Mighty Thor

An inauspicious first post.  I set up the blog to talk about cool tech and stuff.  Naturally, the most pressing matter currently in my mind is one of pointless fan casting.  More specifically, why Paul Bettany should play Thor for Marvel Films.

My theory is as follows: The bar for actors in Marvel franchises is set pretty high, with living legend Robert Downey Junior and method man Ed Norton on board.  If the Avengers movie is going to happen then Thor has to be able to hold his own with those guys – which means you need an actor, not just beefcake.  He also needs to be young enough to sustain 3 movies, and tall enough to be bigger than his co-stars, which I think counts out Sean Bean – another fan favourite.

Bettany is tall, 6′3”, blond and able to do steely intensity and comic relief.  His role as Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale showed how adept he is with flowery language -  a must if Thor’s faux-Shakespearean mode of speech makes its way from comic to screen. 

What he isn’t, is muscle bound.  A problem.  But if Toby Maguire can muscle-up for Spider-Man surely anyone can?  A lot of people seem to think that Thor should be built like a WWE wrestler or at the very least like Gerard Butler in 300.  I disagree.  I’d prefer to see him as a hardened, realistic warrior, built more like Russel Crowe in Gladiator or Ray Stevenson in Rome: hard as nails, not pretty.

So, anyway, if this turns into an internet campaign like the one that (as far as I can tell) got Christian Bale the role of Batman, yay for me.  If not – at least I might have bored a few geeks out there.

By the way for great film geekery visit www.chud.com – best on the web as far as I’m concerned.

Seriously - God of Thunder