Bring on the epics.

Saw Thor. A while ago, actually. Look at me, being a responsible blogger.

Thor. Yeah. It’s in my Top Five Comic Books of Ever, and it’s near the top of that list. I’ve had mixed feelings on the past several Marvel releases…well, since X-men 3 or Spider-man 3, whichever of those came first. The Edward Norton Incredible Hulk was, in my not-so-humble opinion, fucking awesome (I still haven’t seen The Ang Lee Incredible Hulk) and it’s a goddamned shame that it’s being scrapped for a reboot. Iron Man was damn impressive. Iron Man 2 was set up to destroy all expectations for comic book movies, and then my expectations were destroyed for comic book movies when I saw it. Don’t get me wrong! I really liked it! I just feel they could have pulled things off better — most importantly, it needed MOAR MICKEY ROURKE. I wasn’t pleased with the activation of God Mode at the end.

However, I’m getting off topic (what’s new?) and I need to get back to Thor. I had convinced myself that it was going to be utter shit. I was pissed that the visuals were “comic-booky”: I had been hoping that they’d, I dunno, use realistic-looking armor and swords. Hell, I have realistic-looking armor and swords and I’m just some underfed, unemployed, recently-graduated slacker living at his parents’ house, watching The Science Channel all day; I figured they’d pull it off in the movie.

No. We get a rubber Thor. Rubber Odin. Rubber Loki. Rubber Warriors Three, Sif, Heimdall, and Frigga. Frost Giants that, well, really weren’t all that giant (except for Laufey–GODDAMN). Did I mention I’m a Norse mythology fanatic? I probably didn’t need to. Anyway, Straczynski was onboard, so not all of my hope was lost. Just most of it.

So, I saw it opening evening (no, I didn’t go to the midnight release, unfortunately). Some of my friends that I went with were trying to convince me that I’d like it; the others were ambivalent, as they weren’t really one of us few proud Thor fans of the universe.

The visuals were stunning. I still don’t like the costumes or the appearance of Asgard (or how goddamned empty it was), but, taken out of the context of Thor, they were fucking mindblowing. Bifrost, in any context, was awesome and probably my favorite part. I was really glad it wasn’t as rainbow-y as it is in the mythology. That’s a change I liked. Another change I liked was that several of the characters were no longer just plain pasty Scandinavians (even though there was only one real Scandinavian in the movie — Stellan Skarsgård for the fucking win!): Heimdall was portrayed by Idris Elba (Charles Miner is definitely enough of a hardass, even if I didn’t like the ridiculous amount of gold on his armor) and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun (he freakin’ played Ghengis Khan). It kind of adds flavor (and some amount of believability) to the universe-spanning Yggdrasil branches.

The acting — eh. Chris Hemsworth captured the cockiness and unintentional sense of humor of Thor pretty faithfully. Anthony Hopkins hammed it up as Odin (think less serious Hopkins like Silence of the Lambs or Slipstream and more silly Hopkins like Dracula) and I was entertained, even if he was in Odinsleep for 86% of the movie. Tom Hiddleson as Loki…I still don’t know how I feel about him. He was great at going from really sad to really sneaky in the blink of an eye. I just don’t know if he’s a Loki. Well, comic book Loki, I suppose. I need to stop comparing it to the mythology. Colm Feore as Laufey — holy shit. I wanted more of him.

Cameos! Hawkeye showed up. He was never explicitly named, but if you know anything about The Avengers or, well, Marvel, you know it’s him. Same with Luke Cage. At least, I think he was Luke Cage. He was a big black guy who could fight Thor one-on-one, but I really couldn’t get a good look at him. He didn’t look like the Luke Cage I know, but hey, when you’re a body guard for S.H.I.E.L.D. in a new Marvel movie, you’re not wearing a skin-tight yellow T-shirt, skin-tight black jeans, and a huge-ass belt buckle reading CAGE, oh no, you’re dressed like you’re a member of a SWAT team (if they did that, why not metal armor?).

The story. There was a lot missing from the comics, but it’s a movie and there’s only so much you can do. Sometimes you have to settle for less.

The music was, of course, awesome. I’d go on more, but I’m not really a soundtrack expert and I don’t really know what I can say that hasn’t been said before.

So, should you see it? Yes, you should, but under certain conditions. If you’re one of us few Thor fans, yeah, definitely see it. If you want mindless action mated with silly awkward humor, definitely see it. If you want to see all of the relevant movies before watching The Avengers, definitely see it. If you don’t fall into any of those categories, I wouldn’t bother. Wait till it comes out on DVD, have your friend buy it, and watch it together (for free) with some beers (or mead).

Now, the title of this post said epicS. Why plural? Fucking Game of Thrones. I’m not going to give a very in-depth review of it because, hey, there are better ones out there (check out westeros.org for all of your GoT/ASoIaF needs). It’s fairly true to the books, but there are a lot of scenes that I take issue with and a lot of creative decisions that I think would have been better if they were left as they were in the books, but hell, it’s a TV series. There’s only so much you can do with the budget/time limitations and the format. Not having the POV characters and their extensive internal monologues takes a lot out, but the creative team is making up for it by adding new conversations or showing a look or et cetera. It’s on HBO and that’s the only network (except for maybe Showtime) that would be able to portray the books in visual form most faithfully. I think the only way to fit everything from the books into the series would be to make each episode two to three hours long, but that’s just unrealistic. Overall, I’m satisfied with what’s happening so far. I’m re-reading the book alongside the show (for probably the tenth time) to compare the two — and, that way, when I’m not satisfied with something on the show, I can just go back to the book where I know I will be satisfied.

I’m probably going to be doing an analysis of the actors with my inexperienced, pitiful thoughts on them sometime soon.