Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi has revealed that major changes were made to the design of Gorr the God Butcher from his look in the Marvel comics, as the character has a striking resemblance to Harry Potter villain, Lord Voldemort.
Christian Bale will play the primary antagonist in the fourth Thor film, and is barely recognisable with his bald head, yellow eyes and grey and scarred skin.
In the comics, though, Gorr has a serpent-like lack of nose, much like Voldemort, who was played by Ralph Fiennes in the Harry Potter franchise.
Waititi says it was important that a re-design was made so that audiences wouldn't naturally make the comparison.
"His face in the comics, unfortunately, does kind of resemble Voldemort," the director told IGN.
"So, I was like, 'People are just automatically going to make that connection.' So we decided to depart from that design a bit more and sort of keep elements of the tone, and the fact that he had the sword. Really, it was about his story. That was the most important thing for us."
Taika Waititi wanted to avoid people comparing #Gorr to Voldemort, so they decided to change Gorr's design in the movie. #ThorLoveAndThunder pic.twitter.com/sepAnGyiww— IGN (@IGN) June 29, 2022
Gorr the Butcher backstory
Chris Hemsworth and director Waititi have provided more details on the villain, and it seems all is not as it seems from the trailer as it seems Gorr might actually be a sympathetic character.
"Gorr’s backstory involves being wronged by the gods, and a lot of his motivation is getting revenge for these wrongdoings," Waititi told D23 Magazine.
"We really wanted to explore this idea of religion, belief, and what it means to put your faith in a higher power. And because Thor is essentially a god, what does it mean for him to represent these gods."
Hemsworth echoed the statement of his director, and even revealed that there are factors within Gorr's story that could actually inspire understanding or sympathy.
"Gorr is not a straightforward villain," Thor himself explained.
"There’s a real complexity to him. It’s not black and white, what he’s doing. He has a truthful motivation, which I think makes for the most interesting kind of villain. You might not agree with how he’s going about it, but you understand why he’s been tipped over the edge and why he’s gone down this path.
"It’s a really challenging one for Thor, because the set of questions Gorr’s posing do hold some truth – but he can’t let Gorr destroy the universe in the process. That, I think, makes this a greater dynamic and not as predictable as the straightforward ‘Good Guy vs. Bad Guy’ scenario we’ve seen before."
Watch the trailer below:
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