#70 – Thor: The Dark World: Journey Through the Nine Realms

Welcome to Marvel Maniac and MCU after show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka mr. Honest. We're back for another episode involving the God of Thunder himself, Thor, and his second movie and his third appearance in the MCU. This is the Thor Dark World After Show. This movie does a lot of worldbuilding, and it introduces a new Infinity Stone at the Reality Stone in this movie, mostly referred to as the Ether, like Iron Man Three, which we just covered. And the next movie will cover Captain America the Winter Soldier. This movie deals with the fallout of the Avengers and what toll that took on our main character Thor in this movie. And also, where did Loki end up after calling out an entire war between New York and Asgard and the Chitauri? It's a lot to follow up, and this movie does a really good job of getting deeper into these characters that we already know and we've already come to love and gives them more depth, and it gives all the relationships, especially between Thor and his family and Loki and his family, they're really built in this movie. Spoiler alert for everything that's happened in Thor's story through Thor love and thunder and everything in the MCU that's happened through phase four. Because we're going to touch on how that connects to this movie and kind of what later things happen in the MCU to make this movie stand a little bit stronger and hold a little bit more a place in my heart when I come back to watch it. It's very nostalgic because I did see this movie in theaters when it came out, as I did most of the MCU films. Directed by Alan Taylor and released on November 5, 2013, thor The Dark World starts off sort of like the first one did, with a history and a narration from Odin explaining how thousands of years ago there were the dark elves. And they pretty much came before the age of man, and they ruled over darkness. And once the light on humanity showed up in the world, they wanted to turn it all to dark. Odin's father went to war with the dark elves and won, and their leader, Malachith, like, went into this hibernation once he lost. And I guess he would be only awakened when the Ether, the Reality Stone, would come back into play and be awakened and be put back to use throughout this whole movie. Malachith has some sort of an internal connection to the Reality Stone, and there's like some sort of power he has. He's completely connected to it. So the Reality Stone goes back so early in time, connected to the dark Elves, and its history almost like starts with the dark elves. When Odin's father won the war, he decided to hide the Reality Stone, aka the Ether on Earth and it wouldn't be found for thousands of years. And who is the person to find the Reality Stone? It's Jane Foster herself. Who? In a later Thor movie. This is where my spoiler alert comes in. She does get cancer and gets very sick, and it's kind of a popular theory. And it's kind of hard to watch this movie thinking that when she has the Reality Stone or the ether in her, this might have been the start or the cause of her sickness and the reason she ends up dying in the end. And that's kind of a really heavy thought, but I fully believe it because we know from Avengers endgame that the Infinity Stones have gamma radiation similar to what the Hulk was exposed to to turn him into the Hulk. And this probably didn't sit well in Jane's body after being in there for a couple of days even. She housed an Infinity Stone in her body for however many days it was in this movie. Until Malice takes it out towards the end, she's just sitting with it. It makes her pass out at times. Basically, this is what kind of shows her potential lady later on to become Lady Thor. The power that she's able to hold, an Infinity Stone. That power is in Jane Foster for a big portion of this movie, and I'm not surprised that it takes a toll on her later. It's just heartbreaking. The movie starts off with the Nine Realms kind of in chaos because what Loki did in Avengers kind of sent ripples throughout the galaxy. So the Nine Realms that Thor is supposed to protect are sort of in shambles because the bifrost was broken after the original Thor. So there was no way for Thor to protect the Nine Realms for a certain amount of time, especially during and when the events of Avengers happened on Earth. It kind of was like a call to other realms that chaos is going to start breaking out. So there's like these marauders that Thor is fighting in the beginning of the movie, and it's kind of his final fight in that war that he's been having kind of off screen to bring the Nine Realms to peace. Earth kind of being the first one with Loki's attack and then the others. One of the Nine Realms is the Dark world in which this movie is named after, and that's the realm of the Dark Elves. It's technically called Spartelheim as they talk about in the extra features. I'm going to advise any super Marvel fans that have Disney Plus. That's where most of us are watching nowadays. I'm guessing if you go into the extra section of any Marvel movie on Disney Plus, they have deleted scenes. Bonus content. If you like the assembled the making of on Disney Plus for the newer shows and movies, you are going to love these special features. It's pretty much that for these movies because we don't get the assembled making a Thor Dark World. All of the special features are available on Disney Plus. So if you don't know about that. I didn't. And it's kind of been blowing my mind. So I would go do that. I would go check that out if you're interested. So, yeah, we get a lot of action from the get go of this movie, seeing that war between Odin's father and the Dark Elves, and then going to kind of where Thor is present day, fighting in protecting the nine realms. He's in one of the other realms, and he fights a big rock creature that kind of reminds me of Korg. And I think he might be the same race as Korg if I'm not wrong. