Blank Check — Patreon: Thor

Published 2019-02-21; 1:56:41 by the feed.

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

The extraction calls the show “Blank Check with Griffin & David (Patreon)” and the episode “Thor”.

Hosts: Griffin Newman, David Sims. Guests: Ben Hosley (producer, in the room).

Subject films: Thor (2011).

On the transcript: Auto-transcription with no speaker labels; the hosts talk over the film, so many lines belong to dialogue from the film itself and are mixed with host chatter. Some stretches (the nudity search, the Disney store bit) were hard to attribute between Griffin and Ben.

Films that came up

Claims (53)

craft (craft): Thor → How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Dutch angles in Thor are likened to Ron Howard's Grinch for excess tilt.
“Ron Howard Grinch levels of just like.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:02:45 · David Sims (0.35 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Thor → Kenneth Branagh. Marvel hired Branagh for Shakespearean gravitas to signal seriousness, then handed him a goofball script.
“let's hire Kenneth Brown out to show people were making a serious movie because he's a Shakespearean guy”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:03:43 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → Masters of the Universe. Thor is described as essentially a remake of the live-action Masters of the Universe.
“It's mostly just a remake of the live action masters of the universe movie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:03:54 · Griffin Newman (0.65 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → Masters of the Universe. Both banish a hero from his heightened mythic world into a mundane Earth town and play it for fish-out-of-water jokes.
“And you place the one character who belongs in this heightened sci-fi world in the middle of like, you know, the Southwest.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:04:40 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → The Avengers. The Ultimates reimagined Thor as a possible revolutionary claiming to be a god, versus the film's real Thor.
“in the ultimates, Mark Miller's take is like Thor is sort of like this revolutionary guy who claims he's a god”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:05:58 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → Stan Lee. The Donald Blake identity came from Stan Lee's 60s devotion to the secret-identity trope; the movie keeps it only as a fake ID gag.
“in the 60s, Stanley was a little slavishly devoted to like the classic superhero comic trope, so you needed a secret identity”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:08:08 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → J. Michael Straczynski. The film borrows heavily from Straczynski's celebrated Thor run, including Thor spending time in the Midwest.
“the celebrated Thor arc was J. Michael Stratinsky, which is this is borrowing from heavily.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:08:28 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Anthony Hopkins → Tommy Lee Jones. Casting a gravitas-bearing famous actor as the elder is Marvel's repeat playbook, as with Tommy Lee Jones in Captain America.
“It's also the same thing they did with Tommy Lee Jones and Captain America”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:09:27 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Thor → Red Dawn. Hemsworth was nearly unknown, with leads in two shelved films, Cabin in the Woods and Red Dawn, plus Star Trek.
“Red Dawn had been shelved.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:09:49 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
people (people): Joss Whedon → Chris Hemsworth. Whedon, having worked with Hemsworth on Cabin in the Woods and signing on to Avengers, urged the studio to consider him for Thor.
“Whedon had done Cabin in the Woods, and he was signing on to Avengers while they were casting this and he said, you should really consider that Hemsworth guy.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:12:26 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Joss Whedon → Kevin Feige. From Thor through Age of Ultron Whedon acts as the MCU's other creative force and number-one script doctor, butting heads with Feige.
“Whedon, and we're going to talk about this a bunch, is a major creative force on the level of Kevin Feige from Thor through to Age of Ultron.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:12:26 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Kenneth Branagh → Joel Schumacher. Branagh is cast as this generation's Joel Schumacher, a big silly hammy director, which is meant as praise.
“He's like, our generation's like Joel Schumacher.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:18:12 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Thor → Ike Perlmutter. Perlmutter kept early Marvel budgets low, so these movies lack grandeur and the Jotunheim CG looks poor.
“Ike Pearlmutter is keeping the budgets pretty low, so these movies just don't have the grandeur”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:20:23 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Thor → Kenneth Branagh. Branagh built action with no spatial coherence, cut in a seesaw, and canted every angle.
“Kenneth McRanaugh constructing big action set pieces with no spatial coherence.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:20:43 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Kenneth Branagh → Henry V. Branagh's Shakespeare films handle epic battles well, but in Thor he chases flashy action instead of classical staging.
“Henry V is good.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:20:54 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
career (career): Sam Raimi → Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Raimi's frustrated 90s Thor pitch is read as the origin of Hercules on TV, like Darkman after losing The Shadow.
