Two Thor Pitches
So I wanted to try and throw out a few different ideas with how we want to tackle Thor. Here are the two pitches I like. I've massively simplified a lot of the plot and locations in both movies so as to stick to simpler plots and themes that can later be expanded on and delved deeper into. I hope people enjoy it and find it entertaining. I will admit that both pitches are fairly similar but I think there are significant alterations between the two that make them very different in execution and portrayal of the characters.
Thor Pitch A
The movie opens with a description of Asgard and of the gods and magic that inhabits the world. The movie then shifts to a spar between Loki and Thor. Thor effortlessly trounces Loki in the fight due to simply being a better warrior. The people watching proudly cheer on Thor and this gets to Loki. He decides to start cheating, using his magic to weave his illusions suddenly putting Thor on the backfoot.
There is a bit of a public outcry at Loki's blatant breaking/bending of the rules of the spar but Thor still manages to come out on top due to being able to use the powers of Mjolnir to basically lay Loki flat on his back. Loki yields and tries to play the whole thing off as a joke which Thor accepts. People though still think poorly of Loki for his "mischief" and praise Thor even more for being able to deal with it.
Odin comes and takes his two sons aside to talk to them. He tells Thor how proud he is of him and that while he needs to work on his temper he's sure that one day Thor will be capable of becoming a fine king of Asgard. Thor basks in the praise and Odin then turns to Loki and more lightly praises him for his skill in magic but at the same time scolds him for not being more like a proper Asgardian warrior like his brother. Loki noticeably sulks at being snubbed compared to Thor. Odin talks to Thor about what being the king of Asgard means while Loki slinks off on his own. Thor mostly doesn't listen to Odin's advice and ideas completely convinced of his own success.
Some time passes and Loki and Thor bicker with one another. It's clear that Thor and Loki still do care for one another but that Loki is intensely annoyed at always being second best and Thor doesn't quite pick up on it.
Suddenly there's an alarm that goes off and it's revealed that Frost Giants, old enemies of Asgard have broken into one of the vaults containing numerous magical devices and artifacts. The Frost Giants talk amongst themselves and reveal that they're doing this on the orders of King Laufey using a secret passageway they'd discovered to slip between the realms and that they can't linger for long. Eventually they manage to escape out of the vault and into the wider realm of Asgard with a mirror in tow.
Odin learns of all of this and swiftly confronts Loki over how they managed to figure out how to get into the vault undetected. Loki denies any involvement in the event and Odin reluctantly believes Loki but warns him that he's on thin ice.
Thor is upset at being unable to do anything about it and seeing an opportunity, Loki baits Thor into chasing down the rogue Frost Giants to Jotunheim. Thor drags Loki along and the two of them take the bifrost to get there. Once there Loki and Thor get split up in a fight as Thor recklessly chases after the Frost Giants and Loki gets left behind. Loki ends up discovering that he's part Frost Giant and concludes that this is the reason why Thor will always be considered better than him.
Thor ends up throwing his hammer at the last of the Frost Giants but it strikes the mirror the Frost Giant was carrying and ends up vanishing. Thor retreats without the mirror in tow due to having to avoid reinforcements including the king of Frost Giant's himself, Laufey, and he manages to meet up with Loki. Loki hides his discontent and reveals that the stolen artifact was likely the Mirror of the Nine Realms which means that Mjolnir is somewhere in a different realm and that's why Thor can't call it back to him.
The two of them flee across the Bifrost and make it out of Jotunheim. Laufey meanwhile steps fully onto the scene and orders his minions to "scour the nine realms if they have to but they cannot afford to let Thor retrieve Mjolnir.
Back on Asgard Thor and Loki get further chewed out for their foolishness and Loki grows even more bitter and angry. Thor does manage to get them out of permanent trouble by pointing out that Heimdall knows where the hammer went and Odin lets them go and retrieve it but he's still absolutely livid.
Thor and Loki then bicker over things with each one blaming the other for why things went wrong. They don't fully reconcile but they trudge their way over to Heimdall who informs them the hammer is on Midgard and warns them not to unduly upset the locals unaware of their greater place in the world.
The two of them head down to earth and try to sneakily retrieve Thor's hammer without setting off too much alarms or suspicion, especially since SHIELD is already investigating it, primarily with Dr. Jane Foster leading the research and Philip Coulson managing the whole operation. Thor manages to bumble his way through interactions with them while Loki angrily demands (due to being beyond frustrated and annoyed at his lot in life right now) that they just take it putting SHIELD on guard. They can't actually hurt either of them though and Thor eventually manages to defuse the situation. However before much resolution can be achieved Laufey and an army of Frost Giants arrive to try and find the hammer. Coulson strikes a deal with Thor and SHIELD heads off to evacuate people while he and his brother deal with the Frost Giants.