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's like a Korg, and if he's not, he's a big rock creature similar to Korg. And I kind of really dig that. We kind of get to see an early representation of his species. And this giant rock creature is totally the big bad of this marauders army. And Thor is fighting on the battlefield, and then this thing steps out to Thor. They're going to have a huge fight, and Thor just like, knocks him into bits and rocks in like, one foul swoop. So Thor is as powerful as ever in this movie. He's like anyone else. And he has his companions from the first movie, including CIF, who's one of my favorites. I think she's awesome. She's so badass. Sif has a lot of action in this movie, maybe even more than the first movie. We may get more Sif in this movie than any other Thor film. Also with the returns of Fandrel, Volstag and Hogan, thor's kind of entourage, and they do help him escape asgard at one point in the film. But we'll get there because this movie I mean, this movie, there's a lot happening, but at the same time, it's kind of a simple, straightforward story. And at first, I remember when the movie came out, there was kind of not the best reaction to it. But I think Thor movies age well, I really do, especially sitting in between the future installments of Thor and in Thor Ragnarok, or even the Avengers Infinity War storyline for Thor into endgame. You look back at Thor dark world as this really nice placeholder that really helps build these characters. We get to see Loki being walked into Odin's throne room after his attack on New York against the Avengers, and he is kind of laughing it off Loki, but Loki is being sent to a prison cell for the rest of his life by Odin. Odin pretty much tells him it was your right to die. And Odin's pretty much broken off, like his feelings or affection for Loki. But we go into a bit of a theory at the end of this movie on how Loki came to hold the throne for Odin. Basically, between these two movies, thor dark world and Thor Ragnarok, loki continues to hold the throne, but we don't really get to know exactly how he got it. And it seems at first that it's something like that he did to Odin. And you don't know, did he kill Odin in secrecy or something, but it turns out that Odin is just spending his time on Earth. So it actually seems that in this movie when Loki goes to confront Odin, we see Loki in the movie to disguise himself as guardian guard and to tell him that Loki's body is dead. He was like, lying to Odin about him being dead. It's my theory really, that at that time, Odin, he says Loki when he's replying to the guard. And it seems like in that moment, Odin is assuming that Loki died, but in reality, what happened is Loki, he knew it was Loki. And I think Odin actually gave the throne to Loki in secrecy, and like, the people wouldn't really accept that. But after knowing what he did for his brother Thor, and also knowing that Thor isn't going to want to take the throne at this point because he's in love with Jane Foster and he's off doing stuff with the avengers, it's pretty much assumed by me personally, that Odin gave Loki the throne and decided to retire on earth. Maybe that's explored further in Thor Ragnarok in a way that I missed or I don't remember exactly. However, it seems to me that Loki just sits his butt on the throne up until the events of Ragnarok. So Loki is like, it was my right to be a king and on and says, it was your right to die. And he sends Loki to the prison cell. And this is when Thor comes home, and he's kind of into having a big celebration with his companions about kind of bringing a temporary peace to the Nine Realms. Back on Earth, Jane Foster is on a blind date, and it's not going super well for the guy who's on the date with her. He's doing his best to keep Jane's attention, but Jane is very distracted, gets even more distracted when Darcy Lewis returns for her second time in the MCU. We later get to see her in WandaVision. This is like, I believe, the last time we even get to see her before WandaVision. It's a huge gap in the character story, and that type of continuity in the MCU is fantastic when we get characters jumping around from movie to show to one thing to another. Like in WandaVision, we get Darcy and we get Jimmy Wu, so we get someone from the Ant Man and the Wasp, and we get someone from the Thor franchise all dealing with this in universe issue. This is the groundwork for it right here in these early phases. A character like Darcy Lewis is a perfect example who will probably even get more of in the MCU going forward in different things. I was kind of surprised she didn't show up in Thor Love and Thunder. I don't believe we got to see her at all on that because we probably just got to see her in WandaVision. And her path from Jane kind of diverts, I guess, a little bit. By the time she's in WandaVision, she's doing something completely different. Anyway, we meet Darcy kind of trying to get Jane out of this date that she's on because she's getting, like, these crazy readings similar to when Thor landed in New Mexico. So this leads them along with Darcy's assistant, who, like, she has kind of like a love interest for her in the movie. I think that's all fair. It's all fun. That's maybe, like, my least favorite aspect of the movie, but it's not even that bad. Who cares? Let Darcy find love. I don't think it's just a little distracting from the main story. And it's almost like we only really need Darcy and Jane Foster and Eric Selvig again, we don't really need this assistant of their intern, so he goes by the intern. He's not really needed, but he's a good comedic relief at times. And you know what? Darcy deserves to be in love, too, although I don't think this really lasts or pans out for her in the long run. So it's kind of just like a side thing in this movie. So the thing that Thor's dad stopped the Dark Elves from doing was using the ether at a specific time during convergence, when all the nine realms align. And it happens once every thousand something