I must admit, "Thor" is a confusing realm. He's not quite like the rest. It is, admittedly, a hard character and medium to work with. But, why? It's rather easy to blame the material, but maybe what needs to be looked at is the audience.
It's understandable. The popularity of Batman, the billionaire playboy and gritty anti-hero who uses a lot of tech, is undeniable. Then, there is the unquestionable popularity of the flashy billionaire playboy who uses even more tech, Iron Man. Does anyone see a connection? Is this the only realm of comic book movies that viewers will accept to challenge their imaginations? If it is, it seems like a very narrow margin to work with. It actually makes me sad for kids to come.
Then there's Thor, a character who stretches the imagination, yet has more founded, historical back story behind him than a multitude of superheroes. This is because he is the fusion of what Jung referred to as the god/superhero-type in modern society. For those of you who don't know to whom I referring, I mean Carl Jung. He was a brilliant behaviorist/psychologist who revolutionized the notion of archetypes. His theories, still world renowned today, said that our SUPERHEROES today serve the same function that The GODS served in ancient times. In Jungian terms, Thor fulfills both these perspectives, which is why I find the character brilliant.
There is no pretense of being "relatable" here. Thank, God. Relatable has been become the buzzword of the sophomoric, untalented critic... a by-word for pseudo-snobbishness when the ignorant wish to cast their aspersions on anything imaginative that tries to portray any amount of fantasy. These "critics," if they mattered in the past 400 years and had succeeded, would have killed hundreds of years of literature that have come to inspire hundreds of things that we have come to love: Comics, Heroes, Characters, Stories. Again, in the retrospect of history, they are toe-fungus.
"Relatable" is a word the dead-of-imagination use. When I was a child, we didn't want our superheroes to be "relatable." We wanted these gods to be awe-inspiring and uplifting. We didn't wish to lower Superman to our level. We wished to be elevated to his. So, gadgetry and anti-heroism may be an easy route, but we must see the difference. The beauty of superheroes is not wanting them to be like us, it is us wanting to be like them.
What if there are two worlds that share no physics, yet they share boundaries? Science might certainly try to explain that. Two dimensions, as it were, connected through a bridge. So many questions. Now I will go back to every one's conceptions and misconceptions about the Marvel Universe, gods, and their movies.
Asgardians, in Marvel, were worshipped as gods here once (the only intelligent line Darcy had in the movie). They are only "gods" because they came from another dimension closely linked to ours, have immense superhuman power, were worshiped by Vikings and influenced their culture. The opening scene in Norway agrees with this. This IS Marvel Canon. We might go into the Elder Gods territory and why the human-worship influenced their power, but we won't. We are talking about movie-going audiences that don't give a...
All mythological gods in the Marvel Universe stemming from real world history are explained this way. They are gods to man (especially ancient man) but have never claimed responsibility for the creation of humankind. None of them created man. They were created themselves. Each culture led themselves to believe that these entities were their creators, though. This is not a movie plot device; it was the way Lee and Kirby wrote it 45 years ago. IT IS MARVEL CANON.
Now,I will make clear my contentions with this film (which I LOVED both times I saw it 2D and 3D). During the film, they were too ambiguous as to whether they, the Asgardians, were intergalactic or extradimensional within the movie. Nick Fury's line in the end bit cleared that up when they talked about "Foster's Theory" and a dimensional gateway. Gods live, whether we want to believe or not.