Thor
Thor Odinson
Movie · Phase 3
Thor: Ragnarok
2017 · 130 min
Odin dies on a Norwegian cliff and his firstborn walks out of the prison he built for her. Hela destroys Mjolnir with one hand, throws both brothers off the Bifrost and takes Asgard in an afternoon…
The Infinity SagaDisney+93%Released
The story
Odin dies on a Norwegian cliff and his firstborn walks out of the prison he built for her. Hela destroys Mjolnir with one hand, throws both brothers off the Bifrost and takes Asgard in an afternoon, because Asgard's golden age was a conquest she led and Odin painted over.
Thor lands on a garbage planet run by a hedonist and has to win a gladiator match against the Hulk to get home. Waititi's version of Thor is funnier and lighter than anyone expected, and the film still ends with the correct answer: Asgard is not a place, so burn it down and get on the ship.
Key facts
- Release date
- 3 Nov 2017
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 3
- Saga
- The Infinity Saga
- Runtime
- 130 min
- Certificate
- PG-13
- Director
- Taika Waititi
- Writers
- Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2017 — two years after Age of Ultron, ending immediately before Infinity War
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Chris Hemsworth | Thor |
| Tom Hiddleston | Loki |
| Cate Blanchett | Hela |
| Mark Ruffalo | Bruce Banner / Hulk |
| Tessa Thompson | Valkyrie |
| Jeff Goldblum | The Grandmaster |
| Taika Waititi | Korg |
Characters
Easter eggs
- Doctor Strange's Sanctum sequence pays off his own mid-credits scene, complete with an infinitely refilling beer.
- Stan Lee cameos as the cackling Sakaaran barber who shears off Thor's hair with a mechanical blade.
- The Grandmaster's tower facade carries carved faces of past champions, including Beta Ray Bill, Man-Thing, Ares and Bi-Beast.
- The gladiator plot draws on Greg Pak's Planet Hulk, and Hulk's Sakaaran armour is lifted from that arc.
- Matt Damon, Sam Neill and Luke Hemsworth play the Asgardian stage-play versions of Loki, Odin and Thor.
- Hela dismisses the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin's vault as a fake, retconning the prop from the first Thor.
- Thanos' ship the Sanctuary II intercepts the Statesman in the mid-credits scene, the direct opening of Infinity War.
- Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song' is used twice, and Waititi has said the film was cut to it from the earliest edits.
Trivia
- Taika Waititi encouraged constant improvisation, sometimes running scenes with alternate dialogue every take, and voices Korg himself via motion capture.
- Waititi pitched a total tonal reset after two solemn Thor films and used an animatic reel of comedy references to sell it.
- Cate Blanchett trained in wire work and Capoeira-influenced movement for Hela, her first comic-book villain.
- Mark Mothersbaugh's synthesiser score was built to evoke 1980s Jack Kirby-era science fiction and Heavy Metal magazine.
- Chris Hemsworth actively pushed for a funnier Thor after enjoying comedy work on Ghostbusters and Vacation.
- Jeff Goldblum improvised the bulk of the Grandmaster's dialogue, and Waititi kept a running list of his best takes.
- Hemsworth's haircut was practical, and the character has kept a variation of it in every subsequent appearance.
Box office
- Budget
- $180 million
- Worldwide
- $854.0 million
- Domestic
- $315.1 million
Reviews
Critics
93%
Thor: Ragnarok is a joyful, riotously entertaining superhero adventure that finally gives its title character a movie worthy of his mighty powers.
The MarvelGossips verdict
The most fun Marvel has been and the moment the studio learned a lesson it then over-applied for six years. Blanchett and Thompson are both excellent, and Hela is criminally underwritten for a villain who wins for most of the runtime. The colour, the Mothersbaugh score and Korg carry it past every structural complaint you could make.
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Frequently asked
Why is Thor: Ragnarok so different in tone?
Marvel deliberately hired Taika Waititi to reinvent the franchise after Thor: The Dark World underperformed critically. Waititi was given unusual latitude to improvise and rewrite on set, and Chris Hemsworth had lobbied for a comedic direction.
Does Mjolnir get destroyed permanently?
Hela crushes it in the opening act. Thor forges Stormbreaker in Infinity War, and the 2013 Mjolnir is retrieved from the past in Endgame, which is the hammer Jane Foster wields in Love and Thunder.
Who is Hela?
Odin's firstborn and Asgard's original executioner, imprisoned when her ambitions outgrew his. The film reframes her as the buried truth of Asgard's imperial founding rather than the comics' Asgardian goddess of death.
Where do the Asgardians go at the end?
Toward Earth aboard the Statesman, which Thanos intercepts at the start of Infinity War. The survivors eventually found New Asgard in Tønsberg, Norway.