Taika Waititi - Tumblr Posts

Anyone else weirdly obsessed with pirates and ancient Egypt at the same time?

This is the motherfucker that started me on this god forsaken path

Holy f- I just saw Thor:L&T and it was amazing 10/10 for the comedy and the goats😂

👏EVERYBODY SAY THANK YOU TAIKA👏

Reacting to TLAT Reviews pt1

I saw Thor: Love and Thunder last night and my friend @marvelvibess​ just sent me these hilarious reviews of the movie. They are too good not to react to honestly. 

{Image description: A post by user Logan Ory one day ago. There are 5 stars one is yellow the rest are white. It is light gray text on a black background. The text reads: Lots of gen Z jokes at an ADD pace with enough “woke” garbage to annoy even the most moderate of people. Humor was largely tasteless, action was good but few and far between, and the only really good character/character development was the villain. This movie is about as trash as a Marvel movie gets. They have not ceased to disappoint lately. Taika Waititi usually puts out great films, this was not on of them. End Image description}

As an ADHD gen Z I loved that “ADD pace!” This movie isn’t for you Logan its for the queer neurodivergents and I love it for that!  

{Image Description. Review by Rachel Tooley one day ago. There are five stars one is yellow and the rest are white. It is light grey text on a black background. The text reads: Chris Hemsworth is the only good thing about this movie. Watched every single Marvel movie and this is probably the last I’ll support. They’re ruining the MCU with their whole agenda. Whats the point of saying a rock is gay?? First off, 2 MALES can not procreate, second, its a rock, Why do they have to just shove and shove and shove LGBTQRSTUV down everyone’s throats. Go woke, go broke. End Image Description}

Ok so I love this one. First of all literally every marvel movie ever made has a political agenda. The comics do too! The mutants/X Men are an allegory for every minority. Caption America was created by two jewish men to fight Nazi’s in a time when nazi ideals were pretty common in the US. Marvel has never been apolitical.

Second I love how hung up on Korg being gay she is. First off Korg is gay, married to a man and has kids in the comics, its literally cannon. Second these movies involve: gods, aliens, genetically enhanced super soldiers and a man that can turn big and green and she’s mad about a gay rock??? Bro literally nothing in these movies are realistic, but unlike hulk, and super soldiers we know queer people exist. 

{Image description: Light grey text on a black background reading: Dare I say the “inclusiveness” may have seemed forced and unnecessary? Maybe the studio/producers/actors had too much to say and interfered with creativity, or Taika was trying too hard, I don’t know? End image description}

Karen diversity isn’t forced people just exist. Also it was talked about so naturally there was noting forced about it! Unnecessary! Bro do you know how excited I was to see queer people like me on the big screen!!! Good representation is always necessary! Also Taika was working hard. Working hard to give us the queer rep we want and deserve.

Reacting to TLAT Reviews pt2

I saw Thor: Love and Thunder last night and my friend @marvelvibess​ just sent me these hilarious reviews of the movie. They are too good not to react to honestly. 

{Image description: light grey text on a black background reading: WORSE marvel movie ever!!! Kirby Lee Ditko Steranko and the gang from marvel NEVER not one time created ANY character openly gay or announcing they were gay ..so marvel , Disney stop pushing this please. Create a character that is and so be it. 

Korg is not GAY!!No Eternal was gay and in the printed issues I collect never will be. Btw fat man can’t tie his shoes much less be a superhero. This is ridiculous already. Make up your own stories and contaminate those characters. Don’t destroy something that will never be gay! You can’t change a written story for moneys liking. I worked with a gay captain for 11 yrs has nothing to do with pro or anti anything!!! end image discription}

I love this one just because of how wrong it is. A list of canon queer characters from marvel comics: Valkyrie, Korg, Maria Hill, Ayo, Aaron Fisher (Captain America of the railways), William Kaplan (Wiccan), Theodor Altman (Hulkling), Arnie Roth (Steve Roger’s best friend from the 40s and one of the the inspirations for Movie!Bucky), Tony Stark (never officially says but it is heavily implied, here is a good post on it) Yelena Belova, and those are just the 10 I can think of off the top of my head. In fact marvel has a comic called “Marvel Voices: Pride” that is all short comics about many of its queer and trans super heroes!  

