THOR: THE DARK WORLD - Grading & Discussion

[Captain Craig]

I know Alidor is right, that Phase 3 is pretty much spoken for, it's just a pipe dream is all as a big Hulk fan.

There is no reason they can't choose a story where Banner, aka Mark Ruffalo, has plenty to do as well as Hulk. Marvel Studios had a speaking GGI Abomination and are about to have a speaking Raccoon and Tree so they can do it, they've just chosen not to for some reason. A movie where Hulk is given some increased screen time to be an interactive, speaking character as he is in the comics and cartoons is all Hulk fans are asking. I'd settle for 80/20(hulk) cause as of now Hulk isn't getting 10% screen time, let alone speaking time.

 

[Captain Craig]

Thor Dark World past it's last "big" benchmark this weekend as it crossed $205m domestic and has a global total of $638m.
Both are awesome increases over the prior installment.

 

[Reverend]

I was just watching Thor 2 and was hoping someone more clued up than I could explain the whole "infinity stones" thing to me.

My knowledge of Marvel's cosmic stuff if pretty much limited to whatever I can recall from the old 90's cartoons. I'm a little confused as I thought the tesseract was a stand-in for the cosmic cube, which I gather is something else entirely. Also wasn't there an M'Krann (sp?) crystal that has something to do with the Phoenix? Is that one of the six?

Does Galactus & the Silver Surfer figure at all in all of this? What about the Skrull, Kree and Shi'ar? Are they outside the nine realms, or a part of them?

 

[JD]

Most of what I know comes from wiki research, but I was under the impression that the different realms were different universes (at least in the comics), so anything in the same universe as our Earth would be part of Midgard. I could be mistaken though.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Cosmic Cube was never said once in any of the movies and the Tesseract never behaved like it. While fans assumed it was and called it that, it's likely the Space Gem (Space Stone in the movie). It fits its powers much better. I think the Ether is supposed to be the Power Gem.

The Infinity Gems are most famously associated with Thanos.

ETA: Yeah, the Nine Realms seem to be more parallel universes than planets, although it's not clearly explained and that's not an easy fit either. But there's plenty of space aside from the Nine Realms and I think it's generally considered part of "Earth/Midgard"

 

[Guy Gardener]

The afterword in Thor, where Siff and Vostag met the collector, said that the tesseract was a gem/stone, and there was no vaguity about the Aether being a "gem".

 

[Reverend]

OK, so the Cosmic Cube has nothing to do with the infinity stones? So what is it anyway? I've heard it mentioned often and it apparently has something to do with Marvel's cosmic mythos. What about the M'Krann? Is that something else too?

RE: Yggdrasil. From the way it's portrayed in the films, it appears to by a physical structure in this universe. Indeed it seems like it's supposed to be THE physical structure of the universe. The way I read the significance of the "nine realms" is that they're terminus points for a network of wormholes that span the cosmos, with Earth/Sol/Midgard as the central nexus. I don't quite get how planets located at opposite ends of the universe could possibly orbit Earth in a mere 5000 years...but that's comic book logic for you.

Clearly from the post-credits Collector cameo and the 'Guardians' trailer there's more out there than just the nine realms, I'm just curious if they've ever gotten into how it all relates. Are the Kree, Skrull and Shi'ar native to our end of space, or are any of them closer to one of the other realms? What about the Nova Guard? Is there any overlap at all?

I'm also not clear on the logic of how/why Asguard got to be ruler of the nine realms if Earth is the one at the centre. Mind you Asgard doesn't even appear to be a planet so much as an artificial habitat, so I have no idea what's going on there.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

All those things you mentioned are not infinity gems.

Just because there are more planets doesn't mean there are more than nine realms. I would argue that everything outside the Thor universe is in Midgard. Asgard is described in the Marvel wiki as a pocket universe.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

If they were to do a Black Widow film, I would be happiest if it was mostly set post-Avengers, or Posu AoU, but tied into her origin story somehow. That way we could both move her story forward, but at the same time still get an origin story, or at least more backstory for her.

