MCU: 10 Things You Might Not Know About THOR: RAGNAROK

Welcome, Geek Dave.

1. Although a third Thor film was pretty much confirmed straight after The Dark World was released in October 2013, its director Alan Taylor explained that he would not be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe under any circumstances:

"The Marvel experience was particularly wrenching because I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in [post-production] it turned into a different movie. So, that is something I hope never to repeat and don't wish upon anybody else."

By October 2015, Marvel had a shortlist of four prospective directors; Taika Waititi, Ruben Fleischer, Rob Letterman, and Rawson Marshall Thurber. Marvel presented them with "the ten different ideas that we had for the movie", asking them all to come back with a clearer picture of what the film should be. Waititi created "...a sizzle reel for the tone, and some joke stuff" using clips from other films, including Big Trouble in Little China, which was a major influence on the finished movie because...

"It's a fun adventure film that has big stakes, but also has a breakneck speed and takes you on a crazy adventure."

Despite being a discouraged practice within the company, Marvel considered Waititi's reel to be "amazing", particularly its use of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" for the score, which was later used in the film itself, and for marketing it, and confirmed he would be directing the third Thor film.

2. As well as Big Trouble In Little China, Waititi found inspiration in the Flash Gordon film from 1980, particularly in aesthetic and design. Feeling it was "a cool, bold, colorful cosmic adventure", Waititi instructed the heads of every department (set, wardrobe etc) to watch the film before commencing production and later stated that he would have asked the band Queen to work on the soundtrack for Thor: Ragnarok, just as they had for Flash Gordon, if their lead singer Freddie Mercury was still alive, because Ragnarok would have suited the "feel" of the band.

3. Thor: Ragnarok was the first, and currently only, film directed by Taika Waititi which he did not also write. This being said, Waititi threw out most of the actual script and encouraged all of the actors to ad-lib every scene, later telling MTV News:

"I would say we improvised probably eighty percent of the film, or ad-libbed and threw in stuff."

Case in point, when Thor comments that the Hulk is a "friend from work", this line was suggested to Chris Hemsworth by a Make-A-Wish child who paid a visit to the set on the day the scene was filmed.

4. Cate Blanchett plays Hela in Thor: Ragnarok, and in doing so became the first main female antagonist in the MCU. She was encouraged to take the part in the film by her eldest son, saying it would give her "a career boost". He was seemingly oblivious then to the fact that, when Blanchett accepted the role, she was the most recent recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (for Blue Jasmine). This was just one of two Academy Awards, six AACTA Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three Critics' Choice Movie Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, four Helpmann Awards, three Independent Spirit Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards that Blanchett had received previously.

I think her career was doing fine, don't you?

5. Mark Ruffalo didn't just play Bruce Banner and provide motion capture for the Hulk, he also provided the voice for the character in Thor: Ragnarok. This marked the first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Hulk was not voiced by Lou Ferrigno. Ferrigno having previously voiced Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (2008), The Avengers (2012), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

6. In addition to his credited role as the voice of Korg, which he based on a Polynesian bouncer, director Taika Waititi told Empire Magazine that he also played two other roles in Thor: Ragnarok:

"I am one of the heads on the three-headed alien, this character called Haju. I'm the head on the right. And I'm also the motion-capture for the fire demon Surtur."

...which was voiced by Clancy Brown.

Later it was revealed that Waititi also played yet another character as he'd provided additional motion capture for the Hulk during reshoots after Mark Ruffalo had completed his scenes.

7. Jeff Goldblum plays the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok, but he has a quite different look to his comic-book counterpart. Waititi explained that Grandmaster does not have blue skin in the film as the character does in the comics, because Goldblum had already played a blue-colored character in Earth Girls Are Easy, and because the director did not want to detract from Goldblum's personality by concealing his appearance.

Grandmaster is the brother of Benicio del Toro's Collector from Guardians of the Galaxy, and producer Kevin Feige expressed interest in seeing the two together in a future film.

8. Waititi conceived the sequence on Asgardian where actors perform a play based on the events of The Dark World, as he explained...

"If I was Loki and I was ruling Asgard, I would write a play about myself and force everyone to go and see it, change the details of the play and get a huge celebrity to play myself."

And that's exactly what he did. The "huge celebrity" in question was suggested by Chris Hemsworth - Matt Damon, whom Hemsworth knew personally, was working in New York City at the time. He flew to Atlanta just to shoot the cameo role as 'Actor Loki' "on a lark". Sam Neill, who had previously worked with Waititi in The Hunt For The Wilderpeople, portrayed 'Actor Odin', and keeping it in the Hemsworth family, Chris's older brother Luke played 'Actor Thor'.

9. Ragnarok cleared up a gaff made in the first Thor film by clarifying that an Infinity Gauntlet seen in that 2011 production was a fake. Kevin Feige expanded, saying that it had been included in Thor as an easter egg, since Marvel Studios was "working on The Avengers and trying to [put] that all together for the conclusion of Phase One." However, shortly after The Avengers released and the studio began to solidify plans for Avengers: Infinity War, they realized that the gauntlet seen in Thor could not be the actual one, creating an internal theory that it was fake; this resulted in the scene in Ragnarok, which was created "just [to have] the opportunity to call it a fake".

10. Although the mid-end credits scene leads directly into Avengers: Infinity War, the post-credits one shows an overthrown Grandmaster confronted by his former subjects. This final scene was improvised by Jeff Goldblum and Taika Waititi multiple times, including one unused version which involved the singing of the Sakaarian national anthem, which Goldblum "made up on the spot"