Also, the thing about Disney making stuff queer for the money really bugs me because its literally the exact opposite. Marvel is straight washing their characters for the movies because they’re afraid it won’t sell otherwise. Money and capitalism is why it is taking so long for us to get the good queer rep we want/need. 

{Image description: at the top left there are 4 stars in a line one is yellow while the other 4 are white. The text is light grey on a black background and it reads: Definitely would not recommend for anyone who has free time to watch because it was a waste of my time and money. The overall story was all over the place because of the constant narrative cut scenes, and with propaganda littered throughout the whole movie of LBGTQ+ness it is another reminder of how superheros can’t just be super.

The different representations of the other gods was pretty sad of 2022, and with the whole conflict of the movie being about the “god butcher’ he should have left more of a lasting impression on the characters in the movie. Instead to me all i got was “boggie man” and that was a bit of a downer compared to other more well developed characters. If the original Norse mythology is on your radar there were a couple of fun quips referencing them. However, your beloved characters from Thor Ragnarok end up being drivers for the problems in this world and supporting it, and that is not my cup of tea. end image description}

Ok say it with me DIVERSITY ISN’T PROPAGANDA PEOPLE JUST EXIST. DIVERSITY ISN’T PROPAGANDA PEOPLE JUST EXIST. DIVERSITY ISN’T PROPAGANDA PEOPLE JUST EXIST.

howww are some of yall so talented 😭

don't mind me, just casually spending my evening painting some gay pirates

I drew him 😌

The G stands for galaxy

I think there was a shift in Marvel’s attitude towards Tom between TDW and TR, and I wonder what caused it.

Did Tom do something to Kevin Feige? Did he sing under the shower and use all the hot water in a lodge they shared? Did he accidentally spill tea on his favorite suit? Did he have one drink too many and say “you’re going bald, man”? Did he run over his cat? Or did he piss off someone else? The possibilities are endless.

Possibly Unpopular Opinion

I really hope Thor isn’t around for GOTG 3. It’s the only corner of the MCU I still have an interest in. I hated watching Thor insult and bully Quill and the others and not once thanking them for saving his life. And he had no right to try and take the leader role from Quill at the end of Endgame! If that’s the dynamic going forward, I hope they drop Thor into a wormhole somewhere. 

Yes, I like Quill. He’s flawed as hell but his flaws come from a real place of pain, and his shortcomings are actually treated as such by the narrative. 

One of the lines in “Thor: The Dark World” that gets overlooked, I think (possibly because Marvel cut it from the final edit) was when Thor is talking to Frigga about Loki, and she says to him that he and Odin always shone so brightly, it was hard for Loki to find any sun for himself, or something to that effect.

Anyway, this is such a massively important line, because it basically tells us EVERYTHING about Loki’s childhood, and how he felt.  And here again is yet another example of how absolutely WRONG Taika Waitit’s view of these characters was, given what I heard about him wanting to include a flashback in Ragnarok showing Thor as a sensitive and bullied child, and Loki as dark and mean.  That would have been in DIRECT conflict with everything we know about these characters, just like everything else in Ragnarok is.

From what Frigga says to Thor, it’s plain as day that Loki as a child was always struggling just to catch up to Thor, to try and be equal to him, not just in Odin’s and Frigga’s eyes, but in the eyes of probably the entire kingdom.  It tells us that Thor, as a boy, was as popular and well liked, as charming and charismatic and as easy to make friends as he is as an adult, and that Loki was very much the introvert, quiet, awkward and isolated.  And from Loki’s desperation to win Odin’s approval in the first Thor film, I think it becomes apparent that that desperation grew directly from his feeling inadequate and lesser to the standard of both his father and his big brother growing up.  And it’s just so unbelievably sad, to envision that.  To envision Loki constantly struggling, trying to match Thor, trying to make himself seem as good as Thor for Odin, trying to make himself seem like a “true and worthy son”, as he says in the first film.  How anyone could miss this about his character is beyond me, unless they’re being willfully obtuse.  

