As expected, Thor: Love and Thunder has been the number one topic of conversation online this weekend, but not entirely for the reasons people would have been expecting.
Hype was through the roof heading into the release of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest chapter thanks to the acclaim that greeted predecessor Ragnarok, but the response to the Odinson’s fourth solo adventure has been a lot more muted. Love and Thunder holds one of the franchise’s lowest CinemaScores, and a lot of fans agree the pacing is haphazardly rushed.
Of course, that shouldn’t come as a surprise when Christian Bale revealed he’d shot scenes opposite Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster and Peter Dinklage’s Eitri, while Natalie Portman admitted that entire worlds and planets were among the many scenes trimmed to get Love and Thunder down to 119 minutes, so there’s a lot of juicy stuff lying on the cutting room floor.
Director Taika Waititi and star Chris Hemsworth teased a four-hour cut that was “batsh*t crazy”, but the former has since gone on to say that he’s no fan of extended editions, claiming that “director’s cuts are not good. I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts. I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors. They suck. Director’s cuts are not good.”
Naturally, social media had a lot to say about the Oscar-winner’s comments, whether it pertained to his latest film or not.
Disney Plus may add in a couple of deleted scenes when Thor: Love and Thunder comes to streaming, but any hopes for something meatier or more substantial seem to have been placed in the realm of wishful thinking, as much as we’d love to see the missing footage Christian Bale wishes we’d been able to witness.
