In our early drafts of Thor, Balder was one of the gang (Ken liked the idea of there being 7 warriors on the expedition) and there was a 15 page section in the first act that took place in Niflheim, featured Karnilla prominently and gave Balder stuff to do.

“ After the fight with Hulk, Thor is nursed back to health by four women. Two of them are played by Waititi and Hemsworth’s wives, Chelsea Winstanley and Elsa Pataky.”

“The director is currently being sued for plagiarism by the son of playwright Paul Zindel, whose 1969 play Let Me Hear You Whisper bears a striking resemblance to del Toro’s film.”

Read some of his solo work. Lion’s Blood is one of the best alt-histories ever.

Or they could have just cast another gaunt, high-cheekboned British actor and trusted the audience to know that roles are sometimes recast.

If you think that’s what that scene was about, you didn’t understand it.

Branagh’s chronology is correct. Thor was developed alongside Iron Man 2 and was originally set to come out in 2010 along with IM2. It was fairly late in the process that Marvel Studios re-arranged their schedule & put Thor into 2011 with the first Captain America.

Ten years from now, will China be even richer and more powerful than it is today, or....will all of these "China ascendant" future scenarios look as silly and dated as all the "Japan takes over the world" books and movies from the 1980s?

I was never clear on why Christopher Hitchens was out to get poor Speed, but other than that, great movie.

The Hoover the Seal of cetaceans?

Good list, though I'd argue for the inclusion of Agent Dana Scully from the X-Files. Sure, in some ways she's a riff on Clarice Starling, just like Fox Mulder is a variation on Dale Cooper, but the character both made a huge impression at the time and was one of the first female genre TV leads who was defined by her…

The real story of Vlad of Wallachia is so damned epic and interesting (taken as a royal hostage to be raised by the Ottomans, effectively fighting back against the might of the Ottoman Empire by being more ruthless and scary than they were, fighting against his own brother, etc.) that it doesn't even need supernatural…