You live your life as a crippled doctor, thinking that gods and giants and mythology are just a bunch of bs, and then suddenly your eyes are opened and you find out your entire life has been a lie - you really are a Norse God of Thunder and everything you thought was make believe is real.

Kind of like Jesus in the desert when he turns 30 - he finds out he is the son of God, sent down to save mankind and resist the temptations of Satan. Well, here the guy finds out he is the son of Odin and that he has been sent down to save Midgard and resist the tricks of Loki.

Thor is probably the hardest character I can think of when it comes to adapting him to a movie. Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Sub-Mariner and Dr. Strange all seem easier and more straightforward then he does.

Personally, the only way I think you can adapt this to a film is go all out and say "fuck it". we are treating this 100% serious. No winks, no self-references, no implication that you are embarrassed by the material.

I am not comparing Thor to LOTR, but imagine if Peter Jackson had tried to do that movie without 100% believing in it and seeing it as a serious book? I imagine that most studios and directors before that movie would have treated it like Willow. Same thing with Thor.

Personally, I would love to see a Captain America and the Falcon movie where they are trying to stop the Red Skull from getting the Cosmic Cube, but that is just the type of nerd-boy I am.

I would love for them to go down that path, but I also realize that their is a good chance that it would come across as overindulgent, pretentious or just damn stupid. You've got to hit all the right buttons or else it will blow up in your face.

Man, that is a nerdy segue way.

If he treats this the way he would treat Shakespeare or a Greek tragedy, then I'm confident we're going to see something really special.

Now here is where I disagree with you. The real arc, I believe, is Rogers waking up in present day and finding just how much the world has passed him by and how he carves out a place for himself as the de facto moral compass of the superhero world. Becoming relevant again. I think you would agree that that is a story that is going to need a lot of time, heart, and focus. Now if you can eek out TWO Captain America movies before the Avengers film then fine, I would absolutely take one set in WWII and the other in present day. But I doubt that is going to happen. And they simply won't have time to give Cap's resurgence the time it needs to unfold in an Avengers movie when they are already gonna have their work cut out for them with so many other characters. An Avengers film shouldn't be about Captain America, it should be about the team. So with that said I don't see how making the first half hour of the Cap film WWII would be such a sacrifice. How many WWII fight scenes do you really need? How about one epic 20 minute battle of him invading Red Skulls castle and culminating in a fight with Skull and the detonation of the nuclear bomb, Bucky (if you even wanna use him) dying, Cap shot into the arctic ocean and long thought dead. Then you've got the rest of the film to establish Rogers and his conundrum in our time and bring back Red Skull as a threat with an epic plan. Also the theme of what those old time American values means to us now, how they integrate into our society, and while old, are still valuable, and what exactly that generation still has to teach us is incredibly interesting. If handled with the proper nuance, can help take off some of that rah rah American cheese that many associate with the character with a true exploration of what American values means and how it's been so perverted in the last administration. Without being that overt of course, it's still gotta be fun.

When Rogers gets the formula, because he's the only one who actually ends up with it, have the US military basically decide to use him as the poster-boy for the Allies war effort.

Have him be put in that costume to be a symbol for the American troops to counter the Nazi propaganda. But Cap himself doesn't want to be just a poster on the wall, he wants to fight, he wants to do some good.

When he finally gets to go on real missions, he basically has to earn the respect of the other members of his unit since they see him as just a propaganda tool. Of course Cap kicks some Nazi ass and is ultimately sent after one of Hitlers key people - The Red Skull.

Ultimately, Cap fights Red Skull above the Arctic on the wing of a plane bound for New York (or something), Cap wins of course but at the cost of his own life as he falls into the icy waters of the Arctic.

The movie ends with a funeral for Captain America. Bucky gives a speech about how he was a hero blah blah...fade to black.

Then....beep....beep....beep.. ...the sound of a heart monitor...fade in....Cap wakes up to see Bruce Banner standing over him at SHIELD headquarters.

The Avengers movie would actually begin a few weeks before this incident and we would see how Banner came to be with SHIELD and how they actually found Captain America.

Fuck this modern day Cap shit. Cap was born in WWII. He died in WWII. He was reborn in modern day. The Cap movie should show what he actually did in WWII. If you want him waking up to a world he doesn't know, show that at the end and continue with it in the Avengers movie or another Cap movie but just throw away the origin as a brief flashback.

go the ultimate route and make him a strong man with a god complex. he thinks he's a god, but the rest of the avengers think he's a loony. that's the only way this would gel.

