Thor: Love plus Thunder minus Comedy

If there's a big issue dragging down the MCU as a whole, it's the excess of comedy. Along with the frequently formulaic plots (interestingly averted on TV, with shows like "WandaVision" and "Loki" daring to experiment a bit, but the theatrical releases still cling to the formula) and the overabundance of CGI, this is what consistently keeps these movies from becoming anything beyond fast food entertainment. Even the best ones in the franchise suffer from an obligatoriness of shoehorned jokes, almost as a recipe that can never be varied. And it comes across as the makers not trusting their own material, feeling the need to mock and lampshade it non-stop as in trying to save face and apologizing for making something so "silly". For a deeper essay on this, I recommend the already classic YouTube video "What Writers Should Learn from Wonder Woman" by Just Write.

The unfortunate result is that we, the viewers, can very well miss that under all the jokes there may be a pretty good story after all. The official cut of "Thor: Love and Thunder" did very little for me. It felt both unengaging and unengaged. It was like watching all the worst parts of "Thor: Ragnarok" (which I liked a lot) without any of the best parts. So, this edit was an eye-opener. Once the silly garbage has been removed (or toned down - fear not, there are still some jokes there, it hasn't been turned dry), the story reveals itself to be actually pretty good, and touching even. Dear Hollywood: themes of heroism, loss, love, grief, pain, self-worth and such, need no tongue-in-cheek approach. Let stories be sincere. A sense of adventure is all that's needed in order to keep it from being overly sad. That, not cinematic self-mocking.

A tremendous job of distillation that more than making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, removes the sow's ear to reveal the silk purse that was buried underneath. Technically it's excellently executed as well, the new effects are completely seamless, and the recreated credits sequence is impressive.

I wish the official MCU approach was closer to this overall. Highly recommended.

Well, it was short, but it pull it off, for sure, it did, Thank god I didn't watch the original one, This is fanedit is WAY better, For the people that felt disguested bout the movie you watch in theaters, watch this one.

The original was forgettable and did not inspire a rewatch. This edit hooked me and kept everything from the plot, to the characters streamlined. With lite humor, not the over the top Marvel in your face humor. I highly enjoyed this edit.

Many fans are going to enjoy this edit if anyone felt unsatisfied with the original movie. While shorter, it feels more like an MCU film with action and humor than the theatrical version. Having seen the one in theaters left me unsatisfied and was the first MCU movie to have me not laughing at all. This one feels more satisfying and one I would rewatch without complaining. Was I laughing now? Well, the part where Gorr scared kids with his decapitation story was the only time they gave me a big laugh. I thought this was one of the movies I would never bother rewatching if it ever came to it, but tremault left me surprised that I can simply watch this edit of Thor: Love and Thunder without skipping the worst parts.
- Thor's character feels more in line with what we saw in Ragnarok and doesn't feel too much like an idiot. Just got along with the Guardians too much. Rather than making him feel more like Odin in his early years with Hela, this edit makes him feel like the character we have seen for years. Giving Jane a mysterious past certainly helped with the ambiguity and offered a fresh take on her introduction. Removing her treatment in the hospital and her talk with Darcy was a removal I didn't know was needed to keep the audience surprised. Although, I wonder if Selvig and Darcy are aware that Jane is dead now. Korg is now what he was in Ragnarok, bringing in fun and not too many cringe-worthy jokes. The absence of Waititi-isms made Korg a better character who is not overshadowing everyone else. It's a shame Love and Thunder made me feel that he's overstaying his welcome, despite being in 3 MCU movies. Here, removing much of the humor and killing him off made me feel sorry for him and I wish Taika got out of his comfort zone and bring more risks to this franchise. The sad truth is, Taika is not going to work for Disney forever and he'll have to work with a different studio.
- The music choices are great in terms of replacing certain songs. I won't go too much into detail, but each edit feels seamless to go from one place to another.
- Gone are the screaming goats, which is a plus, and it sounds nice not having to remind myself of my humor tastes from 2010. Although, if Marvel really wanted them to scream, they would've opted to use actual animal noises (cows, horses, sheep. They're alien goats, they don't have to sound exactly like goats, but they shouldn't be meme-fied. Leave that for the internet). A major change I like was the addition of the deleted scene where Zeus teaches Thor about Thunderbolt (which happens to be the only normal scene in the movie). This was an important scene and it was cut out, probably because they wanted to have Jane's death more dramatic. With the scene included, it shows that Thor would be able to share his power using Thunderbolt, which I understood in the theatrical, but the implication given to the fans made them think why couldn't Thor have shared his power in other movies. I would go feel detail about the scene itself, but it would be just me ranting about the movie in general and not the edit itself. I liked the new intro. It will definitely make you feel more for Thor without Korg narrating the entire movie. I feel that it was originally supposed to be Chris narrating the movie since he did the same for Ragnarok and we heard snippets of it in the trailer. But my absolute favorite was the end credits sequence. I'm glad the VFX artists shared a textless version and gave us the background video. I couldn't stand watching the actual end credits sequence with its overabundance of font changes. It really did look like something out of WordArt. This one feels simple and you can actually see what is written there. Removing jokes that feel like a Saturday Night Live skit (and not a good one) gave a breath of fresh air for this movie, as was Korg's death. Stormbreaker doesn't feel jealous over Thor wanting Jonathan back, which is good since this is a real story we're seeing and not an overexaggerated fairytale told by Korg. It's possible he made it up since he was telling the story in the theatrical cut. The whole New Asgard sequence in the intro is removed and I think it's for the best. We don't need to see them opening up an ice cream shop after Thanos (although it would've made things a bit funny if they had Eitri from Infinity War painting the Gauntlet red since they would've received complaints about how insensitive it is). And we certainly don't need to see Matt Damon, Liam Hemsworth, Sam Neill and Melissa McCarthy doing pantomime (I would've given it a pass if they brought in Jeff Goldblum and his keyboard to provide music and have some off-set joke about how they're not getting paid enough for this). It feels like Marvel wanted to generate memes, but what trended the most was the CGI floating head. Here's hoping the artists get proper treatment as of now.
- If I were Marvel, I would have given Gorr more to do, Guardians a more screen presence and release special editions of previous Thor movies to justify the existence of Heimdall's son. It's odd we're seeing a trend of underwhelming children reveals in MCU movies. I'm not Jennifer Walters entering the real world to talk to Kevin and change the outcome, so I hope Marvel will take the Andor/Mandalorian/Kenobi route and fill in the gaps instead. Maybe they need to have someone inspecting years in MCU movies because I'm not sure if they're still in 2023 or 2025. They have a timeline checker, but not someone looking after the years. How very odd.
In conclusion, this edit is the definition of "less is more". The less jokes you have, the more story you have to tell. It goes straight to the point without any inhibitions. It feels in-line with Ragnarok, which is what everyone thought this movie would be: a fun Thor movie. The edits are seamless and every change feels welcome to make the movie satisfying. It's a shame the rest of the deleted scenes we've seen would not fit into this edit, all except for one. I thought this would be deemed impossible, but tremault proved me otherwise. I'm glad to have helped you out with this one. I wish this was the movie we've had (although, I'm intrigued over the 4 hour cut Taika said he'll never release). If you loved tremault's other fan edits, you will love this one. It's certainly the kind of edit that would leave Browntable on YouTube feeling less annoyed about the movie.

I never thought that an actually good and enjoyable movie was hiding under that pile of bad-taste humor. Tremault did an amazing work extracting the essence of the plot and showcasing the main character's empathy (frankly who thought it was a good idea to make Thor sound like a psychopath by joking over Sif's getting mutilated and Jane battling cancer?). The surgical extraction of the cringe-worthy moments aside. I loved the VFX of Zeus' telepathic abilities to Thor, it was astonishing. I also adored the new bittersweet ending, Remember Me is such a dope song!