[MCU Thor] The movie is about family.

[MLai]

I'm running a fever atm, and my mind has been wandering to strange places. I've been thinking about how to make the movie Thor even more about family, how to really blur the lines between villain and tragic hero for Loki, etc. And I'm leaking hot manly tears at my own imagined scenes with Tom Hiddleston emoting like there's no tomorrow.

Stuff like:

At the portal scene...
Loki = Father?! You can't!
Odin = My decision is made, Loki.
Loki = Strand him for a few decades, let him cool his head, sure! But you can't take his immortality and power!
Odin = LOKI! My decision is made!
Loki = ...

Loki looks back at the portal, schemes warring with genuine concern on his face. The point of the scene is that while he plots after the crown, he doesn't want Thor to be in actual physical danger.

New scene. Loki visits his mother (Frigga). This scene will further establish Loki as the kind of honey-tongued "sensitive" man who has women wrapped around his pinkie, his own mother included. You know the type. Doesn't matter if he's adopted; this scene works if Frigga actually likes Loki more than Thor.

Frigga is in her room, looking out the window and obviously worrying over Thor's fate. Loki walks into Frigga's room, personally freshening up the bouquet vases and chatting sweetly with mother. He sits down next to her and looks into her eyes.

Loki = I'm worried about Thor, too.
Frigga = When your father is in the midst of wrath, there's no talking to him.
Frigga sighs. She puts a hand on Loki's face.
Frigga = My dear sweet child. Your brother isn't like you. He's not resourceful, or responsible. Stripped of immortality, what would befall him on such a barbaric planet?
Loki = Mother. I'll go to him.
Frigga = No. Your father would--
Loki = Father doesn't. Need. To know.

Loki visits Thor on Earth. I'm a bit hazy on what happened in that scene, but I do remember Loki was being manipulative and villainous. Most of that scene can remain intact, but I'd also like to add the following:

Loki produces a vial of clear liquid.
Thor = What is that?
Loki = Ambrosia. From Asgard.
Loki = Drink this, Thor. Your immortality will be restored.
Thor = ...

After a moment, Thor pushes away the vial.
Loki = What are you doing?
Thor = I will not cheat my punishment, Loki.
Loki = What? Father is being unreasonable, but he'll come around in a few years. But in the meantime, you're mortal! You're--

Loki makes a face of disgust.
Loki = --growing old! You could die, any moment! Don't be a fool!

Thor gives Loki a manly pat on the shoulder and smiles.
Thor = That is my punishment and I will bear it, brother. Don't worry, I can take care of myself.
Loki = ...

Loki gets up and walks away. Before teleporting off, Loki turns around.
Loki = I will speak to father again. In the meantime, lay low! Don't do anything dangerous or stupid!

(I think this scene in the movie happened right before Thor went and did something dangerous and stupid?)


Scene where Odin was talking to Loki, after Loki killed the frost giant king. I think something similar did happen in the movie, but IIRC it did a poor job of portraying what Loki did as something good. AFAIC, all he did was follow Art Of War and Il Principe, and it should be much blurrier whether the ends were awesome even though the means was unsavory.

Loki = Everything I've done, I did for Asgard!
Odin = ...
Loki = By wile and subterfuge, I have slain our mortal enemy without shedding a drop of Asgardian blood! How is that not a victory worthy of a king?!
Loki = Do you really think Thor can rule a realm? I love my brother, but his heart is too soft, his ideals too simple! You know this!
Odin = ...
Loki = Don't look at me that way! Why do you always disavow all my accomplishments?!

After Loki "dies" at the end of the film, Frigga should collapse onto her knees. Odin should be visibly shaken, muttering "What could I have done? What could I have done?" Really, really make sure the audience understands that a son just died, not a comic book supervillain.

I don't remember what the scene in Thor 2 was like, when Loki learned that Frigga died (I think it was Thor who told him?). But if we're going with Loki really being a mama's boy, stuff like this:

Loki goes strangely silent.
Thor = Loki?

BAM! Some furniture aimed at Thor's head hits the transparent wall. Hard.
Loki = WHERE WERE YOU?!
Loki = YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE! WHY WAS SHE THERE?! WHERE WERE YOU?!

Thor, ofc, doesn't notice the double meaning behind Loki's outburst.
Loki = What kind of king are you, when you can't even protect OUR MOTHER?!
Loki = GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!

After Thor leaves, Loki rolls on the floor, bawls, and pulls at his hair in old-school Grecian lament.

This scene happens while Thor and Loki are riding the little airship, to go find the villain. Thor says something about Frigga. Loki immediately interrupts him, as it is obviously a very sore subject for him. Loki stares straight ahead while intoning to Thor...

Loki = I'm not going to argue with you about who loved mother more.
Thor = I never said--
Loki = But you can never deny who knew mother more.
Loki = What is her favorite flower? What does she like to eat for breakfast? What is her favorite song?
Thor = Uhh...

Loki immediately cuts Thor off and starts answering his own questions. By the 3rd answer, he chokes up and stops speaking, controlling his emotions.
Loki = Until her murderers all lie dead at my feet, I am your ally.

[Friv]

So, a few notes:

#1 - The reason that what Loki did was awful is that he deliberately started a war that he intended to end with genocide. Odin had forged a peace with the Frost Giants, and Loki stepped in, incited them to murderous revenge, and then used his own incitement as proof that the Frost Giants needed to die.

