Thor: The Dark World: Psuedoscience for the WIN!

As I keep saying, I’ve been challenged to watch all of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before I watch Avengers: Infinity War (hopefully in the theaters) which means I probably only have a week or a week and a half left. We’ll see how it goes.

Dear V,

Ok, first of all, it’s got to be said, “These are not my dark elves.” I admit, I’m slightly biased as I grew up with Dungeons & Dragons and now am playing Elder Scrolls Online as a dark elf.

And in the fight between the Asgardians (Thor’s grandfather, I think) and the dark elves (not mine, of course), we are introduced to the bad dark elf named Malekith and some kind of weapon called the ether.

The ether. I watched the movie yesterday and I really don’t remember what in the world it was, besides some kind of energy field, and I really have absolutely no clue what it’s supposed to do except destroy things (or how it’s supposed to do this).

So the Asgardians think they’ve destroyed the dark elves (note: think. We’ll come back to that.) and, since the ether is unable to be destroyed, it’s hidden far away and so deep that no one will find it, setting it up so that our heroine(?)/Thor’s love interest will find it accidentally later.

Loki is brought to Odin and Odin condemns him to prison for the rest of his life and he will never be able to see the one person he loves, his mother, Figga. Loki tells Odin he was just doing what Odin would do — he went down to Midgard (Earth) to “rule them as a benevolent god.” And Odin says they are not gods — they simply have a much longer lifespan.

That first whole scene with Odin and Loki, I ached for Loki. I know what it’s like to have made bad — really bad — decisions in the eyes of my father and had my father turn away from me. Ok, he didn’t sentence me to a dungeon for the rest of my life, but then, I’m not aware he has one, because at that time… it wouldn’t have surprised me.

The bifrost is fixed now and Thor is travelling from world to world trying to fight for peace, and winning apparently. When he comes home to celebrate, we meet a young female warrior who I’m guessing would have been Jane’s rival in another story where she mattered. And Odin tell him to eat, drink, f&ck and be merry. Well, maybe not exactly in those words but I think that’s what he was insinuating anyway. We learn that Thor longs to be with Jane and misses Loki.

And, truthfully? Out of all of the Avengers, Thor should have a hairy chest. Maybe to join the Avengers, you have to shave/wax/oil your chest for any shirtless shots. Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen Robert Downey, Jr, half-naked yet. Of course, that leads us to the real question: do we want to see RDJ half-naked?

So we find Jane’s doctor friend, Eric, has gone a bit nutty as the first we see of him is running around Stonehenge with a pixelated crotch, saying stuff about gravitational anomalies and an alignment of planets — supposed to happen once in a thousand(?) years. Anyway, it happens rarely.

The first shot of Jane is her at a table with a young (not-so-hot, in my opinion) Englishman, preparing to order dinner, when in actually, they both were hiding from each other. The assumption then is that they’re on a blind date. Jane’s taking a step in trying to “get over” Thor since he hasn’t come back for so long and Darcy shows up with a piece of sciency equipment and tells her the readings on the equipment hadn’t been like this since he came. And Jane runs off, hoping that she’ll find Thor, leaving the Englishman to say “seabass” all by himself.

This, I understand full well. Not because it’s Thor but it’s being attracted to someone and wishing that they’d call or be there every minute — then trying to push that aside, only to be reminded of it again and given a sliver of possibility of seeing them again.

So they run off to research these “gravitational anomalies” which are words I’d like to use in a book one day, only to not feel as empty as these do. Jane manages (of course) to fall through one of these anomalies and finds the ether (which is a red cloudy mist(?) because, of course it is, and red means danger. The ether enters her body, like a possession, and we cut to the remaining dark elves — including Malekith — waking up.

We find out that while the ether was actively working on possessing Jane, Heimdall cannot see her and, bam, Thor’s on his way faster than you can say ‘Jotenheim’. Thor knows something’s wrong and he takes her to Asgard to see if the healers and scientists there can find out.

By the way, are there supposed to be subtitles when the dark elves talk? If so, I’m completely missing them.

We see Loki and a vision of his mother in the dungeons for a moment to give us a sense of how much he loved her and then we learn about this convergence-thing that Eric’s been talking about.

Nine worlds inhabit Yggdrasil which orbits the Earth like the Earth orbits our Sun. When they all come into alignment with each other, it’s what they’re calling a convergence of worlds because one can slip into other worlds very easy at that time.

