Thor - Page 2

Watch Captain America, and you'll see Tony Stark say to Thor, "nice throwing arm".

Thor also sported a beard during the later half of artist/writer Walt Simonson's excellent run on the comic in the 80's. That was due to his face being scarred in a battle with Hela if I recall.

It won't be tough at all. Fox's F4 films are in a different continuity and Marvel has closed the books on continuing that franchise so they can do a fresh take on the characters which they may or may not tie into the continuity they have built around The Avengers.

I saw Captain America over the weekend. Great film! They should have opened with that over Independence Day, not Transformer 3: Rise of the Turd. The Avengers trailer, as expected, didn't show much. I am nevertheless excited.

So will this thread be the "official" Thor Blu-ray thread now? Because I have some bones to pick with some scenes from the film that I'm sure will aggrevate teh videophiles among us.

On Amazon they say the aspect ratio is 1.85:1, is this the same ratio they showed at the movies ? Or are they doing this to fit the wide screen tvs.

Amazon are wrong, as per usual.

Watched Thor last night on Blu-ray.

Overall, excellent a/v quality. My only minor complaint is the dialog at times is mixed very low in comparison with the rest of the soundtrack (which is DTS-MA 7.1 btw). The color and detail, especially in the Asgard/Rainbow Bridge scenes is really beautiful and sharp.

Among the extras, the Avengers preview is just footage from San Diego ComicCon where Josh Whedon introcued the cast (including the new guy playing Bruce Banner who doesn't look like a good physical match for the character) intersprced with footage from the existing individual movies featuring Captain America, Thor, The Hulk and the two Iron Man flicks - no new footage from the actual movie. The deleted scenes actual contain some bits that I thought would have been worthy inclusions in the movie, including the original introduction to the "Warriors Three (+ Sif). Again, the inconsistent low dialog in some of these extra scenes is a bit of an issue (subtitles required, imo) but to be fair, many of them are not finished scenes and probably do not have finished looped vox.

As for the movie itself, I'd rate it just above X-Men First Class despite the fact there's some clumsy or dead spots (mostly on Earth) scattered throughout the movie. The fact that Marvel was able to pull out a pretty good (and relatively faithful) superhero movie out of what could be described by modern audiences as a pretty dated, cheesy comic book is a feat in itself.

A recommended blind buy.

T.B.

This is the second time I am reading this critique of the Blu-Ray, with a relatively small sample size of people who have the disc early. I wonder if there is a technical issue...

I don't think it's a technical issue like say audio drop-outs or "pops" that have been reported in some DTS tracks. I think it's just poor sound mixing in pre-production for the disc. Modern movies have the big action scenes mixed as high as possible for maximum impact and the only way as a sound mixer you can really further exploit that is to mix other parts of the soundtrack lower in comparison forcing the viewer to turn up his reciever/monitor audio to a certain higher than usual level to properly hear dialog which in turns greatly amplifies those big CRASH POW scenes to earth shaking levels.

Most receivers including mine have some sort of "Midnight" mode which equalizes the audio to some degree but I prefer not to use that setting as it can fudge with the subtleties of a soundtrack in unfavorable ways. Through my receiver setup, I have my center channel boosted at +5 (Legacy Marquis Center) with my front L/R speakers (Legacy Focus 20/20s) cut down -5 which reduces this problem a bit but on a few problem movies like "Thor," it's not enough.

That's too bad bout the audio. I hate turning the dialogue up only to be (negatively) blown away when the action scenes come up.

How are the scenes involving wide CGI Asgard shots? I remember in the theater there was an obscene amount of either digital noise or fake added grain and it looked bad, really jarring. Another scene was the final feast scene starts with a wide shot of everyone at the table, then what appears as a zoom pan scan job. I don't know exact times, sorry.

Now this is really strange. Today is 9/4, someone already has a BD copy and yet BB does not show an avail shipped date yet in my cue. But they have Dark of the moon slated for 9/30

To my eyes, the CGI Asgard shots, especially the big opening sweep at the beginning of the movie look sharp and clean. I saw this one in 3D which was undoubtedly a mistake as it was significantly darker, especially during Thor and his pals' Frost Giant battle in Jotungheim(sp?).

Right, the sweeping flyovers looked good. Two scenes I remember looking bad were:

- Opening throne room scene where Thor is to be announced as king. All the people are crowded around. It's the wide CGI shot of the crowds and the big open throne hall.

- One of the other Asgard shots, a wide shot of a giant hallway with massive statues along the corridor.

I saw Thor several times at a couple different theaters and they stuck out terribly. It seemed like they were maybe added in last minute, perhaps lower resolution. I'm not sure if it's aliasing or noise, or intentional fake grain since I could never pause and rewind it.

Greetings,

This arrived for review this morning (the 3D/2D/DVD version). I saw Thor theatrically and look forward to checking it out in my theater. The review will post before street date.

Regards,

I look forward to it Ralph along with most of your reviews

Great sound track, anyone with good subs will enjoy it, first time viewing it today and it was pretty good overall.

I guess i'm one of the very very few who thought many of the CGI scenes were pretty soft. Definition is definitely not what I would use to describe most of them. There were even some live action scenes that seemed rather soft as well. The outdoor scenes in the "desert" were reference for sure. Great detail with a very 3D like picture.

I saw it 2d and 3d in the cinema and I liked the way it looked, one of the best conversions too

Definitely picking this up tomorrow morning!

+1

No there isn't,it's a mere preference to some especially who don't normally watch at near reference levels to be bothered by wide dynamic levels. It's an excellent audio track.

Midnight mode won't work on DTS tracks, though technically it is possible, but the metadata is never included during encoding by default. In any case I don't share your observation regarding the dialog level on this BD, and I don't use any boosting of the center channel either. I consider this the correct way of mixing, not poor as you put it, and wished more action movies have sounded like this, but they don't sadly.

My netflix bluray will be here this afternoon!
My 7and 5 year old boys love watching movies with me, is this a "soft" pg13?
We've watched most of LOTR, just a few scenes did my dad mode kick in and I ff past.

I was toying with having my 7 year old (2nd grade) have 2 friends and dads over Saturday evening for guys movie night.
No time for me to pre-watch it.

For those who have seen it, would you watch it with your 2nd grade boy and his friends?
(not intending to turn this into a pg13 debate, just looking for others thoughts).

I haven't seen the film since theaters (but that will change tonight), however I don't recall anything objectionable for your boys. I'd say they'll love it - the action scenes are pretty rad

If you let your boys watch the cartoons of Ben10, GIJoe, or Transformers you will be fine with it. Not thrilled, but fine.

It's not too violent, but I wouldn't let my 5 year old watch it.

I'd love to blind buy this one but the trailers and a few select reviews about the movie from certain members here I usually agree with is keeping me from it. The audio reviews may break me though.

+1 here as well for the same reasons...and my blind buy history as been really good/lucky...but I just don't know about this one - gonna end up being the first movie I'm RENTING FIRST in a long time.

Thor is a great Marvel film. I would rank it up there with Iron Man. I was better than the X-Men films and Fantastic Four as well as the last Spiderman.

Thx, looks like it will be a "Thor" guys (father/son) weekend.