years. And this is happening again, where we are in the present timeline 2013 at this movie. And this is kind of what's causing, I think, the reality stone to go crazy. And it's causing, like, anomalies and sending out all these spikes of, like you already see that it's giving off gamma radiation, by the way, in the beginning of the movie, their readings are going crazy for it, even miles away from it. And by the time Jane gets to it, there's these portals opening up all around the place and kind of like, wormholes where they throw their car keys in and like, it keeps well, the car keys got lost, actually, but they're throwing, like, popcans, and it's like, going through this dimension and popping out of another dimension. So there's a lot of use of that in this movie, thanks to the ether. And Jane Foster ends up walking into a portal that leads to the house of the ether. I'm assuming that the ether was buried way below or something from where they find it, and it just opens up a portal on the ground surface or something like that, because where Jane Foster finds it, it's in, like, this deep, dark cove. The way the portals work at the end of the movie, it's not even super specific. But the portals that the ether causes in this movie that are, like, kind of that Jane Foster falls into and, like, later, Thor is fighting malachi at the end of the movie, and they're going through these portals and it's leading them to the other realms. So it's very possible that the Ether was hidden. Maybe it was on Earth, but there's a chance that the Ether was hidden, like deep, dark somewhere in one of the Nine Realms and it just opened up a portal on Earth. And that was the beginning of the Convergence in which Eric Selvig is losing his mind over in this movie. By the way, they do reach Eric Selvig and his character in this movie is so good. I really dig what they did with Selvig because in Avengers, as you know, Eric Selvick was mind control by Loki nearly the whole movie. And he was like one of, if not the biggest victim of Loki's mind control with another Infinity Stone, the Infinity Stones and the toll it takes on the characters in the Thor franchise. The Thor franchise is deeply impacted by all of the Infinity Stones, if not most of them. I can't think of, like the Souls. I don't think the Soul Stone has anything to do with Thor. God forbid Thor had to sacrifice someone else he loved for something. I think Thor would be willing to, though, sacrifice himself, at least for the Soul Stone and Avengers endgame. I think Thor would be worthy to do that. But they wanted to tell more stories to Thor, so it ended up being Natasha Romanoff. But sorry, going on an Infinity Stone tangent back to the Reality Stone, where Jane Foster just discovered it. And this is where Thor is talking to Heimdall, and he's kind of reminiscing about Jane. And as heimdall is about to tell Thor that he watches Jane, he tells Thor that he can't see her. So that's another good point to maybe realize that the Reality Stone slash Ether was being housed in some deep, dark crevice in one of the Nine Realms. And whenever Jane walks off into that portal to it, she's off world. She's off world. So this is when Thor goes to look for Jane and Jane actually exits the portal on her own. And time passed differently in there. Like 5 hours went by and she only proceeded as a few minutes. But Jane consumed the entire Reality Stone when she was in there, not on purpose. She wasn't hungry for Infinity Stones just by misfortune, this happened to her. So basically, Thor, his idea is to take her back to Asgard, which ends up being kind of the worst decision actually, for him. This decision does not help him bringing the Ether and Jane to Asgard, but this is like his first instinct. And he brings her there and she gets to see Asgard, which is really cool. We don't get to see a lot of people from Earth go to Asgard and Jane gets to see it. And she's definitely mesmerized by the place as am I. We get a lot of asgard in this movie. And we get to see it from a lot of different angles. As Jane is being analyzed by as Guardian, what seemed to be doctors. She's kind of schooling them. She's like, this is like a quantum fuss capacitor. I don't know exactly what she says. And then she's like, no, this is like a spiritual engine. And I'm saying all the long terminology here, but basically Jane is kind of reminding us that magic and science are the same thing like we learned in the first Thor movie. And she sees kind of everything from a scientific perspective, which is a good see through on Jane's character. I can definitely see why later that they gave Jane a lot more power in the story in Thor Love and Thunder, because she's like more of a damsel in distress in this movie. She's not really, like, fighting for herself, and Thor has to save her from this inevitable doom. When in Thor Love and Thunder, we get to meet Jane again, she's suffering and she's going to be her own hero opposed to Thor having to come in and save the day. She's fighting to stay alive and she's trying to figure out how to do that for herself. So I kind of like that dynamic that we get from this movie to that movie. I think this movie really does a big attempt at making Malikith have more depth and weight than your mustache Twilight villain. And I think the history with the Dark elves does a lot for that. He doesn't have a lot of lines or a lot of dialogue, and we kind of just get straightforward from Malcolm what he wants, and it's to bring eternal darkness throughout everywhere, all the Nine Realms, and using the conversions to do that. So once Jane Foster gets the ether, he just immediately awakes from like a giant hibernation that he was in at one point. Thor in the movie says this would have happened either way, which is very possible. But, I mean, if Jane Foster didn't come in contact with the reality stone, malachith wouldn't have woken up or would Malcolm have woken her up because of the convergence? That's something that's kind of unclear. But it is