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Thor: Ragnarok spoiler thread


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51 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

..."death auras," while sounding cool, don't translate as well to fun visuals and fight scenes as conjuring an endless supply of big sharp pointy things.

 

I think with the right fx, death auras can definitely translate into terrifying visuals and dramatic fight scenes.

 

In general I'm just a really big believer in tight character concepts. No death/underworld goddess I'm aware of (Norse or otherwise) was the "goddess of magically-materializing pointy projectiles", and there's a good reason for that (it don't make any dang sense).

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I kind of liked it.  I mean, she did conjure dozens of them out of thin air and project them at high speed with perfect accuracy.  That's better than I can do.

 

Sure and the Spleen could fart on command with power, and I can't do that.  Doesn't make it a cool power, or remotely related to death.

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Well, her ability to utilize the Eternal Fire to raise dead things and command them makes her more of a Necromancer than a Gladiator, IMO. She also ruled Hel, the Norse realm of the dead (even in the comics). It is in this sense that I figure she acquired her "goddess of death" moniker.

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I kind of figured since Hela generally fights with magic/magic-boosted melee and armies of the dead in the comics, that they picked the sword summoning as a signature spell for the movie. Hand of Glory is what I remember her using in the comics as her go to, but for taking out massive armies, the sword summons seems flashier and more effective.

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Typically by convention, a necromancer takes out massive armies with an even more massive undead army. Summoning swords to whack-a-mole at the enemy soldiers does not seem fitting. But I guess if Marvel's view is that any costumed super-hero/villain based on Norse mythology must have an attack based on an ancient melee weapon, then I guess it really doesn't matter which weapon they choose since such an association is completely arbitrary to begin with.

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MCU Asgardians have been defined as extremely advanced aliens (which was actually the official position in the comics for a while). So there is no specified realm where the souls of dead Asgardians go for Hela to rule. Hence they would have had to take a different tack with her even if they hadn't wanted to.

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22 minutes ago, zslane said:

Typically by convention, a necromancer takes out massive armies with an even more massive undead army. Summoning swords to whack-a-mole at the enemy soldiers does not seem fitting. But I guess if Marvel's view is that any costumed super-hero/villain based on Norse mythology must have an attack based on an ancient melee weapon, then I guess it really doesn't matter which weapon they choose since such an association is completely arbitrary to begin with.

 

Well, not exactly. Several Norse gods besides Thor did fight with ancient melee weapons with magical properties, such as Odin's spear Gungnir which returned to his hand after being thrown, and Freyr's sword which could cut anything, and which could leave his hand to fight on its own. Odin's son Vidar killed the Fenris Wolf with the help of a magic shoe. In Marvel Comics Sif and Fandral have always fought with swords, and Hogun with his mace.

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31 minutes ago, zslane said:

Typically by convention

 

Riiiight. You're using the wrong convention, here. Whereas I cited how Hela is handled in the source material, you just listed conventions for non-Marvel necromancers in general.

 

33 minutes ago, zslane said:

a necromancer

 

Hela is NOT a necromancer. She's a Death Goddess in Marvel's Asgardian pantheon. EVERY Asgardian is a warrior. That's the convention. Even Loki and Enchantress would wipe the floor with a very large portion of the Avengers line up in the comics. They're all trained in warfare and are all physically superior beings.

 

If you're going to criticize the film on how it handles a character, you'll have to look at the source material, not your own head canon. Hela's abilities were very much in line with her comic version, adapted for the more SF feel of the MCU Asgard.

 

The swords were fine. Much less boring than Hela running around bitch slapping everything and shouting "Hand of Glory!" with a little flash of light. (Though that might have been funny.)

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20 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Hela dealt with groups of people by terrifying them, and she could raise dead at any time to attack them, which would have fit her better, but they went away from all that because magic = technology in Asgard, so..

 

I'm pretty sure in the movie that she did indeed terrify the general Asgardian population, and raised an army of the dead. Did we see the same movie? Or did you think she should have simply feared away the elite Valkyries in the flashback or the elite Asgardian warriors when she invaded the city?
 

Google some comic panels of Hela. She fights with magic, and she frequently enters melee. Her signature move is Hand of Glory, which is a melee attack. And again, Swordapalooza > Superbitchslap on screen.

 

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Why did Hela crush Mjolnir? Two reasons:

-- Thor needed to lose his signature weapon for story reasons. 

-- it immediately established Hela as powerful & dangerous. 

 

Why the materialse sword ability rather than death gaze or 'hand of glory'? The film is being seen by kids. Plus it gives a focus, and is visual. That is is based on an ability from a Marvel character? Bonus. 

