I have just been with Mrs Hayes to see ‘Thor, Love and Thunder.’ As I mentioned in an earlier post, like C S Lewis I enjoyed the Norse and other pagan ‘storytelling’ mythologies, all of which have much in common with each other but which contrast very radically in content, style, historicity and ethical values with the Judaeo-Christian revelation. See reflections on this in an earlier post about the Netflix series Ragnarok.
We went for some light entertainment, and on that level were not disappointed, but I admit I had been particularly incited to see this latest Thor Marvel Comic Universe fantasy film because one of my Christian oriented internet feeds had mentioned that theological issues were raised in the film, including the big one of theodicy (*). So, I thought, probably an essay coming on. True, I tend to agree with one reviewer who said of the film ‘Too silly to take seriously.’ But the subject matter, even if not taken seriously here, is still serious. And the fact that so many of we humans take entertainment more seriously than matters of righteousness, philosophy, good and evil and our own eternal destiny is a matter that C S Lewis thought we should take seriously.
Caution: plot spoilers (but maybe not too many. The plot was largely predictable given the things that usually happen in this sort of knockabout CGI fun film.) there is a detailed and accurate scene by scene review here on Wikipedia, I won’t bother repeating things it says very well. There were lots of what some call ‘filmic references’ and what others call borrowing of ideas, or plagiarism, from sources such as Star Trek and Harry Potter. I’m not in the least bothered about derivative idea-borrowing by artists, just saying.
My review summary: well produced knockabout fun with plenty of CGI, over the top wacky humour, ridiculous plot and continuity gaps, sometimes very inventive but often very derivative, and relentlessly politically correct. In other words, typical of Disney’s recent output. As to ‘theological issues raised’, the issue of theodicy (whether or not God or the gods are morally good or are concerned about human welfare) was raised but not significantly developed, or indeed taken seriously at all. But I think it is worth thinking about what the film might be asking or observing (accurately or not) about how and what we humans think of ‘gods’, whether or not there is any meaning behind the universe, and what do we mean by good and evil?
Theodicy: early on, we find a man (Gorr) whose daughter is dying. He prays sincerely to his god to spare his sick daughter, but the girl dies and he buries her. Then he feels he is being called, and proceeds through a desert to a beautiful oasis where his deity (we recognise him from the image on an icon pendant that Gorr is seen carrying and using in prayer) is found, feasting with some acolytes. He addresses the god reverently and asks about an eternal reward for his faith, but in return is addressed with absolute contempt. He rips off his pendant and renounces the god, who then curses and starts strangling him. There just happens to be a magic weapon to hand (isn’t there always?) ’The Necro Sword’ which has the property that it can kill gods. Gorr kills and beheads the god, who bleeds liquid gold. The magic sword gives Gorr supernatural powers, and he sets off to kill all the gods in the universe. PS the director Taika Waititi is, I understand, an atheist, so maybe he was thinking of the philosopher Nietzsche’s famous saying, ‘God is dead’ as he wrote this freaky and incoherent script.
It’s always worth remembering that Frederick Nietzsche died insane, probably from syphilis acquired from a prostitute, and that he hated Christianity for its perceived servility to a higher power and charity to the poor, and that his ideas, including that of ‘the will to power’ and the ideas of a ruling Master Race of ‘super men’ inspired Hitler. When you get rid of God as the main source of your world view, you get a different world view, and you might want to think about what it will be before you burn your boats.
Later on, as the film’s ridiculous plot unfolds, we find a blue skinned humanoid race who have appealed to The Guardians of the Galaxy (and Thor) to help them out. They are being attacked by odd looking creatures that look like a cross between Hell’s Angels riding aerialised death bikes and Animal, the mad drummer from The Muppets. The high priest of these people complains that their gods have been ‘murdered’ and in consequence the peaceful state they previously enjoyed has been replaced by constant war. Cue some ultraviolent axe and lightning CGI action in which Thor destroys the baddies, and accidentally also the holy temple.
I’m not going to try to ascribe any meaning to this sequence, and I’m not going to assume that Director Taika Waititi was trying to achieve anything other than popular entertainment leading to fame and money. But as writer he did in fact put this statement into the mouth of a religious ruler-apparently admitting that when a settled society sees its gods ‘murdered’ (Nietzsche used the term ‘murder’ to describe the supposed death of God at human hands) then things will change, and not necessarily for the better. The hopeful atheist assumes that after getting rid of what they think of as primitive superstitious nonsense and replacing it with ‘rationalism’ (or maybe unrestrained selfishness, which 20th century history suggests seems at least as likely) they will change for the better. The anti-religious seldom reflect on the possibility that destroying the settled religion of a whole society is an uncontrolled experiment whose observers are themselves both subjects and motivated participants so may not be unbiased.
Skipping over large swathes of plot action, we find Thor and three companions travel to ‘Omnipotence City’ a city in space where various gods hang out. We see a huge spherical cathedral like space with various Egyptian, Greek, Polynesian, Japanese and other mythological deities, plus various others that scriptwriter and director Waititi has invented (including a ‘dumpling god’ which is literally an animated dumpling. The inclusion of such an obviously ridiculous entity suggests that Waititi is, to use a vulgar but meaningful English phrase, ‘taking the piss’. There is a passing reference to ‘a god of carpentry’ although I did not see a more direct reference to the Man from Nazareth.
Zeus is played with a laughable Greek accent by Russell Crowe, appearing from a cloud and apparently top god. He addresses the assembled deities saying that he has a number of important things to discuss, including the location of ‘this year’s orgy.’ I can hardly be bothered to discuss the rest of this sequence in detail, but it does at least remind us that the pre-Christian pagan deities were a boozy, brawling, swindling, fornicating crowd who were not much concerned with moral uprightness. Very much man creating gods in his own image. How different from the suffering servant who really was God! This is a point that C S Lewis, great scholar of mythologies, made often and is reflected in Love and Thunder. Incidentally, loveable as Chris Hemsworth’s depiction of Thor is, it is not an accurate portrayal of the thunder god we read about in the Prose Eddas. But so what? The Norse poets invented Thor, Heimdall, Loki, Odin and the rest of them, Disney can re-invent them if they like.
There is an altercation between Thor and Zeus and Thor apparently kills Zeus with his own thunderbolt! He then steals the rather cheap looking re-usable thunderbolt and escapes with his comrades on a boat towed through space by two magic goats (that IS in the Norse legends, although there they only fly across Scandinavia, not between stars and galaxies!)
Skipping over some more of this CGI pantomime, we move to the end game where Thor and The Mighty Thor (check links above for details) destroy Gorr’s Necro Sword, bringing his life close to an end, but he wins his way through to ‘Eternity’ where he will be granted one wish (by whom? Using what powers? Can any wish be made or only ‘good’ wishes ???-the unaddressed issues are endless). Instead of wishing for all the gods to die (what kind of ‘gods’ are born, have sex and die?) decides to wish for his dead daughter to come back. And she does. Gorr dies, perhaps shriven for his blasphemous god-murdering actions, and he asks Thor to adopt his daughter, called ‘Love’. And he does. In the last scene, the two of them ‘Love and Thunder’ go out to joyfully smash in some bad guys heads.
Basically, the film was fun as light entertainment fantasy, but as far as philosophy, theology, theodicy and plot continuity went it was a pile of absolute bollocks, ocean-going, oak-aged, gold plated bollocks, with as much LGBTQ propaganda inserted as they thought they could get away with this year (it will be more next year). Whatever else Disney and this particular punk director have achieved, they haven’t added anything to the ‘God’ discussion or even seriously addressed any of the big issues about God, gods and religion in a coherent manner. But they have sold a lot of tickets, and will probably sell some games and toys. I hope they might get some people to do their own research and think for themselves, but that’s a lot to ask.
So, while I am tempted to say that Thor, Love and Thunder was a missed opportunity to seriously look at serious issues about God, gods and/or other supernatural beings, consciousness, the meaning of life, whether death is really the end for us, etc…but, nah. It was formulaic light entertainment, based on a comic strip. Light entertainment is no more obliged to make sense (even in the context of its own internal rules and structures), follow lines of logical reasoning or explore the issues that really matter than I am to learn Japanese or play golf. But we humans have been gifted with mind, reason and an eternal destiny, and we ARE obliged to strive to make sense of life, morality, God and destiny in the light of what has been revealed to us, including things we can quite readily discover if we take a little bit of trouble to look, rather than take what Disney, Amazon, Netflix and the rest of the MSM spoon feeds us with. This was fun as entertainment but didn’t ‘deal with’ any big issues at all.
PS there is a very good review from a Christian viewpoint here on The Collision.
(*) Theodicy is not to be confused with The Odyssey. Sorry, bad pun
Old Hampshire C S Lewis Society 