‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Production Designer Talks Creating The “Real” Asgard

When Thor: Ragnarok debuts next month, it will hopefully show audiences a new side of Asgard.

Marvel.com recently spoke with Dan Hennah, who served as Production Designer on Ragnarok. As he explained, the film will present a more grounded level of Asgard not necessarily seen in previous Thor films.

“We sort of tried to give it more of a humanity, tried to come down to the world of real gods and demigods.” Hennah revealed. “Of course it would be above and beyond the reach of normal people, but it’s a much more real world… Refugees have been taken out of the city. So we need to get down to that sort of population a little as opposed to the (larger) world. Asgard is the home of the gods, so the assumption is that most of these people here—thousands of them—are some sort of demigods or children of gods. It’s more about the forces of the gods and the effect that they have on the people.”

Hennah shared a few design tactics that were used to show that common level of Asgard – particularly translating the Asgardian architecture into smaller buildings.

“It’s home to gods, the previous incarnation was stone and gold.” Hennah explained. “So we stayed with those elements and we’ve stayed with the champions of the architecture to a degree, but also we had this sort of human level of single story, two stories, three stories.”

And according to Hennah, Ragnarok‘s Asgard relied on a mixture of practical effects and CGI.

“Every set has practical elements to it, but it was like fifty-fifty.” Hennah added. “In terms of standing here—if they were sitting on the ground level—the wall is real, everything up there is. Inside buildings, ceilings will be digital. But in directive, elements may be practical. You have to test the visual opportunities we’ll get from them. And we also give the actors something very real to work in, to get their lead into the character.”

Judging by the early response to Ragnarok, that attention to detail has paid off. The film currently sits at a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, ahead of its November 3rd debut.