 

That's about it. 2 cents. 

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I'm pretty sure in the movie that she did indeed terrify the general Asgardian population, and raised an army of the dead. Did we see the same movie? Or did you think she should have simply feared away the elite Valkyries in the flashback or the elite Asgardian warriors when she invaded the city?

 

People are so antagonistic and defensive about something that has nothing at all to do with them.  There's a difference between "wow she's dangerous" and "she uses a supernatural power that terrifies people"

 

You know, like Hero, with a presence attack vs a mind control?

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5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

People are so antagonistic and defensive about something that has nothing at all to do with them

 

You sure are! :P

 

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

There's a difference between "wow she's dangerous" and "she uses a supernatural power that terrifies people"

 

I know. And in the movie, Hela used the one that she has in the comics, the "wow she's dangerous" variety.

 

Now, we may have different frames of reference, since I haven't really followed Thor much since shortly after the Simonson era, but I don't have any recollection of her using fear powers or a fear aura in the comics. Could be bad memory, too, so I tried searching for a reference to such a power. I didn't find any on any of the usual sites.

 

3 hours ago, zslane said:

Swordapalooza simply doesn't fit her character, period, and "making it kewl for the kiddies" doesn't change that.

 

You know in the comics she has a big black sword that looks a lot like the black swords she summons in the movies. She's an Asgardian, and they tend to run around swording things. And it's not about the kiddies. Seriously, her signature combat move is a bitch slap. That's kind of boring visually.

 

Here she is with her trusty sword (or at least a sword), showing that Asgardians and swords go together like peanut butter and jelly:

 



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Then again, here she is manhandling Kurse with some very generic-looking Marvel Magic. Dr. Strange style shield, some Crimson Bands of Cyttorak or a generic copy, etc.:

 



6235666-6833128909-30788.jpg

 

I can see if you guys don't like her sword FX. She could do other caster things. But you can also see from the above two examples that 1) she knows her way around swords, like most Asgardians, and 2) she does indeed use magic, but it often has generic Marvel FX. I think that using sword FX borrowed from the other character for her combat magic is fine, but I'd have also been OK with her using some kind of fear/death aura effects too. Of course, the visual shorthand for those kinds of effects is usually something similar to her Galadriel on crack scene from LOTR, so that may have been ruled out on those grounds.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

You know what would have worked just as well mechanically for what the movie did with Hela, and would have suited her death-goddess role? Conjuring sharpened bones.

 

Bone swords!

 

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I don't have any recollection of her using fear powers or a fear aura in the comics. Could be bad memory, too, so I tried searching for a reference to such a power.

 

First time she appeared in Thor, she terrified two would-be robbers into almost a coma, with just a glance.  She put the fear of death in them.  Its one of her most basic powers.

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2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

First time she appeared in Thor, she terrified two would-be robbers into almost a coma, with just a glance.  She put the fear of death in them.  Its one of her most basic powers.

 

Do you remember what issue this was? I'm assuming you mean an actual Thor-titled comic, vs her first appearance in Journey Into Mystery 102 (which takes place in Asgard).

 

That sounds like a reasonable reaction for mortals in the presence of a death goddess. However, she doesn't generally bother with fighting bank robbers. She's usually squaring off against other gods or beings closer to her own power level, which would explain why it doesn't come up all that often. She usually falls to bluster and threats like other cheesy comic book villains, and it rarely seems to work.

 

Movie Hela was up against fellow Asgardians. I don't think she had much opportunity to use any fear power. Asgardians aren't going to be as subject to a supernatural fear attack as humans are. Crazy goddess tearing through their elite soldiers like they're nothing? That put plenty of regular old fear into the general populace.

 

Now, it would have been cool if they showed her sucking the souls out of at least a few of her victims, like Hogun, for example. That would have made for a good death goddess visual. But it does seem like they're skipping over the whole Hel and Niffleheim thing with her. I don't think the MCU wants to establish any particular afterlife as canon.

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On 3/20/2018 at 7:12 PM, Doc Shadow said:

 

Actually, I did notice that. But I figured that was why she was able to catch it. 

 

The real question in my mind was "how" she was able to destroy it. In the end I figured it was just Marvel doing what they've done since Fat Farting Joey Q took over. Breaking everything that was previously unbreakable. To sweep away the old regime of course.

 

In the comics Mjolnir has never been unbreakable. The first time Thor fought the Destroyer it clove the hammer in two. When the Avengers battled the Molecule Man he disintegrated it, along with Captain America's shield and the Silver Surfer's board. The precedent is very long-standing that you just need enough power, or the right kind of power.

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