The emotional moments of the latest 'Thor' film feel undercut by a clear lack of stakes.

Editor's Note: The following article contains Thor: Love and Thunder spoilers. The next chapter of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor: Love and Thunder has finally hit the big screen, bringing with it favorable reviews and an opening weekend return expected to be around 300 million dollars. The news of its success should be a surprise to nobody at this point given Marvel just keeps putting out hit after hit, and this one should be no exception, especially with acclaimed writer/director/star Taika Waititi once again at the helm of the franchise after reinventing it with Thor: Ragnarok.

That success is certainly earned, as Thor: Love and Thunder is an absolute blast, being just as good if not a little bit better than Thor: Ragnarok. The humor is just the kind of hilarity you would expect from a Taika Waititi film, Christian Bale's Gorr is an incredible villain in addition to possibly being the scariest, and there are a surprisingly large number of impactful dramatic moments that add a lot to both the main plot and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as a protagonist. However, as good as some of these moments are, there is a pretty significant issue that the latest MCU project suffers from. Something that has plagued several other films in this incredibly popular series.

Fake-out deaths. You've seen them. You know them. You hate them. These moments where major characters look as if they're about to meet their end before the film pulls the rug out from under you and reveals that they're fine. Now, this concept in it of itself isn't necessarily bad if they're properly executed and don't appear too much. So how many characters have fake-out deaths in Love and Thunder? Three? Four? Try five. Five characters look like they're about to die and don't within in a two-hour movie. That's a fake-out death on average every twenty minutes!

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The most unfortunate part of these fake-outs is that we've seen what an impactful death can do in the MCU. Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame, Aunt May in Spider-Man: No Way Home. These were all huge moments that challenged the characters and pushed the plot into new directions. That's not to say you can't bamboozle people with a character return occasionally. Moon Knight's whole shtick is dying and coming back to life and Loki has died so many times to the point where it's become a running gag. However, when this happens too frequently, it becomes so incredibly difficult to care about these characters and their conflict.

If you're gonna use this technique, use it sparingly. However, if you're thinking about reviving characters who already had their story end perfectly, then we're just going to go ahead and quote Korg: "Piss of ghost".

So get ready for some big spoilers, as we're going to examine every time Marvel copped out of a big death in Thor: Love and Thunder, evaluate if the fake-out works, and discuss why this concept should probably go the way of Thanos and fade away into dust.

Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) sat out Ragnarok and makes a big return in Love and Thunder, and big "big" we mean she shows up in the very beginning, almost dies, and then disappears until the end of the movie.

It's nice to see another familiar face return after taking a hiatus for the third film, but most were expecting Sif to get killed off early since she didn't appear in any marketing material. Yet, she doesn't. Thor finds Sif in the aftermath of a battle with Gorr, where she lays with one arm cut off and ready to enter Valhalla. She suddenly gets a quick will to live when Thor reminds her she won't enter Valhalla if she doesn't die in combat, so he takes her back to New Asgard where she is able to heal.

It's a funny little moment to start the film off and is a rare case of a character who most thought would die actually living so...yeah don't really have any complaints on this fake-out. This one's fine.

Love and Thunder finally introduces the Greek pantheon to the MCU with Zeus (Russell Crowe), the god of all gods.

Even though he was apparently Thor's idol, our heroes quickly learn that Zeus is not the altruistic type and instead is a selfish, crass, and perverted mess of a higher being. Thor and his friends need Zeus's lightning bolt to defeat Gorr, but when the Greek god refuses, a scuffle breaks out and the lightning bolt goes right through Zeus's chest, seemingly killing him. Before anyone could argue that this was done to save the audience from Russell Crowe's Greek accent, that quickly got debunked when Zeus returned in the mid-credits scene.

Yes, Zeus is a god and thus presumably is much harder to kill than the average person. Still, if not even his own signature and all-powerful weapon could kill him, then why even introduce the lightning bolt to the plot? Plus avoiding killing Zeus altogether and just having Team Thor escape Omnipotence city would have serviced the story just as well, as his death didn't change anything about the film's central plot (we'll go more into this in Korg's section). All it really creates is a mid-credits twist that didn't feel earned or needed. With all that being said though, we cannot wait to see more of Ted Lasso's Roy Kent himself, Brett Goldstein, as the mighty Hercules.

Zeus wasn't the only faux-casualty at the fight in Omnipotence City, as the comic-relief machine that is Korg (Taika Waititi) also died but didn't.

