Minute Forty-Eight: From Three Scientists on a Roof to Three Warriors (and Sif!) on a Mission

Joining us to discuss iPods, Erik’s connections to Bruce Banner and Hank Pym, and the horny shadow in the throne room is Matt Carroll, one of the two co-hosts of the award-winning MCUCast and founder of the Stranded Panda Podcast Network.

In the forty-eighth minute of Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 film Thor...

• The rooftop location wasn’t in the script, which makes us think there’s more of a connection to the moment in Iron Man 2. But perhaps it was just a location Branagh wanted to use to give the scene a bit more flavor.
• Remember iPods? Those were the days...
• Darcy’s moment about her iPod does feel very much like the Darcy we see later in WandaVision where she gets distracted from the big thing by her smaller personal thing.
• It’s amazing how well the writers created Darcy in this script and how hard a time they had developing the Warriors Three. Could it simply be that those characters are based on the comics?
• By the time the Warriors Three die in Thor: Ragnarok, we just don’t care. That’s frustrating because we should have cared.
• At this point in time, however, did Kevin Feige have enough of a handle on everything?

And then Erik drops a hint about Bruce Banner. Or is it Samuel Sterns?

• On top of Darcy’s concern about her iPod, Erik drops the Easter Egg that he knew Bruce Banner. There’s some debate if it may be Samuel Sterns instead but we end up locking in on Banner.
• To that end, it’s crazy how much retconning Feige and team did to shift The Incredible Hulk‘s, Iron Man 2‘s, and Thor’s timelines so they all line up. We talk about this as we learn how much history there was with Erik, Bruce, Betty, and Jane’s father at Culver University.
• There’s also an Easter Egg that ties Hank Pym to Erik here as he references sending an email to a friend who knows about SHIELD. In the script, it’s called out as Pym. So why did they change that? We come up with our own theories.
• Darcy has that last great moment when Erik mentions emailing Hank Pym, and she reminds him they took his laptop.
• Great rack focus here and more great dutch angles.

Leaving conversations about Bruce Banner and Hank Pym for later seasons, we return to Asgard.

• Is it morning? Evening? Hard to tell, but you can see amazing stars when looking up to the heights of Valaskjalf.
• Fandral, Sif, Hogun and Volstagg seem to be running to get to the Allfather on their throne. They’re also all saluting.
• We try to piece together more of the architecture of this space. We think we’ve got it figured out now.
• They each have their own reactions when they see who is sitting on the throne. Clearly, it’s not Odin.
• We end on a great shadow on the wall of Loki on the throne.

It’s a conversation about dutch angles, rooftops, iPods, gamma studies, and the Asgardian throne room – and Matt Carroll’s here for all of it. Tune in!

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