“What if Thor: Ragnarok was actually made in the ’80s?” That’s the question answered by The Nerdist in the trailer edit and mashup above. The first trailer for Thor: Ragnarok already had a bit of an ’80s action movie feel to it thanks to What We Do In The Shadows director Taika Waititi, but this trailer edit redoes the whole thing like it’s a Cannon Films VHS being rented out until the tape disintegrates.
The video renames the movie Thor III: Ragnarok, made in 1987, and devolves the quality of the special effects to 1980s levels, with thick outlines on every scale model and thunderbolts and fire which seem to be painted onto the film strip. There’s also several other typical ’80s touches like VHS tracking lines, the overuse of voiceover exposition and title cards, and Jeff Goldblum.
We didn’t expect to see clips of Jeff Goldblum from Earth Girls Are Easy today, but we’re not complaining. This third, time-shifted Thor movie would fit right in at the Blockbuster Video shelves next to the ’80s version of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And it’s not much of a stretch to place Thor: Ragnarok in the ’80s. The logo already looks like a classic arcade game: