This video is astonishingly, criminally underrated. As a huge MCU Thor and Loki fan, I remember being so hyped for Ragnarok upon seeing the trailers. Went to the theaters with family, fully expecting an amazing viewing experience, and man… I was let down. Something about the first few minutes of the movie during which Waititi parodies the first two Thor movies in the play Loki was watching, really put a bad taste in my mouth that stayed with me for the rest of the film. The flippancy and disdain shown towards Thor I and II, the fact that they were being openly mocked, just really felt like a middle finger to the franchise and to longtime fans. I get that those movies are by no means masterpieces, but still. The constant jokes (many of which- especially those making light of mental health and addiction- weren’t even funny), lack of emotional/tense moments due to said constant jokes, and character assassinations of basically every character (why is Loki suddenly so useless? why is Thor suddenly an asshole? etc.) really killed the movie for me. Given how lauded Ragnarok is, I’ve always felt like the odd one out for disliking it, so this video was very affirming for me. It took all of my issues with the film (and many more I hadn’t had prior but do now- like with Gungnir being able to open the Bifrost, never noticed that plot hole before!) and put them into an eloquently-worded, deliciously long video essay that made me both seethe at how terrible of a sequel Ragnarok really is, and grieve for the sequel it could have been. Your proposal for how Ragnarok “should have gone” was fantastic, and would have closed the Thor trilogy in such a powerful, emotionally fulfilling way. The ending Thor, Loki, and Hela truly deserved 😭. Anyways, enough of brain-dumping my thoughts into the YT comments- absolutely adore your vid, I already know that it’s gonna become of those video essays I like to replay numerous times during drawing sessions or while cleaning, and I can’t wait to check out your other Marvel vids!

Where did your Loki series videos go?

I loved this film the first time i watched it, but the more and more i actually think about it, the more i realise that its actually just pretty milquetoast as a movie. As a fan of both Taita Waititi and Loki, its easily the worst Waititi film ive ever seen (i didnt see Love and Thunder). And everything after dark world has been pretty mid loki-wise. This film on the whole is pretty much toxic masculinity as a movie. I doubt its intentional however, as i dont think much thought went into the making of this film anyway.

"Gravik is ADHD manifested as a villain" haha having little gravik on your shoulder as an ADHD Demon :D Great Video !

Sonya Falsworth is third generation military, she should know that physical harm like removing fingers has been proven to generate less reliable intel than you get with zero physical harm. Also, it is extremely groan-inducing to me that in the latest "evil refugee" story, a huge chunk of the liars and betrayers are POC, women or both. I see what they're doing and it's not great. What I don't see is why they didn't just go with "Skrull are regularly run out of other planets when they try to settle down there, even when innocent and when not connected to other Skrull" instead of "there are no other planets for the Skrull to live on". I also don't see why they didn't pull from the comics the fact that people who are really close to Fury know that he doesn't like being called Nick because that's what his mother called him and her death is the one death he's never gotten over emotionally, but for a few exceptions (Nat, Steve, Coulson) he's cool with it when they do it because they're close to him. This would make him going, 'This person doesn't call me Nick' make sense. Honestly we get more of a glimpse into Fury in Agents of SHIELD when he reveals he moved Heaven and Earth to revive Coulson because Coulson is his best friend and he's tired of losing people he cares about. The violation of Coulson's consent, the gaslighting him afterwards about having died, the giving Coulson everything he could ever need to be happy post-revival, the fact Fury gets soft-spoken and gentle with him when Coulson confronts him, all of if shows you Nicholas Fury as a human being. He has issues with loss, he does things he thinks are good for others without their knowledge, he loves but he can't say it worth a damn, he lies to be kind and he does not seem to know how to handle honest, one-on-one emotionally honest and vulnerable moments with no ulterior motives. The entire reason he became friends with Coulson was that Coulson is good at handling those and Fury was impressed with the fact he didn't use those against anyone later or use them to rise up the ranks. This didn't build off of AoS' look into the inner workings of Fury's mind. It just had him as a protagonist and gave him a wife. But we don't know how his wife feels about his actions or how he fell for her or if he does that same lie-to-you-and-then-spoil-you thing he does with Coulson with her. We know more about Coulson and Fury's relationship than we do Fury and his wife's. If the MCU weren't cowards they would have just taken this into account and given us Fury/Coulson, a couple I don't even ship, because there's a foundation for it previously established. It's not in my Top 10 personal Fury ships but it gives us internal consistency for the character. Vara is not given the depth of character conflict and interactions with others Coulson is. ...gee I wonder why the black woman wasn't given the depth and emotional complexity the white man was. By a company that is doing a second "refugees are evil" plot. Good Lord, these people are not subtle. I flat-out refuse to even acknowledge Rhodey being a Skrull for as long as they say he was. It's like claiming Loki had NPD: no. Canon didn't write it that way for years, I refuse to act like they did. I get that they wanted to have the darkest skinned black man in the franchise be evil because that's how colorism works but no, he's not. They simply didn't write that, therefore I refuse to engage with it.

Sometimes the youtube algorithm does me right lol Secret Invasion indeed was complete drivel

I DON’T believe that Rhodey we saw was a skrull. I just don’t accept it it’s a total retcon that doesn’t even make sense. You know what would’ve made sense? Steve in endgame. He was a skrull.