perceived in the movie that he wakes up once the ether is awoke by Jane Foster. So, like I said, he has some sort of connection with it. In this movie. He commands an army of dark elves, which I don't know if all of them were in hibernation during the time he was or just lingering in the dark world waiting for him to kind of come back and give them orders. I'm guessing that's kind of it. The whole civilization is run by Malachi and there's not like so much information given to us. But he has motivations and they're just pretty straightforward. He wants the darkness to fall upon all of the Nine Realms, and I think that makes for a good villain and an overarching story about brothers and family. And I think he kind of stands as a huge threat. He's basically like a Thanos level threat, except if this guy had all the Infinity Stones, I mean, imagine how devastating he would be just because he doesn't have some of the personality and charm and ego that Thanos had. I mean, this guy does have an ego, to be honest. He's a pretty cocky elf, if I'm being honest. I like that Malachih uses his army similar to Thanos does at the beginning of the movie when he's in the war with Odin's father. He kind of uses all his he does like a raining fire thing similar to Thanos does. I mean, Malachiet is no Thanos, but I'm surprised the Avengers didn't get called in on this one. But everything was progressing so fast in the story that, like, the Avengers wouldn't even have really had time to know what's going on. Like, Tony Stark probably heard of what was going on about the conversions and, like, another portal opening up in the sky. I mean, that would be something that maybe Tony would almost not want to deal with at that point. But, you know, he was probably aware, but he he wouldn't have time to get all the way to London in a matter of, like like 20 minutes. And by the time Thor comes in and saves the day, there's no need for the Avengers. A quick spoiler for Ant Man and the Wasp quantum mania. It kind of reminds me of we're introduced to an Infinity Stone in this movie, and we kind of get to see a little bit of its power, but it's not like every single aspect of all the Infinity Stones. So we don't know everything yet, but this is like, the first time we're hearing of Infinity Stones in the post credits of this movie. So Antman and the Wasp quantum mania kind of reminds me of that in a sense, where we're like meeting a piece of the kings and just a piece of that puzzle. And I'm assuming that later we're going to get a lot more story to make that movie a bigger movie in the franchise, similar to Thor Dark World, because we do visit this movie, Thor of the Dark World again in Avengers Endgame. And this movie is a big like, the events of this movie are a big reason they can go back in time and take the Reality Stone. We don't even really see the Reality Stone ever again. Until Avengers Infinity War. So this movie does a really great job of setting up the Reality Stone and the other Infinity Stones. As a matter of fact, one of Malachoth's smartest decisions in the movie was to use one of his followers, Algram, and have him turn into this big wicked monster called Curse. And this is sort of something that Algram volunteered to do, and he gets stabbed by Malachith and turns into this big, raging beast. He's not as big as the Hulk, but you got to compare it to the other creatures in the MCU. Like, he's no Hulk, but this guy is raging, and he's scary, and he's darker than the Hulk. So this is what Malcolm uses to get inside of Asgard. We don't know how exactly, but Curse algorithm turns into Curse, and Curse gets taken into the Asgardian prison, and Loki sees him getting brought in, and this is kind of where things start to go to crap really fast. And he does something, like, after he was already stabbed by Malachif algorithm, curse stabs himself and Hulks out even more in the cell of Asgard, allowing him to break out of the cell and start wreaking havoc from the inside of Asgard. And at this exact moment, the dark elves start. They have this cloaking technology on their ships, and they start to attack Asgard, and Hendell, like, sees it coming, only, like, a glimpse before the ship arrives. And he does this really cool maneuver where he's running over the rainbow bridge and jumps onto one of the ships and takes it down, only to reveal that there's, like, ten more ships on their way. Hendall is so cool, but he wasn't enough to protect Asgard in this instance. The dark elves technology was beyond as. The Asgardian detectors, and Heinzal the guardian of Asgard. In a sense, it's it's a shame because you know that heimdall, like, puts that on his own back, but it wasn't really his fault. This is something they couldn't have predicted. Or could they have? I don't know. Maybe if Odin didn't lie about did Odin lie, or was Odin lied to? That's not clear either. Did Odin lie about the Ether being destroyed because they thought that Odin, I think, thought that it was destroyed, and maybe his father didn't even tell him the truth about it being hidden somewhere because it's that big of a temptation. And Odin immediately kind of knows what's going on with Jane Foster, and he knows it's an Infinity Stone, and he pretty much doesn't know how to get it out of Jane. So by the time that the dark elves start attacking Asgard because, again, something that I don't really get, but I guess it goes back to the creation of the Infinity Stones. I think the dark elves maybe were the holders of it from the very beginning. Malekith has this kind of, like, how Thanos knows where the Stones are. In Avengers like Infinity War, malikh knows where the Reality Stone is at all times when the Reality Stone is awakened. So he just knows to attack Asgard when they're vulnerable in terms of not even knowing that they were coming. They thought the dark elves were pretty much destroyed and vanquished, but he went into a hibernation. So this leads to an attack on Asgard destroying so much of Asgard. Asgard is, like, ripped