At the very beginning, Thor taunts Surtur, then frees himself from his chains, battles him and a number of his minions with Mjölnir in every possible manner (spinning it, letting it smash Surtur's minions in circles, having it bounce repeatedly on Surtur, Ground Pound...) then destroys Surtur and straps his skull/crown on his back.
It's basically Mjölnir's last dance, but hot damn is that battle sequence amazing! It almost seems like hammer and wielder are fighting together, each watching the other's back.
The fact that the battle is set to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" makes the whole damn thing unspeakably epic.
Also the fact that it takes Thor just about a minute to annihilate the guy who is supposed to destroy Asgard. Okay, Surtur isn't at full power, but he's still a giant lava demon and a lord of Muspelheim. Thor has zero trouble taking his head.
Both awesome and heartwarming, when the scene opens Thor says "Sometimes you have to get captured just to get a straight answer." He's using Natasha's interrogation method.
Thor's Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique of Odin whereupon he throws Mjölnir a great distance, stands behind his father, and holds his head in place as he summons Mjölnir back to the hand that is currently gripping his neck; a marvelous Xanatos Gambit. After all, if it actually is Odin, it's just a little harmless fun at an already ridiculous party, since the Allfather was the one who put the enchantment on Mjölnir in the first place. But if he's actually say... Loki... it will smash his head to paste. Loki gives in.
Thor: You're really gonna make me do it?
Loki-as-Odin: Do what?
[Thor throws Mjölnir into the distance]
Thor: You know that nothing will stop Mjölnir as it returns to my hand. Not even your face.
Loki-as-Odin:[visibly panicking] You've gone quite mad! You'll be executed for this!
Thor: Then I'll see you on the other side, brother.
Just to see how much Thor has matured. He must know what's going on the moment he sees Loki's statue, and yet he manages to wait until the play is over before he slowly begins to expose Loki, instead of immediately snapping.
Doctor Strange has clearly been training since his film if his casual mystical manhandling of both Thor and Loki is of any indication.
Thor and Loki transforming their human clothes back into their Asgardian outfits to confront Hela. Especially Thor, who hits his "umbrella" on the ground creating lightning bolts.
Despite Valkyrie's first appearance being Funny Moments as she stumbles, she quickly shows her badass side by using her gauntlets to remote control her ship's guns, shooting all the scavengers that captured Thor. Later on, she subdues Thor with a obedience disk.
The psychedelic synthesizer score that punctuates the scenes set on Sakaar is an unabashed hats-off to the awesomely fun sci-fi adventures of the 1980's like TRON, Flash Gordon (1980), Silverhawks, and Thundercats 1985 that will have your inner child pumping its fists and cheering in nostalgia.
Hela's calamitous rampage against two legendary Asgardian armies.
Special mention goes to the one member of the Einherjar who actually manages to stab Hela through the stomach. Unfortunately, she's basically invincible.
Even though she's just slaughtered an army of Asgardian soldiers, Hogun the Grim refuses to surrender to Hela and insults her before she kills him. He also opens the fight by deflecting her thrown knives with his mace before smacking her in the face with it, being the only other person other than the above soldier who managed to touch her in the battle. And he didn't need surprise for it either.
Thor vs. the Hulk where, deprived of Mjölnir, Thor is forced to fight more strategically to bait blows and strike at his enemy's blindspots. When Hulk counters this attack and almost pummels him into the ground, Thor manages to retaliate by tapping into his storm powers without his hammer.
Additionally, when everyone's anticipating Thor getting pounded into the floor, he takes Hulk's giant hammer, which Hulk had thrown at him no less, and slams him halfway across the arena, tearing through the walls in the side. Everyone's utterly stunned expressions just underline it — here's the champion they thought was utterly invincible, and this comparatively small pink guy just served him with his own weapon. The resulting fight is Thor using his better agility and melee skill to dodge Hulk's devastating punches while delivering strategic strikes, centuries of weapon skill and tactics to dodge in and out in an attempt to wear the Hulk down.
Hearing the crowd cheering "Thunder! Thunder! Thunder!" is so absolutely amazing, especially given the view of the crowd revealed most of them were carrying Hulk memorabilia. Even Korg and the other prisoners join in!
Another moment for Thor in the fight. After receiving the "Loki treatment" much to Loki's glee, he has a Let's Get Dangerous! when he decides to beat Banner out of Hulk with the hammer. That includes disarming Hulk by breaking the handle of his large axe with a hammer strike.
