...you'd gained Marvel's approval to continue.
This is great, if a little disappointing that it didn't do so well.
I agree that I was similar to OTL. I don't think it leans too heavily on it as it significantly diverges in key parts and drops entire elements present in the original whilst including its own.
You've given your reasons, but it fundamentally does not read this way in the slightest.
It still reads more like the overall plot structure remains the same, that you swapped out the Science Is Magic for Magic Is Magic, did the same with the Destroyer by exchanging him for Creel and made them a onenote, focused overmuch on the Thor-Jane relationship but with the one complication being Creel's involvement, and continued with the setting up Asgard and SHIELD at the same time at the expense of both as they did in OTL.
Furthermore I've been given significant reason to believe that trying to introduce too much of the nine realms and of the greater Asgardian mythos will lead to backlash from executives and leave general audiences lost. I pared down the movie to what it is in order to try and avoid those issues.
I don't agree with this assessment, given that Lord of the Rings, greatly inspired by the myths and sagas of the Scandinavia [even with its Christian core ideologies], was released in full a few years ago with great aplomb and that one of our current competitors, Harry Potter, is a worldwide success given that for the longest time it was treated as a gateway to Satanism in the American heartland (and sometimes still is).
But if that is still such an issue, as you believe, there's still other things to try and other avenues to explore. Examples: Want Thor to fight a dragon, why not have it be Fin Fang Foom? Want Odin standing off against an enemy, why not Dormammu or even Cthon?
This is not a relevant criticism in my opinion. No movie will manage to accurately cover Odin/Wodin/Wotan. The dude is too many things to even attempt to try and get into one movie considering he's literally king of the gods, leader of the wild hunt, the basis of santa claus, a literal prescient being and more.
I made the choice to focus on Odin as the king of Asgard and a bad father who prefers Thor to Loki. I don't think the criticism of "you didn't include literally everything about Odin" is particularly relevant or fair.
That isn't my compliant, mine is more that you've taken a fairly complex character that can be played with a fair bit of nuance that can focus on one, maybe two other important aspects of his being, and given him a characterization more befitting of Zeus and a thugheaded barbarian, that contrary to your belief that he's a king when he acts anything but in your script.
Balder's not in this movie because I don't want to introduce the additional element of a third son and instead wanted to keep the movie focused on Thor and Loki. The issue is also less Loki using magic and more Loki using magic to cheat in a duel. I don't think it's bad for the adaption to have Odin be biased and like Thor more than Loki.
It's all fine that you don't want to have Baldur being in the movie because it interferes with the story that you want to tell, of brotherhood, but that's just as easily solved by him being an older brother whose off doing other shit (who might have already abdicated, alongside any other sibling), him being the younger brother who can't be involved in these sort of things yet, or by already having him be dead and that being somehow tied into Loki's growing frustration with being in Thor's shadow, since they were already struggling to get out of Baldur's.
As for Loki using magic in that match, it being something he cheated with, you described it as a spar. The point of a spar is to train your martial prowess, and if the point was to train, then what's the issue with Loki using a weapon in his arsenal, magic, against in a opponent using a weapon he cannot directly compete against? And if the issue was that it does not aid in his growth as a warrior, then Thor's use of Mjolnir should also be chastised, since it neither helps him nor Loki get anything out of the spar [not to mention it's a bludgeoning weapon that can severely cripple or outright kill somebody]. So even if Odin's feeling a little biased that day, it shouldn't effect things overmuch.
Also, what's with the idea that a parent, who
chose to take in another child, be biased against that child because of said adoption?
First Laufey has been a man in Marvel comics since 1965. It's not a new thing and while I'm not opposed to making Laufey a queen, I don't see it as a huge issue that I stuck to how the comics have done things for literal decades at this point. If it's a huge sticking point for you that we need to be mythologically accurate in a movie where Thor and Loki are brother I'll change it but that seems a little ridiculously stringent in my eyes.
