In some ways, but not as much as I feared. Actually, what I was really afraid of was that they would turn Thor into Kevin from Ghostbusters, or he would be the version of Thor we saw in the “Thor: Civil War” video. I was incredibly relieved to see that the stupid line in one of the trailers about Thor having more brains because he has more muscles did not make it into the movie.

The filmmakers were clearly aware of the possibility that Thor would come off as anachronistic and/or Tony Stark-like; Taika Waititi even said in an interview that Thor’s change in diction and demeanor could be explained by his having spent more time on Earth hanging out with Tony Stark and learning about sarcasm. There was room for some movement in that direction, but I think they went too far with it. Thor has shown a sense of humor in earlier movies, most notably in the scene in TDW where he and Loki commandeer the Dark Elf ship with a lot of brotherly bickering, but also in Age of Ultron. There’s a post that I’ve seen going around occasionally with all the instances of Thor “trolling” people in AOU; I think the “I am Thor son of Odin, and as long as I have life in my breast I am… running out of things to say” bit is the most memorable. But it was always kind of an understated humor.

I’ve seen some people saying that they see some of the character change as a reversion to the brash, cocky warrior-prince of the first Thor movie, but with more cunning and caution and a better sense of proportion. I guess I can see that, and I can sort of see how that might have happened as he gained some distance from the traumatic events that turned him into the grave, almost world-weary figure he presented in TDW and AOU… but again, I think they went too far in that direction. I’m trying to stay mostly positive about the movie, because for the most part I did like it, and it was not nearly as much of a travesty of the characters as I was afraid it might be. But yeah, I’ll admit to finding the abrupt character transformation somewhat jarring.