Director Alan Taylor talks THOR: THE DARK WORLD

As a debut film, 2011’s Thor did a pretty decent job setting up the mythos of the Thunder God, Asgard and his supporting crew. That being said, it was a humble film, keeping the action more contained and tighter after the raucous opening battles.

The sequel drops soon, and it’s promising a trip across the nine realms that is far larger in scope compared to that first movie. A direction that its director Alan Taylor says that Marvel was more than happy to let him take as he went for a more magical route.

“I love doing period stuff, and I was immersed in Game Of Thrones,” Taylor said to SFX.

I was lucky that Marvel seemed to have an appetite for that this time. They’d consciously steered away from that kind of thing in the first one. Because they wanted to make sure they were distinguishing themselves from Lord Of The Rings. They didn’t want to be mistaken for that. But by the time I came along it seemed like they were ready to embrace a slightly more historical attitude towards it.

So what’s the one thing that the sequel will be doing differently with Thor? Why, he’ll be riding a horse for starters:

In my mind this is an ancient, ancient culture that highly reveres the horse and the culture of the horse. We still use fountain pens because we think they’re really cool – it’s not like we all use laser pens. So I think there’s a living culture that keeps these things. To me the defining thing was that Thor is a superhero amongst many superheroes, but the thing that makes him different is the thing that should be featured in the movie. And that is that he’s also a warrior prince from ancient culture.

Thor: The Dark World will be bringing down the hammer November 8, and stars hris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston and Anthony Hopkins.

Last Updated: September 17, 2013