I had seen the movie Thor recently and I enjoyed the hell out of it (Iron Man > Thor > Incredible Hulk > Iron Man 2). For longtime readers of this site, you usually know what that leads to. Ever since Spider-Man 3, I’ve had a tendency to pick up the novelizations of Marvel movie properties before the movies come out. When I see the movie, I then go home and write up all the stuff that was in the book, yet never made the on-screen transition. These always lead to interesting differences between early versions of the draft and later ones. Like how Iron Man 2 was going to be a total piece of shit rather than just being simply the lowest rung of the Avengers Saga movies.

Here’s the problem, though. The Thor and Captain America movies don’t have novelizations and won’t be getting any. Oh, sure, there’s the junior novel, but those things are always too cleaned up and they overly abridge chunks of the story. I guess I’ll just have to kiss my bread and butter goodbye.

But then, I figured, what’s stopping me? Sure, I haven’t read the original script for Thor. Sure, I don’t know how earlier drafts of the story went. But YOU don’t know that!

…shit, wait. You do. Pretend those above three paragraphs never happened. I want to tell you about all the scenes from Thor that never came to be. The ones that were left on the cutting room floor, for better or for worse. Let’s go.

– In the opening scene, when Jane and friends are driving through the desert, they briefly spurn a hitchhiker and drive past him. Bruce Banner puts his hands back into his pockets and continues down the road, accompanied by sad piano music.

– The real reason those frost giants snuck into Asgard isn’t because of any magic or trickery, but because Heimdall was too distracted from doing that thing where you point your index fingers at each other and cross your eyes and see a little floating hotdog finger in-between.

– Balder the Brave was in the earlier draft, though his absence is elementary. Someone at the studio insisted that considering his name is Balder, he has to be bald or the audience would be confused. So he was bald. Totally bald. All over. The novel’s version of Balder would be proud of being smooth and would prove how smooth his body was by showing it off to anyone in the room. The descriptions were disturbingly graphic.

– The question of what happened to Odin’s eye is answered in a flashback to Loki showing everyone his disappearing pencil trick.

– Odin’s reasoning for choosing Thor to lead over Loki is the fear of a crazy sect of Asgardians who would have insisted on seeing Loki’s birth certificate to prove that he isn’t a secret frost giant out to destroy the realm.

– These same Asgardians, known as the Mead Party, were cut out completely. Several scenes involved them being very angry and outspoken about Heimdall being black.

– When the Destroyer finished off the invading frost giants, Odin shut him off by reciting, “Klaatu barada nikto!”

– Taken out were moments where Odin would break character and whisper under his breath how glad he is to be doing this role and not that awful Superman reboot concept from years back. If that was improvised in the movie, I can almost get it, but the fact that it was written up in the novel is just weird…

– A notable exchange between Jane and Darcy:

“Say, remember that superhero guy the Sentry who used to exist?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

– JMS had a big part in writing this story, so I can only imagine that there was a scene where Iron Man stomped on a puppy and spit on a nun.

– With the whole culture shock concept of Thor on Earth, the one invention of man he seemed the most intrigued with was the plastic separator thing you use at the grocery store checkout aisle.

– Darcy is a Skrull.

– About a half hour’s worth of scenes were taken out that dealt with developing the relationship between Thor and Jane. While this would have definitely enhanced the movie, all these scenes involved appearances by Rom: Spaceknight and Marvel was legally not allowed to use them.

– It is worth noting that the reason Jane seems so understanding and composed around Thor is that she used to date Raiden back in college.

– There was a segment about Thor learning how to use the toilet. When he flushed and saw the water swirl, he briefly got excited about his powers coming back. He would demand, “Look at this, friends! Look at what I have done!” and the others would portray their utter disgust.

– When all those guys were trying to lift Thor’s hammer with zero success, a horse-headed alien walked over to give it a try. Right before he could put his hand on the handle, someone told him the phone was for him and he got so distracted that he forgot about the hammer situation completely.

– Emotionally broken from his inability to lift Mjolnir, Thor was taken to a carnival by Jane to improve his spirits. This worked up until a tear-jerking scene where a drunken Thor played a violent game of whack-a-mole while bawling his eyes out.

– One subplot removed completely was Thor going on a road trip with Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, a pilgrim and a Pacific Islander while feasting on lots and lots of Snickers bars.

– When Sif and the Warriors Three were walking down the street on Earth in the movie, a SHIELD operative called his superiors and said, “We got Jackie Chan, Xena and Robin Hood.” The original line was actually, “We got Jackie Chan, Xena, Robin Hood and Volstagg the Voluminous.”

– During the finale, Uatu the Watcher was supposed to appear in the background to bear witness. The reason for this being excluded was that the character’s personality and gestures were written for the now-blacklisted Gilbert Gottfried.

– When asked why he looks down on Midgard so, Loki tells Thor that any world that can create a song as utterly shitty as “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals deserves nothing less than complete annihilation. Thor shrugs, admitting that it may be the worst song in all of the Nine Realms, but still…

– The after-the-credits final scene was originally going to be Wonder Man leading against a brick wall, smoking a cigarette. He’d notice the camera, appear annoyed and wave his hand while saying, “Don’t worry about it, folks. I’m not going to be in the Avengers movie.” This would have presumably led to the most excited post-credits applause from theater goers yet.

And there you go. All of it true. I mean, who’s to say it isn’t, right?

Similar Posts:

• New Ultimate Edit Week 4: Day Five
• New Ultimate Edit Week 5: Day One
• Captain America: The Deleted Scenes
• New Ultimate Edit Week 5: Day Three
• New Ultimate Edit Week 4: Day Six

Posted in Lists, movies by Gavok |