to pieces in this sequence, and Thor does a good job of kind of tearing it apart when he's escaping later. But, I mean, the place is already in shambles. So the Dark Elves attack Asgard, and there's kind of this war sequence happening. And then as curse is breaking out of his cell. He approaches Loki, and he doesn't let Loki out of his cell. He lets all the prison other prisoners out of a cell, but not Loki. He could tell. They even say it in the special, special features that he doesn't see good. And Loki, this guy I mean, not like this bad guy doesn't see good. And Loki, this bad guy, like, knows Loki is no good. But Loki, one ups himself on being just the worst, and he directs the giant curse on where to go. He says, take the stairs to the left. And this leads to the death of Friga, Thor and Loki's mom, and Odin's wife, the queen of Asgard. This is, like, one of the biggest deaths in the movie. And it's a big moment. There's a big funeral afterwards, and it's kind of a beautiful sequence of a really great soundtrack. But her death is really hard on Thor. And the minute it happens, Thor walks in and he can't protect her, and he bashes Malikith in the face with a big old burst of lightning burning Malikith for the rest of the movie once he walks in on his mom being literally murdered by him. So this is going to give Thor a huge reason to team up with someone he never thought he would again his brother Loki. Loki is basically dead to Thor, similar to how Odin is exiled. Loki. Thor, he barely has a care for Loki in the world after what he did to New York. There were moments during The Avengers where Thor is trying just so desperately to stop Loki from doing what he's doing, and Thor can't stop him. So for Thor and Loki to team up, even Loki says to Thor, when Thor is coming to Loki's cell, you must be really desperate to come to me. And when Thor comes to see Loki, loki is presenting himself you know how Loki can do projections. And Loki is presenting himself to be way more to put together than he actually is. He's broken up about the fact that he led his mom to die. And I don't think Loki assumed that would happen in all this. I think Loki thought he was probably giving his brother a big fight, maybe giving his brother a hell of a time, or giving Odin a hell of a time. But I think deep down, Loki knows that his family is capable of protecting themselves. And when he sees the fact that his mom died most likely because of him, I think he's ridden with guilt. The death of Friga is most likely an absolute point in time in Loki's story, because, as we learn. In Loki, the show skip ahead about 30 seconds if you haven't seen Loki yet. But in the show Loki, we know that this moment, when he finds out at the TVA that he caused his mom's death, he is completely off stricken by that and the fact that he missed his mom's death. This is literally something that impacts him in this movie in that exact way without us seeing exactly as much of it. So that kind of helps us get into his mind a little bit on how he feels about what he did to his mom, Loki. Loki is about family. And Loki does want vengeance on the dark elves. I believe Loki just always wants the throne, and he would do anything for a throne. So by the end of the movie, when we see Loki on the throne, the fact that Odin might have even given it to him, which I'm not 100% on, but I believe I believe that happened. The fact that Loki is sitting on a throne by the end of this movie shows a huge stretch and character development for him. So after the Dark Elves attack Asgard, meanwhile, back on Earth, there's a lot happening, like, with Eric Selvig and Darcy. I mean, not so much really like, Darcy is getting Eric Selvig out of a mental institution in which we see our Stanley cameo. He asked for his shoes back because Eric Selvig is doing this huge demonstration on The Nine Realms and, like, quantum mechanics and, like, pretty much like discovering the multiverse in phase two this early on, on that chalkboard behind Eric Selvig, he's going nuts, basically. Like, having the mind stone control, Eric Selvick's mind. He's given this, like, crazy wisdom of the universe, and it's too much for one man to contain, so it drives him basically insane to wear. Like, he has to take his pants off when he's going into thinking mode, which I really like. So to get back at the Dark Elves, thor wants to go and bring Jane to Malachi in the Dark World and have him extract the ether because they don't know how to do it. And then once he extracts the ether, he's going to take Malacheth out. And Odin doesn't agree with this. So Thor has to come up with a plan to break out of Asgard because they've shut down the Bifrost. And the way that they're going to break out of Asgard is through the ship that Malik has literally crashed into Odin's throne room. And by the way, when he does this, he just completely obliterates Odin's throne. Asgarden might have some really good repairman or some technology that build structures really fast, because by the end of the movie, Loki is sitting on the throne, and the play seems pretty well reconstructed. So Thor's plan is to steal this ship, bring Jane and Loki upon it, so he has to break Loki out of prison and kind of break out of Asgard without hurting anyone, because the Asgardians are his people. So this is kind of like the most heisty thing we get in this movie, and it's one of my favorite sequences. It's a really fun sequence for Thor and Loki, and it's unfortunately another example of how Jane is just exhausted throughout all this action when they're escaping in this Elf foreign ship that Thor is flying through the waters of Asgard. We get so many great visuals of Asgard during the scene, and Loki trying to tell Thor, making fun of Thor's ability to drive this thing. That's really funny, but Jane is, like, passing out during all this action, meaning, like, her body, it's taken. The Infinity tone has taken its toll. That is said very prominently throughout this movie through Jane's actions. She's