“So like he really wanted to direct the shadow.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:22:21 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Sam Raimi → Darkman. Raimi wanted to direct The Shadow, was refused, and made Darkman instead.
“So like he really wanted to direct the shadow.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:22:21 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Chris Hemsworth → Sean Connery. Doubts that Hemsworth is just a big stuntman echo Fleming dismissing Connery as an overblown stuntman when cast as Bond.
“Ian Fleming publicly was like, he's not an actor.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:24:38 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
what-if (what-if): Thor → Matthew Vaughn. Vaughn was hired after leaving X-Men and wanted Kevin McKidd, but exited in 2008.
“He loved to quit movies because he exits in 2008.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:26:16 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
what-if (what-if): Thor → Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro was attached post-Pan's Labyrinth but left for The Hobbit, which he also did not make.
“Guillermo del Toro is brought in.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:26:18 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
what-if (what-if): Thor → Daniel Craig. Before Hemsworth, Daniel Craig was offered the part of Thor and turned it down.
“Daniel Craig is offered the role.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:27:17 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
people (people): Tom Hiddleston → Kenneth Branagh. Hiddleston worked with Branagh on stage before Thor and was cast to bring gravitas.
“Hiddleston, who has worked with Brana on stage.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:27:29 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
what-if (what-if): Tom Hiddleston → Josh Hartnett. Josh Hartnett was widely reported as the Loki frontrunner, a bigger name, until two unknowns were cast.
“smart money is all on Josh Hartnett.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:28:29 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Thor → The Lion King (2019 trailer). The argument over Thor's desaturated palette turns into an argument over how bad the Lion King trailer's color looks.
“The color is so bad in that trailer.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:29:24 · Ben Hosley (0.45 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Natalie Portman → Black Swan. Thor landed four to five months after Black Swan, so Portman's Oscar gave the film star power Marvel was lucky to get.
“This comes out like 4 months after Black Swan, 5 months.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:32:01 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → Masters of the Universe. Skeletor banishing He-Man to California mirrors Odin banishing Thor, down to the cartoon-to-film design translation and the large Coke gag.
“They banish him to California, and then like, it's Courtney Cox and some other Californian teenager take them in.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:37:32 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
career (career): Thor → Don Payne. Comedy writer Payne came from The Simpsons and wrote Fantastic Four 2 and My Super Ex-Girlfriend before Marvel brought him in to make Thor funny.
“he was big into this, like, I know how to make Thor funny, so that'll be more approachable.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:39:00 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald → Thor. Joanna argued Grindelwald should be played with Loki's charm and magnetism rather than Depp's rat-like pallor.
“Loki is what Grindelwelch should be.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:42:42 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
career (career): Thor → The Avengers. Loki's Thor performance is a Shakespearean tragedy turn; the charm and menace arrive in Avengers.
“He's kind of doing like, like, you see, Branaugh cast him to bring the gravitas, and he's kind of giving mostly an emotional performance.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:43:03 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Thor → Masters of the Universe. Thor's coffee-mug throwing scene is likened to Gwildor failing to understand fried chicken in He-Man.
“It's like the scene in He-Man where Gueldor doesn't get fried chicken.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:44:06 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Thor → Black Panther. Thor shot on a real New Mexico location; later Marvel films like Black Panther are made in Atlanta lots for tax rebates and secrecy, hurting how they look.
“a lot of it looks ugly because they were so committed to filming it in like a fucking Atlanta parking lot.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:45:46 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Thor → Black Panther. Black Panther gives every ensemble member an inner life and a plot function; Thor's side characters like Volstagg and Sif do little.
“every single character has their own personality, their own internal conflict, but has like a very important plot function as well.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:47:38 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Thor → Iron Man 2. Both force S.H.I.E.L.D. world-building into the plot; Iron Man 2 does it worse, and Captain America saves it for the end.
“Iron Man 2 has it worse than this, but this and Iron Man 2 have that right where they're sort of like, PS, like, Hawkeye's coming.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:48:53 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
career (career): Stellan Skarsgard → Nymphomaniac. American films use Skarsgard as a goofy side dish while in Sweden and Europe he is the transgressive art-house king and Lars von Trier's regular.
“in Sweden, he's like the most like transgressive, like penis wagging, hyper violent sexual actor.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:49:33 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Stellan Skarsgard → Insomnia. Skarsgard plays the Pacino part in the Norwegian original of Insomnia.