#2 - When Loki visits Thor on Earth, it's after Thor has done something stupid, not before it. Loki turns around and unleashes the Destroyer against him a couple scenes later. You'll have to do some pretty substantial script altering if you want Loki to not be murderously mad at Thor by that point, especially since sacrificing himself to the Destroyer is how Thor gets his powers back.

#3 - I actually thought that Loki's scene in Thor 2 was one of the best ones. Thor comes to tell him their mother is dead, Loki deliberately plays it low, because he can't bear to have Thor see him hurting. He waits, and lets Thor leave, and then there's that one silent scream of rage, and all of the furniture in his cell just explodes. Doubly so because Loki isn't blaming Thor; he's blaming himself for letting the dark elf leave, and even pointing him towards freedom out of a moment of spite.

Which leads to the next Thor/Loki scene, in which Loki has put an illusion over the cell that he's still okay, and the furniture is okay, and then Thor has to be "Look, man, cool it with the pride", and Loki lets the illusion drop and we see him sitting in the ruins of his cell, ragged and grief-stricken.

Those were basically the two best scenes in a very uneven movie, and I would hate to lose them.

*EDIT* Also, a lot of Thor and Thor 2 are about the ways that Odin has failed as a father. I sort of feel like turning his sons against each other, so that Loki resents and hates Thor, is a key part of the movie. Especially because it gives us that moment at the end of Thor 2 in which "Odin" says that he's always loved Thor, and heals a rift... but it was Loki. Because Odin just can't admit that.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You're wrong about the scene in Thor 2. First, Loki gives Kurse directions to help him destroy the Asgardian defenses. Then, because those defenses are gone, the dark elves land and Frigga is killed (by Kurse, if memory serves). Then, an einherjar guard comes by to tell Loki that his mother (probably the only person in the universe he truly cared about) has been killed in the attack--which he materially aided. That's when he trashed the cell.

Thor doesn't show up until he wants to use Loki to escape Asgard.

Best scene in that movie:

Thor and Loki arguing on the skiff as they fly over Svartalfheim
Thor: "Mother wouldn't want us to fight."
Loki: "Well, she wouldn't be surprised, though, would she?"

That's brothers for you.

[MLai]

#1 - The reason that what Loki did was awful is that he deliberately started a war that he intended to end with genocide. Odin had forged a peace with the Frost Giants, and Loki stepped in, incited them to murderous revenge, and then used his own incitement as proof that the Frost Giants needed to die.
IIRC, there was what amounts to a cease-fire, but the giants certainly weren't friendly to Asgardians. The king's first response to Thor coming over with a small band (i.e. not an invading army)... is to try to kill him?
And then the king readily took Loki's bait in carrying out a plot to assassinate Odin?
I realize Loki was underhanded in his execution, but the giants needed very little convincing to do bad things, when given the opportunity.

While watching the movie years ago, I remember thinking "Oh good that giant king is dead. GJ Loki. Wait, Odin why are you sad?"


#2 - When Loki visits Thor on Earth, it's after Thor has done something stupid, not before it. Loki turns around and unleashes the Destroyer against him a couple scenes later. You'll have to do some pretty substantial script altering if you want Loki to not be murderously mad at Thor by that point, especially since sacrificing himself to the Destroyer is how Thor gets his powers back.
Well yes, my point was there would be a rewrite in how villainous-on-the-personal-scale Loki needed to be.

The movie made sure Loki wanted his own brother dead, or at least permanently disenfranchised, in order to really sell to audiences what a Hollywood villain he is. I'm saying he didn't need that aspect to still be effective at the rest of his plot in the movie. For example, he didn't want to kill Odin, and it didn't muddle his schemes any.

So, Loki could have been written in a way so that he never intended to put Thor in any true danger, and he rationalizes all his actions with the perspective that he actually wants the best for everyone.


#3 - I actually thought that Loki's scene in Thor 2 was one of the best ones.
Those were basically the two best scenes in a very uneven movie, and I would hate to lose them.
If I re-watch Thor 2, it'd basically be for the Loki scenes. I don't remember it clearly but what you describe sounds good.
However, Frigga definitely needs to be in movie #1, with as much of a role as Odin. I thought Odin was a widower or something. Adding THE MOTHER in movie #2 just so she can die, was really really cheap.

And with Frigga in movie #1, I would have proceeded to make Loki the mama's boy as I described. Less screentime for the insipid romance, more for the Grecian soap opera that is Thor's family.


*EDIT* Also, a lot of Thor and Thor 2 are about the ways that Odin has failed as a father. I sort of feel like turning his sons against each other, so that Loki resents and hates Thor, is a key part of the movie. Especially because it gives us that moment at the end of Thor 2 in which "Odin" says that he's always loved Thor, and heals a rift... but it was Loki. Because Odin just can't admit that.
Yes but the movies don't communicate that clearly.

You see it through the events, but the camera likes to play up the authority and paternal wisdom of Odin, and Thor's pride in living up to his father's expectations (at the end). It's like the movie is trying to tell you that Odin did everything right.

[Dragonexx]

Frigga is in the first thor. She doesn't do much, but she's there.

I distinctly remember frigga being in the odinsleep chamber when the frost giants came to kill him. She even killed one of them before being tossed aside.

Though I am struggling to find the scene on youtube.

[Cheesegear]

Thor is Hamlet-in-Space. So, stick to that, and you'll be okay.

[digiman619]

Loki's 'death' scene has two very different meanings, depending on whether or not Loki really thought he was dying.