Loki Has One Job & It’s Redeeming Thor: The Dark World – A Herculean Failure Of Epic Proportions
From the first two episodes, one thing has been made crystal clear. The Loki series has a purpose in the larger MCU. And that is not telling us the story of an alternate timeline Loki. It is the story of how Loki saves the carcinogen of a movie that was Thor: The Dark World. A daunting and harrowing task indeed, Marvel is trying to use a highly anticipated web-series to erase their past mistakes. And till now, it looks like the plan is working.
It is not the first time Marvel Studios has used a show to redeem a past mistake. WandaVision did the same thing. It tried to salvage Avengers: Age of Ultron. Despite being some of the highest grossing superhero movies ever, both Age of Ultron and The Dark World have a very bad reputation for being grossly inaccurate and unengaging. Both movies are considered to be the weakest links in the MCU. WandaVision managed to redeem Age of Ultron somewhat. But will Loki be able to do the same to Thor 2, considered to be the worst of all MCU movies?
Thor: The Dark World is ho hated for multiple reasons. It had MCU’s most forgettable villain – Christopher Eccleston’s Malekith. The Jane Foster-Thor romance was also effectively neglected with passion. And the story was not as unique. Thor: Ragnarok ended up putting Thor back in the driver’s seat but the second Thor movie was unarguably a huge failure that almost ended Thor’s career in the MCU.
The Thor 2 References
In the first episode of Loki highlighted a very important Thor 2 moment. The scene in question is the death scene of Frigga, Loki and Thor’s mother. In a subtle but direct manner, Mobius M Mobius explains the reason for her death. It was not Thor’s inability to save his mother. But it was Loki’s arrogance and ignorance that led to her eventual demise. Frigga’s death led to Loki teaming up with Thor to defeat Malekith, a rare moment of camaraderie that was explored much later in Ragnarok and Infinity War. It is good to see Thor: The Dark World’s most important scene have an effect on the overall characterization and plot depth of the Loki series.
In Thor 2, Loki’s characterization presented an interesting conundrum. despite being good at heart, he always ends up betraying his loved ones. It is revealed in the series that Loki does not actually want to harm others. he does what he does because of a failed sense of an illusion of power. The Loki series also builds up the MCU Multiverse (a concept that will surely come in handy in MCY Phase 4 and beyond) by relying on the concepts first elaborated upon by Eric Selvig during the chalkboard sequence in Thor: The Dark World.
The show will probably include more and more elements from the doomed Thor 2 movie, thus bringing things full circle. Just like WandaVision did for Age of Ultron.
