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That was not good. Too much Taika.
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Too gay?
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Please. Too much dumb funny. It was like a bad version of What we do in the Shadows.
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I like dumb funny. It's a comic book movie. It's Thor.
Can't wait for the director's cut. Oh wait...
Quote:Taika Waititi: “I love ‘Stranger Things’ – but as a Kate Bush fan I’m really annoyed!”
The 'Thor: Love and Thunder' director takes [b]Alex Flood[/b] through his banger-stuffed new movie
[b]G[/b]ods! Guitar solos! Guns N’ Roses! Taika Waititi’s new comic book blockbuster is a throwback to the ’80s, when the hair was big – and the movies even bigger. Everything about Thor: Love and Thunder is done to excess, from the opening fight scene in which Thor (Chris Hemsworth) takes down an army of steampunk owl-men to the many A-list cameos (our favourite being Russell Crowe’s gut-wobbling, uber-Greek Zeus). This is bang-for-your-buck moviemaking – and it works wonderfully.
Back for his first solo outing since 2017’s Ragnarok, Thor is in perhaps his biggest pickle yet. A snakelike villain played by Christian Bale, Gorr the God Butcher, has managed to acquire the only weapon in the universe that can kill deities – and he’s pointing it squarely at this Scandi-superhero’s chest. Luckily, Thor’s joined on his adventure by Ragnarok alumni Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Waititi himself) and ex-girlfriend Dr Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), so the situation shouldn’t be too tricky to sort out.
We caught up with director Waititi to find out more (including how he managed to stuff so many massive metal tunes into a film about a man in lycra – must have been difficult…)
Hey Taika, is Thor: Love and Thunder the most metal Marvel movie yet?
“Err yeah, I tried! I wanted it to feel equal parts Iron Maiden album artwork, mixed with movie posters like Conan and Beastmaster – and all the Frank Frazetta fantasy art from the ’70s and ’80s. The whole thing was supposed to feel like a spray-painted fantasy scene on a panel van in Venice Beach.”
How’d you manage to fit four Guns N’ Roses songs in?
“We actually wanted five [songs] but that might have been overkill. It was a real triumph, having one of my favourite bands from when I was a kid, the band that really informed the soundtrack to my life. Still at 46, usually at about 3am when I’m in bed, I’ll watch GNR music videos. I don’t go on one of those porn sites, I go and watch Axl Rose in the ‘Paradise City’ music video!”
Did you have to phone Axl Rose up and ask for permission?
“It was put to me – and it was one of the moments in my life where I was like ‘I’m not gonna do that.’ I’ve met a lot of my heroes and then realised they weren’t my heroes. Axl Rose was definitely someone I thought, ‘I’m gonna fuck this up, I’m not gonna talk to him.’”
![[Image: Thor_Love_And_Thunder-1.jpg]](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Thor_Love_And_Thunder-1.jpg)
Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’. CREDIT: Marvel Studios / Disney
Could Love and Thunder do for GNR what Stranger Things did for Kate Bush?
“You mean how they ruined Kate Bush? I love that show, but as someone who feels a real ownership of Kate Bush music… I’m really annoyed! I’ve become one of those old arseholes who’s like: ‘These kids never listened to Kate Bush, they’ve heard one song on a TV show! They don’t know Kate Bush! I know Kate Bush!’”
Christian Bale said you were supposed to have a Kate Bush dance scene in Love and Thunder?
“Before Stranger Things! Yeah, there were a bunch of Kate Bush songs I wanted to have in there. We were gonna have ‘This Woman’s Work’, which was gonna be great for [a scene with] Natalie Portman’s character. There was actually gonna be a lot of ABBA in the film as well…”
You got one ABBA song in there, ‘Our Last Summer’…
“Yeah I got one in there, but I wanted more of an ABBA theme throughout. I thought it’d be funny if Thor’s favourite music was what he perceived to be a ‘Viking band’. He’d be like, ‘They’re a real tough Viking band called ABBA!’”
