Avengers: Endgame Writers Agree Thor: The Dark World Has a Confusing Backstory

Many regard Thor: The Dark World to be one of the weaker entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a fact that was referenced in a pretty unique way throughout the events of Avengers: Endgame. The film saw part of the remaining Avengers travel to Asgard in 2014 to retrieve the Power Stone, albeit after a bit of a confusing reintroduction. Co-writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely spoke about the Dark World of it all in the film’s commentary track, during the scene when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) tries and fails to explain the significance of the film’s event.

“It was when hitting upon this idea that the second act would be going back to the movies of the MCU and seeing them from new points of view.” McFeely revealed. “The idea that we could sort of talk about them and sort of comment on them was kind of delightful… This is a good example, Thor: The Dark World has kind of a confusing backstory, that involves dark elves, and an every 5,000-year astronomical event.”

“And a stone that is not a stone,” Markus added, referencing the Power Stone’s amorphous shape.

“Right.” McFeely echoed. “So we thought we would…it’s called hanging a lantern on something.”

The trope, which is really called “lampshade hanging”, is used to describe writing that flat-out acknowledges something that would suspend the audience’s disbelief, before immediately moving along. Given the fact that general audiences probably don’t remember Dark World‘s events – much less how confusing they can be – it certainly makes sense that the writers went with this choice.

Of course, there’s also the nature of how Endgame‘s time-travel impacted the events of Dark World, something that the writers have made their peace with.

“I think we’re leaning on, when you just take a baseball mitt, you didn’t ruin that kid’s life,” McFeely explained in an interview earlier this year. “When you took Mjolnir, we accept that that movie happened. Because time is irrefutable.”

“You can make any number of what ifs,” Markus added. “The Dark Elves would have arrived, intending to get the Aether. It’s what they came for and it was no longer there.”

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall of 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If…? In Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021.