Early ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Drafts Had a Big Callback to the First Movie and a Weird Romance
Like any movie, especially any Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok went through a ton of drafts before the story was finalized to what we see on the screen. Apparently, one of the early versions featured a familiar villain from the first Thor, and another pushed an unnecessary romance.
Yahoo spoke to screenwriter Eric Pearson, who revealed a few big things that were cut from early drafts of the script — such as one very familiar, very tall character, the Destroyer, from the first Thor who Hela spends no time taking out.
I always want the villain to be really … not-Disney. I want to give them moments where they’re really massacring or crushing people. And she has that great entrance where she takes everybody out. [Originally it was extended,] and they were like, ‘This is a bit repetitive, and we don’t have the days to shoot it.’ There was [also] a scene where she thought they were hiding the sword in the armory, this big fortress. She goes up, and the Destroyer armor comes out to take her out, and she just rips that thing apart too, just to call back the Destroyer armor. And it just felt like an extra beat that we didn’t need. We needed to get Thor pushing back to Asgard as fast as possible.
That’s always what happens with fun story beats like this — getting back to the main action and not letting your script drag on is the most important part. Speaking of, another version of the story featured a romance (that many probably would have called unnecessary) between Thor and Valkyrie:
But we didn’t want to start from that place. It was like, Let’s give Valkyrie her own story that connects with Thor … and if it makes sense for them to get together, then great. You’ve got two really good-looking people who can fight and who’d probably be [good together] if the story went there, but it just didn’t. It became more about the mutual respect, and also dealing with her PTSD. She’s someone who’s drowning her sorrows in the bottle, and I just thought that was such a cool thing that you don’t often see in these movies: somebody dealing with extreme guilt and shame in a colorful, Taika Waititi[-directed] hilarious background.
Too often, no matter how badass a female character is, she’s relegated to a love interest for the main hero by the end. Sometimes it’s fun, but sometimes it feels unnecessary, and I’m glad the Thor: Ragnarok team went in another direction with her character in the end.
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