Thor's winged helmet is as much of the comic book version's gear as his mighty hammer is. What is the movie canon reason as to why the movie Thor forgoes wearing his trademark hat in battle?
asked Dec 17, 2013 at 20:10
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29Because Chris Hemsworth's look is one of the selling point of the movie ?– MaxCommented Dec 17, 2013 at 20:23
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3@Max If you could find a quote from the director or a screenplay writer making that general statement, you could post it as the answer.– Major StackingsCommented Dec 17, 2013 at 20:45
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Tom Hiddleston discussed a similar thing in the Empire podcast he was on. The helmets cover a lot of their face, and requires intense acting on their part to be seen. That may also be a factor, but obviously that’s an out-of-universe reason.– alexwlchanCommented Dec 17, 2013 at 22:44
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1@MajorStackings "He's dreamy" - Two female characters from Agents of SHIELD– IzkataCommented Dec 18, 2013 at 0:13
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2Also: THORÉAL - Because Hemsworth It.– IzkataCommented Dec 18, 2013 at 0:15
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5 Answers
Because the helmet prop was not made properly (IMO) and kept on falling over and breaking. From an interview with IGN; transcribed by Comic Book Therapy:
Secretly I think I was the biggest advocate for not having the helmet. Secretly between me and whoever is watching [laughs]. It’s just incredibly uncomfortable. The amount of times it would fall off and the bridge would be smashing me in the nose, or the wings of the helmet in one of the fight scenes was getting clipped off… it was something we had to, I think [pushes aside gesture] for the moment anyway.
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2Certainly a good explanation! That said, I wonder how much it was intended to be used in any case - the Marve Filmverse takes much of its visual style from the Ultimate Universe, where Thor does not routinely wear a helmet. The Filmverse, however, does use the traditional version's hammer.– JeffCommented Dec 17, 2013 at 21:23
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It sounds like, however much they were going to use the helmet, Hemsworth's quote makes it clear they used it less than they'd planned to. But given that most of the first Thor movie takes place when he is de-powered, they might have wanted him to wear it the whole time during the opening and closing, when he had his powers. Commented Apr 13, 2015 at 16:45
There are many reasons, the prop being one and emoting another.
Perhaps the important thing is to ask why do superheroes ALWAYS take their masks off these days? Because studios are paying actors crazy money, and they want those actors faces onscreen as much as possible so they can sell the movie and the actors want their face onscreen as much as possible too lest they be forgotten. How much of any movie with Iron Man are we seeing Stark? Most of it... Cap is without his mask 70% of the time, even Spiderman is constantly "revealing his secret identity" by taking it off...
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When we see Tony in-suit, he almost always has his mask down. The few times it is up are at the beginning of battles as he suits up. Captain America doesn't have a secret identity, so there's no reason for him to have a mask on. Tobey Maguire-Spider-Man took his mask off far too frequently, but Andrew Garfield-Spider-Man has rectified that issue. Commented May 29, 2014 at 1:48
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Usually the reason for this is that actors want to be able to convey emotion easily. It's one of the primary reasons we didn't see a lot of really weird aliens in the Star Trek series as well.
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1One of the primary reasons? Hmm, no. Primary reason was budget, pure and simple.– user16696Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 15:31
its nothing to with the fact that he's "dreamy", as true as that may be. The truth is that every time he [Hemsworth] had to do a fight scene, the helmet would fall off and they would have to start again. So ultimately they thought that it would be easier to fight without the helmet, despite the fact that he looked badass with his helmet.
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7You're right, but you've basically just duplicated Max's answer without offering any additional insight. Commented May 22, 2014 at 5:00
As dissapointed as I have been not seen one of my favs childhood heroes not match his comic book version on the silverscreen (to me the original Thor needed to be coveyed regardless of alternate versions from a more recent universe), the truth of the fact seems to portray a helmet as a difficult prop to be handled specially due to the intense battle scenes. A helmet would have had to be made of thin plastic, and somehow be stuck to Hemsworth's head, or wear a strap that's made dissapear with CGi technology. Another alternative could have been to use some light soft material that would have been molded to the actor's head an then shoot all battle scenes to then break it or cut it up. Difficult task. Still there would have been no match to see Thor with his helmet on at least in the battle sequences.
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While this is obviously a good reason, the question asks for the reason within the story. Welcome to the SF&F Stack Exchange, by the way.– SQBCommented Jan 1, 2015 at 20:45