Loki and Thor’s Relationship Wouldn’t Have Been the Same Without ‘The Dark World’
One of the reasons that Loki made for such an effective villain was he was a well-rounded character. He was written and performed thoughtfully enough that his character withstood tricky situations like becoming Thor’s uneasy ally and unloved movies like Thor: The Dark World.
Even though Dark World may not place high on most fans’ MCU rankings, some argue that the movie still holds an important piece of the Thor and Loki story. Even if the movie isn’t great on the whole, Marvel’s famous interconnectivity still holds.
What do fans say about Thor and Loki?
The common consensus on the Thor movies goes like this: solid if not great first chapter, lukewarm at best second chapter, terrific third chapter. The Dark World is the valley in the relative peaks of Thor and especially Thor Ragnarok. At the same time, some fans on Reddit say that Dark World should not be totally disregarded.
On Reddit fans discussed Thor and Loki, with the topic-starter posting “Loki and Thor’s relationship development throughout the movies is honestly one of my favorite aspects of the franchise, especially knowing how it ends now.” If The Dark World does nothing else, it at least has a strong relationship between the brothers.
One fan wrote, “Sure it’s generic, but it accomplished something right, the emotion of the movie. Odin losing his composure upon Frigga’s death. Loki’s sadness. Thor and Loki banter which Loki responds “wouldn’t be the first time” saying they fought a lot during childhood. You feel the weight of their emotion.”
Fans have pointed to a Loki trilogy in the MCU
In other words, there are such things as good or even great parts in not so great movies. As much as The Dark World gets picked on, a fan could argue that Marvel hasn’t had a major misfire the way, say, DC has. And for home viewing, The Dark World has the advantage of a fast-forward button to speed past the expendable parts.
Fans have even discussed the “Loki trilogy” embedded in the MCU movies. On Reddit, a topic starter says, “If you watch the first Thor movie, the first Avengers movie and Thor 2 in order, you essentially get a fantastic trilogy about Loki taking the throne of Asgard.” Those three movies are Loki-centric, and they form a more or less complete arc.
Of course, you need Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame to complete the picture, since that contains Loki’s death. It’s a testament to the filmmakers that a character as detestable as Loki actually made people feel sorry about his demise when that finally came.
What can we expect from the Loki series?
Of course, Endgame showed that not even death can keep a Marvel character down. In the time travel events looking back on the original Avengers, Loki grabs the Tesseract and disappears into the annals of history. The Loki series will detail what happens after Loki’s vanishing.
According to the official synopsis, Loki follows Thor’s unruly (adopted) brother as he “pops up throughout human history as [an] unlikely influencer on historical events.” This allows Loki to visit 1975, when Jaws solidified the idea of the summer blockbuster.
Asked by the Hollywood Reporter what we could expect from the series, Tom Hiddleston said, “All I can tell you is that it is called Loki. It is a new departure … but I can’t explain why.”
We’ll find out sooner or later after Marvel resumes production on its Disney+ shows. There has been no timetable issued for when the shows will go to air given the production delays necessitated by the pandemic.
