Thors

I’m quite curious about Thor: Love and Thunder, the next Thor movie from Taika Waititi (‘curious,’ by the way, is how you say ‘excited’ while still sounding intellectual). The curiosity — and despite what the parentheses may have suggested, there is actual curiosity —  stems in part from the Thor in question not being the Thor we know, but a new Thor.

Okay, quick breakdown, a few years ago in the comics, Thor (dude with the hammer) became unworthy of wielding said hammer. In his place, a mysterious woman took up the hammer and the mantle, becoming the new Thor. it was later revealed that she was Jane Foster and the other Thor became known as Odinson and did his own thing.

So the Love and Thunder trailer teases Jane Foster’s Thor at the end, while also setting up the original Thor (Odinson) going on his own quest of self-discovery. There are a lot of places this story can go, a lot of them fun, and some that I don’t want them to go.

Because it’s easy to make Odinson jealous of Jane. Mjolnir was his thing, now we can have Odinson struggle with not being special and overcoming his own hubris until, finally, he’s okay with her being Thor and together they save the day. An issue I have with that is we’ve already spent a couple movies with him getting over that. The first Thor was him learning to be worthy to wield the hammer and Ragnarok (Waititi’s last outing) was him learning that his hammer isn’t what makes him special. That arc’s been completed, cool, let’s tread new paths.

The other issue I have with that route is that it’s fundamentally pretty petty on Odinson’s part (who’s been characterized in the MCU as being pretty supportive; I mean, dude was giddy when Captain America picked up Mjolnir). But it also undercuts Jane’s tenure as Thor to have a petty Odinson undermining her with his own doubt. It feels unnecessary to me, and a lot less fun than having a very supportive Odinson who’s content that there’s someone out there being Thor while he does his own thing. 

Maybe it’s way too early to speculate about plot (especially since there’s the whole question of how Gorr the God Butcher factors into it), but there’s still a part of me wary of it taking a lazy route. But then again, this is Taika Waititi, he of Jojo Rabbit and What We Do In The Shadows. If you need someone to find a way to make this story work without it feeling trite and worn, he’s a good bet. So like I said, I’m curious about where the movie will go — and yeah, I’m pretty excited for the movie too.