A fight scene ensues and seeing an opportunity to finally be free of the shackles and expectations of both Asgard and his past, Loki fakes his own death at the hands of a Frost Giant. His fake last words when Thor asks why he didn't use magic to avoid his death was that he wanted to be a great Asgardian warrior like Thor so that people would treat him like they treat Thor. Thor gets enraged by this and manages to take down Laufey once and for all. He thanks the midgardians for their help but mourns the death of his brother. He returns to Asgard where Odin congratulates him on his success. Thor questions how it could possibly be a success when Loki died and Odin reveals that the corpse is just an illusion and that Loki's just playing another one of his tricks.
Thor is overjoyed by this and he heads off to see Heimdall to find Loki and bring him back. Heimdall admits that he can't find Loki due to Loki using magic to hide himself and urges Thor not to push his brother further. Realizing how the expectations on Loki and trying to force him into a mold he was not was what likely caused everything to spiral out of control and lead to him running away in the first place, Thor lets go but does inform Heimdall that eventually he will return to Midgar to bring back his brother.
A post-credits scene is shown that has Loki scheming something big later down the line.
Thor Pitch B
The movie opens with a description of Asgard and of the gods and magic that inhabits the world. The movie then shifts to a spar between Loki and Thor. Thor effortlessly trounces Loki in the fight due to simply being a better warrior. The people watching proudly cheer on Thor and this gets to Loki. He decides to start cheating, using his magic to weave his illusions suddenly putting Thor on the backfoot.
There is a bit of a public outcry at Loki's blatant breaking/bending of the rules of the spar but Thor still manages to come out on top due to being able to use the powers of Mjolnir to basically lay Loki flat on his back. Loki yields and tries to play the whole thing off as a joke which Thor accepts. People though still think poorly of Loki for his "mischief" and praise Thor even more for being able to deal with it.
Odin comes and takes his two sons aside to talk to them. He tells Thor how proud he is of him and that while he needs to work on his temper he's sure that one day Thor will be capable of becoming a fine king of Asgard. Thor basks in the praise and Odin then turns to Loki and more lightly praises him for his skill in magic but at the same time scolds him for not being more like a proper Asgardian warrior like his brother. Loki noticeably sulks at being snubbed compared to Thor. Odin talks to Thor about what being the king of Asgard means while Loki slinks off on his own. Thor mostly doesn't listen to Odin's advice and ideas completely convinced of his own success.
Some time passes and Loki and Thor bicker with one another. It's clear that Thor and Loki still do care for one another but that Loki is intensely annoyed at always being second best and Thor doesn't quite pick up on it.
Suddenly there's an alarm that goes off and it's revealed that Frost Giants, old enemies of Asgard have broken into one of the vaults containing numerous magical devices and artifacts. The Frost Giants talk amongst themselves and reveal that they're doing this on the orders of King Laufey using a secret passageway they'd discovered to slip between the realms and that they can't linger for long. Furthermore they have to be deniable assets so as to not break the peace of Asgard. They search for artifacts when suddenly they are beset by Thor.
A fight scene ensues in the vault and the Frost Giants are all eventually destroyed. Thor wants to retaliate against them but Odin denies him this, telling him to be patient and that they ought not to squander peace for the sake of war. Thor says he's not afraid and Odin says that he ought to be as a good king doesn't make his people needlessly suffer for the sake of his own pride. Thor is not fully assuaged but he eventually backs down.
Thor meets up with Loki about all of this and complains about the unfairness of Odin's edicts. Loki does point out that Odin is trying to prevent the peace from being broken, but seeing a chance to needle Thor, points out that in his youth Odin would have fought for Asgard heedless of the risks of war. Besides if Thor can be deniably said to be doing this on his own then there will likely be no consequences for Asgard officially. Thor buys into what Loki is selling and Loki smirks at this.
Thor arranges an attack on Jotunheim with a group of warriors (Loki might be included in this group but if he is then he vanishes before the attack commences). Numerous Frost Giants are killed and Thor is about to confront king Laufey himself when suddenly Odin arrives and stops the fight, Loki appearing behind him. He apologizes to King Laufey and there's a bit of negotiations where Odin agrees to banish one of his sons in exchange for keeping the peace and Laufey agrees.
The Asgardians all return to Asgard and Odin chews out Thor saying that this was an incredibly stupid thing he did and that now he has to banish Thor because Loki couldn't tell him early enough to prevent what was happening. Thor says that Loki was the one who told him that if the retaliation was deniably tied to Odin's orders they could get away with it. Loki points out that it was a hypothetical and that Thor is the prince of Asgard he can't exactly be disconnected from Asgard's leadership. Thor then says that this is what Odin would have done when he was younger and stronger and Odin responds that this is the very lesson he was trying to teach Thor since he didn't want him repeating his mistakes. He then states that perhaps banishment would do some good and teach Thor humility. He strips Thor of all of his powers and casts him out to Midgar.
