This week Cardy, Emma, and Dale delve into Stranger Things as they rank their top 10 characters, choose which 80's movie posters they'd have on their bedroom wall, and choose which song which save them from Vecna's grasp. Don't worry though, if you haven't watched Stranger Things Season 4 yet, it's spoiler-free until the very end and plenty more to enjoy as well.

Want to get in touch to talk about potatoes? Elden Ring? Feel free to send us an email at [email protected].

IGN UK Podcast #652: All Things Stranger Things

Want to get in touch to talk about potatoes? Elden Ring? Feel free to send us an email at [email protected].

• IGN UK Podcast #651: The RPG Build-a-Game Workshop
• IGN UK Podcast #650: The One That Isn't Just on Spotify
• IGN UK Podcast #649: Phil's Big Night Out 2022
• IGN UK Podcast #648: Geoff's Big Night Out 2022
• IGN UK Podcast #647: Some Great New Star Wars? Stranger Things Have Happened

Warning: full spoilers ahead for Thor: Love and Thunder!

With Thor: Love and Thunder hitting theaters, we finally know the answer to one of the biggest burning questions about the movie: how exactly does Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) become the Mighty Thor? The only problem is, the film makes a big departure from the comic books for her superhero origin, and it’s debatable if it was for the better. So we’re going to break down the key differences between her story in the movie and the comics, and explain why it threatens to undermine the worthiness of the Mighty Thor.

How Jane Foster Becomes Thor in Love and Thunder

The main issue with Jane Foster becoming Thor in the movie is how she becomes Thor. We catch up with Jane Foster and learn she’s battling Stage 4 cancer, with her chemotherapy treatment having little effect. She eventually gets the idea from a book on Norse mythology to find a cure using Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, which is said to grant good health to whoever wields it.

Jane books a trip to New Asgard and lingers by the tourist attraction displaying the fragments of Thor’s broken hammer, and as she gets closer a storm suddenly brews overhead and the pieces spring to life with crackling lightning. And then next thing you know, she’s the Mighty Thor, bashing in the faces of Gorr’s shadow monsters right alongside the Odinson (Chris Hemsworth).

Later in the film, a flashback to when Jane and Thor were still a couple shows exactly how she was able to wield Mjolnir. In a moment of wistful affection for his girlfriend, Thor asked his trusty hammer to always protect Jane, and in doing so unwittingly enchanted Mjolnir to do just that. Just like Thor’s father Odin once enchanted the hammer to only be lifted by someone who is worthy, Thor cast a spell that let Jane use its powers.

A Matter of Worthiness

The big problem with this little twist is it implies that Jane’s worthiness has nothing to do with her ability to use the hammer. She didn’t earn it with her strength of character. Thor made a special exception for her. As we all well know, a character being worthy enough to lift Mjolnir is an incredibly rare and special thing in the world of Marvel. It’s an acknowledgement of their virtue and bravery and puts them in a special class of hero. If Captain America only got to pick up the hammer in Endgame because Thor allowed it, then it wouldn’t have made for one of the most rousing moments in blockbuster history. So creating a loophole that allows Jane to pick it up, regardless of her worthiness, robs her of what makes the Mighty Thor so special.

Now, there is a defense of sorts for this twist, and it lies in the film’s title: Love and Thunder. The writers clearly wanted to make the movie a romantic comedy, so to play up the romance aspect they made it so Thor’s profession of his love for Jane is the magic spell that later turns her into a superhero. It connects them in a profound and intimate way, and it puts them on equal footing so Jane doesn’t need to be the cliched damsel in distress yet again. Then again, only allowing Jane to become the Mighty Thor because her boyfriend said so saps her character of the autonomy that made her comic book counterpart such a success.

This is all in stark contrast to the comics where Jane was able to lift the hammer of her own accord without any caveats. Many characters in the Marvel Comics universe were skeptical of the Mighty Thor, Odionson included, yet Jane proved them all wrong by continuing to be a self-sacrificing superhero despite the cancer ravaging her human form.

Why Ruin a Gorr Thing?

