IT’S FINALLY HERE! With only about 3 months before its release date, the trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder has finally dropped. What the heck is going on in this teaser? Who are all these people? What are all these places? And all these outfits?? Here’s a full breakdown!
Not Every God Has a Plan
When we last left Thor, he was going through some major readjustments in his life. He spent 5 years in a deep depression over the death of his family, the loss of his homeworld Asgard, the Blip, and his failure to prevent Thanos from using the Infinity Gauntlet. At the end of Endgame, his defeat of Thanos with the Avengers seemed to put him on better emotional footing, and he decided to name Valkyrie King of New Asgard and go off with the Guardians of the Galaxy to have some space adventures.
Now, the trailer seems to imply that he’s going to move on from the Guardians pretty quickly. In one shot, we see the Guardians rush into battle, while Thor turns and walks in away. Then we see their ship take off, leaving him and Korg behind. Thor’s voiceover says that he’s committed to peace instead of war, which should make for a very gentle, conflict-free movie. Thor tending his sheep in the pasture or something. A new direction for Marvel.
In all seriousness, the teaser makes it look like this movie might explore Thor’s emotional journey a little more deeply than we’ve seen in the past. After all, the guy’s gone through so much! We might even get treated to a scene of child and teenage Thor in the movie, judging from that montage of Thor running through the forest.
The trailer also gives me a sinking feeling that we might see Thor finally ride off into the sunset at the end of Thor 4, but I’m going to push those thoughts as far from my mind as possible. I’m still not over Tony Stark’s death.
Welcome to New Asgard
At the end of Endgame, Valkyrie said that she was going to implement a few changes in New Asgard, and it looks like she kept her word. In a lightning-quick shot (no pun intended, I swear), we see one of the flying Asgardian skiffs that we first got a peek at in the LEGO set that was released a few weeks ago. Two goats are pulling it, presumably Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder, Thor’s goats from the comics. Behind the ship, we can see that a few small, tasteful golden palaces have gone up amidst the Norwegian buildings that were already there. You can take the Asgardian out of a golden palace, but you just can’t take the golden palace out of an Asgardian! We already know from the merch we’ve seen so far that New Asgard is being turned into a tourist destination, and we get confirmation of that in another shot of some cruise ships and vans with “New Asgard Tours” written on them.
Then we get a shot of Valkyrie in what looks like some sort of diplomatic meeting, looking bored as hell. Why are you in a suit and tie, Valkyrie? Who did this to you?? Blink twice if you need us to come get you out of there. (To be clear, our King Valkyrie looks incredible in this get-up, but it also seems like she wants to be anywhere else. Luckily, we know there’s also a new fighting suit in her future.)
Zeus!
We’ve known for awhile that Russell Crowe would be joining the MCU as the Greek thunder god Zeus, and now we’ve gotten our first look at … the back of his head. In one shot, we see Thor using the Bifrost (more on that in a second) to fly into a floating city. This place is most likely Olympus, home of the Greek pantheon in the Marvel universe. In the comics, it’s a realm located on a flat planetoid-type celestial body very similar to Asgard, and accessible to Earth through a similar method of warp travel. It remains to be seen how Olympus will compare to its comics counterpart.
From what we see in the teaser, it looks like Thor will visit Zeus in Olympus for some reason. That’s really interesting, considering the Easter egg in Spider-Man: No Way Home that made it look like Zeus will attack New Asgard. Does Thor go to Olympus after the attack? Was the Easter egg a complete misdirection? Is the teaser misdirection? We don’t know!
Zeus does hold up a large lightning-shaped talisman, though, emphasizing his role as a thunder god. Will we get dueling Gods of Thunder? Please, please, pretty please?
Miscellaneous Cool Stuff
Thor gets with a pirate lady! No idea who she is, but I’m here for it.
Bifrost is back! Remember that in Infinity War, Eitri the Dwarf said that Thor’s new axe, Stormbreaker, could conceivably summon the Bifrost bridge and allow Thor to travel through space. We see the Bifrost coming out of Stormbreaker and taking Thor to Olympus, so it looks like he’s mastered it.
Thor’s new look. We see Thor working out in order to shed the weight he gained in Endgame (please, Marvel, no more fat jokes?) and rocking a sweet leather vest. Note, in the workout scene, that his hat says “Strongest Avenger,” a reference to his pissing contest with Bruce Banner in Ragnarok. Weirdly, his artificial eye seems to be gone, replaced by the original baby blue that…I keep…getting lost in…
Weird aliens! We see a couple of giant alien corpses: a big skeleton and some kind of animal. Plus, the Guardians seem to be going up against a race of blue people, and there is, of course, the blue-haired sailor. This movie is going to be a romp through the cosmos.
Where is Gorr? No sign of Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher yet. We’ll have to wait for the full trailer to get a glimpse!
Well, that’s just about everything we noticed in the new teaser. Yep, I think I covered it all. Oh, wait, except one thing…
THE MIGHTY THOR!
At the very end of the trailer, we finally get our first peek at Natalie Portman’s return to the MCU as Jane Foster, who will take up the mantle of the Mighty Thor. Her costume is more or less true to the Mighty Thor from the comics, and she’s wielding the reconstituted Mjolnir. She looks absolutely fantastic. Will she and Thor rekindle their romance? Considering their breakup happened offscreen, we deserve some more substantial drama between the two of them.
We’ll be posting more Thor 4 breakdowns and analysis as details come out, so stay tuned! Thor: Love and Thunder comes out July 8.
(images: Marvel Studios)