And we see from this one line, that Loki’s entire motivation is based on a feeling of lack on his own part.  He feels like he’s less.  He feels like he isn’t as good as Thor, and that Odin must not love him because he’s not as good as Thor, and until he discovers he’s a Jotun, he doesn’t know why, and he can’t figure it out, and he keeps trying and trying to do the right thing to somehow make him, in his father’s eyes, Thor’s equal.  Think of the kind of psychological effect that would have on a person, especially a young man growing up in the kind of culture Loki did.  Think of the burden of constantly feeling like there’s something WRONG with you, because you’re constantly measuring yourself against the perfection of an older sibling who everyone loves, while everyone treats you like you’re strange, and even are at times outwardly hostile and cruel to you.  Think of the weight of trying to figure out how to change yourself so that others will treat you like they treat your perfect older sibling, but not being able to, because you don’t really know what it is about you that makes everyone dislike or hate you in the first place.  And then think of what it must have been like, to discover you’re from a race of beings who the people you’ve grown up around consider to be monsters, who are those people’s mortal enemies, and coming to the swift and awful realization that that must have been it all along.  That THAT’S what was wrong with you.  That that’s why you’ve always been an outcast.

I just think that one moment from The Dark World was so important for understanding Loki’s character.

And yet, once again, Marvel proves it’s own stupidity by cutting it out.  Just like they cut out so many scenes from the first Thor film which showed Loki in a more sympathetic light.  Gee, it’s almost like they didn’t want people feeling for him.  Too bad they ended up doing so anyway.

I Just Need to Get Something Off My Chest

So, like, I already know this is a SUPER unpopular opinion on this site, but I have to say it.

Thor Ragnarok SUCKED and I really don’t understand other Loki fans who think that Taika Waititi’s version of the character is the best one that exists. Like, did everyone else just sort of… miss the fact that Loki was the butt of pretty much every joke in the movie? Did we all just look the other way when Loki, someone who’s been studying sorcery for literally HUNDREDS of years, can get outplayed by Doctor fucking Strange, who’s been a sorcerer for all of two years at the most? That Waititi turned Loki’s sacrifice in Thor the Dark World into a joke because oh, we’re different! There’s no real emotion here, ya’ll! Just jokes! But the joke that pissed me off the most in this movie, as a dedicated Loki fan since 2011, was making Loki make a joke about his own. Fucking. Suicide attempt. Remember? When he threw himself into the wormhole at the end of the first movie that also led him to Thanos? Yeah, Waititi makes him joke about that. It’s a throwaway line somewhere on Sakaar and it’s a little difficult to spot, but it’s fucking there. If I had access to this God awful movie without paying hard earned money for it again, I’d give you the exact second it appears on screen. There are other examples of the ruining of Loki’s character throughout this movie, but these were the most egregious ones I could think of.

Long story short, Taika Waititi made one of the worst mockeries of a character I loved so much that I’ve ever had the great misfortune to pay money to see. Please, Marvel, if there’s going to be another Thor movie, keep this dipshit as far away from it as possible.

You know, another thing that struck me about Thor: Ragnarok, and this is something I was suspicious and concerned about since long before the film actually came out, just from the news we were hearing about it at the time, and which was horribly confirmed when it actually was released, was that in all the reviews for the film (and I read dozens of reviews), I realized it was the first Marvel film, and certainly the first Thor film, that Loki had appeared in, in which he goes almost totally unmentioned in the reviews.  And across the board, if he was mentioned at all, it’s the first time we don’t see the critics praising Tom Hiddelston’s performance, or talking about how Loki is a more interesting character than Thor.  I knew that was going to happen, because the director kept making it a point, really, shoving in down people’s throats in interviews, that this was going to be “Thor’s film”, that Thor was going to be made front and center.  As if he wasn’t front and center in the last two THOR films, and gee and wow, Loki just happened to be a more powerful and impactful character, despite his far lesser screen time.  I knew the second I heard that, that Taika Waititi’s solution to the Thor problem would be to aggressively make Loki seem inferior to Thor, despite the fact that it would utterly ignore and even destroy previously established characterization for BOTH of them.  Talk about uncreative, lazy writing.  There’s a reason Tom Hiddleston and Loki don’t get even a fraction of the attention each was given in the previous reviews of the first two films, and also even The Avengers film.  It’s because Waititi purposefully wrote a character who was both insignificant and flimsy, who was emasculated and idiotic.  Basically, a character who had nothing whatever to do with the Loki of the first films.  And yet I still see people trying to claim Loki progressed as a character, that he grew, etc…  LOL, no.  It was total character assassination is what it was, because Taika Waititi’s ass had a very real agenda in wanting to steal the spot light from Tom Hiddleston and give it to Chris Hemsworth.  And I guess he succeeded, because again, look back over reviews of this film, and compare them to reviews of “Thor” and “Thor: The Dark World”, and notice the absolutely glaring difference in regards to Loki and how he’s perceived.  In reviews for the first two films, Loki absolutely captivates the critics, many of them talking about how he’s the most interesting and complex character in the whole MCU.  In reviews of Ragnarok, he’s either not mentioned at all, or he’s mentioned as being a wasted opportunity and inconsequential to the plot and story.  That was purposeful on the director’s part.  I absolutely know it was.  

