Major spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok follow. Like, the end of the film major. You have been warned…
When it comes to Marvel trilogies, the third movie usually sees a major shift in the status quo. In Iron Man 3 Tony destroyed his suits (although of course he’d built a few more by the next time we saw him), in Captain America: Civil War the Avengers had fallen apart, and now in Thor: Ragnarok we end with Asgard destroyed, and Thor leading his people to a new home on Midgard.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter Eric Pearson has spoken about the decision to destroy Asgard, and how it served Thor’s character:
“I forget exactly how that idea came up, but I remember bringing it up right at the beginning. One of the previous works had Asgard not really being destroyed, or being rebuilt or something. Well, it’s Ragnarok. That means apocalypse in Norse mythology. Don’t we got to blow it up? We really got to do it here, and I think we can’t be scared of it. The idea of making Thor a quasi-Noah figure … in getting everyone onto the arc to preserve them — I think I knew right from the beginning we had to do that. It was more about the tricky thing of making it Thor’s choice. It wasn’t that he just lost a huge battle. He learned something more about being a ruler that the people are the kingdom, not the space itself. As a king, as a selfless king, you’ve got to make sacrifices. We tried to present him with a no-win scenario, and he made the right choice to continue on the Asgardian lineage, as opposed to trying to punch his problems to death.”
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As we saw in the mid-credits scene however, it’s not going to be plain sailing to Earth for Thor and the Asgardians, with their spaceship finding itself eclipsed by an enormous vessel, which has since been confirmed by Kevi Feige to be Thanos’ Sanctuary II. Chatting to ETOnline, director Taika Waititi discussed how that scene came about:
“That was Kevin Feige, the genius behind this entire thing. He wanted a scene like that, where basically it was a cool cliffhanger. It’s what these guys are great at with their post-credits and mid-credits scenes. He wanted something that showed Thor and Loki together — maybe for the last time? Who knows — and then that big ship coming up. It was all his idea.”
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In Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok,” Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok—the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization—at the hands of an all-powerful threat, the ruthless Hela. But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger—the Incredible Hulk.
Thor: Ragnarok is directed by Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) and features a cast that includes Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Idris Elba as Heimdall and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Cate Blanchett as Hela, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster, Karl Urban as Skurge, Taika Waititi as Korg, Clancy Brown as Surtur, Rachel House as Topaz, Tadanobu Asano as Hogun, Ray Stevenson as Volstagg and Zachary Levi as Fandral.
Originally published November 8, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