“he plays the Pacino part in the original insomnia.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:50:03 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Natalie Portman → Garden State. A riff on Garden State turns into proposing Ben replace Zach Braff over the whole film as a Kuleshov-effect experiment.
“Can we just shoot Ben in front of a green screen and like superimpose him over Zach Raff and keep the rest of the movie the same?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:54:33 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Thor → The Lord of the Rings. Studios expected a Thor movie would have to be a serious sub-Lord of the Rings; post-LOTR C-list fantasy launches had been failing.
“anytime Post-Lord of the Rings, anyone was trying to launch a C-list, B-list, Lord of the Rings style fantasy thing.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:58:16 · David Sims (0.35 sure it was them)
programming (programming): Thor → The Avengers. The Hawkeye cameo, with no interaction, made the speaker doubt the Avengers team-up would work.
“The thing you want to see is how they talk and interact with each other.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:02:12 · Griffin Newman (0.35 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Justice League → The Avengers. Marvel spent five setup films; DC's Justice League tried eight characters off two movies.
“the Justice League is like, we have like 8 characters and we did 2 movies.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:02:49 · Griffin Newman (0.35 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Thor → E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. For Selvig, Thor is proof of aliens, his own E.T., and the reason he will not let go of him.
“Thor is like his ET.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:07:56 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Thor → Ghost Rider. Marvel heroes outside Spider-Man, X-Men, and Fantastic Four lack good villains; Thor has Loki, Ghost Rider's foes are Satan-adjacent like Thor's mythology ones.
“the thing with the Ghost Rider is it like sort of uses like satanic mythology in the same way that this uses Greek mythology.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:21:53 · Griffin Newman (0.35 sure it was them)
career (career): Clark Gregg → Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Coulson's death in Avengers and revival for the show cheapen his arc, debated here.
“Let Carl Craig have his paycheck, man, the mentor.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:24:34 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
verdict (verdict): Joss Whedon → The Avengers. Whedon kills the sweetest character to prove a point in everything, though he did it well in Avengers.
“Whedon, who, um, loves to fucking kill the innocent to prove a dramatic point.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:24:39 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Thor → Natalie Portman. Portman had director approval and a multi-film contract but did not want to do more, so Marvel stopped forcing her.
“she got director approval over these movies.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:28:08 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
verdict (verdict): Thor: The Dark World → Thor. Dark World is the better brother movie; Thor's Thor-Loki rivalry feels underdeveloped.
“Dark World is better. They tapped into the brother dynamic.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:39:18 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Tom Hiddleston → Midnight in Paris. 2011 was Hiddleston's breakout year across Thor, Midnight in Paris, and War Horse.
“So those were his 3 performances.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:41:54 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Anthony Hopkins → Noah. Hopkins in the gravitas role is an uncreative choice, same reaction as in Noah.
“I had the same reaction when he was in Noah.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:45:28 · David Sims (0.35 sure it was them)
career (career): Idris Elba → Luther. Elba's low billing hides that he was becoming an internet boyfriend via Luther, and the Wire rediscovery.
“he was so clearly becoming like an internet boyfriend.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:46:05 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Patrick Doyle → Thor. Doyle's score is judged serviceable big orchestral work but not a strong score.
“I also think that the music, little anonymous, Patrick Doyle, but you know, Doyle will give you a serviceable sort of big orchestral stuff.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:47:28 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Thor → Foo Fighters. Branagh dropped in the Foo Fighters song Walk at the last minute because its lyrics were about learning to walk again, like Thor.
“Brana thought the lyrics were appropriate because it's about learning to walk again, much like Thor is learning to be a superhero.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:49:38 · Griffin Newman (0.35 sure it was them)
programming (programming): Thor → Fast Five. Thor's opening was the Memorial Day-season release, with Fast Five as the number two film in its 2nd weekend.
“Number 2 is one of the best movies of this year.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:50:54 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Rio → Newt (cancelled Pixar film). Rio's trailer revealed the same last-of-their-species-must-mate premise, causing Pixar to cancel Newt.
“Rio caused the only Pixar movie to be canceled?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:53:14 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Stellan Skarsgard → Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Skarsgard is endearingly game in the Mamma Mia movies; the sequel has an unexplained fat-suit gag.
“He's so fun in the Mama Mia movies.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:54:58 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)

