Warning: the article contains spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder.
There’s a new fan theory floating around that — if true — would do much to soften the mediocre edges of Thor: Love and Thunder, even if it fails to fully excuse what many fans and critics have deemed something of a disappointing follow-up to 2017’s excellent Thor: Ragnarok.
Like in Ragnarok, the rock creature Korg makes an appearance in Love and Thunder, as portrayed by director Taika Waititi. The fan theory hinges on Korg’s role in the latest Marvel movie, as it happens.
Warning: spoilers to follow for Thor: Love and Thunder.
The Reddit user u/comer1434 pointed out in a post on the r/MarvelStudios subreddit that since the beginning of the movie features Korg’s narration and the film closes out with his voice-over as well, one could conclude we are hearing and seeing the story in its entirety from his point of view. Since Korg is known to be a simple-minded but heartfelt creature, this would explain some of the sillier jokes in the movie that seemed to grate on so many viewers’ nerves, such as Thor doing the splits mid-air as a battle move. It might even mean Korg is an unreliable narrator, too. However, the author added that the theory is no justification for “what I think is a bad movie.”
The theory makes a good deal of sense, even if it does not address all of the issues in the movie. While the over-reliance on jokes is certainly a flaw, the author also points out the movie’s under-utilization of Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher is also a major low point. Indeed, the finished film hardly shows any scenes of Gorr actually butchering gods, with most of the action happening off camera, save for one or two scenes. Then again, since Korg wasn’t there for most of Gorr’s slayings, perhaps the Korg-as-narrator theory does hold up, after all.
On the other hand, nothing can really explain the movie’s seeming lack of scenes with Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord and the other Guardians of the Galaxy ensemble of characters. Though they do make an appearance in the film, it’s frustratingly brief compared to what we came to expect based on the setup of the “Asgardians of the Galaxy” at the end of Avengers: Endgame. For what it’s worth, Waititi did say there were originally even more scenes with the Guardians, but that they had to be cut due to run time concerns, according to Yahoo News. Here’s hoping the eventual Blu-ray release will be full of those coveted cut scenes.
In the meantime, check out Love: Love and Thunder for yourself in theaters to see for if the Korg-as-unreliable-narrator theory holds up.
