More like Dark Eldar... with Vortex Grenades. ;-)
Dark Eldar are the classiest of Eldar. ;)
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I don't actually think this kind of post modernist argument carries any sort of weight here at all. Asgardian cloths are incredibly silly for a culture as advanced as theirs. I'm a short pants & T-shirts guy. The kind of over the top splendor Asgardians wear is better suited for the gods of a myth of an ancient civilization than for a culture full of people who studied in universities.
Well gee, I wonder why that is?
Must be a coincidence.
Well, that's kind of my point. No actual advanced society would dress like this. But the entire point of the story is that Asgardians do - and the Dark Elves don't even make fun of them because of that. Because in the Thor world it makes sense. That's the entire base the story stands on - even though those creatures are incredibly advanced, they mostly behave like the gods from Norse mythology.
So I accepted that and enjoyed the story. But then, something happened which didn't fit with the rest - Dark Elves did the *sensible* thing and used ranged weapons. But, since nobody else in that universe (other than humans) is doing the sensible thing, I found that jarring. Because using melee weapons only works if all your opponents also use melee weapons. Because dressing like a Norse god only makes sense if everyone else is also acting like they are from Norse mythology (which they do - from what I gathered from the Ice Giants in the first movie and that scene where Thor faces the stone giant in the beginning of this one).
My entire point was that I either accept that Asgardians behave like Norse gods, OR that Dark Elves use long ranged laser weapons. It's trying to contain them both at the same time which caused the problem.
I'm not attcking the basic premise of the story (which I obviously like or else I wouldn't have gone to watch the movie). I'm saying that it was strongly contradicted by some of the story elements in the movie - which bothers me, again, only because I like the basic premise.
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Because I find it unbeliveable that anyone from Asgard ever defeated the dark elves while using spears against laser rifles. So either the Asgards of old has actual sensible weaponry (in which case the "Asgardians are locked in the past" argument crumbles because obviously they are not only not advancing, they are regressing), or there's no reason they were able to defeat the dark elves when they were at full force, while modern day Asgardians are incapable of finishing the few stragglers who remain. And the movie clearly established that they can.Or maybe the Asgardians of old were able to close the distance and destroy the dark elves with superior melee prowess.
You know, what usually happens when your ranged warriors can't use their ranged weaponry and have to resort to melee.
If the Asgardians of old were capable of defeating entire armies of Dark Elves, why are the modern Asgardians defeated by the few remaining Dark Elves? they were mightier back then. It is made clear in the movie that Asgard lost the first round to the initial attack by the reawakened dark elves, and that if they just stood and waited for the next one they would surely lose.
And the "Dark Elves somehow managed to catch Asgard by surprise this time" doesn't really work because clearly, their stealth technology was good enough to sneak up to Asgard without getting noticed until the very last possible moment - so did Asgardians use to have considerably better detection methods? why have they abandoned them?
It's not that I didn't enjoy the movie at all, it's that it had some flaws that reduced my fun (which is pretty much what I said in the original post I wrote). I would have preferred that it kept it's own logic during the entire story - something which so far many other Marvel stories have been pretty decent at doing, I believe.
The reason they would surely have lost is BECAUSE they lost that first round to a surpise attack. Most of their major defenses were taken down, so it was basically "Flying longboats vs invisible spaceships".
That and it was heavily implied that a lot of their forces were scattered around the Realms trying to put s&%$ back together, like Thor was doing at the very start of the movie, so they were probably very undermanned as well.
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You also got to remember that Asgardian technology is actually magic. (the first movie kind of presented it like they are sort of uneducated and use technology but call it magic like a bumpkin, it's not really technology, it's actual magic, Loki and Odin casts spells, Mjolnir is a magical item enhanced by multiple spells, not machinery, etc. . .). And for the most part, their armor and dress is mostly for show only. Biologically, their skin is tougher than armor, and they heal so quickly (naturally) that it kind of makes armor pointless. From the comic anyway, one reason that they remain "in the past", is for two reasons. Every few years, Odin goes into the Odin-sleep, and during that time Giants, trolls, and al sorts of monsters attack Asgard, and most of them are simply immune to guns and lasers. It would be basically like trying to shoot the Hulk with a pistol. The other is that the Asgardians are locked in something called the Ragnarok Cycle, which is sort of like the whole thing in the Matrix, where the machines kill almost everyone and than start all over, only to do it all again.
While I do agree that the lasers where out of place, I don't think it' due to Asgardian culture as much as it was a poor choice to try to throw in sci-fi for a race that is supposed to be know for very potent magic ability, trickery, and intellect. Light Elves used archery, but not really the Dark Elves.
I'm not sure if the eyepatch and the beard are robbing his face of any expression, or if the writing sucks for his character, or if Anthony Hopkins is not really feeling this role (or some combination of the three), but his Odin continues to be deadly dull.
That disturbed me too.
Actually, I kind of liked it from the first movie, but found him rather dull in Dark World. For a minute, I even thought they had replaced Anthony Hopkins with another (lesser) actor until I squinted my eyes real hard to make sure it was still him.
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I don't actually think this kind of post modernist argument carries any sort of weight here at all. Asgardian cloths are incredibly silly for a culture as advanced as theirs. I'm a short pants & T-shirts guy. The kind of over the top splendor Asgardians wear is better suited for the gods of a myth of an ancient civilization than for a culture full of people who studied in universities.
Advanced meaning... what? Super-Technologies almost akin to magic? "Modern" ways of thinking?
There have been "advanced" societies throughout history that imposed sumptuary laws regarding the sorts of clothing men and women must wear, based on cultural values. For a culture like the Asgardians, who have a very strong emphasis (seemingly) on tradition and a strict hierarchy, that's not entirely unbelievable that they might have something similar instituted within their own society.
Just because many "modern" cultures have more lax and liberal viewpoints on such stylings doesn't mean it's absurd to think Asgardian culture would do the same.
(For that matter, the clothing the Asgardians wear outside of court- as evidenced in the "pub" scenes- is much less stylized than what they wear in court.)
Actually, I kind of liked it from the first movie, but found him rather dull in Dark World. For a minute, I even thought they had replaced Anthony Hopkins with another (lesser) actor until I squinted my eyes real hard to make sure it was still him.
It wasn't just Hopkins' performance, IMO. It seemed the entire character of Odin was reworked from the first movie for his role in this. He seemed to have been rewritten as the wise king who punishes his son for his arrogance and dismissal of his "lessers" as this arrogant, blustering warmonger. Almost as if the characters of Odin and Thor had been switched between movies. It may have served the plot, but at the cost of the character and a good performance by a great actor.
I always assume the Asgardians employ energy weapons, in that both Mjolnir and Gugnir have energy projection capabilities. We just see it less on screen because it allows Thor and Odin to stand out more easily.
This is pretty much it. The Asgardians clearly do have lasers and spaceships and energy weapons- they have massive laser cannons that fired on the Dark Elf ships; they chased after Thor and Loki in their ships and fired lasers at them.
Good. Get Little Miss "I Snubbed Doodlebug when I went to Harvard" out of there and let Kat Dennings move into the limelight!
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You hit on Natalie Portman? That takes balls. I salute you.
No, not really. I'm just making up stuff for (perhaps poor attempts at) comedic effect, or, to put it otherwise, telling stories out of school.
I made her a pizza once, when I worked at Bertucci's, though.
Besides, and I didn't want to admit this, but Natalie's too hardcore for me.