Thor: Hammer of the Gods - Sat. Sept. 12th at 7:00 PM on Syfy

[august]

{split off from a discussion in the Super-Hero Movies forum on the Marvel Comics character Thor.}

BTW, let us not forget the Bulgarian-filmed opus Thor: Hammer of the Gods, directed by the pride of Sofia, Todor Chapkanov (assistant director and/or 2nd unit director on everything from Reign of the Gargoyles, Grendel, Lake Placid 2 and SS Doomtrooper to Manticore, Magma: Volcanic Disaster, and Boa vs. Python.) It's his second main unit directing gig for Sci-Fi, the first being Copperhead (cowboys and outlaws vs. killer snakes, with Mexicans played by people named Violeta Markovska and George Zlatarev.) Co-written by Rafael Jordan, the man responsible for The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake, Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon, and Wraiths of Roanoke.

Thor is played by Zachary Ty Brian (aka the oldest kid on Home Improvement) :



Baldur is played by Mac Brandt (C.O. Mack Andrews on Prison Break) "Ulfrich" is played by a black UK actor named Daz Crawford (he played "Lighthammer" in Blade 2) "Sif" is played by Alexis Peters (the young blonde babe in Grendel) and Aegir, Heimdall, and most other characters are played by people with names like Velislav Pavlov, Raicho Vasilev and the ubiquitous George Zlatarev.

It's described as "a supernatural action horror set amongst warring vikings," and "deals with an angry Viking who goes to war with the Gods battling giants, trolls, Valkyries, and such."

It premieres on PBS on April 11th at 9 PM. Or maybe Sci-Fi.

[Boomstick]

On PBS, he says. No doubt in their 'Masterpiece Theater' segment, yes?

I'm marking that one down on the calender, though. Crazy as it sounds, the Home Improvement kid might be a pretty good Thor for tv! He can't be any worse than whoever the guy was that played Thor on the Incredible Hulk tv show for that one episode!

My Norse mythology is pretty rusty, but I don't think there's any incidents of a mortal taking on the gods. Even when they're angry. Can't wait to see those Valkries, though! If only they imported some Scandinavian babes to play them.

[august]

Originally Posted by Boomstick

If only they imported some Scandinavian babes to play them.

Hey those Bulgarian babes are cute enough!

But at the very least, two girls who sort of look Scandinavian are in it:

Alexis Peters


Melissa Leigh (as Freyja!)

[Boomstick]

I guess they'll be ok...

[august]

Originally Posted by Boomstick

On PBS, he says. No doubt in their 'Masterpiece Theater' segment, yes?

I'm marking that one down on the calender, though. Crazy as it sounds, the Home Improvement kid might be a pretty good Thor for tv! He can't be any worse than whoever the guy was that played Thor on the Incredible Hulk tv show for that one episode!

My Norse mythology is pretty rusty, but I don't think there's any incidents of a mortal taking on the gods. Even when they're angry. Can't wait to see those Valkries, though! If only they imported some Scandinavian babes to play them.

OK, this just sounds better and better. "When an army of Vikings clashes with a pack of werewolves, a young warrior becomes a legendary hero."

SERIOUSLY - that's what it says!

http://www.scifi.com/onair/originals/index.php?pageid=2

[Boomstick]

So a mortal is supposed to be Thor? I can see how that would happen--distinguished warrior is given the hammer by Odin and becomes--THOR!!!



This one could be a real stinker. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

[august]

Originally Posted by Boomstick

This one could be a real stinker. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Chances are pretty strong on that. Although the mythological-themed movies always seem to do the best. And yeah, the impression seems to be that it's one or more mortals who sort of become gods, or their legend causes them to be considered gods centuries later or something maybe. That was certainly the case with that movie George and the Dragon, where George was nothing but a regular knight, but his exploits were glorified and mythologized long after he was gone. Of course, the Greeks had plenty of stories of mortals or half-gods becoming gods - Hercules, Tydeus, Diomedes, Dionysus ... the Romans even ripped off the idea and said that happened to Romulus... and then consciously began doing it with real-life people like Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, etc.

[Boomstick]

Originally Posted by august

And yeah, the impression seems to be that it's one or more mortals who sort of become gods, or their legend causes them to be considered gods centuries later or something maybe. That was certainly the case with that movie George and the Dragon, where George was nothing but a regular knight, but his exploits were glorified and mythologized long after he was gone.

Um, that's Saint George to you, buster.

[august]

Well exactly! Speaking of which...that literally just came on Sci-Fi about 15 minutes ago! Retitled "Dragon Sword," but still featuring Mark Antony actor James Purefoy as the soon-to-be-canonized George. Some old discussion here.

[Boomstick]

They've aired this one several times, but like most of their movies, I've never actually sat down and watched the whole thing.

[Boomstick]

That Thor movie was on tonight, but I didn't watch it. I expect a rerun in the near future, so I'll have to try for it then.

[august]

OK, we were pretty much right. Except there were no Gods, giants, trolls, Valkyries, or even "such."

Technically, there were warrior women, but just human ones. (Although see below for the nature of the mortals in this.) And the main villain was sort of a god, I guess, being the offspring of Loki. And I guess Loki was technically from the race of giants as I recall. But basically, it was vikings vs. werewolves.

For whatever reason, all the characters have names of Norse gods. But they are definitely mortal. And they worship Odin, and are aware of the legend of the trickster Loki, and his children, the wolf Fenris and the Midgard serpent (although not his daughter Hel.) But they never refer to the similarly named gods Thor, Baldur, etc. so we have to assume that in this world - which from the costumes and weaponry seems to be at least 1000 AD - these gods don't exist. At least not yet.

