Female characters in superhero movies don’t always get the best treatment. From being unceremoniously killed off for developing another character, to existing only to be a love interest, to barely-characterized femme fatales, we’ve seen it all. But things seem to be getting better lately. Female heroes don’t just get their own films, like Predator birds or Black Widowbut they also get better treatment in movies with men. Thor: Ragnarok found two incredibly interesting characters like in Valkyrie(Tessa Thomspon) and Hela (Cate Blanchett), so when Thor: Love and Thunder It was announced that high hopes were not only for the film itself, but also for the return of its female characters. Jane Foster (English)Natalie Portman) the return had incredible potential after we saw each of the Avengers get their own satisfying arcs in Ragnarok. Unfortunately, the end result was a mistake. The tough ladies we’ve been waiting for have had their own stories sidelined, and that makes the film seem more hollow.
Ensemble Thor: Ragnarok was phenomenal. Each character had a separate arc, and those arcs ended in a satisfying way in the ending. This cannot be said about Love and Thunder. Although our squad of protagonists again consists of four people, the only one who actually has an arc in the movie is Thor (Chris Hemsworth) who realizes that to love something means to accept the loss of it. But Valkyrie, Jane and KorgTaika Waititi) are all basically left without direction. Korg has always been more of a comic relief, but Jane and Val are now the protagonists of a franchise with many fans looking forward to their return. What adventures will they go on? What new challenges will they face? How would they change in the face of this? We really can’t find out and it’s very disappointing.
Valkyrie was a fan favorite after Thor: Ragnarok. Her transformation from a jaded drunk just trying to save her life to an Asgardian warrior was once again wonderful to watch, and her reign as King of New Asgard was an exciting premise on the horizon. When we catch up with Val in Love and Thunder, it is clear that this work is not all that it should be. New Asgard has become a tourist hub and she spends most of her time doing menial jobs such as advertising and posing for diplomatic speeches. Clearly, this is not what she expected or wanted.
The film seemed to have a plot in which her return to a life full of adventure helps her realize that being a king is not what she wants, or even helps her rediscover her passion for the role beyond the minutiae of everyday tasks. . . But instead, she just trudges along most of the time. She cracks jokes, talks to Korg about her dead lover, and gains the ability to wield Zeus’ lightning, but it seems empty. She has no trajectory, no arc, and by the final battle she is left behind with injuries and barely reappears. It’s disappointing that a character who seemed to be an integral part of the last film has turned into an ancillary part of this one. The bones of the arch for her are in her struggle to be king, but history seems to be completely uninterested in her, except for a few cheeky lines and cool fights.
Jane triumphantly returns to the screen after years of absence and brings the Mighty Thor to life. We spend some time alone with her at the beginning of the film as she battles cancer and desperately tries to find a way to cure herself. Like Val, she has her own arc. It’s easy to imagine a version Love and Thunder where Jane uses her new access to magic and science to come up with a new way to save her life. Or, if the movie wanted her to die at the end, they could do her arc about admitting that not everything can be fixed through science or magic, no matter how hard you try.
But in the end, her arc narrows and she dies to save the day and complete Thor’s arc to learn to love despite loss. This is especially frustrating for Jane because it’s easy to imagine what small changes could be made to give her a full arc. Another scene of her in the hospital before the climactic battle, which actually showed that she chose to join Thor despite the consequences, could have shown her resignation to death with a purpose and death as the Mighty Thor rather than allowing herself to fade over time . It wouldn’t be perfect, but even a small scene like this would make it feel like it had a bigger impact on the story.
In the end, Jane, like Valkyrie, remains static throughout the film. Sure, she gains new powers, but we never see her struggle with them or her new role other than the physical toll she inflicts on her. She’s set up like she’s a different protagonist Thor: Love and Thunderbut she never realizes that potential because her arc and suffering serve to bring Thor to where he needs to be.
Even Lady SifJamie Alexander), who barely appears in the film, is subjected to such lackluster treatment. She’s been absent from the movies for years, so you’d expect it to be a great reunion and maybe even add her to the adventure party, but instead she disappears due to injury, only to reappear briefly at the end of the movie. movie. The character of Sif miraculously survived where the trio of warriors were comically cut out, but nothing came of it. With her reappearance, one might think she’s become something of a Chekhovian Asgardian, freshly recovered and ready to help out in a dramatic final confrontation when the heroes need her most, but like her co-stars, she seems to more there. as an addition to the story than the real part of it.
We see these tough, strong women that we know from a lot of movies, but they have nothing to do. They fight, get injured, and are discharged until they are deemed relevant again. It’s almost confusing that only two characters in this movie have full arcs when Ragnarok it was possible to give satisfactory conclusions even about its secondary and tertiary characters. It’s disappointing that the movie brought back all of these characters but didn’t seem to know what it wanted to do with them. Valkyrie, Jane and even Sif are the main characters Thor franchise at this point, and having them included in such a massive movie is great, but their purpose in the movie seems to be diminished. in terms of impact on their characters. Movies may be named after Thor, but it’s not just his movies. Love and Thunder cannot capitalize on the set of characters he has to work with, instead leaving them to simply follow along with little thought to their own lines and motives.
Source: Collider
