get his big purple hands on that stone. Which finally brings us to the main event, the ten year anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The March to Infinity is over, Thanos has finally gotten off of his chair and the war has begun. I just want to thank everyone who has been following me on this retrospective and supported me in this whole endeavor and those who will support me in the future. So next time is the main event, Thanos the movie guest starring the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Thor Ragnarök is owned by Marvel Studios, produced by Keven Feige based off the comic by Larry Leiber, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is owned by Joel Hodgson, Best Brains, Syfy, Comedy Central and Shout Factory.
Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Dragon ball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star. Jurassic Park is owned by Amblin Entertainment and Universal Studios based off the book written by Michael Crichton
Star Wars The Last Jedi is owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Company and Lucas films based off the characters created by George Lucas.
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