Thor: Love and Thunder delivered a lot of very exciting visuals, and regardless of how you felt about the chaotic blockbuster, it appears everyone can agree that Natalie Portman's Mighty Thor was a highlight. Jane Foster's transformation was a blast, and the way she utilised Mjolnir in the movie was unlike anything we've seen from the Thor franchise before.
As the shattered hammer had essentially pieced itself back together, Jane was able to use those shards as a weapon in battle. That led to some incredible moments on screen, and we made sure to ask Thor: Love and Thunder VFX Supervisor Jake Morrison about it during our recent conversation to mark the upcoming release of the movie on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD.
"It's a bit of a treat, really. You may or may not know this, but this is my fourth Thor film, so at a certain point, there are only so many notes you can play on a piano, so it's a treat to suddenly think, ‘Alright, the thing is shattered. It's in pieces,'" he explains. "You start with Thor: Ragnarok where we had the fight with Surtur in the cave…that was supposed to be the most exciting hammer moment in any of these films to set up when Hella did destroy the hammer, you felt it. It was this crushing blow to him where he’s got his hair cut off and his hammer was destroyed."
"We really tried to do everything we could to top previous hammer stuff in Thor: Ragnarok, and then all of a sudden we got to this one, and you've got to do it again but it's going to be better. The fact that we could lean into the moment where she throws it for the first time, and then you get that first person - what we call a hard mount Top Gun-style shot where the camera is locked to the thing - and it starts spinning, and then the whole thing just comes apart."
The brief to our visual effects vendors was that it’s like laser-guided missiles," Morrison continues in the video above. "Every one of them is like a heat-seeking missile for baddies and then comes back to her. You want that moment to be the stand up ‘Jane is the Mighty Thor’ scene. And then, when she catches it, we get the too cool for school pose."
The VFX Supervisor would go on to reflect on his favourite scene involving Mjolnir, and pointed to that memorable battle on the Moon of Shame as what he believes to be the best use of the hammer by the Mighty Thor.
"It was a lot of fun, and through the course of the film, you just keep having to up it. The fun one we did which was one of my favourites happens in the blink of an eye is on the Moon of Shame in the black and white sequence," he recalls. "Natalie turns around, and there's a monster behind her, and she's already fired the hammer, so it's in pieces, and she's just got the spiky bit, and she just jams it in the bottom of one of the monsters chunks, and then all the pieces then come back again and join the hammer, and just blow it up."
It's comic book stuff, but coming up with something original, I don't know how they do it," Morrison concluded. "They must have written the Thor books for eighty years now, so coming up with a fresh thing every four weeks is pretty impressive."
That was a standout moment, and it's a shame that Jane's time as the Mighty Thor ended so quickly. Had the MCU not expanded to the point where we're going to get through the Multiverse Saga in less than half the time of the Infinity Saga, we can't help but wonder whether the new God of Thunder might have at least stuck around for one more Thor movie.
Still, Thor: Love and Thunder definitely left the door open to Jane returning and what we did get was mighty impressive!
Thor: Love and Thunder is now available on Digital and will be available on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD September 27.