That leads us to another important discrepancy between the movie and the comic. In the comic, Jane runs the risk of dying because turning into Thor has the side effect of cleansing her system of the chemotherapy chemicals fighting her cancer, so every time she suits up to save the day, she’s actually making her cancer worse and taking one step closer to the grave. But in the movie, we see that the cancer is getting worse by itself, and we learn that using Mjolnir saps Jane’s endurance, to the point where lifting the hammer one last time to help defeat Gorr (Christian Bale) would mean her death.

This is an odd change for the filmmakers to make because it suggests that using Mjolnir comes with a serious cost, even though that’s never been a part of how it works in the past. Ultimately, the change detracts from Jane’s arc being about the very human story of dealing with cancer and turns it into a struggle against a… sentient vampiric hammer? It just feels odd to suddenly add in this new attribute for Mjolnir when there was already a more elegant solution available.

Is Jane Foster Worthy After All?

All of that said, the comic and the movie’s stories about Jane Foster both end the same way. Even though becoming Thor one more time will result in her death, she picks the hammer up anyway so she can go save the day. Much like Thor gave up his life in his first movie and therefore regained his godly power, Jane gave up her life to save the children of Asgard, proving that the trait Mjolnir recognizes above all else is the bravery to sacrifice your own life and put the safety of others before yourself.

So even though Love and Thunder’s key change to Jane’s story did threaten to undermine her character, in the end she proved she was indeed worthy of being the Mighty Thor.

For more on Thor: Love and Thunder, check our IGN's Thor: Love and Thunder review and our interview with the cast of the film.

The Sea Beast premieres Friday, Jan. 8 on Netflix.

The Sea Beast, though a touch bloated, is an endearing, rollicking animated adventure that makes for fine summertime family fare. Hailing from Netflix Animation, the film tackles well-traveled themes but the gentle genre mix here, of pirates vs. ocean monsters, as well as some nicely executed action sequences, helps craft a fun fable about acceptance and forgiveness.

Directed by Chris Williams (Big Hero 6, stories for Moana/Emperor's New Groove), The Sea Beast delivers a soft rogue's tale about a world filled by giant water creatures and heroic "hunters" tasked with bringing them down. A few generations have gone by since the "Dark Times" (when these monsters were said to outright attack coastal towns), and hunters are now so prevalent, with their precarious occupation, that orphanages now exist for kids left parentless because their folks went to war with a colossal sea serpent.

Zaris-Angel Hator's young Maisie is one of these orphans, though she dreams of escaping to the high seas and living a life of monster-hunting like her mom and dad. The set up, establishing both Maisie and one of her heroes, Karl Urban's beast-slayer sailor Jacob, gets a little lengthy — as there's most definitely a shorter, tighter (better?) movie in here — but the best, most effective parts of The Sea Beast make up for the chewier parts. Each act is a teensy bit guilty of repeating moments that have already been addressed but the end result is still a fun flick with some great-looking animation.

Hator and Urban create a palpable pair, emitting surrogate father/adopted daughter vibes as they bicker then bond over what's to be done about the monsters. At first, they're both on the same page, sea demon-wise, as Jacob's set to inherit the role of captain of The Inevitable from his own adopted father Captain Crow (Jared Harris) while Maisie's ditched her orphanage digs and stowed away on the ship to join her idols in serpent skewering. Then along comes "Red" — the Moby Dick-type beast of the film (who also doubles for King King, at times), and Jacob and Maisie start up a debate about who the real monsters might be in this never-ending conflict.

The Sea Beast struggles with pacing, antagonists (Dan Stevens voices an arrogant royal nemesis, but all-to briefly), and story payoffs/outs, but it's also charming, and the new life Jacob is tossed into, after being so set on one path for so long, makes for an absorbing, awesome character 180. And as both Maisie and Jacob learn to love Red, and empathize with sea monsters in general, The Sea Beast still allows the monsters to keep their fangs. These aren't peaceful, docile creatures, necessarily. They, like humans, contain layers and will lash out even if the moment doesn't call for it. This adds a pleasant bit of complexity to what could have been a much simpler story.

The colors pop delightfully in the film too, with most monsters getting to occupy their own place on the spectrum — so much so that Maisie names a few just based on their hue. Add to this the big set pieces involving ships, waves, whirlpools, gnashing teeth, and lashing tentacles and you've got a visual feast that's able to capture both the grandeur of the ocean and the emotions of a child.

