Finally!
As we’ve already talked about this morning, Marvel released our first look at their November release, Thor: Ragnarok, starring Chris Hemsworth in the titular role with Tom Hiddleston reprising his role as the mischievous Loki. In it, we see just how evil Cate Blanchett’s character, Hela, is when she catches Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, and decimates it with her power. Not only that, she then also appears to engulf all of Asgard in flames.
But, as much as this trailer shows, it still leaves us with oh so many questions. Here are our top five questions that have our burning attention.
Also, total bragging rights, but one of the writers of the film, Craig Kyle, tweeted at our Editor-in-Chief, Audrey Kearns.
@audreykearns Thanks Audrey. @yost and I have waited a loooong time to tell a Thor story like this one.
— Craig Kyle (@MrCraigKyle) April 10, 2017
Boom.
Alright, question time!
THAT OPENING SCENE
— WHERE IS THOR?
A fiery pit. Chains. Flames. Rivers of molten lava. It all seemingly adds up to being either a straight interpretation of the fiery realm of Muspelheim, where Surtur the Fire Giant resides, or being a creative interpretation of Niflheim, the realm of the dead where Hela rules. Either one works. The chains seem to point to a place of eternal torment and punishment, but the flames directly correspond with Muspelheim.
Our guess, however, is that this scene actually starts the entire film as a flash-forward framing the film narrative. If this turns out to be the case, it would hint that Thor and Hulk are relatively unsuccessful in their attempts to acquire the MacGuffin they require to stop Hela and save all of reality. Well, at least, they were unsuccessful up to this point.
DOES HELA DESTROY ASGARD?
Hela is certainly strong enough to decimate Asgard on her own. It’s the reason, most likely, that Odin sentenced her to eternal imprisonment. She can’t really be killed, but she can’t be allowed to destroy reality. With Loki in charge of Asgard, as he somehow banished Odin from the throne, she’s escaped and she’s super pissed. So, yeah, she could totally decimate Asgard, but can she ultimately destroy it?
So, here’s the deal. In the footage they showed at San Diego Comic-Con last year, they showed a shot of what looked like Surtur, the Fire Giant of Muspelheim. He’s also been locked away in his own realm, similar to Hela, so it’s likely that Hela breaks Surtur out of his prison and uses him to help her completely erase Asgard from existence. If this turns out being the case, then Hela would be filling the role of Malekith in the original Ragnarok comic book, where his goal was to free Surtur so the two of them could destroy Asgard together.
IS VALKYRIE THE LAST OF HER KIND?
This is just our guess, but those shots of The Valkyrie riding into battle against Hela seem to be flashbacks. In those scenes, it seems that Hela kills all of the Valkyrie warrior women, but we know that can’t be true since the Valkyrie that Thor meets, as played by Tessa Thompson, is still alive.
In Entertainment Weekly a couple weeks ago we heard that Thor is a total fanboy for the Valkyrie. Seen in contrast to this, it seems that he’s grown up hearing tales of their valor, but assumed that they were all killed in the fight against Hela where she was finally defeated by Odin.
It seems to us that this Valkyrie, possibly Brunhilde from the comics, saw her sisters so easily slain and she fled the battle, finding refuge on Sakaar where she’s now existed for millennia. This would explain why her instinct is to take Thor to The Grandmaster instead of working to free him. However, the way we see it, Thor ends up showing Valkyrie a way to redemption and coming back into Asgard with her honor restored.
LOKI! WHAT YOU DO LOKI!?
Finally, for reals — Loki. What’s up? What are you doing?
In this trailer, we see Loki twirling knives as he marches through Asgard and then we see him sitting next to The Grandmaster on his super gigantic couch. But, what we don’t get here is Loki’s role in the destruction of Asgard, his opinion on it and what exactly his role is throughout this film.
In the comics, Loki is always fighting for Asgard. No matter what, no matter how it might look, his loyalty is first to himself, but then to Asgard. It is his home. He may feel that he is best suited to rule it and may rise up with coup after coup to take it for himself, but it’s always for the benefit of Asgard as he sees it. Our guess here is that Loki is reading the tea leaves, so to speak, and knows that Hela has won this fight. He’s just going along with it, working his own angles, until he can find the weakness to strike.
So, in these scenes, our guess is that he’s fighting against Thor, but ultimately, he’s fighting for him; it just doesn’t seem that way.
ALSO — BONUS QUESTIONS
WHERE’S ODIN?
HOW DID HULK GET ON SAKAAR?
WHERE’S HEIMDALL THAT HE’S OUT OF HIS ARMOR AND FIGHTING IN THE WOODS?
WHAT’S EXECUTIONER’S ROLE IN ALL OF THIS?
WHAT’S LOKI’S CONNECTION TO THE GRANDMASTER? DOES THOR GET A NEW MJOLNIR?
There’s a lot.
Buckle up, the wait for November just got longer.
