Exploring Valkyrie’s bisexuality was a mere blink and you’ll miss it opportunity.
Valkyrie was another standout to Thor: Ragnarök. She was very compelling and while not much is known about her early life whilst serving Odin minus the gruesome demise of her sisters-in-arms The Valkyrie, she was an interesting character worth diving into and eventually even becomes the King of Asgard when Thor realized his journey was more than being a King. Tessa Thompson and director Taika Waititi hinted that Valkyrie is in fact bisexual and a scene was even storyboarded to show her lover (a female) leaving after a one night stand which unfortunately did not make it into the film. However Tessa stated that her bisexuality will be explored further as the story continues on once the sequel arrives with rumors implying a subplot to focus on Valkyrie searching for her queen. Unfortunately this proves to be yet another let down, as the story remains focused on Valkyrie, Thor, Korg, and Dr. Jane Foster searching for the missing Asgardian kids. There is a less than subtle conversation where Korg and Valkyrie converse about their past and relationships and she also seemed interested as well as even took pleasure in seeing a naked Thor (courtesy of Zeus) but even that is more of a one-off. It seems like yet another wasted opportunity to explore Valkyrie’s compelling character (although she’s not nearly as worse off than Lady Sif who only received a few minutes of actual screen time). And is yet another reason why Valkyrie should receive her own series as a stand-alone character to truly explore her life and overall interest.
The humor was very cringe
Byproduct of a Taika Waititi film is the comedic humor of the film. Although the humor was perfectly balanced in Thor: Ragnorak, this isn’t much to say for the new movie. Even Chris Hemsworth himself was tired of Taika painting Thor as a comic relief fool. Although few of the jokes were somewhat funny a majority of it was very cringe and poorly executed.
Lady Sif had a very minor role in the film rather than a significant comeback after all these years and is even missing an arm.
Lady Sif was a supporting character in the stories involving Thor and assisted in defeating Loki and Malekith. Although she was absent in Thor: Ragnarok due to Loki banishing her, she returned in Love & Thunder. However she has a relatively minor role due to suffering from an attack from Gorr. She was merely there to inform Thor about Gorr. She was even missing an arm due to an attack from the God-slayer and is unable to assist Thor in defeating him because of this fact. Lady Sif is not present for a majority of the film up until the epilogue when she is seen training Heimdall’s son how to use a sword whilst staying at New Asgard.
The portrayal of the gods in the film is yet another disappointment
Thor: Love and Thunder reveals that a majority of the deities' most spiritual characters in the franchise worship are in fact real. One such god was revealed to be Bast the Panther Goddess whom is worshiped and respected by the Wakandans. However it comes to a surprising twist that many of the gods are revealed to not care and even mock their worshippers as they are more concerned about parties and orgies. Zeus even revealed that he does indeed fear a necrosword wielding Gorr but only saves face for the sake of maintaining his image. Revealing that gods in this universe are revealed to be huge dicks is quite puzzling as it compromises everything in-universe that men of faith have stood for.
It’s not a Thor film without Loki
This is the first and so far only Thor film to not feature the iconic Loki, the reason being due to the character’s untimely death at the hands of the Mad Titan in the beginning of Infinity War. Similar to Vision this death happened prior to the Blip so there is no way to resurrect this timeline Loki. According to the TVA any theories of Loki still being alive are proven false as this Loki is supposed to remain dead. Although unintentionally the 2023 Avengers caused a divergence in a similar timeline due to their failure to acquire the tesseract in 2012 resulting in Loki escaping and forcing the TVA to intervene although this prevented Loki’s prophesied death he managed to unfold a conspiracy within the TVA and discover that a human who knows and sees everything is keeping the timeline in a strict order from minor to major events in order to prevent the return of one of his villainous variants making Loki an important player in Kang’s game to conquer the multiverse especially after his variant Sylvie kills He Who Remains resulting in the timelines branching off and ensuring Kang’s return. Ultimately due to their paths and sole stories Loki and Thor do not interact and likely will not anytime soon until the Multiverse wars begin and Kang begins his conquest resulting in the multiverse colliding and heroes interacting with different timelines in order to find Allies and defeat Kang
Character deaths were not very sympathetic
Ultimately, much of the deaths of the characters that appeared weren’t very emotionally resonating or sympathetic. As an audience member much of the deaths were pretty dull for me. Even Gorr’s daughter, Love’s death wasn’t really as heartbreaking as it seems. Jane Foster revealed herself to have stage four cancer and later succumbs to it but to be honest because of the movie’s comedic nature it hardly feels upsetting when Jane dies just as she and Thor began to rekindle. Although the same thing happens in the previous film when Hela blatantly slaughters the Warriors Three, it is much more well balanced as the death & sacrifice of Skurge the executioner was quite heartbreaking.
Thor’s relationship with Stormbreaker is rather odd
Thor seems to be a tad materialistic when it came to both stormbreaker and Mjolnir. Treating them both like actual people rather than objects and seeming sentimental about them. He even referred to stormbreaker as his friend at one point.
It begs the question is there more than one afterlife in the MCU
Although Thor is a standalone film it is still connected to the broader MCU. Throughout the years it is heavily implied that there is more than one afterlife in the entire franchise. Thor and his people, the Asgardians believe that when given a warrior’s death that they may be brought to the land of Valhalla where they may feast and live among the gods. However mortals on earth believe in different types of the afterlife which actually turned out to be real. The Ancestral Plane otherwise known as the Astral Dimension is a belief held by the Wakandans and even the sorcerers of Kamar-Tag. Both T’Challa and Shuri refused to believed such a plane even existed until proven wrong and witnessing visions of their loved ones themselves. Jane Foster upon her death rather than having her soul retreat to the ancestral plane or an equivalent was allowed to enter Valhalla as she was given a warrior’s death.
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