Thor: Love and Thunder gave us a first look today when they dropped a teaser trailer to Taiki Waititi’s upcoming romp and it looks just as fun, galactic, and zany as their last pairing. I think it’s probably fair to say that nobody has done more for a character in the MCU than Waitii has done for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. The character was relatively boring, bland, and stuck in this world of Shakespearean drama that frankly wasn’t working for fans. He was probably the least liked Avenger and things looked even bleaker after Thor: The Dark World barely registered on the radar. It was clear the character and the brand needed a tremendous shakeup and that’s exactly what we got with Thor: Ragnarok.
While we didn’t see Gorr the God Butcher, Thor’s nemesis for this film, played by the venerable Christian Bale, we’ll surely see him in an upcoming full trailer as this was just meant to be a teaser and very obviously left off on a cliffhanger. If Thor were actually done being a superhero, he wouldn’t be getting a fourth film. What we do get a small glimpse of in this film is the Mighty Thor AKA Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman. Portman is making the transition to full-blown hero after not appearing at all in the third film and feeling done dirty by being broken up with “off-screen.” Waititi fixed his sin by giving her the hammer and promoting her to the role of Mighty Thor. In the end, Portman probably came away with a better role as a result of all of this.
Much of this teaser trailer is just fluff and showing Thor traveling around with the Guardians of the Galaxy, but seemingly avoiding tons of conflict. I don’t know if he’s going for the B.A. Baracus in The A-Team reboot vibes; avoiding conflict after years and years of violence. Whatever the case, the teaser trailer really seems to be the first half of the full trailer ending with the protagonist claiming everything is fine and they can now retire right before the big bad makes their entry to inform our protagonist that is not, as he previously thought, going to be retiring any time soon. These things aren’t terribly hard to see coming if you’ve ever seen any action film.
We do get cool glimpses of several Easter Eggs (fitting) in this teaser trailer, though. Most obvious is Thor’s new Ravager look and it’s taken straight from the comics, but in the comics it’s called Thunderstrike. We also see him getting back in shape after falling into a state of depression when half the world vanished. Thor is shedding those pounds in this teaser and I genuinely hope there’s a good training montage showing him getting back in shape because my guilty pleasure in life is watching well done training montages. I better get one for Thor, that’s all I’m saying.
We’re also going to get to see Thor & Korg teaming up with the Guardians on whatever zany adventures they seem to go on, so that should be pretty fun. We know their journeys take them to meet Russell Crowe’s Zeus at Olympus, getting there via his badass magical goats named Toothgrinder and Toothgnasher. Hopefully this means we get some Hercules and Thor interactions, but I won’t hold my breath. Olympus looks gorgeous however and so does Thor’s Captain Marvel-looking blue, gold and red costume. It looks like he’ll flip between looks and I gotta be honest, I like that. Sometimes you feel like dressing to the nines, other days it’s a jeans and t-shirt kinda day.
The scene with the fallen dragon-looking thing known as Falligar is taken straight out of the comics. Falligar is an extremely potent god and was also friends with Thor, but he was just one of many who met their end at the hands of Gorr and the Necro Sword. We didn’t get to see Gorr in this trailer, but the fact that it took more than one Thor to beat him is absolutely comic accurate. That’s why our trailer ends with a reconstituted Mjolnir flying through the sky to meet up with Jane Foster, who has suddenly become Mighty Thor. They’re going to have to work together and overcome so, so, so many differences in order to defeat one of the most powerful enemies Thor has ever faced. I can’t wait for this movie for so many reason, but Gorr is definitely one of them. He’s a fantastic villain in the comics.
Before we get out of here, I would be completely remiss if I didn’t talk about the young Queen Tessa Thompson and her Valkyrie character not just becoming king, but also having to take on that mantle of leadership and all that comes with it. She’s finding out that being a leader is more than just being a fierce warrior, sometimes it’s doing the most boring shit on the planet but that doesn’t mean you can’t let them know how you feel with your facial expressions! Valkyrie figures to play a huge role in this film and it will be great to see Thompson’s role within Marvel expand and evolve. She’s earned it, she was a huge reason why Thor: Ragnarok was as good as it was, so I’m sure she’ll be one of the reasons this film kicks ass.
Check out the trailer below. Thor: Love & Thunder drops into theaters on July 8th, 2022. BSO will continue to have top coverage on this and every other Marvel film and television show.