So far, it’s kinda been naptime for me. Nothing has really happened (except for the parts with Loki) that has grabbed me and made me sit down and watch. Perhaps there was too much background information given? Too much longing? I don’t know, but it’s not until now that I start to grow interested.

Malekith sends one of his warriors to Asgard to cause a distraction by escaping from prison and letting all the other inmates out — except Loki.

I loved one of the prison guards saying, “It’s as if they resent being in prison.”

Once the distraction has been established, Malekith brings his spaceship in to attack Asgard. For some reason, this just feels like they’re stretching the bounds of my suspension of disbelief. I have issues with “Dark Elves in Spaaaaace!” The ship feels odd, out of place in the movie. I do love the dark elf masks and, for a movie that has been mostly hand-to-hand melee fighting with swords, the laser weapons are also a bit much.

This really feels like the least plausible of all the movies I’ve watched so far. Too much feels weird; too much feels off.

Then we have Frigga defending Jane from Malekith and dying, which changes a lot for Thor and Loki. This is the common thread that they have — they both love their mother.

So in his plan for revenge, Thor breaks Loki out of prison because he knew how to get in and out of Asgard… well, I thought it was to get out of Asgard unseen — guess I forgot this was an action movie. These were some of the funniest parts to me — Loki and Thor walking down the hall, Loki making his little comments and actually a little pleased that Thor wanted to break out of Asgard. I love Loki’s power of illusion. I also loved that everyone he talked to, after Thor broke him out, threatened to kill him if he betrayed Thor.

I also learned something: it’s a murmuration of starlings. Interesting, huh?

On the world of the dark elves, Loki and Thor’s little ruse surprised the hell out of me for a moment, then I was like, “Wait a sec…” As Jane was having the ether pulled from her by Malekith, it dawned on me that, yeah, it was a trick. It’s always a few moments before — at least, that’s what I’ve heard in writing. Sometimes you want the audience to know the truth a few minutes before the characters do — and that’s what they pulled off here.

This fight also made me think about the differences in Thor and Loki. Thor has a hammer and supper strength, Loki only a dagger and the ability to create illusions. One is a Mack truck and the other is a Aston Martin — one is right there in your face and the other is subtle and will stab you in the back if he gets a chance.

Loki dying completely shocked me. Thor’s emotions didn’t, but Loki dying did. Thor just leaving Loki’s body also surprised me as I would have assumed he’d have wanted to give Loki a true funeral like the one Odin gave his mother.

When Jane was talking about the ether and finding it, I think — although probably not intended — she poked a bit at Thor for having not come back sooner. “I should never have found [the ether]. I only found it because I was looking for you.” I don’t think the guilt trip was intended, but it was there anyway.

There’s a point where we see a greenish light on an Asgardian soldier’s uniform to indicate that he’s Loki, but it’s not confirmed. My real question is how did Loki survive that stabbing? And I hope that they don’t just do a handwaving in order to explain it.

Back on Earth in Jane’s apartment, Thor hangs up his hammer which was very cute. And they find, due to Eric’s un-understandable calculations, that the covergence is going to be strongest in Greenwich, London.

The last fight is interesting — I like the idea of using the gravitational anomalies against Malekith and his other warriors. It’s a lot of fun. Psuedoscience saves the day, right?

I’ll also be interested to see if anything from this movie transfers to the others as the first Avengers transferred into these.

At the end, we see the green flash of light again as Thor speaks to Odin and tells him he doesn’t want to be king. He will protect Asgard but not from the throne. He would rather be a “good man than a great king.” This sentiment was also in the first Captain America film where Rogers was chosen because he was a good man, not a great solider. It’s what’s in your heart, right?

As Thor was talking to Odin, I was waiting for confirmation that Loki was still alive — at the end of the conversation, as Thor walked away, we find that Loki was Odin in disguise. Kinda figured that, but it was nice to see.

A couple things about the actors: Idris Elba is Heimdall which is awesome — I only wish he played a larger role in the overall arc of the series. And Christopher Eccelston, the Ninth Doctor (in the new Doctor Who), was Malekith. I haven’t seen him around since Doctor Who so it’s good to see that he’s still getting decent roles.

The last scene confused me, but then it was for people who had already read the comics and who knew where this was already heading. Benecio del Toro as the Collector though? I definitely hope he’s got a bigger role in this whole thing and I’m guessing with him commenting that he has two out of six now, he’s definitely in more.

Anyway, have a good night. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is next.