After revitalizing the Thor franchise with Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi gave us perhaps the most disappointing Thor film, Thor: Love and Thunder. Despite being a decent movie, the letdown was primarily due to the hyped-up expectations surrounding the film. The biggest issue for fans was the wasted potential of a talented actor like Christian Bale in the ‘Gorr the God Butcher’ role. A concept artist from the film recently shared a comic-accurate concept art featuring Bale’s character.
Many believe that the artist’s choices regarding costumes and character design could have provided a more fully realized portrayal of the villain. However, some argue that the Jojo Rabbit director’s weak screenplay was beyond saving, even with a revamped Gorr appearance.
Taika Waititi Could Have Delivered A Better Gorr With This Design
Aleksi Briclot, a concept artist who has contributed to several Marvel films, including Thor: Love and Thunder, recently shared an alternate design for Christian Bale’s Gorr character. Explaining his design, Briclot wrote on his Instagram captions that he retained the actor’s face while incorporating many of the comic-book features in this art.
The design maintains the character’s overall white appearance and introduces the famous tentacles inspired by the comic book version. Briclot also provides torso armor that complements Gorr’s muscular body. Instead of a bald head and scarred face, Briclot opted for a black hoodie extending into a long cape, concealing the character’s head and neck.
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Briclot responded to one fan’s question about why his design wasn’t chosen, explaining that the final decisions rest with the director or producer and not the concept artist. Fans hailed Briclot’s alternate design as far better than the movie version. One fan shared his frustration at the studio, asking, “Why couldn’t a hundred million dollar Hollywood production just do this?”.
However, for some viewers, the issue with Gorr went beyond the comic-accurate costumes. Marvel had fleshed out far more compelling stories for their villains like Thanos and Killmonger. However, Gorr was not given enough time to establish himself as a menacing villain. Most of his ‘butchering’ occurred off-screen. To make matters worse, many Christian Bale scenes were cut at the editing table.
Taika Waititi Explained His Creative Choice For Christian Bale’s Gorr
Taika Waititi and Christian Bale opened up about their creative decisions regarding Gorr in an interview with IGN. Waititi clarified that he wanted the villain to be sympathetic. The decision to opt for a human form was pushed by Bale, who mentioned that he “was coming off of another film” and “had zero muscles.” Therefore, Waititi had to take a different approach to depict his supernatural powers.
Waititi further added that Gorr closely resembled another film character, forcing them to choose a look different from the comics. The team was concerned that audiences might associate Gorr with Voldemort from Harry Potter. The director shared with IGN:
“A thought very early on that his face in the comics unfortunately does kind of resemble Voldemort. People are just automatically going to make that connection. So we decided just to depart from that design a bit more, and still keep elements of the tone.”
Thor: Love and Thunder failed to match up to the box office of Thor: Ragnarok, released five years earlier. The film grossed $760.9 million despite the polarized responses. All Thor films are now available for streaming on Disney+.
