The full trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder dropped last night during the NBA playoffs, and it finally gave us a closer look at what’s in store for our favorite God of Thunder! Jane Foster, Gorr the God Butcher, Zeus, and Thor himself: the trailer’s got it all. Here’s everything we noticed!
Gorr the God Butcher
We’ve finally got our first look at Christian Bale as the villain Gorr the God Butcher. In the trailer, Gorr says, “The only thing gods care about is themselves. So this is my vow: all gods will die.” It looks like Gorr’s origin story, in which he prayed to the gods to save his family but decided to seek revenge after his prayers went unanswered, will remain more or less intact in his MCU adaptation.
We also get our first glimpse of Gorr’s weapon, All-Black the Necrosword, which drains his victims of their blood and has the power to summon shadow-berserkers to fight for him.
Jane as the Mighty Thor
We also get a closer look at Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) as the Mighty Thor. She also seems to be true to her comic book counterpart, with one significant difference: in the comics, Jane has two different ways of speaking. When she’s in her Thor aspect, she speaks like an Asgardian, even though her internal monologue is still her normal Jane voice. Here, she seems to be Jane all the time, even when she’s all Thor’ed up. This change matches the adjustments to Thor’s character that Waititi made in Ragnarok, where he replaced the highfalutin speech of the first two movies with a more normal, down to earth (so to speak) style. The new speech style was part of what turned the Thor franchise around and allowed Chris Hemsworth to show off his comic chops. Rumor has it that Natalie Portman is also a really talented comic actor, so get ready for a funnier, goofier Jane Foster.
Thor is clearly still in love with Jane, but is Jane still in love with Thor? The trailer hints that yes, she is. While the two are chatting, Jane says, “What, has it been 3, 4 years?” and Thor is able to correct her down to the day: eight years, seven months, and six days. It’s possible that Jane is a world-renowned astrophysicist who can’t do basic math, or that she was a victim of the Blip and still hasn’t figured out how long she was gone, but it also seems likely that she’s throwing some shade by pretending not to remember how long it’s been since they saw each other last. In any case, as much as we all want to see Jane and Valkyrie get together (and maybe they will!), judging from how Jane and Thor link fingers as they walk into battle, it looks like their romantic interest might be rekindled in this movie.
Unless the trailer is a misdirection, which Marvel loves to do!
A couple more interesting details about Jane: in one of the battle scenes, we see Mjolnir break apart into a dozen pieces so that Jane can take out a bunch of enemies at once. The action figures that were released a few months ago hinted that it would be able to do that, but it’s cool to see it in action. Also, if you look at Thor (not Jane-Thor, regular Thor-Thor) in the battle sequence with the burning buildings, you’ll see he’s wearing two different sets of armor. When he sees Mjolnir, he’s wearing plain armor with a fur cloak, but when he realizes the other Thor is Jane, he’s wearing his new armor with his golden helmet. Is this the same battle? Hard to say.
Zeus and the Olympians
Another character that we’ve been waiting to get a look at is Zeus, played by Russell Crowe. Way back in December, Spider-Man: No Way Home contained an Easter egg that made it look like Zeus was attacking New Asgard. That may still be the case—and it would explain the battle with all the Scandinavian-looking burning buildings where Thor first sees Jane. It could also explain why Thor and the gang travel to Olympus, only to have Thor chained up and made to fight Olympians. It looks like Thor and Zeus’s relationship will definitely be adversarial.
Slain Gods
This trailer contains another shot of the huge corpse we saw in the teaser. This shot comes straight from the comics, when Thor comes upon the body of Falligar the Behemoth in Thor: God of Thunder #3. In the comics, Thor and Falligar are acquaintances, and Thor mourns his death at Gorr’s hands. Just how many gods are going to die in this movie? It’s hard to say at the moment, but it does feel significant that in one scene, Valkyrie is wielding Zeus’s lightning bolt. Where did Zeus go? Uh oh.
The Final Battle?
There are multiple shots of Thor, Valkyrie, and Jane fighting Gorr in a greyed-out wasteland, with Valkyrie using the lightning bolt. Everything about these shots screams “final battle,” from the forbidding color scheme to Thor’s “come at me” stance. Could this be the climax of the film?
Easter Eggs and Callbacks
There are a couple of interesting Easter eggs and references to other Marvel properties in this trailer. If you look at the shot of Jane summoning lightning with Mjolnir, you’ll notice that a few of the busts behind her look familiar. On the right, closest to the camera, we see the Living Tribunal, who also made an appearance in the background of one of the shots of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Next to him is Uatu the Watcher, the narrator and reluctant protagonist of Marvel’s What If…? It’s not clear yet who the busts on the left are (we’ll update this post if we find out!), but it does raise the question of where Jane is, and why these particular characters are being commemorated in this chamber.
Finally, the trailer ends on a comedic note, with Thor getting all his clothes ripped off when Zeus’s magic goes a bit too far. The first thing to note about this scene, and this is very important, is that it’s now MCU canon that Thor looks extremely good naked. Otherwise, why would all the Olympians faint at the sight of him? Hmm? There’s no other explanation.
In terms of Easter eggs, though, it’s hard not to read this scene as a callback to the first episode of Loki, where Loki similarly gets all his clothes ripped off in captivity. Since the chances are pretty slim that Loki himself will appear in this movie, it’s fun to see the parallels in the two brothers’ lives as they go off on their own separate adventures. Apparently often naked.
Speaking of Loki, if you look closely at Thor’s back, you can see a huge tattoo of Loki’s horned helmet. Aww! Who else wants TVA Loki to meet up with Thor at some point and get a look at that very sweet and garish memorial?
Are there any details we missed? Any theories you have about the trailer or the movie? Let us know in the comments!
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