SDCC: Thor and Loki

Well... I saw the videos of Thor's and Loki's panels and those are my thoughts:

First, I have to admit that I didn't see all the video of Thor's panel. I couldn't. It was so... Cringe

Taika seemed to be trying too hard and Chris seemed... Uncomfortable? I don't know, he joked with Taika and all but I didn't get the feeling that he was truly happy.

And the title... Love and Thunder? Really? It fits more to a fanfic than to a movie.

And Loki... I was so happy when the crowd cheered Loki's name. Tom's seemed very happy too. No matter what Marvel tried to do, Loki is still powerful among the fans.

The crowd seemed more happy in Loki's panel than Thor's and I won't denied that made a little happy. I really can't be excited for Thor 4. There is no Loki and no Thor, so there is nothing for me to be excited.

Not even Amora and Jane. I was surprised to find out that Jane as Thor will be in Thor 4 but as much as I like Jane's Thor I don't believe she'll be well treated by Taika. Not her and not Amora. Even Valkyrie could be handle better, I think she has the potential of be a very interesting and strong character not just "one of the boys"

I'm trying not be too excited about Loki's series. I want to see and then decide. I'm doing the same thing with The Witcher's series. I'll see and then form an opinion about it.

Thor is a hero (but not in Ragnarok)

Thor is a hero

But why is he a hero?

It is because of his control over lighting? His superhuman strength? His royal blood? His status as a “god”? His ability with Mjolnir/Stormbreaker?

No. It is because of his heart.

Thor has a noble heart. Despite his beginning as a proud, arrogant and hot-headed prince, Thor always had a good heart. He cares for his family, his people, his friends. He has a sense of honor, of loyalty and duty. And when he is banished to Earth, he learns humility, he learns to respect those who are different from him (from another realm), he learns that his decisions, his choices, what he decides to fight for is what makes him worthy. He learns that his true power, his true strength lies in his choices not in his physical strength or his weapon.

Thor learns and grows on Earth. And even more when the Dark Elves attack Asgard.

In the chaos caused by Malekith, Thor learns that the throne doesn’t have all the answers, that a king (especially his king and father) is flawed. That to be a leader one has to make sacrifices. And even then, he keeps fighting. He goes against Odin orders and takes the danger away from Asgard, putting the woman he loves in the frontline. He puts the safety of his people above everything, above his own wishes, above Jane’s safety. He is marked by the desire of revenge, but he doesn’t let that cloud his vision (unlike Odin).

“Surrender is not in mine [nature]” Thor shows that his strength is in what he believes, in what he desires to do – protect this people. Again, is what is in his heart that makes him strong. And when everything is over, he gives up of the throne because he saw that is not where he belongs, where he wants to be. He prefers to be a good man than a good king. Thor realizes that he didn’t understand all the consequences and sacrifices of the throne (Loki did) and decides to be just a good man. A good man that will protect his people until his last breath. He even gives up Mjolnir – the weapon that became his symbol. Is Odin/Loki that doesn’t let him.

So, until this point, we have a man that was banished and through that learned to be better. That saw his home attacked, lost his mother and his brother, fought to protect Asgard/Midgard (and all the nine realms) and with that learn that he didn’t wanted the throne in the end. That he just wanted to be a good man.

All his journey showed us the strength of Thor’s heart. His experiences and believes shaped his choices, made him grow to be a king at heart.

At the end of TDW, Thor was a king at heart. A boy turned man through banishment, a warrior turned king through lost and sacrifice (he was ready to put Jane in danger and to give up Mjolnir). Thor was a man who respected others, who cared for his people, his friends (both in Asgard and Midgard), his family, his love. He was ready to help everyone who needed him. He preferred peace to violence and the safety of innocents to an open war.

