How The Thor: Love And Thunder Trailers Lied To Us
Contains spoilers for "Thor: Love and Thunder"
"Thor: Love and Thunder" brings Chris Hemsworth's Asgardian hero back to the big screen for his fourth solo movie, which sees him struggling to stop Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) from slaughtering all the deities throughout the universe. Just in case his full title isn't self-explanatory, Gorr's out for revenge on the gods after the death of his family, which he blames on his own gods, who didn't step in to help. Thankfully, Thor isn't alone on his quest to save the various pantheons; he has rookie hero (and ex-girlfriend) Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) along to help and distract him in equal measure.
Although Thor's hammer Mjolnir was destroyed by Hela (Cate Blanchett) in "Thor: Ragnarok," the object has been mysteriously reassembled and deems Jane worthy enough to wield the powers of Thor. The first trailers for the 2022 sequel teased the heroic transformation, as well as Thor's shock over her newfound abilities, but the footage never reveals how the iconic hammer gets reforged. It's quite simple really: Mjolnir calls to her and reassembles on its own because Thor asked it to always protect her in a flashback — and she's worthy enough to wield it, obviously.
During a press conference (via BGR), director Taika Waititi teased that Mjolnir's return leads to a surprising love triangle, "Yeah, look it's hard to see the ex-girlfriend turns up dressed as him, that's a shock. And all the sudden the weapon that he held so dear, and so on, for so many years now belongs to someone else. And then he has Stormbreaker who starts to sense a little jealousy there. You know?"
This isn't the only time the "Love and Thunder" trailers lied to us about the God of Thunder's fourth solo outing, either. Here are some of the most egregious.
The Guardians of the Galaxy aren't in it much
If you only saw the trailers, you might assume "Love and Thunder" is a movie primarily about Thor teaming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to fight a bunch of alien marauders. This would make sense given that he leaves New Asgard with the gang at the end of "Avengers: Endgame." But the film's opening montage — hilariously narrated by Korg (Taika Waititi) — reveals that Thor's adventures with the Guardians only reminds him that he feels empty inside, largely because of his breakup with Jane. So after saving a peaceful race of blue aliens from a furry band of raiders, Thor and Korg part ways with the Guardians. That's right. If you were looking for the next chapter of the Guardians' story, you'll have to wait for James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" because this ain't it.
It's a little disappointing, since there was plenty of chatter about the cosmic heroes returning for the "Thor" sequel, with fans understandably expecting them to have a sizable role simply because of the time and effort it takes to get the ensemble cast in for filming. Unfortunately, once Thor starts hunting Gorr, the Guardians don't appear at all in the rest of the film.
It's a shame, but this is Thor and Jane's story, and it's probably for the best that all the big personalities on Peter Quill's (Chris Pratt) crew don't take it over.
Jane Foster's chemotherapy
The trailers don't touch on Jane having cancer at all. Instead, they just show us that she has Thor's powers in fight scenes set in New Asgard and Omnipotence City — and her wicked Asgardian costume to boot. It's obvious why Marvel Studios kept this out of the marketing, because her poor health is a key emotional plot point of the story — as well as being a drastic development for Jane's arc. The movie wastes no time in explaining that Jane has stage 4 cancer and that she's going through chemotherapy.
Let's not forget that Portman actually clarified that the film uses the storyline in Jason Aaron's "Mighty Thor" comics back in 2020 when speaking to Yahoo, so it's not something that needs to be in the trailers. The star vaguely touched on the cancer storyline when speaking to Variety recently, saying that the "duality" of being a hero "might give you a different perspective on your human life." While Taika Waititi added, "Part of why [Natalie] wanted to play that character is that she has a dilemma in the book." It obviously affects how Jane acts as Mighty Thor, while also changing Thor's perspective on the universe.
Plus, using her cancer in the marketing would definitely feel grim, placing this plot element at odds with the light, exciting tone of the marketing materials. In the final battle with Gorr, Jane decides to become Mighty Thor for a final time to stop him from killing all the gods using the Eternity altar. Although Gorr makes it to Eternity, Jane's sacrifice and Thor's decision to be with her in her final moments makes the villain change his mind about what to do with the universe.
So basically, it's a good thing Marvel didn't include Jane's health in the trailers, even if it was a bit deceptive.
Gorr's plan revolves around children
The trailers also did a grand job of hiding Christian Bale's Gorr aside from a few moody shots of him snarling threats to the gods as we wields the Necrosword. To be fair, with a name like Gorr the God Butcher it doesn't take a genius to figure out what his goals are in the sequel, so Marvel didn't need to explicitly reveal his full plan. But what is a complete surprise is the fact that he kidnaps all the children from New Asgard as a way of luring Thor and Mighty Thor into the Necroverse.
The gambit works as expected in the film — which means he can focus on his true goal to steal Thor's Stormbreaker axe. This is all so he can get to the altar of Eternity, a place which would let him resurrect his own daughter. It says a lot about Gorr that he isn't afraid of using other kids to get her back, and Taika Waititi is clearly toying with themes about encouraging children to be better people than their parents. That becomes even clearer when Thor agrees to look after Gorr's daughter as the villain dies, and raises her as a hero.
Thor's Dad-God status is a huge change for the hero going forward, but it's such a central element of the story in "Love and Thunder," it's kind of amazing we don't even get a whiff of it from the trailers.