Also one for the Hulk. Ignoring all the cheapshots Hulk got on Thor when he was holding back or not expecting to be attacked, Hulk landed just as much attacks on Thor as Thor landed on him. This goes on to show Hulk is every bit as much a Lightning Bruiser as Thor is except in the literal sense, even though he is lightyears below Thor in skill and experience.
Thor proves he's more than a Lightning Bruiser, he's got a brain, which he demonstrates by getting close enough to Valkyrie to steal her shocking gizmo and use it to get the thing off his neck and escape.
After Thor escapes, Loki accuses Valkyrie of helping him and they get into a Knife Fight. It's a Curb-Stomp Battle in her favor.
Loki manages to stun her with his Touch Telepathy, knowing her true identity and making her recall Hela slaughtering her comrades. That only serves to make her angry. She wrestles Loki to the ground and knocks him out with one punch.
Let's face it. Until he tried to fight Thanos, this was Loki's most humiliating fight. Thor may have beaten him, but he's stronger than Loki and Loki still gave a fight, and Thor yet has to beat him into unconsciousness. Same for Hulk, who, despite having delivered a Curb-Stomp Battle as well which took him out of the fight, Loki was still conscious and taken by surprise. Against Valkyrie, he doesn't get in a single significant hit, and gets KOd after taking only 3 punches, a fraction of what he received before.
If Valkyrie's sisters-in-arms were similar in ability, no wonder Thor wanted to join their group.
It is Asgard's Darkest Hour. Odin is dead, a mad goddess has taken the throne, the entire army and other heroes have been effortlessly slaughtered, and Thor is stranded off-world and unable to bring aid. We then see some terrified Asgardian citizens fleeing from Hela's zombie warriors and we know full well not even the children will be spared. Suddenly a cloaked figure appears, puts himself between the people and their pursuers — and draws the Bifrost Sword. Heimdall slays them all and reveals that he's found a safe haven for the refugees. He single-handedly saw to it that Hela could not get her hands on the sword, effectively imprisoning her in Asgard, and ensured that when Thor and Loki were Big Damn Heroes, there was anybody left alive to save. If there was a hero to Asgard greater than even Thor, it would be Heimdall without question.
Thor completely getting the drop on Loki as they're leaving Sakaar, both verbally and physically. Thor sees Loki's betrayal coming a mile away and takes measures against it, planting a Shock Collar on him. If incapacitating him wasn't enough, he gets in a few zingers about how Loki had become predictable. In The Avengers (2012) Loki once asked if Thor will ever not fall for an illusion. Looks like we got an answer here.
Making it even more impressive, he used sleight of hand on the acknowledged expert of the art.
Nor was this the first time in the film; he managed to lift the control to the shock collar out of Valkyrie's pocket in the Hulk's quarters earlier. Where did the Prince of Asgard learn to pick pockets?
The dogfight race to the Devil's Anus. Highlights include:
On the flight to the Devil's Anus, Bruce tries to hit a button that "looks like a gun". It sets off the ship's fireworks while a goofy tune plays, but it's enough to distract Topaz and cause her to crash her ship into a hill.
Valkyrie loses her ship at one point, but is able to hang on to Thor and Banner's. Thor tells her to get inside, she replies "In a moment!" Then she climbs on top and jumps from one enemy ship to another, single-handedly destroying each one in turn. Then Thor decides he doesn't want to be one-upped, culminating in the mother of all Back-to-Back Badasses sequence as Asgard's finest warriors rip apart an entire planet's armada with their bare hands. Now we know how Asgard's armies conquered the Nine Realms.
Remember the highly painful warp jumps from GOTG Vol. 2? The travel through the DA is similar, yet Banner recovers much faster than Thor or Valkyrie. Makes a nice Foreshadowing for what he does in the next movie.
And yes, he stands alone once more in the movie. And once Skurge's rifles run dry, he uses them as clubs. He even turns an Einharjar to dust with just a headbutt! Not even Thor or Valkyrie did that. It takes Hela herself to finally bring him down. Dying Moment of Awesome, indeed!
The ending credits even feature a silhouette of Skurge wielding his rifle as a club in homage to that legendary scene.
