Kevin Feige Addresses Fans Concerns Over The Depiction Of Gorr The God Butcher In 'Thor: Love And Thunder'
Image Source: Nerd Cult News
Christian Bale’s appearance as Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder has left some fans unhappy with the direction chosen. They questioned why Bale’s Gorr had great differences between him and the one from the comics. Although the arguments make sense, Taika Waititi (director of the movie) and Brian Chapek (Disney’s CEO) commented in favor of the changes made, according to The Direct.
While Waititi argued that Christian Bale is “the greatest actor that is working at the moment”, Chapek said that Bale knew right from the start who the character was and the motivations behind his actions. This is a position of enormous support for Bale, considering the problem with the aesthetics. While Gorr in the comics has two tentacles that come out of his head and a noseless face, Bale’s interpretation of the character went with a more human-like approach (see below). The Direct points out something important. Even though facial animation technology has evolved considerably in the past decade, there are some limits. Animation can only go so far with what is given. Since VFX aims for a human expression, some species of aliens can be really hard to work with. Kevin Fiege also emphasized Waititi and Chapek’s position. He commented in favor of having a different look for Gorr, saying that
“Gorr the God Butcher has an awesome look in the comics. We wanted to tap into that. But had we done exactly that translation, we would’ve lost all of Christian. So we made the decision early on that we didn’t want him to be a motion capture character.”
Image Source: Screenrant
Using a more “default” Christian Bale may have had a cost (the critique), but for Disney in general the pros outweighed the cons. Bale gave a solid performance, just like he did in several of his past roles. He is known for his ability to bulk up and cut considerably fast. His portrayals of Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight (2008) and Dickie Eklund in The Fighter (2010) show how he is able to perform for completely different characters and body types.