MovieChat Forums > Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Discussion > I'm not that fond of Hella, to be honest

I'm not that fond of Hella, to be honest


Could be better. Great actress, excellent visual quality for the character and an interesting backstory.

But it could be better. Needed that extra relentlessness the movie cut out [when she slowly turns around in the trailer looking like a cross between Marylin Manson and Lady Gaga in full costume and the spiraling]

Personally I still prefer Zemo as their best villain and I even like the fact they changed him a lot from the comics [couldn't care for Zemo a damn bit. Yay... a guy who invented super glue and got a drity drape stuck to his mug]. But even he could be helped with a little extra emotion when he is on the phone listening to his wife's voice [I would make him reply to he, for the audience to later find she is actually dead. The way it was delivered was ok, but could have had that extra something to make it more effective].

For a Goddess of Death Hella is somewhat emotional.

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Agreed. Hela potential was squandered in their quest to make the funniest Thor movie. Too bad -- Cate probably didn't come cheap.

Here's hoping they have an extended cut disc release that fleshes out her character more. I mean, she WAS the core villain in the film.

Speck

PS: a much larger response was attempted yesterday, but after hitting 'add reply', it went into the nether regions of "We're updating stuff, come back later!". Hitting back to capture the composition didn't work. It's just gone. This site needs a LOT of updates for improvement.

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I got that thing too. Couldn't access the site for an hour.

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Yeah, I kinda liked the character and felt she could have been a much better villain only the thing is there is such a long stretch in the middle of the film where the movie is focused on another planet that she really doesn't become that pivotal of a character until the end of the movie.

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yeah I share the same sentiment.

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Hit back then reply. Worked in Firefox.

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I loved her, we all thought she was awesome! Who needs a character to be fleshed out, when she's played by an actress who can have the audience on the edge of their seats just by walking slowly towards the camera? Blanchette is a Diva with a capital D!

Seriously, whatever they paid her she's worth it.

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"Who needs a character to be fleshed out"

I hope you are kidding.

"we all thought she was awesome"

Who's "we"?

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"We" is the people I went to the movie with, and no, I'm not kidding.

When your villain is the ancient and terrible Goddess Of Death you don't try to flesh her out, that would make her more like a human and therefore less awe-inspiring. Instead, you hire an actor who can dominate the screen and your best CGI people, and make something unstoppable, mysterious, and totally fun to watch.

I don't mean that all villains shouldn't be fleshed out, Loki certainly needs to be, Vildemirt does, etc. But Sauron and Hela do not, they're Godlike beings and humans cannot understand their nature.

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Fleshing out a main character doesn't equate to make it human. Hella had a sort of fleshing out, but it could be helped with actual footage of Odin banishing her. We see bits of the Valkyries fighting her, but not the actual resolve of that fight [we only hear about it] and we see the paintings on the ceiling too [and this is where I'd put scenes of Odin and Hella fighting side by side and then Odin banishing her]. We also never see her as a child the way we did with Thor and Loki. We didn't see her becoming the way she is, and that would be important.

They are nbot gods. They are aliens. And your argument of humans not understanding their nature fails as soon as you realize the main characters are all fleshed out [Thor, Odin, Loki, etc], so I can not agree with you.

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I don't know, what I saw worked for me. I certainly wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more flashback mayhem, but when I saw those scenes on film my mind filled in everything I know about the history of the Vikings and the grim religion of the old Norse, and filled in the differences between that and the Asgard we've been shown on screen. I understood that Hela represented the veneration of blood lust and death without redemption, you know, the difference between civilization and brutal pointless war. I thought that was clear enough.

If they didn't show more flashback mayhem, it might have been because the special effects budget didn't cover it. Or they just wanted the first part of the film to move faster, which was certainly a valid concern. The second half of the film was definitely better than the first.

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nothing wrong with how it was presented. Just some things were missing to make it that extra bit more interesting. Some bits on the trailers were also missing from the actual movie and they looked pretty good [when it comes to Hella].

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Cate Blanchette's acting was great in this (I actually find her slightly over the top in quieter films like Carol, but her extravagant mannerisms works very well here) but I could also use more backstory as well. I don't know anything about her comic character so just an extra 5 minutes of flashbacks could help A LOT. I'd even take away 5 minutes from the Jeff Goldblum/Gladiator sequences that may have went on too long.

When she revealed the real history of Odin and his own bloodlust, I was really fascinated. It was disappointing that they never went further than that. Thor sees the mural on the ceiling and that was the end of that? A revelation like that should be devastating and more front and center (Odin.....lied? Odin....murdered for gain?)

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yeahI also had that problem with the reveal. Needed a sequence to it.

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I was really looking forward to Hela, and I agree, she was a bit underused and her scenes all felt like they were cut short. She became more of a one-dimensional plot tool than a character.

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at least she was hella hot...

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that she was.

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