I never thought I would live to see the day when the words "Dolph's acting was superb" would cross my eyes.

Kidding.  Believe it or not, I'm a big Dolph fan.  How cool was he in Johnny Mnemonic?  The Street Preacher -- grungy cyborg zealot with a killer mean streak.  And he was the only good thing about Universal Soldier, not to mention Rocky 4 -- though I must admit even his muscular build wasn't as rock hard as Brigite Nielsen's hair in that movie.  Beside the point.

As I'm sure you know, what you get on the page isn't always what you get on the screen -- and what we got, again in my opinion, was a lifeless, straight-to-cable-quality "actioner" with a better than average cast (Lundgren, Louis Gossett Jr, Jeroene Krabbe, etc).  

Sorry, man, but this is one of those agree to disagree things.  Love Lundgren, but was sorely disappointed by this flick.

Quoted from Lon Sorry, man, but this is one of those agree to disagree things.  Love Lundgren, but was sorely disappointed by this flick.

Gonna hafta' be a deal.  But that's not to say I believe the entire film to be gold, either.  It has major problems and some absolute cheesy stuff going on from time to time.  It's almost as if, at times, they sat around drinking, snorting, and smoking the budget of the film up.  

I think what's most disheartening to me is that the original TV series (THE FLASH w/ John W Ship in it) is better than anything we get from high concept Hollywood.  Paul Dino probably helped a bit, but still...   

Yeah, I remember liking that Flash TV show.  I remember thinking the suit looked especially cool (at the time) and that the speed/blur effects were well done.

But I think in order for a comic film to be successful, they have to do two things:

1.  Honor the character.  Don't look down on him.  Don't change him (too much).  People like specific comic books for specific reasons, and if you monkey with what works for them on the page, it won't work for them on the screen.

2. Tell a good story involving this character.  Doesn't have to be ripped directly from the pages of the comics.  Can be completely original -- so long as you adhere to #1, the sky's the limit.  

The movies I mentioned above, as well as movies such as The Crow, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Superman, Superman II -- follow both these rules.

Others, such as Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Tank Girl, Barb Wire and others, ignore either one or both of these rules.  

And here's the thing about Thor.  In legend, he's the God of Thunder, mightiest son of Odin, who slew the Midgard serpent and deserved to be worshiped.

In the comics, Stan Lee did something very interesting with him.  In the comics, he's a rebellious, brash thug who opposes Odin's will and is cast to earth and entrapped in a mortal body, with all its mortal trappings, and only gets his powers back when striking his mortal walking stick on the ground, summoning to him the power of Thunder.  It's the classic spoiled rich kid scenario -- he pushes his parents patience, gets kicked out of the house and has to call Dad to bail him out when he realizes he can't cope with the real world on his own.  He thereby learns humility and responsibility.  That's where the genius of Stan Lee comes in.  People might look at Thor and think, yeah, yeah, big hammer, wears a cape, speaks in Old English, brags a lot.  But they're totally overlooking the very human traits Lee infused into the character.

Then you have the Thor from the Marvel Ultimates line.  The back story is basically the same -- he pushes Odin to far and is banished to earth.  But in this line of comics, he's still Thor, with all his powers -- only now the general population just think he's basically a delusional, tree-hugging cult leader who, while obviously powerful, is also a total space cadet who claims to be Thor, the God of Thunder, but no one takes the whack-a-loo seriously.  This seems to be the version they're going with for the film, or at least some extent of it.

I think either would be interesting.

Quoted from Lon This seems to be the version they're going with for the film, or at least some extent of it.

Not really. From what I've seen and heard so far, they seem to be going towards more of this concept:

Quoted Text In the comics, Stan Lee did something very interesting with him.  In the comics, he's a rebellious, brash thug who opposes Odin's will and is cast to earth and entrapped in a mortal body, with all its mortal trappings, and only gets his powers back when striking his mortal walking stick on the ground, summoning to him the power of Thunder.  It's the classic spoiled rich kid scenario -- he pushes his parents patience, gets kicked out of the house and has to call Dad to bail him out when he realizes he can't cope with the real world on his own.  He thereby learns humility and responsibility.  That's where the genius of Stan Lee comes in.  People might look at Thor and think, yeah, yeah, big hammer, wears a cape, speaks in Old English, brags a lot.  But they're totally overlooking the very human traits Lee infused into the character.

Also, this was probably the most eloquently written breakdown of the Thor character that I've ever read.