How ‘Planet Hulk’ Influenced ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ & Why Thor Uses A Gun

Thor The Dark World Chris Hemsworth

Thor: Ragnarok ended up creating the most discussion for a Marvel movie at this year’s San Diego Comic Con – second only to Justice League if we’re looking at comic book movies as a whole – and it’s no surprise that part of all this excitement owes itself to the Hulk tagging along with the title hero to prevent the Norse Apocalypse. Director Taika Waititi has explained how he adapted Planet Hulk into his story and why he chose to give Thor a gun in one of the action sequences.

IGN recently got to interview Waititi at SDCC, asking him first about how he adapted Planet Hulk to fit into the story they’d be telling with Thor. He mentioned that Marvel representatives helped ring things back in with the source material by bringing Korg and Miek into the fold, but also noted that many of the changes that were made were fairly organic to the creative process of making the movie.

“One difference is we have the Grandmaster ruling Sakaar instead of the Red King, and so there’s those things, but I don’t really play that much attention to it. I’m trying to create cool characters and tone and story instead of it has to be totally authentic to the comic, because I think that’s when you run into trouble when you can’t be creatively free to adjust things.”

One of the more interesting shots of the new trailer showed that, at one point in their tense alliance, Thor and Loki take up alien firearms to deal with some guards. Waititi also answered a query about this with the following answer:

“I think we really wanted to challenge Thor in this film. He’s challenged more than in any of the other films. He loses the hammer, which is the source of his power, and he’s really on the back foot most of the film. We didn’t want him to be able to utilize magic, or to have Loki’s magic. We didn’t want him to have too many advantages. He had to really find his way out of this predicament using his brain and using his friends.”

Thor: Ragnarok has the potential to be the best Thor movie or another Iron Man 3 – an original yet somewhat divisive trilogy-capper that departs from some of the usual conventions to tell a story that’s tonally distinct from the movies that preceded it. In fact, the actual premise of Thor having to use his natural abilities (which thankfully includes super-strength) and relying on different weapons than what he’s used to feels a lot like the middle section the third Tony Stark movie. But still, given that there’s a big wave of enthusiasm that’s been hitting the movie from all sides, it sounds like Ragnarok is going to be a big crowd-pleaser.

Thor: Ragnarok collides on November 3, 2017 with a cast that includes Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson, Mark Ruffalo as Doctor Bruce Banner (The Hulk), Tesssa Thompson as Valkyrie, Sir Anthony Hopkins as Odin Borson, Idris Elba as Heimdall, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, Karl Urban as Skurge, Jeff Goldblum as En Dwi Gast (The Grandmaster), Tom Hiddleston as Loki Laufeyson, and Cate Blanchett as Hela.

Source: IGN