Thor finally gets to sit on the throne of Asgard. The image of him sitting on the throne, wielding Gungnir (Odin's spear) and using it to essentially dare Hela to come after him in order to buy the time for his people to escape, is a sight to behold.
There's also some impressive Casual Danger Dialogue in the scene above as the pair buildup to their final duel, in which Thor mockingly and accurately cuts through Hela's posturing. It is really impressive to see the wind taken out of Hela's sails by someone she had utterly dismissed as any kind of threat.
Korg's Badass Boast when handed a gun: "The revolution has begun!"
During the final battle, when Bruce sees the Asgardians on the verge of being slaughtered by Fenris, he performs a Heroic Sacrifice—he's been terrified that if he turned back into Hulk, he'd never be able to become Bruce Banner again, but he recognises that Hulk is the only one who can save all those people, and takes the plunge for them.
As in his solo movie, Banner doesn't transform immediately, but smacks down onto the Bifrost bridge. After pausing in confusion and sniffing him, Fenris charges at the Asgardians and just before she chomps on Heimdall, she stops dead on her tracks. Hulk pulls her back before swinging her around like a ragdoll and roaring at her. When she slams him and drags him across the bridge, he punches her hard enough to flip over.
While it amounted to nothing as Fenris is Immune to Bullets due to her Nigh-Invulnerability, Valkyrie has a blast unloading the gatling gun thar Thor gave her from the Asgardian armory onto Fenris.
Valkyrie does a Slow Walk towards the incoming horde of Hela's undead, with Grandmaster's crashed ship setting off fireworks in the background, before she starts slicing and dicing them left and right.
The undead get a moment when they pile up on top of the ship and badly damage it, causing it to crash.
Korg's Big Damn Heroes moment when he saves Heimdall from one of Hela's undead solider after he was overwhelmed. This is followed by Loki's arrival with the gladiators' ship to rescue the trapped Asgardians.
Thor's Heroic Second Windin the final fight with Hela. After a brief vision in which Odin reminds him that Mjölnir was always a focus for his powers, not their source, Thor finally taps into his Shock and Awe powers consciously. He all but obliterates the throne-room with a massive lightning bolt, sending Hela flying across Asgard and then leaps to the Bifröst, electricity arcing across his body and glowing in his remaining eye, pretty much taking a ride on his lighting. He opens with a spinning spear which destroys several Einherjar and begins plowing through them, lightning leaping and flashing as he fights to chain his attacks:
Thor hits one, the lightning travels through him and hits those behind him
Try to attack him from behind? The lightning blows them away as well.
Using his lightning to grab one like tractor beam before throwing him.
At one point, when he leaps to attack one zombie warrior, three lightning bolts strike the other zombies in his wake, obliterating them. And all the while, Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" is blasting out full-throttle in the background as a Call-Back to the beginning of the movie. Words really can't do it justice.
You need to look closely, but at one point Thor is dual-wielding the swords by the blades, and bludgeoning the Berserkers with the hilts.
Also, the slow-motion shot that serves as the page image. Many people consider it to be a serious contender the best single shot/frame/moment of the entire MCU (alongside the famed circle lineup from the original Avengers), and it's hard to disagree with that sentiment.
In fact, what makes in even more awesome is Hela's taunting of Thor, asking him what was he the god of. Thor kindly demonstrates. The Oh, Crap! look on her face as she sees lightning crackling in his hands, followed by the look of utter disbelief as Thor hits her with "the biggest lightning blast in the history of lightning", blasting her hundreds of feet down and halfway across the palace courtyard is also a picture, completed by the knowing grin on Loki's face at the knowledge his brother's back in the fight.
Hulk grappling with a giant undead wolf before punching it in the face and then suplexing it. 'Nuff said.
One of the very few instances in the MCU where the Hulk is physically injured (though he quickly got better) is when Fenris pierces his leg with her huge fang.
In the Asgard fight, Loki gets his horned helmet pulled off. Without missing a beat, he uses it as a blade and impales zombies with it, before juggling it back up.
Even with unlocking of his power and Valkyrie's help, Thor still cannot defeat Hela.
There's one moment during their bridge fight. Hela throws her knives at Thor, who deflects them with lightning from his arms.
Before they leave, Valkyrie and Thor have some parting gifts to Hela. Valkyrie impales Hela with her Dragonfang and then basically Falcon punches her in the back of her head, causing Hela to Face Plant, before Thor destroys the part of the bridge under her, sending her plummeting down.