I understand his history in the comics, but we are literally at the point of adaption with the choice to pull from any and all sources to make our version of the characters a little more unique, a little more fleshed out, with this being one of the more simple changes that costs us ultimately nothing.
And as for being stringent with the source material, aren't you trying to argue for the same by focusing more on the comics interpretation?
Secondly Laufey could literally be replaced by Ulik and the frost giants by trolls and nothing of value would change. I just picked frost giants since they're a classic Thor enemy I figured we could get away with killing them on screen easier than flesh and blood trolls or cgi fire giants or something like that
I also understand there's a separation between the Frost Giants and Trolls in the comics, but they're literally the same thing in the myths. Not something I'm nitpicking, just pointing out.
I don't think either of the two criticisms are particularly relevant as you're criticizing me for copying a decades old detail in Marvel comics on a throwaway enemy I only picked because I thought his minions would be the ones we'd most easily get away with killing onscreen, and because you're criticizing the first fight scene for not doing everything the second fight scene where Thor goes and launches a retaliatory does later.
I'm arguing that it's unnecessary when there's other options available, because with what you've written the Jotunn aren't even related to the overall plot, other than to get Thor banished [which wasn't even permanent, meaning they require other restitution], or either of its main villains, removing the one strength of the OTL which was to make Loki more of a tragic figure when they properly explained his origins, which your version doesn't even attempt to do.
Either or. I personally would rather have them be childhood sweethearts who grew apart. I don't think we need to address Sif in this movie without Sif in it immediately but that is how I would do it.
You might not think it's important to address her presence, that she shouldn't be a focus in this story, but I'd argue that not only SHIELD would have gotten the mythological data to ask about [ex. Are dwarves and dragons something we need to be concerned about? You're infamously a drunk that likes to overeat, is that something we need to be concerned about with you? Is Odin watching us now, and is Valhalla a real place?] but also that Jane would have asked about the parts more relevant to her when they would have gotten romantically entangled [Aren't you married with kids? I don't want to be a homewrecker...].
He happened to have been there. I could see Jane getting recruited locally to study the hammer due to being an expert on the matters. Carl is not a SHIELD agent as I saw it but I'm fine with making him one who lost his job due to his issues with Jane.
That still doesn't explain why he's still in the area given that, as a government employee, he'd have been sent back to wherever his home is at, or at a processing center while they got all his paperwork in order (it infamously takes weeks to months for military members getting out), unless whatever he did was actively criminal, in which case he'd be in prison.
There are no other heirs involved, there are no other children of Odin introduced in this movie I don't know why you insist on repeatedly dragging them into things. Loki was not chastised and punished for not speaking out (Loki told Odin where Thor went and that's why he was there to stop Thor in Jotunheim) so that's not relevant.
In this instance I was specifically referring to Thor, given the potential for his return, and I admit to misreading the part in your writing where it had Loki not get to Odin in time.
Lastly Odin's not actually punishing Loki. He's threatening Loki with this in such a way that Loki believes that he'll do so but he's not actually carry out the act. And yes people will make threats they don't intend to follow through on in order to motivate others to behave better so that's not something incomprehensible for Odin to do.
This. This right here is where you lose me in believing he's anything but a terrible king of Asgard, because that is not how you treat an heir or how to properly threaten somebody who's acting out; it reads like a complete butchering of either version of Odin.
Loki always had the power and knowhow to do this from the start till the end of the movie. He didn't use it in the fight at the start of the movie because he doesn't want to touch the hammer that's being swung at him.
On top of that I never elaborated that Thor placed Mjolnir atop Loki but even if he did, Thor's hammer does not have the power to lift Thor's hammer so it makes no sense for Loki to try and take the properties of Mjolnir there.
What, he didn't utilize the ability in the fight to enhance his physique and durability in order to survive against bludgeoning attacks? That he didn't use it as an opportunity to, if not lift, then shrug Mjolnir off his chest?
