The Unexpected Connection Taylor Swift Has To Thor
It seems the latest Thor movie has received mixed reviews. According to Comicbook, "Thor: Love and Thunder" is the lowest-rated film of the four Thor movies, and is the second-lowest rated Marvel film on Rotten Tomatoes, with only a 65% fresh rating. Wendy Ide, a reviewer for The Guardian, did not particularly like the fact that the film's comedy trumped the more sincere moments in the story, giving the film a rating of two out of five. The film's director, Taika Waititi, felt the pressure with this movie, too.
"In some ways, I kind of wish '[Thor] Ragnarok' wasn't so good," he told Rolling Stone in July. "Because this is a hard film to follow up that one with. Because you're promising stuff to be like, 'Oh, it's gonna be crazy. It's gonna be bigger. It's gonna be more bombastic.'" Waititi added that he tried to expand upon the romance between Thor and Jane Foster, while also taking inspiration from movies like "After Hours" and "Clueless" to show where Thor was post "Avengers: Endgame."
Despite the not-so-strong reviews, fans loved a very specific character in the movie that doesn't include any of the central characters. According to Cinema Blend, fans couldn't get enough of the screaming goats as they brought some ridiculous, though intentional, comedy to the movie. Although the goats were funny to begin with, fans also recognized the sound of the screams from an old Taylor Swift meme.
Taika Waititi was inspired by this Taylor Swift meme
To add to the comedy of "Thor: Love and Thunder," Taika Waititi threw in a pair of screaming goats that Thor receives as a gift for saving the day and defeating a raid of aliens, destroying a castle in the process. In the beginning, though, the goats weren't meant to scream. That element wasn't added until the director and actor was introduced to a Taylor Swift meme.
"Someone in post-production found this meme of a Taylor Swift song that has screaming goats in it," Waititi told Insider. "I didn't even know that existed. So I hear the screaming goats and I just felt it was awesome."
The viral meme from nearly a decade ago comes from Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble." As the singer hits a high note in the chorus, the fan inserted a video of a screaming goat to take the place of Swift's original singing. The meme was shown to Waititi in a press interview with Hits Radio, and the excited director said, "That's the song. That's the song I've been trying to remember. It's a Taylor Swift song with some screaming goats." Besides throwing in a meme for comic relief, the goats also have a connection to Thor as a character.
From Norse mythology to an internet meme
The screaming goats were such a hit that even the actors of "Thor: Love and Thunder" loved them. Natalie Portman told Collider in July that she found it funny that the goats were sculptures onset with "tongues out and everything." Chris Pratt joked about how James Gunn, director of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series, has to deal with the goats now that Taika Waititi introduced them.
"I remember Taika wanted to stick James with some goats," the actor told Marvel Entertainment in June. "He was like, 'I've rewritten the script, mate, and I decided to put some goats in there and see what he's going to do with them.' So James has to pick up where Taika left off and he stuck us with some space goats."
The meme, however, was just an addition to the fun, as Thor historically does have two magical goats who help him travel around in the comics, per Nerdist. The goats date all the way back to Norse mythology, where two goats pulled Thor's chariot around. In the Marvel comics, the two goats — named Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder — have their own origin story, where Thor's brother, Loki, introduced the goats as a challenge for Thor. We are happy that Waititi decided to include the screaming goats, as it brings fans history and laughter at the same time.