Villainous Kudos to Hela for putting up a fight against Surtur in her last moment, even though it was in vain.
Hulk's ENORMOUS leap into Asgard which Surtur is ravaging, and punches him square in the face. The mountain-sized behemoth staggers from the blow. Slightly undercut in that this is interfering with Thor's plan to deal with Hela for good, but the feat is no less impressive.
And even after getting thrown off by Surtur, Hulk is immediately ready to go right after him again, only stopped by Thor's insistence.
What's more awesome, when Thor tells Hulk "for once to not smash things", Hulk listens (if begrudgingly). Shows a little Character Development from a rampaging monster into an actual thinking person.
Just for perspective, the VFX supervisor of the movie said Surtur was 800m when he was revived and growing, reaching up to 4km near the end. Hulk jumped high enough to reach height at least close to that of Burj Khalifa!
The civilians of Asgard get one, too. Even faced down with zombies and with nowhere else to go, the civilians of Asgard do not act as just random innocents getting slaughtered; many pull out spears, hammers, axes, and swords to fight against the zombies. Which is a welcome change from many movies where civilians stand around being butchered. Asgard is not a place, but a people.
Bonus points for two of the citizens staring down Skurge being the women he was showing off to earlier in the film.
Just before Skurge's Last Stand and Big Damn Heroes moment, one of the Sakaaran gladiators single-handedly holds the damn line by himself for a few precious moments against an army trying to rush in and slaughter the civilians. If you look closely, he actually survives due to Skurge's timely intervention. The civilians he's protecting probably aren't his people, but he'll be damned if he stands by and lets them get slaughtered.
The end credits implying Korg's second resistance actually succeeds in overthrowing the Grandmaster, even after Korg and his allies left the planet with Loki to aid Asgard.
A minor retroactive one for Asgard. Hela, who knew Asgard at the peak of its might dismisses Casket of Ancient Winters as "weak" and the Tesseract — A GODDAMN INFINITY STONE — as merely "not bad". And demonstrates that Eternal Flame is on par with any Infinity Stone we have seen so far. One can only imagine what Asgard's power was in its more bloodthirsty days.
Trailers:
The first trailer shows Hela shattering Mjölnir.
Just Hela and her sheer badassery in general. The teaser trailer alone shows her not only catching and destroying Mjölnir like it's absolutely nothing, but also fighting the entirety of Asgard's army single-handedly (whilst pulling some serious gravity defying moves) and effortlessly defeating the Valkyries.
She doesn't just catch Mjölnir by the handle, either. She palms the business end of the hammer like it's made out of foam rubber!
Loki does a badass stride wearing his helmet, and juggles with knives while doing so.
When Thor sees that his gladiatorial opponent is the Hulk, he's absolutely jubilant, which shocks the audience (both In-Universe and in real life) into silence. They definitely didn't see that coming.
Thor's Big "YES!" upon seeing the Hulk mirrors that of the audience.
Banner proves his Badass Normal capabilities by piloting a ship alone.
The costumes and colorful retro futuristic aesthetics of Sakaar are GORGEOUS.
In the trailer, the Bifrost's structures light up with lightning when Thor jumps down on it. It's a shame that this doesn't happen in the movie, because it looks magnificent!
The shot of Thor and Loki, standing next to each other and firing big laser guns. After four years, the two brothers are teaming up once more!
We get an epic scene of Thor's team power-walking down the Bifröst to confront Hela.
We finally see to Fenris Wolf, and the Hulk manages to grab it by the jaws!
Hulk fearlessly jumping up to smash the massive 50 foot tall lord of all fire demons, Surtur.
Doctor Strange showing up in the international trailer made fans go crazy. Plus, Thor and Hela duke it out while being teleported by the Bifröst, and Valkyrie counters a Flechette Storm with her sword.
The latest TV spot has more Thor vs Hulk action, plus the latest trailer having Surtur with his massive flaming sword (Twilight) blasting Thor with a stream of fire and Thor powering through it, Valkyrie leaping off an aircraft mid flight.
And in some of the new trailers, Valkyrie goes into CQC with Hela and motion simulating guns on her aircraft.
in the middle of a sword-and-sorcery movie was unremarkable at best and confusing at worst. For fans of the comics, it immediately brought to mind the greatest moment in the saga of The Mighty Thor: "He stood alone at Gjallerbru."
