In the past few years, Director’s Cuts have become all the rage. The precedent was set when Zack Snyder’s Justice League got the green light, giving the project a second chance at fame. Now, every movie inevitably gets looped into a similar conversation, such as David Ayer’s Suicide Squad—just don’t ask Black Adam’s Dwayne Johnson. Those prospects of a longer cut aren’t just relevant to DC movies. Marvel’s most recent outing, Thor: Love and Thunder, has started to become a part of that conversation.
While the initial reactions to the project were positive, more recent reviews have painted a far more mixed picture. One of the key complaints was how the pacing was off and that the story could have used more time to develop.
Naturally, the solution many people feel would have helped is to have had a longer final product. A similar sentiment was shared about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness when it came out, with both films running for less than 2 hours and 10 minutes apiece.
But what would Love and Thunder have included if it were any longer than it is now?
Taika Waititi Reveals What Was Cut
In an interview with NME, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi discussed what his director’s cut would look like.
Waititi commented how “director’s cuts are not good” and that “there’s [usually] a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there:”
“I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts. I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors. They suck. Director’s cuts are not good. Directors need to be controlled sometimes, and if I was to say, ‘ah, you wanna watch my director’s cut? It’s four and a half hours long!’ It’s not good, at four and a half hours. There’s a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there, you don’t even have to pause it.”
Even then, what would his cut of Love and Thunder look like? He noted that there would “probably [be] a few more jokes in there” and that he feels “a scene is deleted because it’s not good enough to be in the film:”
“I’d say my cut would probably have a few more jokes in there. There might be a couple of deleted scenes, but as I always say, a scene is deleted because it’s not good enough to be in the film. I think the deleted scenes section on the DVD, not that they use them anymore, should just be a list of the scenes and no links so you can’t click on them!”
In a separate interview with Collider, Waititi and star Chris Hemsworth, the two brought up what a director’s cut of the project would even look like.
Waititi noted how the cut “was about four hours” and that “it just gives up on the story [about five tomes] and just [has] like 10, 15 minutes of just telling jokes:”
“It was about four hours. And a lot of time on set ... We were talking about this before, like when, in the moment, you're like, ‘This is the greatest thing that anyone's ever filmed in the history of filming things.’And you get into the edit. You're like, ‘I still kind of like it.’ And then, after about six months of it being in the movie, you realize it was fun on the day, but it doesn't have any business being in the movie… Really, about five times, it just gives up on the story and just like just for like 10, 15 minutes of just telling jokes… It’s more of an assembly [than a film].”
Hemsworth compared the “four-hour cut” to that of “a Monty Python sketch” and that he “wouldn’t call it a movie” at all:
”[it was the most] Batshit crazy, wild, four-hour cut I've ever seen… It was about four hours. It was like a Monty Python sketch… I wouldn't call it a movie… the story was sacrificed for jokes.
But would the director ever go back in and edit a new cut? He joked how “[he doesn’t] want to see any of the footage ever [again] in [his] life” because the whole process of cutting the final film was “so tiring:”
“I don't know. I don't want to see any of the footage ever [again] in my life, but like… It's so tiring. Last thing I want to go is like, ‘I guess I have to try that scene again.’ The film has got a strong structure now. Anything else we put in like a big, long scene like… like a bunch of soldiers going to have dinner with some French people on a river, you know? If we put a big, long scene like that, and I feel like [that wouldn’t make sense]…sorry about that."
Trimming the Jokes From Thor’s Adventure
Ironically enough, another common complaint about Hemsworth’s most recent outing was how it amped the comedy up to an 11 when compared to Ragnarok—something they did warn audiences about ahead of time. Sadly, for lots of fans out there, a good chunk of the jokes that made it into the film didn’t land.
Waititi conveniently didn’t mention anything too specific, but thanks to an interview with Christian Bale, audiences do know that at one point and time, both Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster and Peter Dinklage (Eitri) were both in it. Seeing as they worked with Bale’s Gorr, the odds of them having survived were probably slim to none; good thing their slaughters didn’t make it to the final product.
The director has a good point, though; if a scene was deleted, it’s often because it wasn’t good enough to keep. Even if the movie feels too short, everything that was trimmed off was taken away for a reason—longer does not always mean better.
Though, many fans would love to see a longer cut nonetheless. If not for anything other than the fun of comparing the two.
Thor: Love and Thunder is in theaters worldwide.
