The mighty battleaxe Stormbreaker is a weapon truly meant for a king, but a hiccup in its original forging inadvertently leads to a major plot point in Thor: Love and Thunder.
During the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Thor was left beaten by Thanos and without his signature weapon, the hammer Mjolnir. Thor, Rocket and an adolescent Groot journeyed to Nidavellir to replace it with a weapon forged by the last remaining dwarf, Eitri. After a dangerous forging process, the majority of it was complete but left without a handle. In a moment of selflessness, Groot sprang into action and created a handle using his own arm. While it did save Thor's life and complete the weapon, Groot's sacrifice left a strong influence on Stormbreaker's personality, as disclosed by Thor 4's director Taika Waititi at a press conference attended by CBR.
"I don't know if this is the way anyone else thought about it, but you gotta remember Stormbreaker's made of Groot's arm," Waititi said. "Well, the handle is. So Groot was like a teenager when he did that, so we felt like Stormbreaker... had only just been born about five or six years ago. So it had to feel a little bit like an adolescent, and it was like it was going through changes. It was having mood swings."
It would seem that some of Groot's youthful angst might have left a lasting impression on the God of Thunder's all-powerful weapon. This attitude will be very present in the upcoming film as Thor wrestles not only with his feelings for Jane Foster but for her hammer, the newly repaired Mjolnir. One clip even showed Thor attempting to reclaim Mjolnir only to have Stormbreaker make its way into his hand instead.
At the same press event, Thor actor Chris Hemsworth commented on the axe's behavior leading to the MCU's weirdest love triangle between Thor and his weapons: "All of a sudden, the weapon that he held so dear and so on for so many years now belongs to someone else, and then he has Stormbreaker, who starts to sense a little jealously there." Despite the relationship between Odinson and his battle implements being such a major plot point in the film, Hemsworth didn't recall it being in the script, but rather as something fun that developed throughout filming.
Thor: Love and Thunder debuts in theaters on July 8. Directed by Taika Waititi, it stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster/The Mighty Thor, Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher and Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie.
Source: CBR