That is Thor. His strength and power are in his heart. A heart that respects and care, protect and defend. That’s also the Thor that we see in Age of Ultron.

A worthy hero. A worthy king. A worthy man. He was perfect? Of course not. He still had issues to resolve. But he was in the right path.

But not the Thor we see in Ragnarok.

The Thor that we see in Ragnarok doesn’t respect his friends/family – he tries to manipulate Valkyrie, Hulk, Banner and Loki to his wishes.

He prefers violence to a peaceful agreement – he attacks Surtur and the fire giants because of dreams, he attacks Hela without even trying to talk, he destroys Asgard without think if another choice could be made or think about the innocent people that could still be in the city.

He relies only in his physical strength and the presence of a weapon – Thor had learned that his strength was more than physical/lighting and was ready to be apart of Mjolnir. But suddenly none of these matters and all is resume to the absence of Mjolnir and his inability to realize he has more in him than what Mjolnir could give him (which he already knew)

He uses violence/torture against his brother – Thor would never hurt Loki this way. They fight? Yes. Can Loki get to Thor’s nerves? Sure. But Thor loves his brother and would never hurt him, he would never use torture (yes, it was torture) against Loki. And he would never cause harm to Loki while smiling. Would hurt Thor to cause Loki pain. The same way that Loki suffers every time he attacks Thor (in the Bifrost and in the Stark Tower).

And no, the explanation that “Loki was going to betray Thor again” doesn’t count:

-   Loki never betrayed Thor.

-   Loki didn’t have any reason to go against his brother for the Grandmaster (a reward was never mentioned).

Beyond that:

-   The disk shouldn’t be active since the mainframe was disconnected.

-    All the scene is problematic in and out of the plot for reasons that other people already discussed and is not the point of this post.

 Thor didn’t confront Odin not get out of his father’s shadow – Thor defied Odin in TDW, he saw his father’s flaws, his thirst for blood and revenge. But even learning about Hela, Thor goes back into worshipping his father. He doesn’t confront Odin, doesn’t question his father’s crimes. He doesn’t even recognize them.

Thor doesn’t learn anything, he doesn’t grow in Ragnarok – In the first two Thor movies, Thor learns and grows. In Ragnarok, there is no learning, no growing.

 In short:

Thor is not a hero in Ragnarok. He doesn’t have a noble heart, a hero’s heart. He is manipulative, violent, dismissive of other people’s feelings, arrogant. He is not the kind, imperfect, caring hero that we saw in the other movies. He is no king – he didn’t confront Odin’s mistake nor got out of his shadow.

He is not Thor in Ragnarok. Thor was worthy in the other movies. He is not worthy in Ragnarok.

“This is what heroes do” – a true hero doesn’t need to say; a true hero doesn’t need the self-affirmation. A true hero lets his actions speak for him. And Thor’s actions in Ragnarok don’t speak of a hero, but of someone too close to be a villain.

 And to know the this is the Thor that Chris Hemsworth wanted and all that played in the background of the movie just make me have one certainty:

 Chris Hemsworth is not worthy of Thor. Taika Waititi is not worthy of Thor.

 Of the two brothers, Loki is my favorite, but I respect and like Thor too much to accept what Ragnarok did to him. And I can’t believe I wrote more than a thousand words on that.

Taika Waititi Sucks, Ask Me How

One of the things those of us who dislike Ragnarok hear more than anything is, “Why does everyone hate on Taika?” More often than not, it’s a disingenuous inquiry by people who either know our reasons already and simply disagree or are unwilling to actually listen, even when provided with the answer. (I don’t mean unwilling to agree with us; I mean unwilling to read what we’ve written on the subject, even though they’re the ones who asked).

For anyone who is genuinely curious why some portion of the Loki fandom is hostile to Taika, however, this page will seek to answer that question.

Because there’s a lot of material to work with here, I’ll try to divide this content into three general categories:

his atrocious misunderstanding and open dislike of Loki’s character

his flawed—and, frankly, insulting—analysis of other aspects of the franchise, and

his history of bullying and/or mocking people

Note: All emphasis will be mine.

Keep reading

The splendid Taika Waititi in a bastardised Rousseau painting riding a worthy tiger sprouting the head of Peter Sellers, whilst turning into a variety of birds. Apologies to everybody/everything involved.