getting eaten alive by this thing, which makes the events of Thor love and thunder, which seem like a movie that's lighter in tone. It deals with heavier things. So I think the world of Thor, that movie makes me like this movie more, and that's what I love about the MCU in general. So once they get to the Dark World through a portal, loki knows how to get to this portal. So it makes me wonder if some of these portals just exist no matter what, or that the conversions is just causing these portals to come about in random places. Like Loki's escape plan, though, led directly into a portal into the Dark World, and it did seem like it was his plan. So that's something I'm a little unclear on, but it worked out for them, and they're at the Dark World, which is filmed in Iceland. So the Dark World has some really great ambience about it. And it's the fact that it's filmed on location on volcanic ash. It's very jarring. It's a jarring view of the Dark World. It's a different place we've never been. It definitely feels like another realm, and I really like that, especially at the end of the movie when Thor is fighting Malachi and, like, going in that world and back to ours and into other realms. It's a really cool fight sequence that's not far from this point of discussion of what we're at right now. Basically, Thor and Loki trick the Dark Elves into thinking that they're fighting, and we even get to see Thor's hand cut off by Loki when he's having Mulnir come to him. And, I mean, at first, you're thinking, man, Loki, he's really doing a good job at deceiving in this movie. But it's all part of a plan to trick the Dark Elves. So Loki pretends to give Jane Foster up to Malachi, and he believes what's going on, and he takes Jane and puts her into the air, like telepathically, and extracts the reality stone out of her. And after this happens, or while this is happening, jane is, like, having a vision of the eternal darkness that Malachi is trying to make happen through the Convergence. So Jane is kind of, like, bestowed with his knowledge on maybe how to stop it from happening with her science at the end of the movie. And this is the moment where Thor tells Loki now, and Thor actually tries to lightening strike with mule near the ether, and this turns it into a bunch of shards. The Infinity Stones are so strong, which is a testament to how much it took out of Thanos to destroy to destroy these Stones later in time, the fact that, like, Thor cannot destroy this thing no matter what, even by the end of this movie, at the end of this final fight, thor can't destroy it. So basically, Thor attempts to destroy it, but Malachith takes in the ether and successfully escapes the dark world to go carry on his assault on the Nine Realms. And in this moment, Thor and that big angry monster guide curse are fighting each other, and Loki is taking out a ton of Dark Elves. Loki is definitely wing manning it. And after that, like, guys, that him and Thor put together their plan. You can only trust Loki. You can only trust him as far as you can put your hand out. Right? Anyway, Thor and Loki take out most of these Dark Elves, but Loki realizes that Thor is getting his ass kicked by the curse, the giant, hulking dark elf monster. And this guy is, like, laying into Thor. He's beating and bloody Thor maybe even more than Thor ever gets in this entire movie. And Loki literally stabs him in the back with a sword. And he curse takes Loki and puts him on the sword with him and impales Loki. So it looks like Loki is completely dead, and we assume Loki to die. But while Loki is on top of curse, he ignites a grenade on him and completely this monster self implodes in giant orange light. It's visually stunning. He's like, See you in hell, monster. One of my favorite Loki moments. So Thor loses Loki, and this breaks Thor. Like, Thor just lost his mom, and now he lost his brother. So, going into the final act of this movie, thor has got, like, some vengeance against the Dark Elves. So after Loki dies, thor and Jane appear to be stuck on the dark world until Jane gets a phone call from her date at the beginning of the movie, realizing she has cell phone reception. And that helps them realize that there is a portal directly to the place where Jane started off and found the reality stone, and she finds the car keys that were dropped into the portal. So, conveniently, they have a ride out of there. So they go to visit Darcy and Eric Salvig, along with the intern, and Thor and Jane and Co devise a plan. They need to know where the conversion is happening so they can beat the Dark Elves to it. And apparently, like, the stonehedge ancient monuments. We even see Thor knock them over in the what if episode for Thor. This thing, along with other ancient monuments around the world, they culminate into the spot of the conversions. So, like, this happened thousands of years ago. So the ancient civilizations put a roadmap as to where this would happen, actually on a regular map, which I think is a really cool detail. So they figure that out just in time. Like, the convergence is happening literally in the next scene. So they basically just make it to Greenwich, London, the spot of the convergence. And it makes sense because this is kind of where all the paranormal portals have been opening up and whatnot. So team science, as I'll call them in this movie. Jane, Eric, Darcy and the intern. Their job at the end is to put up these poles that kind of I don't know if they're, like, activating the Portals, but they're used as weapons against the dark elves. And it seems like they're, like, making these portal things go crazy so they can send the dark elves in all these which way? Directions when Thor is fighting them. And this fight between the dark elves and Thor is pretty epic. I mean, this city of Greenwich, London, is completely destroyed in the making of this fight, and you can only imagine what effects it will have on the world of the MCU. And I know that it's explored in the show Agents of Shield. I