Then, in Avengers' opening, you show them finding Cap, and Cap's arc in the film is acclimating to this new, less patriotic world filled with other powerful heroes and leading pple that aren't used to taking orders (Tony).

It can be done in a way that still preserves the ensemble film without makig it another Captain America movie. Afterall, LOTR was about Frodo but in the end was still an ensemble piece.

Mark Protosevich - the cell, poseidon, i am legend.

this the best team they could do with thor?

but when you're dealing with real people/actors and real surrounding, a certain level of realism has to be maintained. a good movie makes you believe in the world presented. and ironman and hulk already did a good job making us believe. adding a norse mythology to those characters's worlds would just stretch the credibility too much.

Industry Killer, I am going to respectfully disagree with you again. I don't think Cap getting used to the modern world would over power the rest of the Avengers movie, nor do I think he would get all of the focus. Why? Because I think that Cap shouldn't show up in an Avengers movie until at least halfway through it. I mean, he is the savior, the Once and Future King. I think you have to show that the Avengers are desperate and need someone to "save" them now, someone who can actually lead this disorganized group. You might show hints of Cap reacting to the modern world for the first time, but once the big threat is over then have a solo Cap movie were he really does deal with the fact that he is a man out of time.

But if they each have already been established, I think audience will be much more likely to accept it. It is kind of like when they first had the Universal Monsters cross-over (I think it was House of Frankenstein) and you had a creature who was brought back from the dead by a scientist operating in the same world as an undead count and a man cursed to change into a werewolf (and if I remember right, the mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein was offering to cure the Wolfman).

Plus I have always thought Bucky was a great metaphor for those lost during the Big One (or soldiers in general). Yes he was young, but so too were many of the men who died during WWII, all of whom met it way before there time.

Personally, however, I hope they never touch the Winter Soldier story line. I think it is great, but I also think it works much better in the comics than it does in a movie. To me it would cheapen his cinematic death and undermine a lot of the Cap's motivation and anguish.

Plus, how often have we seen a superhero in a WWII setting? The Rocketeer and bits of the Watchmen are the only ones that comes to mind, and even in that we never saw them in full action during WWII. I mean, it could be like The Dark Knight fighting in the Battle of the Bulge or Normandy. That is something I want see!

Plus in the later movies Cap can finally step away from the spotlight once the other "newer" characters start appearing (Hawkeye, Vision, maybe Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch).

sue me.

Seriously, nothing you said made any sense whatsoever.

Kenneth Branagh, if I didn't respect you so much, I would pray for this movie to tank harder than Wolverine week 2.

But I do respect you, Ken. So make some shit happen.

norwegians with attitude

This should not be a Thor movie. This should be a Donald Blake movie.

And I really hope they go with the Kirby inspired, trippy LSD version of Asgard where all the gods are wearing theme colored hybrids of hockey gear and samurai armor. Everyone in enormous shouldermuhpads!

I saw Star Trek last night, and I'm totally cool with Papa Kirk playing Thor. That dude definitely made the most of his brief role, and sucked me into the movie. As a TOS trekkie, I can say I dug the hell out of that movie. Except for the snow monsters. That should've been cut out.

Also, someone's stolen your TB handle. Just FYI.

And the other guy hasn't stolen my handle, just happens to have a similar name. I can't get upset at a guy for being a fellow Dashiell Hammett fan.

It is probably a good thing I am not in charge of Marvel Studios. I mean, it is not like Last Temptation of Christ was a blockbuster (“Hey Avi, let’s base Thor on a pretentious art house movie from the 80’s that didn’t make a dime and had people throwing Molotov cocktails inside the theatre in protest).

Nay, I say thee NAY! Keep Thor firmly planted in an alternate Gods reality. Or make him a meta human - that was once worshiped because of his abilities, but was never truly a 'God'. That is my best guess for handling such a ticklish issue. Sort of the way Superman would be worshipped today if he truly existed, because you know some nutcases would call him their messiah - and no I am not talking about our resident nutcase Media Messaiah either.

And to me the idea of being an actual god is just another step in the super-hero mythos. Basically super-heroes are gods - beings with powers way beyond us normal movies - well have one were the hero truly is beyond humanity.

The Books of the North are like the LOTR if the hobbits and the heroes of that series were replaced by the fantasy version of the guys from the Dogs of War.

The point is, it can be done without too much controversy.

I am out of here for the night. Ciao