I totally forgot to finish adding the time stamp to the trigger warning for intense gore in the video and I'm so sorry. Skip to 6:17 :)

this video gives me hope people are still capable of media literacy and critical thinking 😆 you’ve covered every issue flawlessly! your run down on what Ragnarok could have been even made me a bit emotional 🥹

Heimdall could have been fixed very easily. In Norse mythology, nine women came together and used their magic to create him, as they all wanted a child. This infusion of magic gave him his powers. Imagine him being a parallel to Loki - lots of magic, keen mind, but due to having an extremely supportive family, he's well-adjusted. Show us Loki envying Heimdall's nine loving parents in one of the two first Thor movies, the hurt he feels knowing he'll never have multiple loving parents, only one. Boom. Now when Ragnarok happens Heimdall has real stakes - his mothers are in Asgard, but do they all get out in the evacuation? - and the audience has some sympathy for him because his parents could be dead, an extremely relatable fear. Something you pointed out in the Hela section that really sums up why this movie doesn't work is the humor undercutting everything. Every moment of badassery, of emotion, or of gravity just gets ripped apart by the need to keep shoving in quips every five seconds. It feels like nobody in this movie cares much about their lives, the lives of others, or things as big as planets blowing up. So why should the audience care? It would've been so good to use Loki as someone helping Thor be his best self, showing his intelligence. Have Thor be furious at Hela and be about to do something brash and stupid, but Loki stops him and points out that the last time Thor let his anger get the better of him it nearly caused a war. Have him, with some self-deprecation, note that only when the Avengers worked together and communicated a plan did they manage to stop him. Thor learns, we see him value his brother's opinion, and we see a glimpse of how powerful they could be working together. Thor going from golden retriever to yappy chihuahua will always make me sad. I love Thor. He's a gentle giant warrior with a heart of gold, and then he's a joking himbo who doesn't care about anything or anyone. And him committing an act of torture... yeah, it's creepy that people even need to have it explained why that's not okay. Waititi should not be allowed to direct anything that isn't a comedy. He's just simply not up to the task. Most fanfic writers are by the time they hit 13, but he is not.

Haven't watched the full video yet, but excited to hear someone who agrees with me about how Thor and Loki's characterisation was butchered.

Something I've noticed in the MCU is that some of the writers struggle to write friendships between men. That's not necessarily their fault - society does not teach us to express our feelings clearly as men when speaking to or about other men, but tells us a lot about how being cool equates to being capable of not needing other people - but it's something they needed to have worked on to prevent Nat from being the person the most characters have a connection to. The first Avengers movie works fine, because everyone's just met and they were in crisis mode for the majority of the movie. After that, it begins to be less understandable. The lack of seeing the Avengers interact with and hang out with one another in this manner really negatively impacts the movies upon a rewatch. And the most baffling thing is that it wouldn't have been hard to have them reference one another and make it feel like they regularly hang out or at least care about one another. Maybe multiple people tried to call Thor in Civil War but couldn't reach him and you can have a moment where Tony goes, "How are we going to explain this to Discount Norse Fabio?" and Steve half-jokingly says, "We'll make Nat do it. Everyone likes Nat." They both chuckle, we get a moment where it feels like this is a friend group. Clint could awkwardly ask Thor if his having a hidden family changes Thor's perception of him and have Thor gravely go, "Yes" and, after a beat, have him clap Clint on the shoulder and say a true warrior always protects his family and that he finds Clint's decision wise, showing us they both value the same things and approve of one another's life choices. When Nat shows up at Peggy's funeral, have her pass on a card from Clint that says condolences for your loss. Bruce's mom, in a lot of comics, was killed when he was young. Have Bruce not take sides in Team Iron Man vs Team Captain America because, as he quietly admits to Steve (he's afraid discussing it would Tony would hurt Tony worse and he's not up for doing that) he can barely keep from Hulking out when he thinks about Maria Stark being murdered and even though he trusts Cap's judgment and Tony's judgment both, he can't be objective about this so he's removing himself from this situation entirely. In the first Avengers, we hear Pepper and Coulson talk as they get in the elevator together about Coulson's love life, implying they speak regularly. It would be incredibly easy to do that with other characters; have Thor ask Bruce if the meditation bell he sent Bruce from the temple of Sigyn helped, have Clint ask Tony if he tried Clint's advice of getting Pepper candles because hey that gift always works when Clint needs to do an apology in his relationship, have Bruce and Steve talk about how Nat is still trying to get Steve to date and Bruce suggests that Steve call him if he needs a reason to bail out of a conversation with her quickly, have Nat ask Tony if he knows anyone he thinks would be a good match for Steve (preferably you want those two scenes in the same film for maximum audience snickering) etc. It's so, so easy to write interactions for these characters where they have more of a dynamic. Six characters is a lot to balance out, but there were enough films to do it, especially when you realize none of the above lightly brainstormed ideas other than the one regarding Bruce's mother would take more than 30 seconds to add to any given movie. A lot of fan demands are unreasonable but fandom has never asked for total rewrites of canon, they just want canon to deliver on characters interacting with one another like regular people. This is the one fan request that should have been easy to deliver on. TL;DR (sorry I'm in your comments dropping multiple paragraphs, I'm just in a fandom-intensive mood right now) this was incredibly preventable as a problem if they'd just done a few more drafts on these scripts.

Cannon is super boring couldn't agree more lol. Cannon could've been great and it just lacks at seemingly every point.