I agree. Although, I think a prequel would still work. From the information that we got in The Avengers, it certainly sounds like there's a strong redemption arc for the character in her backstory.

Here it had the feel of "hey, remember that thing audiences liked in the first movie? Yeah, let's do a shit ton more of it!" It started out fine, but after awhile it got annoying.

People liked the "comedy" of the first movie? I thought is pretty widely seen as one of the "worst" parts of the movie. Hell, to paraphrase Kevin Murphy from the "Rifftrax" of the movie when Thor is hit, again, by Jane's van and seemingly knocked out (for the third time in the movie): "Again?! At this point why don't they just put a pair of sunglasses on him and carry him around like in Weekend at Bernie's?"

I really liked the comedy of the first Thor. That's a big part of why it's my favorite Marvel Studios movie so far.

The more I think about, the more I have a problem with Loki's character arc. By the end of the film, he has seen how Thor and Odin truly felt about him. But he keeps on scheming, lying to Thor and whatever he did to Odin.

So any redeemable qualities are gone now. By the end of the film, he turned into a pure bad guy.

I dunno. While he's a bad guy and always will be, I can still see where he's coming from.

Cause Frigga had died also and was sent off to Valhalla.

Which is just down the river...

As a die hard Lost Girl fan, the only advice I can give you is to stay the hell away from the Norn's forest. She will mess you up!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Circling around the world tree.

A perfect cube made from a forcefield which is kinda indestructible (depending on it's powersource, which after it is fulled up by the extradimensional energy is an infinite power source.) by some scientist type, and is then used to capture a jet of fantastically powerful extra dimensional energy which pierces our universe at predictable intervals. (Not the same energy jet over and over, just a similar phenomenon like water faithfully spurting out of a geyser.)

The cube is a wishing machine.

Depending on how good you are at wishing, depends on how good you make out, before it all goes bad.

Here's where it gets icky.

This jet of extradimensional energy is actually a baby.

A stupid baby who is growing up, learning, and the cube is an egg, that will eventually break out of and become a sentient all powerful entity, like the Shaper of Worlds.

http://marvel.wikia.com/Shaper_of_Worlds_(Earth-616)

(There have been other Cube babies, and there have been contested stories saying that the Beyonder who started the first Secret War was a screwed up Cube Baby.)

And that's all you need to know about Cosmic Cubes.

 

[Reverend]

^I suddenly regret asking...

All those things you mentioned are not infinity gems.

Just because there are more planets doesn't mean there are more than nine realms. I would argue that everything outside the Thor universe is in Midgard. Asgard is described in the Marvel wiki as a pocket universe.

That seems at odds with the way it's portrayed in the films so far. I mean clearly it's not a planet in the normal sense, but it appears to be orbited by one (at least) and there are stars and galaxies in the sky. Indeed, Heimdall appear to look directly at where Earth is. Then there's the whole bit about the world tree being a super-galactic sized stellar nursery.

As for the others, what I was getting at was is there any overlap between the nine realms and the other cosmic civilizations besides Earth and Asgard? Like for the sake of argument: is Jotenheim bordering on Kree space? Has Galactus ever threatened Vanaheim? Do the Shi'ar trade with Alfheim. Do the Nova Corps have jurisdiction on Nifleheim etc. etc?

Clearly the Collector knows Asgardians when he sees them, while they in turn are aware of and have a means of getting to whatever corner of space he inhabits, so there's *some* overlap there.

 

[DEWLine]

I'm not sure the MCU will have access to Skrulls, Galactus or Shi'ar.

The Kree, though?

 

[Kemaiku]

Yup, the end of Thor 1 shows that "Yggdrasil" is actually an emmense structure in our universe, of which 9 planets are of particular importance to the Asgard.

