This particular movie earned its reputation as the nadir of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with this dismal scene.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has garnered much of its popularity from select scenes that have resonated profoundly with the general public. Moments like Hulk decimating Loki in The Avengers and the final funeral scene in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 inspired such intense reactions from moviegoers that they took on entirely separate lives divorced from the movies they originated from. However, this franchise has also delivered its fair share of clunky sequences that just didn’t work and became well-known for all the wrong reasons.
The nadir of such sequences encompasses the very worst scenes in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Things like Thor’s dip into a magic cave in Avengers: Age of Ultron or the awkward cliffhanger ending of Eternals are the kind of balling pieces of filmmaking that left both nerds and non-comic book geeks alike united in confusion. However, if one is going to pick out the absolute worst scene in the Marvel Studios films, there’s really no contest. Thor: The Dark World is widely regarded as the biggest Marvel misfire for a reason, and it’s because of scenes like the introduction of Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) running around Stonehenge naked.
What Is This ‘Thor: The Dark World’ Scene Exactly?
As Thor: The Dark World begins, strange occurrences are happening across London that are proving downright baffling to normal humans like Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Darcy (Kat Dennings). They could really use an experienced scientific hand right now, like their pal and colleague Selvig from the first Thor. However, in between the two Thor movies, Selvig had a nasty run-in with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in The Avengers that left him a brainwashed minion of the God of Mischief. Though he was freed from these mental constraints during that film’s big climax, Selvig’s mind hasn’t been quite the same since this experience.
To illustrate this, Thor: The Dark World cuts to a news report showing Selvig running around Stonehenge completely naked while holding a gigantic scientific device. In Selvig’s brain, this inexplicable biuret of nudity makes total sense, but to the outside world, he looks like he’s lost his marbles. During this news footage, we see that authorities are trying to close in and contain Selvig. When the audience and characters see Selvig again, he’s being contained in a mental hospital where he won’t be able to romp around to famous landmarks naked anymore.
In concept, this sequence is meant to illustrate the deteriorating nature of Selvig’s mind in the wake of his The Avengers brainwashing, not to mention provide a sharp contrast to his authoritative father figure role in the original Thor. Plus, it’s one of the first big bursts of comedy in Thor: The Dark World and is meant to provide audiences the kind of big belly laughs that they had started to associate with Marvel Studios in the wake of Joss Whedon and Shane Black’s sharp writing in The Avengers and Iron Man 3, respectively. While one can see why this scene may have seemed like a good idea at one time, in execution, it’s a total mess.
Why This ‘Thor: The Dark World’ Scene Is So Bad
There are countless issues with this Thor: The Dark World scene, but let’s start with its lack of humor. Despite being such a broad stab at comedy, this sequence just isn’t very funny. Leaning exclusively on the concept of “naked older man = funny” with nothing else to add humor to the scene smacks of lazy writing. The Avengers and Iron Man 3 wrung laughs out of viewers with deftly written one-liners and subtle details in the physicality of performers like Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Kingsley. That dedication to comic intricacies is absent here, leaving audiences with a scene that desperately wants to be as funny as “that man was playing Galaga!” but never even comes close to reaching that mark. The gulf between this scene’s ambitions and its actual quality renders it so awkward to watch.
Meanwhile, wringing Selvig’s post-The Avengers plight for such broad comedy comes off as so icky. Viewers are so removed from his psychological experiences that we’re watching it via wide shots in a news broadcast. Viewing it from more intimate shots would allow us to sympathize with his fractured grasp on reality and really understand Selvig as a character. Instead, the conceptually serious mental issues he’s dealing with are exploited for cheap gags that come off in poor taste.
It’s not just the comedy of this scene that fails, though. Selvig’s naked romp is also poorly conceived from a narrative standpoint. This news broadcast is not initially watched by characters in the universe of Thor: The Dark World, it’s just shown to the audience. Much later on in the movie, Darcy and her intern end up watching a similar broadcast and realize where Selvig is. In terms of where it falls in the movie’s runtime, this sequence puts viewers way too far ahead of the movie’s lead characters. Everybody in the audience is just tapping their feet waiting for Jane and Darcy to figure out where Selvig is being held.
As a cherry on top of all these subpar qualities, this initial burst of nudity from Selvig isn’t contained to just one sequence. Not only does Darcy see portions of this footage again in another news report, but there are at least two more separate gags revolving around Selvig forgetting his pants or not wearing key pieces of clothing. Yes, the folks behind this Thor movie moment were so confident in this initial Selvig nudity joke that they turned it into a running gag. It’s a stunningly ill-advised decision that only constantly hammers home how unfunny the original joke was. This isn’t the rake gag on The Simpsons, pointing and laughing at Selvig’s naked body won’t end up being hysterical if you keep going back to that well.
There’s Really No Other Competition for the Worst MCU Scene
Across 32 movies and also a handful of TV shows, there are certainly some heavy-duty contenders for the worst Marvel Cinematic Universe scene. The ill-conceived “monster” monologue from Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in Avengers: Age of Ultron has to be up there and the scene in the original Iron Man where Tony Stark engages in a bro-y transphobic joke is incredibly cringe-worthy. There’s been a lot of media in this franchise and that’s offered up lots of glorious highs…and also some embarrassing lows.
However, there really isn’t a worse scene in the entire multimedia saga than Erik Selvig big reintroduction scene in Thor: The Dark World. Housed within the worst Marvel Studios movie overall, it’s a disastrous sequence any way you look at it, especially in terms of nailing the broad comedy it intended to deliver. Stellan Skarsgård and moviegoers alike deserved so much more than this abysmal sequence.
