Minute Thirty-Three: From Triage to Townie

‘Jovial’ Jay Shepard from the MCU: Location Scout joins us again to discuss Thor destroying the Triage Bay and a townie discovering Mjølnir’s impact crater.

In the thirty-third minute of Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 film Thor...

• Nurse Terry kicks things off as he tries to draw blood from Thor. Thor will have none of it and proceeds to tear the Triage Bay apart, along with all the nurses, orderlies, security guards, and patients as well.
• Who styled Thor’s hair so perfectly?
• Terry Dale Parks plays Nurse Terry. We run through the IMDb Game with him. Great face here, particularly from that worm’s eye view shot we get. Parks likely lives and works in New Mexico, and we bet is not a utility stunt player as he pretty much avoids the action and stays at the back of the Triage Bay while Thor takes on the medical staff.

We love Nurse Terry, but Nurse Rob just might be working for the Time-Keepers.

• Rob Mars just may be one of our new favorite stunt workers. He not only works hard to tackle Thor in this scene but he plays Ray Stevenson’s stunt double as Volstagg in the film! That means we likely saw him already on Jotunheim.
• Rob has been a utility stunt player in so many of the MCU films but has also performed in small roles in some of the films and TV shows that we’ve seen him enough times to be convinced he perhaps works for the Time-Keepers.

Thor doesn’t have his powers but he’s still powerful as he tears the Triage Bay apart. Until he’s taken down with the same gag.

• We struggle with picturing Thor with no strength considering the body he has. Muscles and fighter tactics are still part of his everyday life. Odin only stripped his Asgardian powers from him after all.
• Considering the damage during this fight, we believe more strongly that this is a soundstage they’ve built for this fight. Plus, it likely made it easier for them when they did the original single long shot of the fight before it was cut down for the edit.
• Did you catch Thor’s reference to his comic book title? He nearly calls himself ‘The Mighty Thor.’
• Chris Hemsworth plays the dumb oaf so well here. He also slides down glass like no one else in the MCU.
• Why does it work so well to have Thor taken down using essentially the same gag we just saw a few minutes ago? We revel in how well this still works.
• To that end, if you count him getting hit in the parking lot in a few minutes, they’re doing their comedy in threes which has always been known to work.
• Thor calls them savages and demands healing stones in the extended version of this scene. Branagh's decision makes sense as perhaps in a world of super-science, healing stones seem too magical.

We leave the Triage Bay and join a townie on a drive to an impact crater.

• As Thor gets tranqed in the Triage Bay, we leave him to follow a townie in a red Dodge pickup driving over a rise where we see an impact crater.
• We can tell that this is where Mjølnir landed, but our townie either heard it the night before and investigates or just happens upon it here. Who knows which?
• Why does he drive all the way around to the far side of it though? It’s not really clear.
• We discuss a bit about how this could’ve been CG but with all the work that’s going to happen here in the next act of the film, we figure it was actually dug out to look this way.
• Not only does this location not look like the same flat area Jane and her team were driving on last night, but also it turns out it wasn’t even the same state where they filmed. Jane, Erik and Darcy crashed into Thor in New Mexico. They filmed this impact crater, while meant to be close by, in the Santa Clarita valley in California.
• To that end, did Odin specifically select this place for Mjølnir to land? Perhaps he wanted it close enough to Thor so he can find it but not too close? Or as we surmised a few minutes ago, Mjølnir perhaps slipped out of the Bifrost on its way down.

From destroying the Triage Bay and everyone in it to a mysterious townie finding Mjølnir’s impact crater, we fill this conversation with all sorts of juicy tidbits. Tune in!

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• ‘Jovial’ Jay Shepard at MCU:Location Scout and Retrozap