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Marvel Movie Minute Season Four: Thor • Minute 44: How does Thor know which direction to go?

Thor 044: How Does Thor Know Which Direction to Go?

Minute Forty-Four: From Satellite Talk to Middle-of-the-Street Talk

Austin TichenorJoining us on the show to discuss the mysterious satellite Jake and Pete tell Izzy about as well as Jane stopping Thor in his pursuit of it is Austin Tichenor, creator of The Shakespeareance, co-artistic director of The Reduced Shakespeare Company and producer & host of the Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast.

In the forty-fourth minute of Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 film Thor

  • Jake and Pete tell Izzy about the satellite they found in the desert and the big party that took place.
  • It’s great how Erik and Jane are drawn to them talking about a satellite and Thor is drawn in when they say how heavy it is.
  • We’re glad these townies don’t play to the tropes of how townies so often are there just to bully our heroes.
  • Darcy takes pictures of Thor for Facebook. A few years earlier, it was MySpace in Iron Man.
  • So much of these stories is about identity, as Austin points out, including our identity as watchers.
  • Darcy, Coulson, Wu – so many characters speak to the nature of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Shakespeare’s works, though perhaps more in Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”
  • This type of storytelling has grown in popularity so much. Fool. Wicked. Maleficent. It’s walking in someone else’s shoes. The villains are the heroes in their own stories. It’s all a type of fan fiction to an extent. Even the Bible comes into the conversation.
  • That’s all to point out that Darcy has little interest in the conversation about the satellite. She’s in her own space here. Thor gives such a great goofy smile here.
  • But Thor catches the satellite conversation, albeit only when they talk about how heavy it was. And that sends Thor on his quest to find Mjølnir.

Thor leaves Isabela’s Diner to find the satellite, aka Mjølnir.

  • How does Thor know which direction is west?
  • And who paid the bill? We decide they have a tab here.
  • We love that Thor clearly sees himself as essentially the focal point of every place he goes.
  • Shakespeare popularized the use of the word ‘swagger.’ Who knew?
  • Where did all these cars come from suddenly?
  • We laugh about the possible connection between Donut Land here and the donut shop in Iron Man 2.
  • Is the OK Furniture a nod to JMS’s storyline in the Thor comics involving Thor landing in Oklahoma (where the wind goes sweeping through the plains)?

Radioactivity and a satellite and government, oh my! There’s plenty to talk about with Austin in this minute. Tune in!

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