Thor wakes up and tries to find his hammer, which is being kept by SHIELD. He attempts to reclaim it but cannot pick it up and eventually gets disabled by SHIELD agents. Thor is interrogated as he comes to and eventually Philip Coulson leaves him in the hands of Dr. Jane Foster, their chief scientist researching the hammer and just the phenomena that they could discover of the Bifrost.
Thor forms a connection with her and shares some of his knowledge of magic with her though he admits his brother Loki would be much more knowledgeable. Thor slowly struggles with being a normal more or less human and takes on the cover identity of Donald Blake. When Jane is harassed by a persistent ex-boyfriend of hers, Carl Creel, Thor doesn't hesitate to punch him out to get him to stop harassing Jane and even without powers he drops Creel. Eventually Jane and Thor become romantically entangled.
Meanwhile back on Asgard Loki is luxuriating in being the crown prince. Now people have to respect him. He lets his new authority go to his head and starts rubbing it in the faces of the people who'd always looked down on him as less than Thor.
Odin eventually warns Loki not to go too far as he merely promised Laufey a temporary banishment, Thor will still return eventually and that he only promised the banishment of a son, not Thor specifically. Loki tries to wheedle out of consequences saying that Odin wouldn't really banish him after all the issues Thor's caused and Odin responds by saying that Loki's been so eager to prove he would be a better crown prince than Thor, now is his chance to prove himself. If he doesn't shape up the roles will be switched.
Loki leaves at this and becomes panicked. Loki doesn't believe that the people of Asgard would ever accept him as better than Loki and so if Thor comes back or he doesn't permanently keep Thor out of the way he'll have issues. He uses his magic to scry for someway to keep Thor out of commission when he finds Carl Creel cursing out Donald Blake/Thor. Loki sees the opportunity and sends a magical projection to Carl. He offers Carl a deal where he'll use his magic to grant Carl power to absorb and overcome anything that hurt him so long as Carl takes Thor out of commission for a bit. Carl believes this is a dream and accepts. Loki is convinced that he's done well enough as Carl won't kill Thor but having Thor cause another rampage will surely make him look worse in Odin's eyes. The next day Carl walks up and he manages to turn his arm into concrete after touching concrete and he realizes that it's not a dream.
Carl goes on a rampage and confronts Thor, defeating him now that he has power. He tries to convince Jane to get back together with him as he's "stronger now" but she refuses saying that Carl never cared about anything but himself. Carl gets angry at this and decides that he's going to wreck the work that Jane considers so much more important than him. He breaks into the SHIELD compound and eventually manages to touch Mjolnir. With the powers of Mjolnir, Creel can now blast lightning and he proceeds to go on a rampage wrecking SHIELD's stuff and approaching a nearby town.
Seeing all the destruction Carl is wreaking, Thor finally understands the lesson his father had tried to impart on him that starting fights is awful even if you win because it means innocents can get hurt in the process. Thor becomes worthy once more and he's able to call Mjolnir to him. More than that with Creel taking on the powers of Mjolnir, Thor can move Creel towards himself and effortlessly manages to demolish him in a fight. Creel lets slip something about the man with the horned helmet promising him that this power would be sufficient to defeat Thor and Thor realizes that Loki was behind everything.
He drops Creel off into SHIELD custody, unconscious and without the properties of Mjolnir. He then apologizes to Jane and to SHIELD but that he needs to sort out what's going on back home. He then takes the bifrost back to Asgard where he encounters Loki, who has moved to stop him from returning. Loki shapeshifts into various forms to try and guilt Thor into not returning to Asgard, the midgardians whose homes he destroyed and needs to repair, a disapproving Odin who considers him a foolish and unworthy prince who'll just bring harm to Asgard and even a despondent Jane Foster asking why Thor doesn't love her enough to stay with her.
Thor sees through these tricks and questions why Loki is doing all of this. Loki bitterly lets out that he was tired of living in Thor's shadow and always being second best to Thor. So he got rid of Thor and managed to be the best for once and never really hurt anybody seriously. The world is so much better now so he'd really rather Thor didn't come back to Asgard and ruin everything for him.
Thor realizes that the root of all of Loki's issues is that he feels unworthy compared to Thor even though he was well aware of all of his faults. Thor voices some variation of these thoughts to Loki and Loki loses it, attacking outright. A recreation of the sparring fight from earlier occurs only this time grander and yet more vicious as Loki goes for killing blows, lightning strikes and illusions that are incredible cheap shots (like turning into people Thor became close to on earth) while Thor uses bigger blasts of lightning and fights with more control than before.