Fun items (22)

fun, about Thor: See the opening Thor-throws-his-coffee-mug-on-the-ground scene; Ben calls it the best part of the movie.
“He throws his coffee on the ground.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:01:51 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: The hosts open on how every cut in the lab scene swings the camera 45 degrees the opposite way, a literal seesaw; Branagh's one idea is the tilted world, and they keep returning to the Dutch angles throughout.
“Isn't this crazy, though, that every time they cut, the camera is 45 degrees in the opposite angle of the previous...”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:03:17 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Anthony Hopkins: Hopkins reportedly took Odin because he circled every scene with NAR, no acting required; the bit gets tied to Blank Check's lexicon of River of Ham.
“I read the script, and every scene, I just circled it and wrote NAR, and I went, I'm on board”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:09:03 · Griffin Newman (0.45 sure it was them)
fun, about Chris Hemsworth: Casting lore: Hemsworth beat Hiddleston, who thought he was ripped but looked narrower beside him, because he absorbed muscle better and looked broader on camera.
“Hemsworth is just broader shoulder.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:11:50 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Hemsworth's dyed eyebrows in Thor are Kevin Feige's biggest regret in the whole MCU; watch Thor in Asgard where he almost looks to have none.
“Do you know that Kevin Feige said his, what his number one biggest regret in the entire Marvel cinematic universe is?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:14:42 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Kenneth Branagh: River of Ham: Ray Stevenson fears dipping his toe in the river of ham and Branagh tells him to take a swim; the hosts include it in the Blank Check lexicon.
“I bathed in that river many times.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:15:16 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Loki's hand turns blue on touching the Frost Giant king's forearm in the Jotunheim fight; the hosts note the film forgets it and later reveals he is a Frost Giant.
“one of the blue guys, the king, touched Loki's forearm, and then Loki's hand turned blue, and they don't know why.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:24:56 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Thor's development hell: Raimi, a UPN TV show, Sony and Goyer, Paramount, Vaughn, del Toro, DJ Caruso, Daniel Craig offered it before Hemsworth took it.
“Then, as we all know, DJ Caruso is hired.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:26:36 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Mjolnir is cast as Excalibur: the lifting-the-sword-from-the-stone scene is the hammer in the New Mexico crater that nobody is worthy to move.
“So, you know, the hammer becomes like Excalibur.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:37:54 · David Sims (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: The hammer lab scene: SHIELD builds a lab around the unliftable Mjolnir and the hosts adore Jasper Sitwell showing up here five movies before his turn.
“Hammer lab.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 0:56:02 · Ben Hosley (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: See the Hawkeye cameo: Jeremy Renner perched in a crow's nest deliberating whether to shoot Thor, never speaking to him, clearly shot on a day no one else worked.
“Isn't it just clear that Renner came in on a day when no one else was working?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:00:04 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: The Dark World: After the nudity-search tangent, they recall Skarsgard is naked in Dark World but the film blurs it out.
“I forgot he's naked in Dark World, but they blur it out.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:06:47 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Stellan Skarsgard: A long running bit: the hosts hunt the internet for Skarsgard nudity, ending on a site they say tells you which minute to watch of each movie, and an unused plan to have listeners tweet at Ben.
“Hey, if you can find the pean, hashtag, uh, find the pean for Ben.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:17:40 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: See the scene where Thor finally gets Mjolnir back: the hosts shout over the Patrick Doyle score and say the transformation is the film's biggest success.
“I will say, I think that is the biggest success of this movie is they do sell you on the importance of the hammer.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:29:29 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Natalie Portman and Hemsworth kiss at an impossible height, with her seeming to stand on 17 ladders; the hosts wish for the wide shot or a canted angle with Hemsworth bending 90 degrees.
“Allie Portman is standing on 17 ladders.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:33:51 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Rene Russo gets one moment with a big sword and almost no lines as Frigga; Dark World gives her more.
“She doesn't have much to do in this.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:34:35 · Griffin Newman (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: See the scene where Thor flies by holding on to the thrown hammer; the speaker loves that the hammer does the flying and Thor grabs on.
“I like how Thor flies with his... The hammer is what's flying.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:34:42 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about A.O. Scott: The hosts read A.O. Scott's Thor review opening about fleeing the IMAX into the velvet shadows of an art house, then Samuel L. Jackson's tweet telling fans he needs a new job.
“Avengers fans, New York Times critic AO Scott needs a new job.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:36:38 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Loki's illusion trick works in the Frost Giants fight; the hosts see the fake Loki, praise it, and grumble it plays worse in green screen CGI goopland.
“I think that type of effect doesn't play as well when they're in just like green screen CGI Goopland.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:39:38 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Thor smashes the Bifrost to cut off the Frost Giants; the hosts say the comics have a literal rainbow while the film makes a prismatic Tron light-cycle runway.
“they just try to make it like a weird, like, sort of glassy Tron light cycle runway that's a little prismatic”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:41:33 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Rio: Rio killed Pixar's Newt: the trailer showed the same last-of-the-species-must-mate premise, so Pixar cancelled the film it announced.
“the Rio trailer came out and they were like, fuck, that's the same premise and they're going to beat us by 3 years.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:53:22 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Thor: Watch the end-credits stinger: Selvig with Fury and the Tesseract, a scene Whedon wrote and directed; Branagh reportedly claimed not to have seen it.
“Right, because Bran was like, I haven't seen this scene.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Thor · 1:55:57 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)

