It's Just Movies

— by CAM SMITH —

I was never much of a “Thor” enthusiast in my formative years.

Though I could appreciate the visual delights and imagination of his elaborately-scaled universe, and the villainous Loki and formidable Absorbing Man, the comic’s heavy emphasis on quasi-Shakespearean language was a big turn-off (which is a tad odd, considering my unwavering adoration for the equally verbose Silver Surfer …) and I could never quite appreciate the character’s cool-factor — no matter how hard “Adventures in Babysitting” tried to persuade me.

However, despite my youthful ambivalence towards the cult-hit Marvel property, I’m absolutely fascinated by Kenneth Branagh’s currently-in-production film version, which — fingers crossed — promises to be one of the more innovative superhero movies just around the bend. With the director’s well-proven track-record for brilliant Shakespeare adaptations, he feels like a natural to bring the silver helmeted-one to the big screen, and his wonderful cast, including Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, Rene Russo, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Hiddleston, positively bursts with promise.

In a recent exclusive over at Latino Review, the site published a number of quotes from anonymous insider sources which provide some juicy behind-the-scenes nuggets regarding the project.

One of the more intriguing pieces of enlightening information is in reference to the how the film ultimately deals with the Thunder God’s much-anticipated future enlistment in the Avengers:

“Basically, at the end of the movie, Thor makes mention to Clark Gregg’s character Agent Coulson that his kingdom of Asgard and S.H.I.E.L.D. are on the same side and whenever they need his help, he will be there to assist them in battle. It does leave it open, with Thor basically saying, ‘When you need me and you want to assemble a team, I’m down.’ So, this is obviously pre-Avengers, post-Incredible Hulk. At this point, Nick Fury and Tony Stark would have already started amassing people.”

Additonally, they also provide some insight into what we can expect the character’s difficult-to-translate costume and fearsome hammer, Mjöllnir, to wind up looking like on celluloid:

“Surprisingly, the costume looks amazing. We could tell early on from the production sketches of costumes and sets that this was going to be something good. It’s just beautiful and the designers really took it to heart. If you look at some of the more recent ‘Thor’ comics that are out now, the tone and the costuming is that. It’s basically, the way you read the comics now, they’re updated the way they are now and that’s how the costumes are. I think everyone is going to be very, very happy. Nothing looks cheesy or cheap. Everything looks like it’s real. Everything looks like it came from that period. And everything looks right on all the actors. Nothing looks stupid. I guess that’s the best word. It’s just jaw-dropping even to the Marvel executives.”

Whether Thor’s duds will wind up resembling the awesome recently-leaked video-game concept art remains unknown, but if it does I suspect dyed-in-the-wool fans will have precious little to complain about.

For more on Hemsworth and Branagh, as well as “Thor’s” place in the Marvel movie timeline, and how Bruce Banner ties into the story, follow the above link over to Latino Review and read up, ye IJMers.

Personally, it’s going to be painfully loooong wait for me until summer 2011. I may just have to head over to my local comic shop and pick up a “Thor” anthology or two to help pass the time. Better late than never, they always say.

In the meantime, just to get ya’ll in the proper head-space, I’m going to leave you with this stirring little piece of fun and colorful nostalgia:

And here is a fan-made poster by JerzeyHellboy (probably not his real name):

. . .

Follow Cam Smith on Twitter at http://twitter.com/camspcepisodes.