I may love most Marvel movies, but if there has been one bone of contention between them and me, it would be lackluster final battles. If there was a second, it would be completely useless press junkets. Now, press conferences are often boring no matter what the movie, but for some reason Marvel and I have never really gotten along in terms of not sucking.
Unfortunately the conference for Thor was no different. While I enjoyed the movie (Rob Hunter gave it a B-) the conference failed to turn up many interesting things.
Well, at least not interesting things about the movie. Here’s what I learned (with potential spoilers that you already know for The Avengers):
1. Loki will be powered up in The Avengers — While in Thor it only took one Norse god to lay the smack down on Loki, in The Avengers the god of mischief will have big plans that require eight super heroes to take him down, according to Tom Hiddleston.
2. The fight sequences got real… at least once — Not in an aggressive way, but in that the “man mountain” of Chris Hemsworth landed a solid shot on Hiddleston’s nose during a fight scene.
3. Anthony Hopkins is a Chatty Cathy – When Sir Anthony Hopkins talks, you listen. At this conference, there was a lot of listening as Hopkins, who plays Odin, uses six words where three will do. Though it’s entertaining, as he describes himself as having gotten lazy over the years and needing a director like Kenneth Branagh.
4. Bloggers don’t know fitness — This probably goes without saying, but become readily apparent when Chris Hemsworth was asked: “Did you benchlift cows?” If you don’t know why that’s wrong, hire a personal trainer.
5. Regardless of that, Thor’s training was intense and effective – Hemsworth started out as a pretty thin guy, but gained weight through heavy resistance training, eating a ton of food, to the point where he gained too much muscle and had to lose weight to fit into the costume.
6. The cast has dicks on the brain — In a short press conference, two different actors made dick references. First, Kat Dennings asked why her microphone was so “phallic looking.” Later, Idris Elba reminded ladies that his character had a “big sword.”
7. Don’t read too much into Darcy – Kat Dennings was taken aback by all the questions shot her way, describing Kat Dennings as a “blank slate” that didn’t have much of a back-story, or much importance to the story overall.
8. Girls should see it for the titties — When asked why females in particular should see Thor, Dennings responded simply: Beefcake.
9. Norse Myths are great starting points – Kenneth Branagh described Norse myths as “short and dense,” crediting them with a punchiness, similar to comic books, that made them easily translatable to the film world.
10. The DVD will be stacked — When the film comes to home video it will contain deleted scenes, “special things,” documentaries, and vignettes.
11. Marvel’s Kevin Feige is a score nerd – Feige’s iPod has nothing on it but movie scores and soundtracks.
12. The Read Through was a funny experience — Instructed to “go for it” by Branagh, Tom Hiddleston acted out his lines with great intensity, while Kat Dennings’s lines amounted to “OMG Muscles!”
Related Topics: Comics
