Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Thor 2: Asgard Gets A New Look

The look of Asgard will be somewhat different in "Thor: The Dark World" over the way it was presented in "Thor".


Director Alan Taylor tells SFX that the reason for the visual design change is partly due to his "Game of Thrones" experience, and Marvel suits:

"I love doing period stuff, and I was immersed in Game Of Thrones. I was lucky that Marvel seemed to have an appetite for that this time. They’d consciously steered away from that kind of thing in the first one. Because they wanted to make sure they were distinguishing themselves from Lord Of The Rings. They didn’t want to be mistaken for that. But by the time I came along it seemed like they were ready to embrace a slightly more historical attitude towards it."

In this way there is a more effective blend of the sci-fi elements, the more traditional and historical beats. [Think of the scenes we have seen of Thor on horseback in the sequel, even though the character can fly]:

"In my mind this is an ancient, ancient culture that highly reveres the horse and the culture of the horse. We still use fountain pens because we think they’re really cool – it’s not like we all use laser pens. So I think there’s a living culture that keeps these things. To me the defining thing was that Thor is a superhero amongst many superheroes, but the thing that makes him different is the thing that should be featured in the movie. And that is that he’s also a warrior prince from ancient culture."

The sequel is on a larger scale than the first film with double the amount of Asgardian characters and the inclusion of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) battling more mythical Norse creatures.

Natalie Portman is back playing Jane.Tom Hiddleston is once again bad boy Loki Kat Dennings will reprise her role as Darcy Lewis, the spunky sidekick to Portman's from the first film and Idris Elba will be reprising the role of Heimdal. Jamie Alexander plays Sif, ‘Chuck’s’ Zachary Levi is lined up to replace Josh Dallas who will not reprise his role as Warriors Three member Frandral Hopkins will be back playing Thor's pops. Christopher Eccleston will play the villain--the character of Malekith The Accursed, is the ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim and has magical abilities including teleportation, energy projection, flight, and shape changing ability. He also has a weakness to iron which cancels out his powers. Eccleston takes over from Mads Mikkelsen who was originally slated to play the part but had to pass due to scheduling issues with the Hannibal TV show.The great Alice Krige ("Star Trek: First Contact," "Silent Hill") will play the Dark Elf queen Alflyse. Richard Brake will play a captain in an elite squad of warriors known as the Einherjar. Clive Russell ("Sherlock Holmes") will play Tyr, Asgard’s god of war and the older brother of Thor.

"Saving Private Ryan" scribe Robert Rodat is said to have performed a re-write of the sequel. First Thor co-writer Don Payne had written the first draft.

The sequel hits theaters on November 8th 2013

No comments: