I enjoyed Love and Thunder. It was a fun little experience to have. I’ve got to admit the simple, yet effective slapstick comedy squeezed quite some giggles out of me.
The theme of the fourth Thor movie is straight forward: Love.
The writing for that is efficient as it is simple: The villain starts from a place of love, but is then driven by hatred – the antithesis of love. Well played by Taika Waititi, the theme lets Thor catch up with Jane Foster, his love interest from the first two movies, that ended nowhere, providing an opportunity to wrap that storyline up. At the same time the movie also answers the question in Thor’s journey, that was brought up in endgame: what is Thor’s role? Apparently it is to be a father.
What’s more, I got the impression that there are a few interesting ideas floating around in the presentation of the story, althought they weren’t executed to their full potential.
Humor and Threat
It is obviously a funny movie, and Taika Waititi already showed in Thor: Ragnarok that he prefers to present serious subject matters behind a veil of jokes. Yet in Love and Thunder humor could have served a greater purpose. What if Thor’s coping mechanism to make everything a joke out of, would be a sign of gods being detached from the suffering around them. We could have a funny movie, but the main character would have to overcome a major flaw, which would fuel the villain’s argument against gods.
On the other end of the spectrum, I would have loved, if Gorr was more eerie. We should have spent more time with him (especially due to Christian Bale’s incredible acting), but in a slightly different way, than we did in the movie. Start by showing how he is abandoned by the Gods, just like in the Movie, but don’t show his first kill, instead cut short before, the last thing we hear being a promising whisper of the sword.
Then rather than having a two minute scene, showing that everywhere gods die have the movie start with the Guardians and Thor following a distress call after the other, slowly realizing that everywhere the problems startet as the respective gods had vanished. The journey can still be fun, but there should be an underlying eerie feeling of danger juxtaposing the humor. Lastly, there should be a fight scene of Gorr killing a powerful god. There it should show, how Gorr is struggling, getting badly wounded, but in the end persevering through sheer hatred and the curse of the sword. Like that we can establish that he is a dangerous fanatic and totally depending on the sword.
Weapons with names
There is some kind of running gag going on, where Thor is trying to get back together with Mjolnir, like the hammer was his ex girlfriend, while Stormbreaker is being petty out of jealousy. I think it’s a fun idea to give the weapons a greater role, especially there are four legendary ones in this movie. It also fits into the northern mythology origin of Thor, since there is an abundance of mythic weapons. But there are two things that bother me about that idea. First of all, I didn’t get Lightning Bolt’s importance, so I will just ignore Zeus’ weapon. Second, there is no real payoff for the running gag.
Sure, Gorr’s sword represents an abusive relationship, and thus ties in with the theme of dating weapons, but that fact has no impact on the film. To fix that, one could Gorr get his hands on Stormbreaker, and attack Thor with it, as kind of the lowest point in Thor’s relationship with his axe. To defend himself against the axe attacks, Thor has to grab the sword, which Gorr would have lost previously. It would immediately corrupt him, and we would see a dark thor, with no humor veiling his suffering anymore. The hateful Thor would turn the tables against Gorr but lose all control of himself. Gorr could realize how the sword abuses its bearers. In the end Jane swoops in and would destroy the sword with Mjolnir. Thor could then, appalled by his actions seek Stormbreaker, apologize to it and seek solace in it.
Colour
Another juxtaposition between Gorr and Thor lies in the colour or the absence of it. Gorr rocks the black and white look thanks to the realm of shadows he resides over, while Thor and his companions are wearing colourful costumes, and even weilding Stormbreaker who can create the rainbowbridge.
The fight in the shadow realm is an awesome idea. One thing that could have improved upon it was if colour played a greater role in it. Thor already did not loos e all his colour, and for some reason Zeus’ lightning was still shining yellow (I do not get the role of that weapon at all). So, why not go all the way in, and bring colour into the fight. Kind of like Dr. Strange fought with sound. Or at least it could have indicated who was winning the fight. Whenever Gorr has the upper hand, the screen gets darker, when Thor and Crew land a blow, colour could explode into the shadow realm.
This could not only look great, but also serve a greater purpose. What if Thor finds his place in this world not as a father (at least not in this movie) but as a healer. Someone who brings colour into the life of people in dark places. It would fit his journey, because he experienced a lot of pain and suffering, and ending up as a healer would juxtapose his beginning as reckless warrior.
All these ideas already floated around in Love and Thunder, I would just have loved it if they got a little more highlighted. But it is already a sign of a well thought out story, if different elements such as weapons with personality, colour scheme, tonality all can be bound to the theme of love and hatred.
One last thing I would have loved the movie not to do: Don’t go to eternity. Except if Gorr would have been the first Avengers-level threat of phase 4 and the Eternals, Moonknight, the Guardians of the Galaxy and maybe the Marvels would have been involved. But that would be an entierly different Rewrite.