The Avengers Callbacks
We’re pretty sure that The Avengers must be Taika Waititi’s favourite Marvel movie, as Thor: Ragnarok is stuffed full of callbacks to the first MCU team-up event. All those homages seems to have paid off, too, as Avengers director Joss Whedon has taken to Twitter to gush over Waititi’s threequel.
One of the most obvious – and hilarious – is Loki’s reaction to seeing Hulk again during the Grandmaster’s gladiator battles. Remembering how the Jade Giant beat him to a pulp at the end of The Avengers, Loki looks terrified when Hulk arrives and cries, “I have to get off this planet!” Later on, when Hulk slams Thor around the arena, Loki excitingly says “Yes! That’s how that feels!”
Meanwhile, when Thor’s trying to get the Grandmaster to release him, he tries to convince Jeff Goldblum’s character that he and Loki are brothers. Loki waves away any connection and says he’s “adopted.” This is, of course, a reference to one of Thor’s best lines from The Avengers.
There’s one other callback to The Avengers‘ dialogue, too, in Ragnarok. When Thor’s attempting to fly the Quinjet off Sakaar, the system won’t accept him unless he gives the right codename. Eventually, he realizes it’s “Point Break” and mutters “Damn you, Stark.”
Back in The Avengers, Tony Stark taps Thor on the shoulder at one point and says “No hard feelings, Point Break, you’ve got a mean swing.” Apparently, Tony liked this nickname so much he programmed it into S.H.I.E.L.D. computers. Point Break, by the way, is a 1991 surfing movie which features Patrick Swayze with long blonde Thor-like locks.
That does it for our article, but be sure to catch Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok when it smashes into US theatres on November 3rd.