Make sense? No? See that's the thing. We never exactly discover if all of these mortals are eventually becomes gods... or if this story gets retold over the centuries and eventually they are thought to be gods... or if in fact these actually were the gods, just not quite as powerful as we thought.

Basically there's a ship of Viking adventurers, a prince and his two brothers plus their followers, including two warrior babes. They have sailed all the way to the top of the world through spooky fog in search of the fabled island of Midgard. But since "Midgard" in Norse mytholgy is our earth, for all we know they actually are from some divine dimension or something. Realistically, though, I think the writers just wanted to use the names of the gods.

At any rate, the film is very derivative, taking the small band of almost unstoppable Viking warriors vs. mysterious besieging creatures from the film The 13th Warrior (itself an admitted homage/ripoff of Beowulf) and morphing that with the lethal commandos vs. besieging werewolves in a stark northern locale setting of the film Dog Soldiers (an admitted homage/ripoff of Rio Bravo.)

Add to that the dark spooky look and locations of co-writer Rafe Jordan's earlier Wraiths of Roanoke (there the Vikings were evil spirits attacking the heroes though) and the holy weapon theme (used in everything from Ceberus - where it was the Sword of Attila - to Monster Ark, Basilisk: The Serpent King, Rock Monster and Reign of the Gargoyles) and the forest/shore settings that have been used in Raptor Island, Lake Placid 2, Cyclops, Wraiths, Rock Monster, plus the looming mountains on the horizon from Harpies, and you've got a film. Just add actors and chill for two hours. And seriously, chill them - someone finally realized that there had to be some way to utilize those same beautiful Bulgarian locations in the winter, and thought "Hey - we'll make it about vikings, on a desolate island way to the north, where it's full of snow and ice." I think Bulgaria must be like Michigan, just with richer soil. Starting in April it may be stunningly beautiful and green, but by December it looks just incredibly frigid. As much as the beginning of Narnia, but with no special effects - just actors willing to film everything outdoors. Brrrrrrrrr!

One funny bit was that the tough manly vikings really reminded me of Klingons from TNG. With just a little forehead makeup, this could really have been a myth from Klingon folklore, with Kahless and his brothers sailing to the top of the world to find honor fighting against an immortal foe. Only problem is, I suspect most of these 20/30-something actors probably actually were channeling Klingons from their tv-watching childhoods! The director was Bulgarian, and no clue how well he speaks English or if his background has anything to do with acting as opposed to photography, so he may well have simply said "Sound manly - act like warriors" and sure enough we got the Sons of Mog.

Sif the blonde and Freyja the brunette were very pretty, and were from the alt-reality in which there were Viking warrior women too. Sadly even though there were several intense fight scenes, it appeared that no one bothered to hire a fight choreographer, and so everyone was pretty much on their own.

Basically Baldur was the leader, Thor was his adoring younger brother. Thor doesn't really realize how excellent a fighter he is, because he thinks his brother is the best, and his brother is trying to get Thor to grow up a little in case he becomes prince/king some day. Ulfrich is the eldest brother...but he's illegitimate, the son of their father and "a serf, a slave girl from the south." Which is a perfect explanation. Actor Daz Crawford actually is very light-skinned - I'm guessing he is perhaps 1/4 or 1/8 black, and speaks with a really heavy accent (somewhere between Scottish and Manchester) and I didn't realize until about halfway through that he actually was a bit darker than everyone else. And so as result he's resentful and suspicious of everyone, which actually leads to a fairly neat plot twist later on.

Zachery Ty Bryan lucked into this lead role - he's certainly a decent enough actor, but he's grown up into a really burly and not overly handsome guy. He could definitely have a career playing football players, boxers and weight lifters, but he's just not who you expect in this type of role. Plus he wears this weird faux-hawk for unknown reasons.

Ultimately what happens is that the vikings realize that aeons ago, a legendary (and nameless) hero wielded the legendary Hammer of the Gods on this island, and killed Loki's evil child, the Midgard serpent, with it. And it has stayed here forever after guarded by Loki's other son, the Fenris wolf, waiting for the hero to be reborn and come to claim his hammer. Or something. And if you drink of the blood of the wolf in order to get immortal life and power, *ding* you become a werewolf. And the vikings apparently missed out on the legend of Loki's daughter, since they come across a mysterious heavily accented blonde babe named Hel (played by a Bulgarian actress whose name I forget) and believe her when she says she's simply a shipwreck survivor.

The music and cinematography are really quite good, good enough for an A-movie... buit the werewolves are a mix of really BAD cgi, and guys with rubber wolf-heads. Seriously. And for reasons unknown, the vikings all wear Norman-style helmets with thick nose-guards that obscure their faces, so you can never tell who is who.

So.... yep, the young hero Thor achieves his destiny, realizes he is the prophesied hero reborn, and wields his hammer once again. The end. Does he become the god Thor? They never say one way or another, but from the costumes and weaponry of this film, the Norse religion is dying out anyway, already supplanted by Christianity. But as above, if this is supposed to take place in some Conan-like pre-cataclysmic age, then maybe that's what we're supposed to think.

Compared to, say, Star Wars, this gets an F. But compared to the movies mentioned above, it gets a C. Compared to Highlander 2, or last nights War of the Worlds 2, it gets a B+.

[august]

This being rerun on Sunday night, 6/28, at 9 PM on Sci-Fi. With their output/quota of double the amount of movies, they're experimenting with some tactics: rerunning a movie in the primo timeslot on a different night a few months later, and conceivably getting a completely new audience.

It's then rerun on Sat. 7/18 at 5 PM, and on Sun. 8/2 at 3:30 PM.

[august]

Syfy is running this once again on Sat. Sept. 12th at 7:00 PM.