![[Image: Thor_Christian_Bale.jpg]](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Thor_Christian_Bale.jpg)
Christian Bale as the snakelike Gorr the God Butcher. CREDIT: Marvel Studios/Disney
And what about this Aphex Twin video Christian Bale was using as inspiration for Gorr, the villain?
“Oh yeah, I did a dance thing with Chris [Hemsworth]. He had his solo dance scene which didn’t make it in the film and that was to ‘Waterloo’ by ABBA. I wanted to have a mirrored version with Gorr when he feels like he’s about to win [the fight with Thor] and that was gonna feel a bit more like the tempo of ‘Windowlicker’ [by Aphex Twin] and the ‘Come To Daddy’ music video where he’s got the big jaw. It was scary stuff that Christian was coming up with for the character, and a lot of it was inspired by Aphex Twin.”
Did you have to give him the Marvel 101?
“I don’t even know that shit! So I wouldn’t be able to do that. I don’t know what’s going on in the MCU, I just watch stuff that comes out and think ‘damn what’s this, this is cool?’ So if anyone asks me to explain everything that’s going on, I’m pretty lost. I know everything that’s going on within the Thor universe, but I only just learned all the names of the Guardians of the Galaxy…”
Did you know there’s already a petition asking Disney to #ReleaseTheWaititiCut?
“I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts. I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors. They suck. Director’s cuts are not good. Directors need to be controlled sometimes and if I was to say, ‘ah you wanna watch my director’s cut? It’s four and a half hours long!’ It’s not good, at four and a half hours. There’s a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there, you don’t even have to pause it.”
What would your Love and Thunder cut look like?
“I’d say my cut would probably have a few more jokes in there. There might be a couple of deleted scenes but as I always say, a scene is deleted because it’s not good enough to be in the film. I think the deleted scenes section on the DVD, not that they use them anymore, should just be a list of the scenes and no links so you can’t click on them!”
‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ is in UK cinemas from July 8
This interview had been edited for brevity and clarity
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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I'll put down more thoughts tomorrow.
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Cool.
My bar for the MCU is pretty low in terms of story. It’s still like candy for me - tasty but no nutritional value. I just want to be entertained with them.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Okay. Here's one. How does a Greek god have an Italian accent?
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07-09-2022, 04:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2022, 04:58 PM by Drunk Monk.)
Same way a Norse god has an Australian doing English (?) accent. That screaming goat pulled ship has sailed…
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Screaming goats rule.
Okay. But it's an Australian guy doing the Italian accent.
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Okay. I didn't realize the film had started when it started and thought I was watching a trailer for Furiosa. I was disappointed when it wasn't. But that start set this really interesting tone for the movie which was promptly abandoned for hijinks and mugging. Everybody seemed to talk in the same jokey voice. And a lot of the scenes seemed to have that adlibbed quality Taika likes and I do not.
How many times do we have to say "Rescue the Children"? Christian Bale's character could have done more. He had this great opening and then was gone. So many overly long talking scenes. And what was with the talking to the weapons? Seriously? It was funny once but then they beat it into the ground. They shouldn't have put the nude scene in the trailer. Do we really need all that GnR music. I think the Led Zeppelin song worked so well in the Ragnarok because it was so rare. Not the case in Love and Thunder.
I think they needed to spend more time in preproduction working on the story. It was a mess and did not flow.
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Originally, I was not a fan of the screaming goats, it was just more dumb stuff, but I did grow to like them more and more.
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What do you mean Roy 'Fucking' Kent is in this movie?
Ted Lasso fans will know.
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Melissa McCarthy was funny. I forgot about her. Also funny was that Liam Hemsworth got to play Chris Hemsworth.
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07-11-2022, 03:41 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-11-2022, 03:43 PM by Drunk Monk.)
Melissa annoyed me almost as much as Zeus’ accent. But I did enjoy the whole new Asgard idea. The play replay was freakin hilarious and Liam confused me for a bit.
Taika’s kid was one of the kids too.
I was hoping Jane and the Valkyrie would hook up.
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A lot of the actors kids were the kids.
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