Eventually the outcome of the fight echoes the one at the start of the movie and Thor defeats Loki, sending him tumbling back to the edge of the bifrost. Thor cries out in horror and tries to save his brother who is desperately clinging on to the edge for dear life.
Thor says that he'd rather they both return to Asgard together and tries to pull up Loki. In that self same moment Loki chooses to stab Thor in order to cause Thor to drop him, declaring that he'd rather die than be doomed to live eternally in Thor's shadow. Loki falls into the endless abyss below the bifrost with a smile on his face.
There is then a time jump to Thor returning to earth to speak with Jane Foster. He informs her that with the disappearance of his brother and his own proof of worthiness of his powers, he was able to return home. Odin managed to renegotiate with Laufey that so long as Thor remained solely in Asgard for a set amount of time, and Loki remained banished instead, then Thor could return home. Thor apologizes for not being able to stay with Jane but says he has a duty to his people. That being said he promises to return as soon as he can.
The post-credits scene showed Loki survived and is now planning something on his own.
Some thoughts
I like movie pitch B a lot more. Both are similar and take some inspiration from OTL stuff but I think the content of the two movies and especially the relationship between Thor and Loki are wildly different. I would like to say that I think in both movie pitches Asgard and associated elements are magic and not pseudo-science fantasy elements disguised as sci-fi. Even though Jane Foster is studying the phenomena of magic, it's less that she's disproving magic and more she's trying to understand what it is from a scientific perspective.
I'll also point out that I tried to keep this story down to as few essential characters as possible. The only really relevant character in Pitch A are Laufey, Loki, Thor and maybe Odin and in Pitch B the relevant characters are Thor, Loki, Jane Foster, Absorbing Man and maybe Odin (Laufey does appear in this pitch b but you could replace him with Ulik and frost giants with trolls and nothing of substance would be lost. He's basically a filler "ruler of one of the nine realms opposed to Asgard" and more of a plot element then an out and out character). Additional characters could be worked in but I'd rather focus on our core for now and expand outwards later.
I'd appreciate peoples thoughts and concerns about these two pitches especially since I think I strayed a little more conservative than people wanted so as to cut down on plot elements introduced (the other reason why I like Pitch B more is that I think it keeps the new plot stuff down to a minimum more effectively).
Some Potential Casting notes
- Thor: In both pitches Thor needs to be played by someone who can do brash tempestuous and quick to anger and fight but at the same time capable of deeply caring about others. Ideally should be able to pull off the big "leading man viking look" and as always his dynamic with Loki is central to the film.
- Loki: Loki is a casting choice that differs in the two pitches. For pitch A Loki needs to play a transition from kind of the "asshole friend" people in Asgard tolerate if not like to someone whos bitterness and anger gets the better of him and he starts to head down a dark path. In pitch B Loki needs to be able to play the suave manipulator but at the same time show an intense lack of self-confidence as compared to Thor that is covered up by his need to look more confident than anyone else in the room. Pitch B's Loki is significantly more dark in nature as he already had his turn to villainy beforehand and even if he doesn't seem to want to kill Thor, he's still incredibly selfish in his schemes. No matter what though Loki should look significantly different when next to Thor, being scrawnier in build and less of a "warrior" by look than Thor.
- Jane Foster: Jane Foster needs to do a lot more work in the second pitch as she's a much more relevant character there. In both pitches she needs to be smart but in pitch B she needs to be a lot more open-minded and compassionate and have romantic chemistry with Thor. Ideally cast an actress who can play smart and curious and can act as a romantic lead. Additionally the role doesn't require much if any action experience.
- Odin: Odin is a character whose portrayal shifts between pitches. In both pitches he's an authority figure with a lot of power and some degree of favoritism but in pitch A he's a lot more blatantly anti-Loki while in pitch B he is reasonable to some degree in his actions and opinions even if he is still a bad dad to some degree. I also think that the relationship between Loki and Odin changes depending on if Loki's adopted like in pitch A or just straight up Odin's biological child like in pitch B
- Crusher Creel: Only appears in pitch B but for casting he needs to be an aggressive entitled asshole who thinks he's inherently deserving of the things he wants. He ought to be a reflection of all of the worst traits Thor had at the start of the film magnified up to eleven with none of the good ones. Big bald and brawny is the look for the character I'd like to shoot for just to highlight his nature as a physical threat and his status as a foil to Thor's preference for violence and aggression to solve problems at the start of the movie.
Again if people have any comments, potential improvements or just a basic pitch they prefer I'd appreciate the feedback.
