The Ending Of Thor: Ragnarok Explained
Well, it's finally happened. Somehow, Marvel Studios figured out how to take one of its least interesting movie characters—the mighty Thor—and make him the star of a completely bonkers space adventure with more laughs per minute than most recent comedies. Wasn't Ant-Man supposed to be the funny Marvel movie? How the heck did Thor: Ragnarok take that title?
Anyway, now that the credits have rolled and the Easter egg hunts have begun, there's just one big question left to answer: what's it all mean? While you probably get the big, overall picture kinda stuff—like how the good guys won, and the bad guys lost—there's still plenty of Asgardian goodness we can dive into. Hold onto your hammers while we explain the ending of Thor: Ragnarok. And before you get your breastplate in a twist, just remember: spoilers for this movie, and possibly future Marvel Movies, lie ahead.
Next stop: Oklahoma
So, the realm of Asgard was destroyed by Surtur in a fury of fire and, hey, maybe some extra fury thrown in for good measure. But as Thor reminds us as he evacuates his people onto that big honkin' spaceship, Asgard isn't a place: it's a people. And those people? They're going to Oklahoma. Probably.
Sure, they never mention the the Sooner State when they decide to hightail it to Midgard at the end of the movie. But there's still evidence that Oklahoma is where they'll make their home in the next movie in this series, Thor 4: More Thor Than Ever Before. That's because in the comics, the Odinson set up a new version of Asgard for his displaced people in the fictional town of Broxton, Oklahoma. Is it a guarantee that Thor and his pals will trade their helmets for cowboy hats? Certainly not. But considering how wacky and crazy Ragnarok turned out to be, the fish-out-of-water potential for setting the next Thor movie in rural, midwest America is too great to ignore.
Hela's fiery fate
Near the end of the film, Hela rushes into battle against the fire demon Surtur, who brings about Ragnarok—the end of Asgard. That's the last we see of Hela. And that means, of course, that we never see her actually die. That's important! When we don't see characters bite the dust, that means there's plenty of room for them to come back in future films. That's even more true for characters of the immortal variety, and Hela, who's older and more powerful than Thor and Loki both, seems particularly immune to the whole death thing—what with her being the literal goddess of death and all.
Not only that, but she's at her most powerful while she's in Asgard. So there's every chance that she's still alive and kicking, fighting Surtur even as Thor and the rest of his friends take the long journey to Earth. We know Thor's going to need every ally he can get when Thanos comes to town. Who better to call for help than his big sister? They'll work it all out. They're family. Now, speaking of Thanos...
The Mad Titan appears
During the first post-credits scene, Thor and Loki talk about the future of the Asgardians, when suddenly they're interrupted by the arrival of a gigantic ship. We never find out who, exactly, that ship belongs to, but it's pretty clear that it's Thanos' ride. We've known for years that he'd be the big bad in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. Considering the cosmic nature of Thor and the rest of his people, it makes sense that they'd be the first to really encounter him directly. And that's not all.
In July 2017, Polygon reported on Infinity War footage shown at D23, the biennial Disney fan club celebration. That footage showed a brief moment of Thor meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy in space. Considering that Thanos is a known entity to the Guardians and that Thor's cruising around space right now, it seems like a pretty safe bet that Thanos is going to tangle with the God of Thunder before he makes his way to Earth in Infinity War in summer 2018.
Are you ready for the Space Gem?
You can't have an Infinity War without Infinity Stones. We've seen these things floating around the Marvel Cinematic Universe for years, and Thor: Ragnarok was no different. We got a look at the Time Gem around Doctor Strange's neck during his brief appearance. And we saw the Space Gem—also known as the Tesseract or the Cosmic Cube—sitting in the vault on Asgard. Just before he grabbed Surtur's crown, Loki stopped and took a closer look at the gem...and we never saw just what he did with it. But, come on, we all know he grabbed that thing. It's Loki! That's what he does.
When Infinity War rolls around, Loki will probably do a double-secret betrayal of his brother and offer up the gem to Thanos in return for, like, a space-duchy or something. Loki's a jerk is the thing. Prepare for him to be jerky with the Space Gem. Again.
Is this the end of Bruce Banner?
Probably not. Banner justifiably freaked out at discovering he'd been in Hulk mode for two years, and made a bold prediction that if he Hulked out one more time, he might never come back. But let's be real here: Mark Ruffalo is the first guy to play the Hulk in more than one movie, and even become beloved while doing so. There's as little chance of Bruce Banner not coming back as there is of Thor somehow staying a cyclops. You think Marvel's going to want to cover up Chris Hemsworth's million-dollar mug with an eyepatch? Come on: this is Hollywood. They'll magic something up and we'll get our movie stars back in the next flick, good as new.
To fallen friends
As sure as it seems that Banner and Thor's right eyeball will make a return in future films, we can't really say the same for the Warriors Three. We never saw Hela die at the end of Thor: Ragnarok, but we totally saw Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun get their guts stabbed right through their bodies. A pretty lame ending to three of Thor's longtime supporting characters...and he wasn't even around to know that they died! It's even less likely that the three heroes will be resurrected now that Zachary Levi, already the second actor to play Fandral (the first being Josh Dallas, pictured above), has been announced as the lead in the upcoming Shazam! movie over at Warner Bros. Marvel Studios has little incentive to bother recasting the part again.
More mirthful Marvel
The great thing about Marvel movies is that they can kind of be whatever you want them to be, right? Winter Soldier was a superheroic spy film. Ant-Man was a wacky heist movie. And Spider-Man: Homecoming was basically Home Alone with web shooters. But more and more of these movies have leaned heavily on comedy, and it's a trend that doesn't show any sign of stopping.
Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, became a gigantic hit despite the fact that exactly zero of the characters had any name recognition outside the deepest corners of the comic shop. Did you care about Groot or Rocket Raccoon before the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie? Probably not—but you do now. That's because both of those films, in addition to all the other wonderful things they do with their characters, special effects, and action set pieces, are also really, really funny.
The same goes for Thor. If he's your favorite Marvel Comics character, then you've got some weird taste, dude. Thor works great in an ensemble, and Thor comics have a long history of high adventure and utter weirdness. But for most people, he's the just strong guy with the hammer, and two good but unmemorable solo movies didn't do much to change that.
Thor: Ragnarok has flipped the script. It might even be fair to say that it's put Thor on the same level as Deadpool when it comes to funny superheroes that fans want to see even more of. If there's one major explanation we can take away from the end of this movie, it's that Marvel is probably going to double down on the funny when it comes to adapting its funny books to the big screen. They don't call them "comics" for nothing, y'know...