The Thor: Love and Thunder teaser is out and also promo images, so spoilers,
Because in them we have dadada Jane Foster Thor-ing it up,
and there’s a great costume image in the Empire article sp thank you to John for sending that,
and proving that I do occasionally read my emails
ANYWAY I’m liking the outfit.
In case we haven’t met, I’m Jill Bearup and here’s my bias: I’m not a HEMA person,
I'm a drama person.
I’m an Actor Combatant which means I have a fair amount of practice pretending to use weapons
to fight people on stage, and I talk a fair bit about how fights can be used to enhance a story,
but if historical accuracy is what you're looking for...mmm... I'm patchy at best.
So if you wonder why I grade costume armour
the way I do when I make my tier lists, let’s talk about Jane Foster.
First question: does it look bad to the casual observer? As in, is the regular
movie-going audience going to look at this and think...honey are you okay?
But MCU costuming is quite standardised, so that doesn’t generally happen.
Now that standard does include a lot of leather-esque stuff with metal accents,
the colours are generally more muted than you would see in a comic,
but there's generally good torso coverage, and quite a lot of helmets as well, so it's
unlikely you're going to look at an MCU costume and think that it sticks out like a sore thumb.
I recently made a 15 ish minute video on Queen Calanthe in The Witcher series and why her armour
was just off but I did acknowledge right up front that I was very pleased that they did
make an attempt to put her in armour. It wasn’t very well fitting armour and it
was a bit aesthetically mismatched with the other characters, but they didn't just stick
her in a battle bikini and call it a day, so credit where it's due. She even had a helmet.
And so when we do the glance test on Jane: looking good so far. there aren't any massive
cutouts say over her boobs, and while there are areas which are uncovered, the general impression
you get is one of protection, which...is pretty important when you want to call something armour.
Once we get past the casual glance test,
there are a few more questions I ask in no particular order and they are
Does it have a strong character aesthetic? Does it look comfortable for the actor and
stunt performer? Does it look cool?
And linked to the first one,
in the case of costumes for characters who are echoing an existing character,
like Jane Foster-Thor is, how does it fit in with previous iterations of the costume.
So let’s take that last one first because we have a great image of Thor-Thor and Jane-Thor side by
side here and when you look at them you can see that their costumes are...really similar. The
colour scheme is a bit different, but all the same visual elements are there: you've got the cape,
you've got the vambraces on otherwise bare arms, you've got these circular decorations,
you've got the fitted breastplate with metal details and I assume some segmentation,
maybe, you've got the belt and you've got the things that look a bit like pteruges.
And in the teaser trailer she also has a nice comics-esque half
face covering helmet, so that's cool too.
It's a little tricky to tell but she seems to have more of a collar and he
seems to have more shoulder protection But at first glance, the costumes look
visually similar, even accounting for the size disparity, which is pretty important.
On the topic of size disparity I would bet that Natalie Portman is
in the dreaded combat wedges, the bane of my existence in official costuming,
more on that in a link that is probably up in a corner somewhere
but since you can't see her feet in this image
and they've hidden her feet in the poster, I don't really mind so much
I mean given the vast height disparity between Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth
she may just be on a box.
One of the things which I expected but I still like to see is that everything
is proportionately sized: so we don't take the giant circular decorations on
Chris Hemsworth's costume and stick them onto Natalie Portman's costume,
because they would just look comically oversized when it comes to looking cool.
So onto the other questions:
It does indeed have a reasonable character aesthetic, being simultaneously over the
top dramatic with the cape and the bare arms and also quasi-futuristic with the material choice.
Jane Foster’s colours are a little more subdued
and a little less contrasting than Thor's bright red and blue and gold and silver,
but movie Thor is a very bombastic and colourful character, literally and metaphorically,
and so it makes sense that Jane Foster's Thor would be a little less brash.
Is it comfortable? No idea. There seems to be some kind of segmentation detail but that
might just be for show (if it is why) but they do have bare arms which if it’s hot is
going to be useful for temperature regulation because that does look like a lot of pleather.
On the subject of comfort, the two costumes I have got the most flak for reviewing are
Princess Leia's metal bikini, and the Dora Milaje from Black Panther
Princess Leia's metal bikini because people were like, it's not actually
armour [thud] so why did you review it the answer being, because I was asked to,
and the Dora Milaje either because people thought it would more properly fall into the
not actually armour category, fair enough it does look like textile,
or because they thought I was marking it artificially high for...points or something.
Thing is I am just incapable of pretending to like things I don't’ actually like. Which
either makes me the best person to go shopping with or the worst, I’ll let you be the judge.
The reason that I scored the Dora Milaje costume as armour and not as not actually
armour is because they’re from Wakanda, where every single thing has vibranium in it, and
so I assumed the royal guard would have vibranium woven into their cloth to make it more protective.
The reason I scored it in the top tier is not just cos it looks cool and has a strong
contextual aesthetic, though it does, the reason I scored it in the top tier
is because non-diegetically it's made from cloth and so it is going to be
comfy as heck. I have done fight performance exams in dresses, I have friends who have done
fight performance exams in their HEMA gear, I have also done fight choreography
in a Victorian-esque dress, which had a train, don't recommend, so basically anything that’s
not pleather and looks like you could take a nap in it between scenes top marks from me.
Sadly I would imagine that Jane’s outfit is not as comfortable as that.
A lot of MCU actors complain about how tight fitting and hot and sweaty and restrictive their
costumes are, which is really no wonder given how much the costume department seems to like
pleather, but bare arms help keep you cool on a practical and non-diegetic level while still
being in keeping with the overall character look.
And you can always call for your magic armour later.
Overall character look leads us nicely on to ‘does it look cool’ because...well, it’s a movie,
and especially if it’s not meant to be historical you just want something that looks awesome.
And this is going to be a personal taste thing but I’ve always quite liked Thor’s costuming,
so I look at Jane's outfit and think ‘yeah, I like it’ [thud]...I’d Wear It.
If you want to hear me rant about combat wedges and why they’re useful but I want
them kept out of official costuming, there will be a link next to my face somewhere.
Or If you want to see me rank a bunch of lady armour, including Lady Sif,
which I wasn’t quite so keen on...I can help you out there too.
And in the comments section of one of those videos you can find a link
to the secret playlist of past videos which have extended versions. You can
think of it like the Patreon and Channel member taster playlist.
If you want to see extended versions of future videos you can become a Patron
or become a channel member by clicking one of the buttons or the links below. See you soon!