2013's Thor: The Dark World is a controversial movie among Marvel fans. While some adore it for the relationship between Thor and his brother Loki, others believe its flaws drag the film into the lower echelon of superhero fare. And, according to London commuters, there is no flaw more glaring, or more insulting, than the inaccuracy of a joke in the film's final fight sequence.
The battle features rapidly opening and closing portals, allowing Thor and a strangely-colored bad guy to knock each other senseless across many different locations—even different planets. A funny moment comes, however, when a portal drops Thor in London's Charring Cross station and closes, leaving him stranded away from the fight. A subway car pulls up and Thor asks, in the orotund voice of a god, how one might get to Greenwich.
The answer he gets is crucial:
Take this train three stops.
Don't believe me?! See for yourself:
THIS. IS. WRONG.
As we all know very well, there is no way anyone can get from Charring Cross to Greenwich in three stops. It's simply impossible. I mean, just look at the map!
Even a non-Londoner can tell the route to Greenwich is more complicated than Thor's guide led on.
Any way you slice it, one would have to take three trains OR two trains with a bit of a walk. Google maps actually suggests one should take a bus instead of the train to get there, and advises that the trip would take about 24 minutes around rush hour. And while that's not too bad, all things considered, Uber or Lyft might also be alternatives Thor would have considered in reality.
Would a scene featuring Thor working out travel times and receiving complicated directions have been as funny or to-the-point? No. BUT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT.
"Thor: The Dark World" was the last Marvel film to feature Natalie Portman as Jane, Thor's then-love interest.
When asked whether it would be her last Thor film, Portman told The Wall Street Journal:
As far as I know, I'm done. I mean, I don't know if maybe one day they'll ask for an Avengers 7 or whatever, I have no idea. But as far as I know, I'm done, but it was a great thing to be a part of.
If one reads between the lines, however, it's pretty clear Portman had some major issues with the train scene, which probably caused her to bow out of future films.
