The history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in four Thor movies

It used to be possible to consume every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in just one long marathon. That was a simpler era — now, you’d need to set aside days to digest the 29 movies, 19 TV shows, and eight short films that currently make up the franchise. Fortunately, there’s a quicker and easier way to relive the entire history of the MCU: You could just rewatch the stand-alone Thor movies.

Not only can you knock over these four flicks in less than eight hours, you’ll also enjoy a Bifrost-quick journey through the evolution of Marvel Studios’ shared universe itself. It’s not just that each movie — including the latest, Thor: Love and Thunder — lays vital narrative groundwork for the wider franchise. It’s that these Chris Hemsworth-headlined blockbusters perfectly embody the creative milestones and missteps that characterized the MCU’s four major story groupings, or Phases, to date. This is no accident — each of the Odinson’s four solo outings was released in a different phase of the MCU, so it’s only natural that they reflect their respective eras.

I will paraphrase the opening chapter heading. Batman, Year One, Thor’s story is the story of the MCU — what it is and how it came to be.

Phase One: Experimentation

Photo: Mark Fellman/Marvel Studios

Revisited today, 2011’s Thor This is a great example of how Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige worked with his team to establish the MCU template during Phase One. There’s a lot here that’s instantly, recognizably in line with what later became the franchise’s distinctive brand of storytelling, but there’s plenty missing, too.

Most importantly, it is with Thor, Marvel Studios seems a little uncertain about exactly what kind of tone it’s trying to strike. Director Kenneth Branagh handles the fantasy adventure and fish-out-of-water comedy elements equally well, but the movie crunches gears whenever it’s forced to shift between the two. Marvel’s Branagh is a great match. Manage Thor’s obligatory foreshadowing of future MCU projects (shoutout to Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye cameo!) it is also about as unwieldy as it can get. Then there’s the underwhelming third act, which — like most of the Phase One movies — asks us to invest in the God of Thunder’s efforts to foil an evil scheme that doesn’t actually threaten any of our friends on Earth or Asgard.

But for all the shortcomings Thor It is the most influential and important addition to this phase. Its approach is more restrained than a Spandexfest. Avengers: Endgame, ThorMarvel Studios is putting a line in sand regarding how openly it wants to deal with its source material. Marvel’s universe was accepting magic hammers, rainbow bridges flowing capes, horned helmets, and rainbow bridges. The self-conscious faux-science and all-leather jumpsuits of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men Franchise were not.

Thor also delivers the MCU’s first truly great villain in the form of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Thor’s adopted sibling is a complex creation who looms large over Phase One, and he sets a standard the studio has rarely equaled, much less surpassed. Hiddleston brings a Shakespearean edge to Loki’s antics, something no doubt encouraged by Branagh, who built his career performing and staging celebrated screen adaptations of the Bard’s plays. His works on Thor This is the essence of what the MCU can be when the person being hired is calling the shots. You can find all Thor’s superhero sheen, it still feels like something only Branagh could’ve made, while still being very much keyed into the overarching “formation of the Avengers” subplot that defines Phase One.

Hemsworth will ultimately be the one to make it all happen. Thor work — and who further validated Marvel Studios’ risky approach to casting throughout Phase One. Hemsworth was an unknown to star in a 150 million dollar film. It was a risky decision that paid off. Hemsworth instantly impressed audiences with his unique talents for comedy and action. It was a risk that paid off. As with Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man Chris Evans Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel casting Hemsworth was a validation of the studios’ commitment to hiring the right people for the role, no matter how well-known they were in Hollywood at the time.

Thor isn’t perfect, but like the phase it belongs to, it proved that the formula for the perfect MCU movie was within Marvel’s reach.

Phase two: The most difficult transitions

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Unfortunately, Thor: The Dark World This movie was far better than the original. This 2013 sequel is not the worst. Thor film but the worst Phase Two release.

The Dark World is the poster child for the studio’s short-lived push to go, well, darker. In certain instances, the graver, higher-stakes approach worked — most notably in 2014, when the Russo brothers injected a gritty espionage-thriller vibe into The Winter Soldier of Captain America. However, the same approach leads to Thor being condemned to an overwrought, tone-muddled second adventure, largely set in dark locations. Alan Taylor, director, seems to have taken this from his earlier gig. Game of Thrones.