Both films mention Asgardians and others pre-date our universe, which could mean they travelled from another originally, but that after their creation of the disc-world of Asgard they encountered the Elves on their home of Alfheim and began the Aether conflict.

(Svartalfaheim was the home of the Dwarves in Norse myth, yet in the film, it's the home of "dark elves", maybe they removed the Dwarves and had 'light' and 'dark' elves? So yeah going with the original Alfheim and that the conflict spilled onto and maybe ruined Svartalfheim to what we see.)

After Bor's passing encountering and fighting the Frost Giants of Jötunheim and their bastardised version of the Tesseract that they (I assume) built their civilisation from, having discovered ~95% of the universe was dark energy that they could catalyse into normal energy.

The others spawned either people or something of importance to them, in Norse myth Helheim is simply a world of fire in general, their could be lava creatures there (Shown as just lava lazily in the film). Neir or some such was the 'world of corpses', maybe an old funerial world.

 

[Reverend]

I'm not sure the MCU will have access to Skrulls, Galactus or Shi'ar.

The Kree, though?

I'm a little unclear as to what Marvel does and does not have the rights to. I mean if they can use Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver on the simple condition that they not be referred to as "mutants" not their parentage directly referenced, then that would appear to free up quite a lot of possibilities.

Like for example, could they use the Shi'ar and the m'kraan crystal so long they make no mention of the Phoenix?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Dimensions are like floors to an apartment complex.

We live on the 10th floor. There's nine floors and a lobby below us and 10 (no 13th floor however.) floors above us.

Destroying the 10th floor is not going to impact so much on the entire apartment complex of dimensional planes...

By the way...

That map of Asgard, was was from the 1983 version of the official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which was a monthly periodical comicbook-sized encyclopaedia that eventually covered A - Z of everything marvel, and most people's opinions they had in 1983 are different from today.

The really cool thing about these reference books is that covers worked together like a jigsaw puzzle to like like this...

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/9tppk.jpg

 

[DEWLine]

Actually, I think that map's from the Deluxe Edition of TOHOTMU, December 1985.

Thanks be to the skills of Eliot R. Brown.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I tossed a coin.

But considering that Asgard, and only the city limits Asgard where just the gods live has been transported to the Negative Zone, the Skies above New York and Boxton Oklahoma, methinks that Asgard is barely more than a city god forbid a planet.

Also note, that the galactic council that controls known space in the wake of the Builder Invasion... Asgard speaks for Earth.

 

[Reverend]

Speaking of Asgard, am I imagining things, or did they greatly expand the city between the first and second movies? Maybe it's just how the shots were composed, but it felt so much bigger in Thor 2. Like there's an actual city there and not just a big golden castle/citadel thing with a really long rainbow bridge sticking out the front.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

(Svartalfaheim was the home of the Dwarves in Norse myth, yet in the film, it's the home of "dark elves", maybe they removed the Dwarves and had 'light' and 'dark' elves? So yeah going with the original Alfheim and that the conflict spilled onto and maybe ruined Svartalfheim to what we see.)

Pretty sure the Marvel comics also have Dark Elves as well.

I'm a little unclear as to what Marvel does and does not have the rights to. I mean if they can use Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver on the simple condition that they not be referred to as "mutants" not their parentage directly referenced, then that would appear to free up quite a lot of possibilities.

Like for example, could they use the Shi'ar and the m'kraan crystal so long they make no mention of the Phoenix?

I think the idea is what comic are they primarily associated with. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are X-Men universe, but also have a strong association with Avengers. Do the Shi'ar or the M'Kraan Crystal have much association beyond the X-Men? From what I know, I'm leaning towards "no." At least, nothing important (obviously, all Marvel stories have had crossovers).

The consensus is that the Skrulls are out and I have no reason to doubt that. Galactus is almost certainly out - being predominantly a Fantastic Four villain. Not sure about Kree. My guess is all three are Fantastic Four.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Here are some pictographs of Yggdrasil and the Nine Realms connected to it.