Jared Harris, as Captain Crow, seems like he'll be the type of father figure Jacob might have to avenge, but he blossoms into something much darker and more interesting. There are some unresolved elements with regards to Crow and his inner turmoil (and dealings with a witch) as the credits roll, but the story still makes better use of him than most other movies with a similar character. To be fair, Crow isn't the only lingering thread at the end of this tale, which is a shame since it seems like there was ample time to address everything.

Karl Urban, currently starring on The Boys (and known for other wonderful sci-fi grumpiness in Dread, Star Trek, and Almost Human), gets to engage in some kindness here, as Jacob blossoms from narrow-minded to protective and compassionate. Jacob, as someone being task with breaking a cycle of violence, has a steep leaning curve but his time with Maisie and Red (and Blue) is handled with enough care to make his transition buyable.

Stranger Things actor David Harbour has said method acting, through which actors fully embrace their characters by effectively playing them in real life too, is "dangerous" and "silly".

Speaking to GQ, Harbour explained that he was trained in classical American method acting but, as he's grown older, he's decided that it's not effective at all.

"When I was younger — it’s so embarrassing — but I remember playing that famous Scottish king and being like, ‘I’m gonna kill a cat’ or something. 'I’m gonna go murder something to know what it feels like to murder'," he said. "I didn’t actually do it, obviously. Not only is that stuff silly, it’s dangerous, and it actually doesn’t produce good work."

Harbour also spoke of Daniel Day-Lewis, who's perhaps the most famous example of an actor who uses method acting. "He’s an extraordinary actor who I’m captivated and fascinated by [but] when he explains his process it sounds like nonsense to me," Harbour said.

Harbour joins a number of other actors speaking out against method acting in recent months as back in April Mads Mikkelsen, Will Poulter, and Samuel L. Jackson all criticised it.

"It's bulls***," Mikkelsen said plainly. "But preparation, you can take into insanity. What if it's a s*** film, what do you think you achieved? Am I impressed that you didn't drop character? You should have dropped it from the beginning. How do you prepare for a serial killer? You gonna spend two years checking it out?"

Jared Leto is also well known for method acting, which caused extended downtime on the set of Morbius as he insisted on using his character's crutches at all times, which pushed bathroom breaks to 45 minutes. When the film was released, IGN said it was mediocre in our 5/10 review.

Thumbnail Image Credit: Netflix

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer whose coverage of day-to-day news means he writes about everything from Thanos's butt to political movements within the industry, but mostly about video games. Ryan has six years of journalism experience and before IGN wrote mostly for national newspapers in the UK including The Times, i, and The Scotsman. Find him on Twitter @thelastdinsdale.

Some Hearthstone players have been offered 150 free booster packs – with a value of $180 – to return to Blizzard's Warcraft-themed card game.

As reported by PC Gamer, various lapsed Hearthstone players have shared that they had been offered huge bundles of cards if they started playing again. The biggest offer was for 75 Standard Packs and 75 Voyage to the Sunken City Packs, which would otherwise cost players at least $179.96.

The offer is "common industry practice," according to Blizzard. "We run many different limited and targeted tests such as this to better determine what drives former, new or current players' interest, which is a common industry practice," a spokesperson told PC Gamer.

"This was a region-specific test for Hearthstone in the UK and France for a subset of relevant players who were first randomly sorted into groups before being assigned a corresponding offer between 20 and 150 packs."

Nevertheless, the test has caused some complaints within the Hearthstone community as the game has received criticism for its microtransaction market. Reddit user Lichnaught, who received the full 150 packs, asked "why grind gold daily when you can just not play for a couple of months?"

Other users complained in the comments that they also recently returned after taking a break but didn't receive any packs, while others said they've played Hearthstone every day for years and never received anything like this. Given that Blizzard was testing free packs for lapsed players, that potentially could become a more set reward in future.

Hearthstone recently nerfed its infamous Drek'Thar card – which could only be bought for $25 – and offered refunds to the players who already bought it. The Diamond Drek'Thar was released in early April to significant player outcry due to its high price tag.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer whose coverage of day-to-day news means he writes about everything from Thanos's butt to political movements within the industry, but mostly about video games. Ryan has six years of journalism experience and before IGN wrote mostly for national newspapers in the UK including The Times, i, and The Scotsman. Find him on Twitter @thelastdinsdale.