Thor 4 - July 12

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and ‘Ms. Marvel’ is barely better; the 1x05 episode has tried to rectify the show’s lackluster situation, but only some, and if you care about this, you should go and read Salman Rushdie’s novels, such as ‘Midnight’s Children’ (1981) and ‘Shame’ (1983), since they deal with the India-Pakistan partition in fiction to a much more professional degree than MM does – therefore, let’s talk about the ‘Thor 4’ movie instead.

No, seriously, what is the deal behind MM? Is it supposed to be undercut in favor of ‘Obi-Wan’ TV series and ‘Thor 4’ movie? The answer is simple: it got messed-up.

Let us start with the biggest issue of the film, (in my opinion, admittedly): lady Sif. She appeared in the first one - or two – ‘Thor’ movies, as well as in a couple of AoS’ episodes, (the first two seasons), and after which, she vanished… until she reappeared – in a manner of speaking – in ‘Loki’ S1. This isn’t too surprising, as Jaimie Alexander, who played her, with busy in ‘Blindspot’ until that show ended in 2020, so now the crew of MCU are carefully trying to reintroduce her MCU character after years of absence – with lackluster results, and this brings us to ‘Thor 4’.

At the end of the ‘Endgame’ film, Thor the character left with the surviving GotG characters – and ‘Thor 4’ sees them part way: remake number 1. Then Thor the character meets – well, re-meets, lady Sif, who warns him the Gorr the God-Butcher is coming thus setting-off the rest of the film.

What is my main gripe about the ‘Thor 4’ movie, again? That Sif’s character is completely unnecessary for it – hear me out. The bulk of the film is about Thor and Dr. Jane Foster, (aka the Mighty Thor, but we will just call her Dr. Jane Foster to avoid repetition), and about their relationship. Put otherwise, just as the ‘What if?’ episode 1x04 was felt influencing the second ‘Dr. Strange’ film, so does the ‘What if?’ episode 1x07 influences the fourth ‘Thor’ movie.

What was the ‘What if?’ episode 1x07 about? It was a comic relief episode, with Thor the character going down to Midgard, and throwing down a party that got so badly out of hand, that Captain Marvel, (the Carol Danvers one), had to step in and end it; I’m oversimplifying it here, but still…

…No, ‘Thor 4’ isn’t as comically goofy as ‘What if?’ episode 1x07 was, but there’s still a distinctly college frat party fill to it, including the entire romance angle. Again, we got Thor and Jane here; we also got Korg and the Valkyrie, so why do we do need Sif?

…Yes, I am oversimplifying things here probably again, but again, we got Thor. We got Jane, who was his primary love interest in the previous ‘Thor’ movies. We got the Valkyrie, with whom Thor began to have some sort of a relationship in the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ film. We also got Korg, who was seen in the trailers helping around the New Asgard or wherever. What for do we need Sif for? To help the Valkyrie in the New Asgard – asexually? Korg could have done this just as well! (And given how Sif did not appear in any of the teasers and trailers, I am guessing that the MCU crew felt the same way).

As for Jane’s fate… I do not know. There were one Thor too many in the MCU throughout the film, and since TW declared, that he’ll make a ‘Thor 5’ film only if CH would be in it, the heads of MCU said – ok, the old fan favorite it is, then, and killed Jane off instead, albeit in a most heroic way. That is the only explanation I can come up with, because otherwise? The original Thor’s survival goes against Phase 4’s zeitgeist – transference.

Remember? Phase 4 was, and is, all about ‘out with the old, in with the new’, with the survivors of ‘Endgame’ going out, and the new blood coming in. Wanda Maximoff’s death in ‘Dr. Strange 2’… is not too final, actually, because multiverse – now that TVA is out of commission at the end of ‘Loki’ S1, we can have an infinite number of Wanda variants coming into the mainline MCU-

…Wait. Wasn’t Wanda proclaimed of being a ‘nexus being’ in one of WV episodes? Yes, but WV meshes with ‘Dr. Strange 2’ only partially, so all bets are off.

Back to ‘Thor 4’… The same thing can be said about Jane/the Mighty Thor, actually – now that TVA is down, a variant of her can appear from the multiverse whenever it will be convenient for MCU – end of story. What next?

Aside from Sif’s completely unnecessary reappearance, Jane being killed-off for good now, and Thor moving on with a new companion, (in a manner that is too reminiscent of Dr. Strange and America Chavez to be truly successful), there’s also the issue of Valhalla: in MCU it seems to be some sort of an Asgardian afterlife, while in RL it was an actual part of Asgard; MCU is tweaking RL Norse mythology once again… but if you want a more accurate version of the Norse mythical world, go and read Mr. Riordan’s ‘Magnus Chase’ series: this work might’ve been truncated, when compared to his other pieces, but it still depicts the Norse mythology and its’ nine worlds more accurately than MCU does.

…And, of course, MCU has used Mr. Riordan’s works before – remember the MK S1? Yeah, MCU has used Mr. Riordan’s novels there a lot – but we have talked about that before. Anything else?

Actually – no, not particularly. ‘Thor 4’ is a fun movie to watch once or twice, but nothing more, and the character of Sif doesn’t add (or subtract, admittedly), from that fact; with these parting words we part way; see you all soon!