Thor: Love and Thunder's trailer gives fans quite the show in its stinger. Not only does it feature lots of amazing footage and finally reveal Christian Bale's Gorr look, but it also shows the mighty Thor in all his physical glory -- with and without his clothes. But while this NSFW moment of Chris Hemsworth's backside is censored in the trailer, will it be in theaters?
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has created quite the standard for modern movie making, appealing to audiences all over the world with compelling stories and layered characters pushing the envelope in quite a few themes, such as gender and diversity. Now, with the recent Thor: Love and Thunder trailer, it seems set to break new ground by showing nudity for the first time.
In the scene in question, Thor is chained and disguised before Zeus, played by Russell Crowe and a number of women who accompany the Olympus god. "Let's see who you are, and take off your disguise," says Zeus, and he flips his hand forward, making Thor's robes fly away. Thor stands naked before them and a whole audience in what appears to be some sort of trial room. "You flipped too hard, damn it!" Thor protests with a bare backside. All the women next to Zeus faint at the sight. Jane leans over to Valkyrie and says, "Should we help him?" to which she replies, "Yeah, eventually," while offering Jane a grape.
However, as might be expected, the scene is censored in the trailer. Audiences cannot see more of Hemsworth's backside besides a blurred area. With the clip censoring the actor's backside, it leaves it up in the air whether the movie will show such nudity or not -- or even cut it out entirely as a joke and not reveal anything at all. Taika Waititi is good at pushing the envelope, and it's fair to point out that in Thor: Ragnarok, audiences were presented with the Hulk's behind. But such notions of nudity are generally accepted as funny moments when they feature CGI characters, which was Ragnarok's case.
Filmmakers now have three options: they can either cut the wide shot that reveals the whole body, therefore working only with medium shots; use the same clip as the one in the trailer and keep the blurred image, or show it uncensored. It seems to be too much of a funny moment to be cut out entirely. But if they indeed decide to show it, this will be the first real use of nudity in the MCU.
With or without pixels, Thor: Love and Thunder hits theaters on July 8.