think it might be the first season of Agents of Shield. Is happening at the events of Thor dark world. And when that happens, there's an actual episode where they have to deal with the fallout and the devastation that that caused. It also happens in the after effect of Captain America the Winter Soldier, which you can imagine on a show Agents of Shield. If you remember the twists in Winter Soldier, spoiler alert shield. Is Hydra, and Hydra has been operating in the dark all this time. It's going to take a big toll on that show Agents of Shield. We may talk about agents of Shield. At some point in our run of our podcast. I mean, there's a lot of other things I want to get to before that. However, I know it's a really good show. I saw a lot of it as it was kind of coming out, and I binge watch a chunk of it once on Netflix and everything. Finished it, though. So, what do you think? Should I cover agents of Shield. [email protected], let us know your thoughts. So, in this final fight between Thor and Malcolm, there's portals opening up everywhere, and the fight takes place all across London. The ship that Malcolm lands in London destroys the city block that they land on, and dark elves are starting to take over. So it's kind of a scary sight. It reminds you a little bit of the first Avengers, and you're thinking it's like an Avengers level threat. But Thor is able to handle this one on his own with Team Science. And these poles that they're putting up, kind of scattering the Dark Elves, they're not really much without Malachuth. Malikh's goal in this is to get to the center of the conversions and activate the ether and bring darkness upon all of humanity and life, so the dark Elves can thrive in that. So by the end of the fight, Malachith is doing just that, and Thor is handed off by Jane. These poles that he throws at Malachith, and it kind of rips Malachut apart. In the end, with the very final moments of this fight are taking place in, like, a sea of red reality, stone red. And Thor jabs this giant, like, science science pole into Malikith, and Jane teleports Malachith off world after Thor, like, electrifies it into him for one last time, leaving the giant shift that Malikith arrived in, like, hovering, ready to topple over on top of Thor. Thor is down, and Jane runs towards Thor, and you completely think they're going to be crushed, but the ship portals out of our reality and into another realm, the Dark World, on top of Malachi and takes Malcolm out. I would worry a little bit if I were Thor, maybe if Malcolm is still out there, but I'm sure he went through some precaution to figure out that Malachi was taken out by the giant ship in the Dark World. After everything that the Dark Elves put Thor through, you would imagine that Thor would probably double check and make sure Malache was done for. We learned later in Thor Love and Thunder that Jane and Thor do have a relationship and Thor comes back for Jane. But we do leave Jane in this movie with Team Science to kind of talking about what had happened in the events of this movie and kind of wondering if Thor will come back to her, and it takes so long to know that he did. Really, it's kind of, like, sad to leave her at this point, especially knowing what happens to her. You care a lot about Jane? I care a lot about her as a character since she goes so far back in the MCU. The fact that she ends up becoming Thor herself later, which we'll talk plenty about when we cover Thor Love and Thunder, I might just be going, like, in somewhat of an MCU cinematic order from this point on. I missed a couple of things in phase four. I started covering Marvel in phase four with WandaVision and covered most of the titles going forward. I had a bit of an off period where I missed a couple of things. So if you're really desperate to hear some of that phase four stuff I missed before I go through kind of these older movies, which, I mean, stand up in time, the sacred timeline is flourishing with amazing things to talk about. So if you'd prefer me to talk about multiverse of madness, way ahead of Avengers Age of Ultron, for example, email me [email protected]. I'd love to hear your thoughts and your feedback. And hey, one email can make a big difference on the way this podcast goes because I'm really listening to your input. So a little bit off topic, but I mean, we're gearing towards the end of this movie. We've kind of rounded up everything that's happened. Thor returns to Odin, who is actually Loki, and Thor lets Odin know, aka Loki, that Loki made a huge sacrifice, so he doesn't really want to rule. Odin is trying to give he presents himself. Loki totally knows that Thor isn't going to take the throne, but he's telling Thor the throne is his now as king, what are you going to do next? And Thor pretty much tells Odin, I'm not ready to be a king. I want to be with Jane. I want to fight on Earth with the Avengers so much. He doesn't say that exactly, but that's pretty much what he's getting at. He wants to protect the Nine Realms, he's down for that, but he's not really ready or even willing to be a king. Personally, for me, Thor is really a king ever since he becomes worthy of Millionaire again at the beginning of Thor, at the end of Thor. Sorry. I think Thor is completely worthy. Meaning when he is worthy, he is worthy of being a king as well. Just because he doesn't choose to sit on the throne like Odin, he's out there literally fighting to save the universe instead of sitting on a throne. So I think Thor is completely like, king material. He just doesn't want to technically have the name because he's been humbled throughout his journey through the MCU up to this point. And, I mean, he's about to get a lot more humble after Ragnarok and the next two avengers, avengers Infinity War and endgame He Man. Thor goes through maybe the most of any character in the MCU. Loki is revealed to be on the throne as Odin, and we went over that a little bit earlier in the episode. Like I said, I'm going to guess that Odin gave the