While Thor and Jane have a touching love story, many MCU fans felt there was something missing between them – the relationship itself.
While the romance between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe certainly has its fans, they have never been a fan-favorite couple in the same way as Tony and Pepper, or Spider-Man and MJ. This seems a little odd, given the chemistry of the actors, the interesting arcs of the two characters, and the heavy emphasis the Thor movies put on their love story. However, fans and critics alike have always considered the Thor/Jane romance the weakest part of the Thor movies, far less compelling than the Asgardian family drama. The reasoning for this is simple: The Thor films never actually showed viewers Thor and Jane as a couple.
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Thor and Jane meet in the first Thor movie and form a quick friendship over a few days. Thor, having been stripped of his power and abandoned on Earth, undergoes his character journey, partly through bonding with humans, and he and Jane share a kiss before he leaves. He has to sacrifice his bridge to Earth and cannot return to Jane until after the first Avengers movie, but in Thor: The Dark World, it is revealed that Thor has not contacted or met with Jane in the meantime. They reunite and finally get together at the end of Dark World, but Jane does not appear again until Thor: Love and Thunder; Thor: Ragnorak reveals they broke up off-screen. Aside from a flashback montage in Love and Thunder, the fandom never got to see Thor and Jane as a couple.
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Thor and Jane’s Limited Meetings Left Their Romance Underdeveloped
This seems to be the issue fans have with the Thor/Jane love story on film. While fans were perfectly willing to see them as a couple, the fact is they never really do. In the first film, a brief encounter of a few days that ends in a kiss is all the story really provides. The giant gap in their meeting and relationship between movies one and two leaves the question open of why Thor did not try and contact Jane after Avengers, or why Loki did not attempt to pay off his threat to Thor in that film to attack her — why go after Selvig rather than Jane, for instance? — leaving fans wondering why Thor chose not to seek the woman he supposedly loves.
The second and fourth films both follow Thor and Jane essentially trying to reconcile after a kind of “breakup.” In Thor: The Dark World, she is angry with him for failing to call or contact her in the meantime, and as this is only their second time meeting, there isn’t much time to develop their dynamic outside of awkward “getting to know you” stress. They break up before Love and Thunder and then spend most of that film awkwardly dancing around their breakup. As a result, audiences never really got to know Thor and Jane as a developed couple at all.
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How Thor and Jane’s Lack of Time Together Took Away From Their Relationship
This lack of on-screen interaction seems to be the main reason why fans have never really been as excited about this particular romance as they were about the rest. Compared to Thor’s connection with his family and the Asgardian drama, the earthbound romance naturally seems far less important or dramatic and coupled with Thor and Jane taking two (three counting Avengers) films to become a couple and never appearing together as such meant fans never got to connect with them on that level. The addition of several romantic clichés fans found frustrating that artificially stretched out their will-they-won’t-they plot didn’t help the pre-existing issue of a lack of on-screen development.
Thor and Jane’s romance is very central to the Thor movies, being a key emotional plot point in three out of the four so far. However, to many a fan, the fact that Thor and Jane simply don’t click in the way that other MCU romances do means that the amount of attention placed on their love was simply out of place. Sadly, the MCU’s inability to fully realize the Thor and Jane love story meant that many fans couldn’t connect to it. Perhaps the lesson learned is that for most MCU fans, it is truly seeing a couple together and in love, rather than waiting to be together, that provides the spark.