Who's talking

Griffin Newman (host): A Masters of the Universe devotee who reaches for He-Man as the template for Thor, loves the hammer payoff, and is a sucker for Cat Dennings and Sif. Dislikes the desaturated palette and the cheap-looking Jotunheim. Has the clearest pop-culture and actor-career recall, with skits and personal anecdotes.
David Sims (host): The comics and film-history reader: knows Thor lore (Straczynski, Simonson), casting and development history, and Marvel's behind-the-scenes politics. Loves Hopkins at ease, Branagh as ham, the hammer-return sequence and the Patrick Doyle score. Dislikes chaos cinema and the Marvel pipeline's flat look.
Ben Hosley (guest): The producer in the room, a self-declared non-nerd who hated Thor on release and complains about color, Dutch angles, and the plot's spatial incoherence. Loves the Frost Giants, the hammer lab, and the Hawkeye fight scene. Collector of old Marvel cards and the X-Men cartoon.

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong

Kenneth Brown / Brana / Bran / Branaugh = Kenneth Branagh
Stellen Scarsguard / Starsgard / Sars guard = Stellan Skarsgard
Alexander Starsgard = Alexander Skarsgard
Cat Dennings = Kat Dennings
Ike Pearlmutter = Ike Perlmutter
J. Michael Stratinsky = J. Michael Straczynski
Mark Miller = Mark Millar
Hogan = Hogun
Heimdog / Heimdahl = Heimdall
Volstag / Wol stag = Volstagg
Fandrel = Fandral
Tyler Maine = Tyler Mane
Gueldor = Gwildor
Carl Craig = Clark Gregg
Tommy Hendelson = Tom Hiddleston
Mjolner / Mulner = Mjolnir
Zach Raff = Zach Braff
Grindelwelch = Grindelwald
Jotenheim / Dodenheim = Jotunheim
Zach Stenz = Zack Stentz
Right chat = Blank Check; Blank Shack = Blank Check

Blank Check — Patreon: Thor

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

Films that came up

subject (1)

passing (43)

compared (10)

anecdote (9)

dismissed (3)

Claims (53)

Fun items (22)

Who's talking

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong