Mothersbaugh’s first demo ideas for the film were originally very strongly electronic based – a frequent reference point was Jean-Michel Jarre – which impressed Waititi immediately they were both aware of the critical Youtube video which, in Mothersbaugh’s own words, “took a shit all over the Marvel scores,” and wanted to do something bold and different. Waititi’s personal musical taste is very much rooted in 1980s synth rock, as is clear from the scores for his previous films, and considering that Mothersbaugh himself was a pioneer of that sound through his band Devo, it’s easy to see why Waititi turned to him. The whole thing has a strong 1980s vibe to it, right down to the font used in the credits, and Waititi said that, if their lead singer Freddie Mercury had still been alive, he would have wanted Queen to score the film. Mark Mothersbaugh is not a composer one would expect to score a film like this, but director Waititi specifically sought him out for this project. From the clever one-liners to the crowd-pleasing cameos to the subversion of character expectations, everything about Thor Ragnarok feels fun and charming, and this includes the score by composer Mark Mothersbaugh. While delivering a number of outstanding action sequences and a sense of scope and visual grandeur, the film is also very funny – intentionally so – making the whole thing a breath of fresh air. As a result, the film is much different from the majority of the other Marvel films, with the exception of the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and Ant-Man. Waititi blends action and emotional pathos with a great deal of broad, off-the-wall humor, all of which he brought to Thor Ragnarok. Waititi, for those who don’t know, is best known for his domestic films Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, and The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, none of which were especially successful in the United States, but which have enormously devoted cult fans. The film co-stars Tom Hiddlestone, Idris Elba, Tessa Thompson, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Hopkins, and is directed by New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi. Meanwhile, the city of Asgard has been taken over by Hela the Goddess of Death (Cate Blanchett), Thor’s long-exiled sister, whose merciless rule is threatening to bring about the prophesized ‘ragnarok’ – the destruction of Asgard and the death of the Gods. Chris Hemsworth returns to the title role, and in this installment finds himself having to escape from the clutches of the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), the ruler of the planet Sakaar, who has enslaved Thor, forcing him to compete in a series of gladiatorial games. He stayed busy with Hollywood even after Devo’s reactivation in 1996, creating indelibly quirky scores for works such as the films of Wes Anderson, the kids’ show Rugrats and The Lego Movie, too.Thor Ragnarok is, quite astonishingly, the seventeenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the fifth in Marvel’s Phase 3 series, and the third film focusing on the character Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. Before and after the band’s original breakup in 1991, Mothersbaugh’s creative activities expanded to include visual art and multimedia projects along with the stream of endearingly oddball scores that began with his giddy music for Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Thanks to their songs’ dark wit and wild energy (as well as their early embrace of music videos), Devo became icons of the New Wave era. It all springs from the comics and B movies that filled his ‘50s childhood in Ohio and the more radical influences he absorbed while studying art at Kent State University, where he formed Devo with Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis in 1973. During Mark Mothersbaugh’s long tenure as the frontman for Devo and his career as a composer for films, TV shows and videogames, his inventiveness has been as reliable as his love of weirdness.
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