Explained: Thor’s deleted cave scene from the Avengers: Age of Ultron

There were times when Avengers: Age of Ultron felt less like a movie and more like a trailer for upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. This led to characters being shoe-horned into various inexplicable scenes and no time for character development.

One scene that was particularly annoying was the Thor cave scene when he takes off from Hawkeye’s farm and recruits his old friend Dr Selvig. The scene showed Thor go into a cave, show off his amazing physique, speak in a mystical voice, bathe in a pool while lightning struck and leave. Many serious fans felt it had been added just to set up the story for Avengers: Infinity Wars, without actually serving any real purpose in that particular movie.

To make amends, Marvel has now released an extended clip called the Norn Cave Deleted Scene.

Talking about the scene earlier, Jess Whedon had said: “The original scene was that Thor went to speak to the Norn and how it would work was that he’d go in the pool and the Norn possess him, basically, and Erik Selvig asks all the questions, and the Norn, speaking through Thor, give the answers.”

Whedon said. "So Chris got to do something different, and he really threw himself into it, and he did a beautiful job, but it wasn’t well regarded by the test audiences and I feel it’s probably largely because it was a rough cut with no effects, but also because it’s something that in a Thor movie would work brilliantly, but in this movie is just a little too left of centre."

In the scene, Thor takes a swig of his flask and asks the Norns how they can stop Ultron. A possessed Thor says the answer is human sacrifice and speaks of the mind stone and the dangers that come with it.

Speaking about the stone in Loki’s sceptre, the Norn-possessed Thor says: “It was never his, it is of the six, the infinite six cannot be joined or kept apart.”

Who are the Norns? 

The Norns are characters from Norse mythology (like Thor, Loki, Odin, etc.) who control fate. They are called Urth or Wyrd (the past), Verthandhi (the present) and Skuld (future). They often appear in various other works including Shakespeare’s Macbeth where they were called The Three Witches, the Scottish equivalent of Norns. They also appear in Greek mythology as the Fates, even though a Norn doesn’t control destiny quite like the Fates. Read more about Norse mythology.

What is the plot-line of Infinity Wars?

From what we know so far, it seems like Infinity Wars will see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes clash with the mad Titan, Thanos who’s been observing all the action from afar in the movies. He appeared in the end credits of The Avengers, was seen in the Guardians of the Galaxy and finally in the end credits scene of the Age of Ultron.

The final scene of Age of Ultron showed Thor wondering about the Infinity Stones and how they kept showing up, following which we see Thanos grabbing the Infinity Gauntlet and remarking that he would have to do it himself (find all six Infinity Stones that is).

Avengers: Age of Ultron End Credits Scene

These are the stones that have showed up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe till now:

• The Power Stone – the orb from the Guardians of the Galaxy
• The Space Stone – The Tesseract from Captain America and The Avengers
• The Reality Stone – The Aether from Thor: The Dark World
• The Mind Stone: The gem from Loki’s staff in The Avengers which eventually ends up with Vision

The stones we’ve not seen so far are the Time Stone and the Soul Stone. Thanos is now looking to find all six stones to insert them into the Infinity Gauntlet which will give him limitless power. The plot is based on a 1991 storyline and Thanos does all this to please the living embodiment of Death in the Marvel Universe.

At last with Marvel releasing the Thor scene, it gives us insight into what to expect next in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.