Taika Waititi Admits Korg Doesn’t Always Look Real in ‘Thor’

Like pretty much every other Marvel movie, Thor: Love And Thunder makes heavy use of computer-generated imagery. But not all of it was up to director Taika Waititi’s standards.

In a recent video interview with Vanity Fair with Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson, the two discuss break down one of the scenes from Love and Thunder a shot at a time. One shot they took issue with in particular heavily features Korg, the alien creature played by Waititi. Pausing the scene to comment, Waititi says “Wait, does this look real?” to which Thompson responds: “In that particular shot, no actually.” They both laugh, and then Waititi points to Chris Hemsworth’s absurd physique as Thor and quips “But does he look real?” Fair point.

They go on to dissect the scene further, and we see a shot where Natalie Portman and Thompson are reacting to Thor and Korg walking away. In the shot, Thompson jumps as if she’s startled. That’s because the reaction shot was originally intended as her reaction to a moment that’s not longer in the film — leaving it as just a strange little inexplicable moment.

While some find Waititi’s reaction to the editing in his own film charming, others aren’t too happy with his reaction. One former effects artist who worked for Marvel called them “a horrible client” for effects work.

The fact that so much of this movie was filmed in Australia during the height of their pandemic restrictions means that it contains perhaps more CGI than a lot of Marvel films … scheduling, budget, and the difficulty of making a massive blockbuster during Covid could all play a role in these issues.

You can watch Waititi’s full scene breakdown with Tessa Thompson below: