Natalie Portman with co-star Chris Hemsworth

Natalie Portman with co-star Chris Hemsworth

If you’ve seen Thor: The Dark World then no doubt you would have seen the mid credits scene introducing the ‘Collector’, but did you stay until the end to see the normal Marvel after-the-credits-scene?

We should say at this point that there are some obvious spoilers ahead, so be warned:

Thor: The Dark World actually contains two different post credits scenes. The first post credits scene occurs about midway through the credits. In the mid-credits scene, Lady Sif and Volstagg bring “The Aether” to The Collector, who is played by Benicio Del Toro. When The Collector asks him why they are giving him “The Aether,” Lady Sif and Volstagg respond that they already have the Tesseract in Odin’s vault on Asgard, and it would be unsafe to keep two Infinity Stones in one place. After Lady Sif and Volstagg leave, The Collector says, “One down, five to go.”

Of course, The Collector is set to appear in Guardians of the Galaxy, so this scene serves to link Thor: The Dark World with Guardians of the Galaxy. Speculation suggests that Marvel could be setting up a showdown between Thanos and both the Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers in Avengers 3.

The second Thor: The Dark World post credits scene actually takes place after the credits have completely run. In the final scene, Jane Foster is back on Earth and depressed that Thor isn’t with her. Then, Thor shows up on her doorstep, and the two embrace in a passionate kiss. Also, a beast from the Jotunheim made it to Earth during the final battle in the film. In a little bit of comic relief, the beast from the Jotunheim is shown chasing a flock of birds across an empty lot. Director Alan Taylor provided some insight on why the final Thor and Jane kiss scene was shown after the credits and not just tacked onto the end of the movie.

“It’s funny. We agonized for a long time,” said Taylor. “We thought the movie was about whether they got together or not. I think it came down shockingly late in the process that it felt sort of implicit that they were going to be together. So I think that point the reveal of… this is also a spoiler…”

Taylor continued, “Who you have on the throne… was such a jarring thing that you couldn’t follow anything else. So just that process, the finishing of Jane and Thor, wound up being a feel-good moment, but not a big story moment. The feeling was that instead of explaining why they were together, we just left them be together and then the final, final shot was one of my favorites. It was very late in the game, too.”

Marvel continues its linking of movies in its attempt to build a much bigger Marvel universe.

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