throne to Loki. I don't think Loki intimidated Odin to leave. It's just not very like Odin. I think Odin would have been ready to step down maybe once he saw his son was worthy, at least of protecting the throne in his own right because he was willing to work with his brother. Kind of what Odin would have wanted all along for his sons. The post credit scene of this movie is Sif vanjral Vostag and Hogan, all Thor's crew. They're bringing the reality stone to the Collector, who we will again meet in this phase, and Guardians of the Galaxy. In my last episode for Iron Man Three, I was talking about how we're going to go over the movies in this phase. And I didn't bring up the Guardians of the Galaxy. I actually missed them as a part of this phase because it's like the Guardians of the Galaxy is its own movie that culminates into Infinity War, but it's kind of like starting that story, similar to this movie kind of starts the story of the Infinity Stones. Even though in The Avengers, even as far back as Captain America, the first Avenger, we're getting glimpses of the Infinity Stones. We don't really know for sure that they're the Infinity Stones. We kind of start piecing together after the postcredits scene of this movie, well, where are the other Infinity Stones? And the Collector is like, why are you giving me an Infinity Stone? And one of Thor's crew is saying, basically, it's not wise to have two Infinity Stones. And this is the first time they use Infinity Stones in one place. And The Collector is like, pretty much like twirling his mustache. And I don't know why they're trusting the Collector with this. The Collector must have built a reputation and a positive one in asgard him being kind of a personable guy. You kind of wonder why they'd bring it to him first. But maybe it's better to have in the hands of someone so somebody can't just take it, like Thanos ends up doing kind of by the time we get to the Infinity Stone, the Reality Stone, in Avengers Infinity War, thanos has completely decimated the area in which The Collector houses all of his collections. So I think that's a really cool aspect to have it this early on and then later in the Guardians of the Galaxy, we know that The Collector has the Reality Stone. And then the last thing he says in this post credit scene is one down, five to go. So The Collector, we know from the what if series how potentially horrible and evil The Collector can be and grow. The fact that we know he's trying to actually collect the Infinity Stones and for whatever purpose that might be. Kind of goes to show that The Collector probably has a bigger story in the MCU even going forward. Like they're planting seeds in this movie, especially right now in that post credit scene with The Collector, they're planting seeds for things that are still yet to come in the MCU. And we know The Collector and the Grand Master are connected in one way or another. I don't know if they're brothers or their cousins, but they're from the same people. So that's going to be really interesting to delve into now that the Infinity Stones are technically gone. Or are they? Can the Infinity Stones be reformed? Thor dark world back to Thor dark world, instead of the greater picture of things thorough, is kind of like a movie that the rest of the MCU kind of sits on and needs to grow. In the Infinity Saga, Thorpe was a ride, and it gave us a deeper look into some of our favorite characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being Thor Loki, Jane Foster, and even Eric Selvig. And Darcy Lewis the enemy. Malikith he wasn't as one dimensional of a villain as I've kind of heard reviewed when the movie came out. I think he's just a fine villain for Thor and Loki to come together to fight and to set the stages for later films in the MCU. Could malice have been a little bit more of like thanos, yeah, maybe they could have written it that way. But I think this movie was really trying to explore the relationships between Thor Loki and what a loss in the family would do to those two and how those two react to losing someone they love. And I think that the movie does a wonderful job of it. It also gives us a lot of Thor and Jane. Anyone who loves that relationship as much as I do, it's good to see Thor and Jane back together and kind of some hints and teases as to what's to come for Jane and Thor love and thunder and Thor Ragnarok, where we get a lot of follow up to what happened with Loki after he took the throne. So we know what Loki does, but we'll talk about that when we get to that movie. This has been a wonderful review, in my opinion, and I love looking back at movies that I've seen already for this podcast and talking about them with you and sharing my love for the MCU. And I kind of like talking about it from the perspective of someone who's seen everything and then going back and seeing kind of where it fits in the bigger picture. As someone who's been along for the ride of the MCU in theaters, like a lot of you might be, I think it's like a way more fun way to explore these movies, as if I'd rather do that than come in here and pretend like I haven't seen it and pretend react to it. It's more fun to just talk about everything else that's happened because those things paint this universe, and that's why I think we're all fans of the MCU. So thank you for being here today on Marvel Maniac and MCU. After show. This is your host Eric Cicada, aka mr. Honest. Make sure to follow us on social medias, where we've been posting a lot more on Marvel Maniac, Pod, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, also on YouTube Marvel Maniac Pod. We've been uploading all of our podcasts there in shorts. We're also patreon.com marvel maniac. I haven't put bonus content up in quite a bit. However, I will start uploading regularly in the near future to that patreon, so join us. A positive review on the show goes a long way. Wherever you're listening, make sure to rate us and give us a positive review. And until next time, avengers. Disassemble.