MCU Rewatch: How Thor: Ragnarok revitalised the series

If you want to check out the series of me rewatching the MCU movies up until now, click this link.

It take both humility and the ability to admit you’re wrong to be able to turn a movie franchise around in such a dramatic way as this. They’re traits absent in most high powered executives. Their egos couldn’t take it. And yet, some combination of factors at Marvel Studios, be it the astounding number of wins they’d been on for a while now or maybe just a rational human being finally got the ear of someone in a good mood.

Whatever the reasons, turning two of the weakest entries in the franchise, totally reinventing them and making one of the weirdest, most charming sharp left turn I can think of any movie franchise ever making is something Thor: Ragnarok needs to be celebrated for.

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MCU Rewatch – Thor: The Dark World is secretly a great Loki vehicle

This is an entry in an ongoing series in which I go back and relive the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the very beginning. I’m doing this after realising I have only seen most of these movies a single time since release. Click this link to go back and see the archive of the articles in the series so far.

I had been pretty critical of the first Thor when I rewatched it for this series. The dark fantasy aspects of the movie, while unique, stunk of a B-movie bomb just waiting to happen, it ended up getting dragged along with the wave of excitement for a honest to god Thor movie being made. Regardless of how it stands up to scrutiny years later. Despite the star studded cast and massive budget thrown at the movie. The early interpretation of Thor left a lot to be desired.

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Revisiting the MCU: Was Thor a Mistake in Hindsight?

New to this series? Why not read my Prodigious Preamble, where you can find links to each entry in my rewatch series so far.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t think 2011’s Thor has aged that well. Not to say it’s particularly out of touch or dated in itself, rather it feels like a tonal misstep that the franchise eventually goes on to self right in the late movies in the franchise. Looking at the movie objectively, it’s a perfectly serviceable action movie that mixed fantasy and science fiction, it’s just that the direction the series took ended up leaving this movie looking like the odd one out.

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