It also doesn’t help that The Dark World is saddled by a forgettable villain. This MCU Phase Two misstep was not made by certified bangers. Guardians of the Galaxy avoided. This time, it’s poor Christopher Eccleston who takes the fall as dark elf Malekith, the victim of too many reshoots and not enough screen time. As with his fellow Phase Two antagonists Ronan the Accuser, Ultron, and Yellowjacket, the audience knows what Malekith wants; we just aren’t given any reason to care.

But The Dark World’s murky tone and nonentity villain are really just symptoms of arguably the biggest problem with the MCU’s Phase Two: the studio’s approach to directors. Taylor wasn’t the first choice to helm the movie — he only landed the gig after Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins left, offering the usual “creative differences” excuse. Marvel and a prominent auteur clashed over the vision of an MCU movie. This was not the first time this happened. It wouldn’t be the last, either — Edgar Wright later bowed out of Ant-ManWhile Taylor is Age of Ultron Joss Whedon, director of Joss Whedon also had a dispute with executives from the studios during post-production.

The MCU, despite some bright spots, was in dark places in Phase Two, just like Thor. Then, it was over.

Phase Three: Third time’s a charm

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It was as if someone flipped a switch at Marvel Studios just as the MCU’s third phase began — and no film reflects this reversal of fortune more acutely than Thor: Ragnarok.

Which Thor: The Dark World This is the result of a studio that keeps falling over itself. Ragnarok Marvel at its best. This is the third and arguably greatest. Thor Marvel understood what type of movie it wanted and with whom it wanted them to be made. The previous story-group mandates were replaced by more trust in individual talent.

Sure, Feige and company still favored more of a “showrunner” approach to the franchise, and there was certainly a sense from films like Civil War: Captain AmericaMarvel Studios was known for their default visual and narrative style. More than any Phase Three film, however. Ragnarok It was clear that the studio would compromise with filmmakers willing to go outside their box. When director Taika Waititi asked to scrap the sequel’s original setup, teased in Age of Ultron, Marvel didn’t bat an eye. The same was true when a New Zealand filmmaker put together a blockbuster that glittered bomb to get even. Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn blush.

Yet, all this is possible Ragnarok was unmistakably the product of Waititi’s unique filmmaking sensibilities, it also represented the MCU template refined across the last three phases at last achieving its final form. Now, there was a measured approach to the franchise meta-narrative — a newfound openness to bend space rock-related plot points to suit the story at hand and not the other way around. There was a well-realized villain, Cate Blanchett’s camp icon Hela. A major point of note is that everyone agreed, better or worse than anyone else, that the MCU was an action comedy franchise. This ended its exhausting identity crisis.

Phase Three was the Golden Age of the MCU — and nowhere did that gold shine brighter (or in a wider array of colors) than in Thor: Ragnarok.

Phase Four: Where are you going?

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This brings us to Thor: Love and Thunder and the MCU’s Phase Four, which is scheduled to conclude in November with Wakanda Forever: Black Panther. Certain trends have started to crystallize as this phase draws to a close — and as expected, all of them are present to some extent in the fourth Thor film.

You can complain at either side the biggest Love and Thunder The problem with Phase Four and their feelings about it is that they are a little lost. For fans, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be found in both, but not enough to fully shake the sense that the people at the top don’t entirely know where they’re heading or why. It’s as if Marvel Studios’ 14-year quest to crack the MCU code has, ironically, left them equipped to make exactly the kind of movie they’re no longer interested in making. And so Feige and his team continue to crank out new films that halfheartedly adhere to the old formula — not to mention TV shows barely capable of following it — while they figure out how to mobilize the overarching “Multiverse Saga” narrative meant to unite Phases Four to Six in the same way the “Infinity Saga” brought vague coherence to Phases One to Three.

Yes, they do occasionally succeed. Spider-Man has no way home made a fortune, as did Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of MadnessIn spite of the divisive and horror-lite approach, it is still a great film. But there’s a sense that the MCU is in crisis — forced to recycle its greatest hits in projects like Love and ThunderWhile being aware of the fact that superhero movies are becoming increasingly repetitive, he also acknowledged this. Marvel embraces elements from other genres, clearly trying to experiment with innovation. But it’s starting to discover there are limits to even the flexibility learned in Phase Three. It’s not easy to retrain both a studio or a fanbase to be open for a new MCU movie when they have been using the same MCU recipe for almost a decade.

It’s a tough question, and we’ll have to wait until Phase Five for answers — and possibly Thor 5. You can also add it.