Zeus hurled his lightning bolt straight at Korg, causing the lovable kronan to crumble right before Thor's very eyes. That's what prompts Thor to "kill" Zeus, but when he hears a voice coming out of the rubble, we see that Korg is still alive and kicking. Well, maybe not kicking since he's now a disembodied head, but you get the idea.

Again, the fake-out death for Korg feels completely unnecessary. Does it add anything to the story? Nope. Does it help Korg grow as a character? No. Does the film even use Korg now being just a head for any comedic purposes? Not even. Not only does fake-killing Korg feel wholly unnecessary, but him being a head doesn't add anything in terms of either plot or story. If Korg had to grapple with being a talking head for the rest of his days, that could be interesting, but the movie doesn't do that either since Korg regrows his body by the end of the film, making this whole journey for Korg feel like kind of a waste. At least we did get a moment to meet Korg's new boyfriend, Dwayne the Rock, but it could have done without the whole head thing.

If Korg wasn't given much of an interesting arc in Love and Thunder, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) is an even more severe case of this.

Despite becoming the King of New Asgard, Valkyrie still takes a more supporting role in Love and Thunder, helping Thor retrieve Zeus's lightning bolt and track down Gorr. Eventually they face the God Butcher and his minions, but oh no! Valkyrie had been stabbed in the abdomen! Will she make it out okay? Spoiler alert: Yes. Yes she does.

What makes this bait and switch death really not work is how predictable it is at this point. Not only has there already been two fake-outs before this (keep in mind we don't know Zeus survived yet), but Valkyrie arc in the grander plan of the MCU is only getting started. They establish pretty early on that she aspires to have a relationship but is afraid to start one after the woman she loved died right in front of her. So when she gets stabbed, this is either going to be the most unsatisfying conclusion for a character ever in a Marvel film or the movie is pulling our leg. As expected, it was the latter.

Now it's time to shake things up a bit. Instead of talking about a fake-out death that was passable, unnecessary, pointless, or predictable, this next one is a death/return that actually works really well.

The daughter of Gorr, who is revealed to be named Love (ironically played by Chris Hemsworth's real-life daughter, India Rose Hemsworth) by the film's end, is the main catalyst for Gorr's entire motivation in exterminating all gods in the galaxy. She died in the harsh conditions of Gorr's home planet, despite the many prayers that Gorr offered up to his deity. Eventually, after finding the inter-dimensional being known as Eternity, Gorr is mere moments away from fulfilling his wish to rid the galaxy of gods. Just before he makes that wish, Thor makes the now-dying Gorr realize that he can use his wish to bring back his daughter. Gorr does, and with his dying words, asks Thor to care for his daughter and give her the life she was robbed of.

What makes the resurrection of Love work is how it fulfills the needs of both Gorr and Thor. Gorr may have died (he's one of the few major characters who actually does in this movie), but he died feeling at peace by giving his daughter a second chance and knowing that she'll be safe with Thor. Thor on the other hand has clearly wanted a family since the very beginning, and while caring for the child of a mass murderer may not have been what he expected, he's finally found a purpose beyond being a superhero. Not only does this feel like a return that is both surprising and warranted, it shows the impact that a single death can have on a person and the people around them.

Love proves that character resurrections aren't always a bad thing, but hopefully, it doesn't start a pattern. The last thing we need is Jane somehow returning to the land of the living after her character already had a perfect and satisfying conclusion.

We've already discussed the five major bait and switch deaths in Love and Thunder, but unfortunately, it looks like Marvel is still hell-bent on bringing back characters who maybe should have stayed dead.

The death of Gamora (Zoe Saldana) in Avengers: Infinity War was one of the standout shocking moments in a film jam-packed with them. Her demise served as both a major turning point for both the Guardians of the Galaxy and for her adoptive father Thanos, and it feels like one that was necessary to continue the film's plot. Yet, in Avengers: Endgame, a movie all about undoing the past, Marvel just couldn't resist bringing back the character. Now this Gamora from another timeline is out there somewhere, even after somehow not getting snapped away from Iron Man's use of the Infinity Stones, and we can see at the very end of the film that her flame from another life, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), is trying to find her.

So we'll probably see Gamora again in either Guardians fo the Galaxy Vol. 3 or the upcoming holiday special, but the story around her return feels earned and necessary. Guardians director James Gunn has even stated multiple times that a character like Yondu should stay dead because a return would cheapen what made that character's death so impactful. Hopefully Gunn still has that philosophy in mind and constructs a story that gives the beloved team a proper conclusion, but he hasn't steered the team wrong yet so they're probably in good hands.

Aidan Kelley is a resource writer for Collider, as well as an independent filmmaker and lover of all things cinema.

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