Thor Ragnarok was a fun movie. It was really fun. It’s probably the most entertaining MCU movie to date. We all loved it for it. But we also loved a lot of other stuff. Thor himself gained an 80% boost to his humor, Loki was there a lot, something that most of us wanted. Then there’s Goldblum doing Goldblum stuff. Priceless.
I could probably go on and on talking about all the things I liked about the movie. I’m sure you could too. But with all of what makes the flick amazing, it also makes it terrible. Why you ask? Well, because it ruins the established MCU. It takes everything lightly and jokingly and that in turn ruins what most of the previous movies established. Especially what the previous Thor movies established, and also what was done in the last Avengers.
Let me explain. If you remember, in the Age of Ultron, Thor took Infinity Stones very seriously. In part, his new-found knowledge about the stones, kept the most important parts of the plot moving forward. His story in the movie ended with him going away to find out more about the rest of the stones. He realized how important they are, and how destructive they can be in the wrong hands. And then what happened in Thor Ragnarok? The movie starts with him explaining that he basically got bored with it and stopped searching. Seriously? He literally gave up on the one thing that could bring about the ending of the entire universe. Amazing…
Another, probably even more important problem that this superhero comedy created is what the Asgardians are. It was previously established that they are not Gods. They are not above anyone else, they are like us, only stronger and with longer lifespans. That actually fitted into the rules of the MCU. The entire MCU and everything going on in it was always explained through science. Even if something seemed magical, it was actually just something normal and real that humans still have no knowledge of. That made things pretty understandable. It also made the MCU logical and “real”. It gave it structure and meaning. Everything was organized well.
Then Thor Ragnarok came and they threw it all it all away. Everyone in Asgard became a God. And why? Who knows. Probably in order to make everything look more “cool”. However, there was no need to throw down the drain all of that continuity established in several previous movies. I know that they wanted to revamp the Thor franchise because the movies were the least successful in the MCU, but they really didn’t need to ruin the other movies in the process. Ugh…
In the end, since they did this, and we can’t change it, we have to accept it. We should accept that these movies are truly fun and that there’s no need to go deeper. Just enjoy the movies, even though they’ll probably mess up the entire continuity pretty soon…