Valhalla is a Danish animated movie, based on the comic book about Norse Mythology of the same name, produced by A. Film and released in October 1986. Co-directed by the comic's creator and artist, Peter Madsen, and the American animation-pioneer Jeffrey J. Varab, the cartoon boasts of being the most expensive animated films ever made in Denmark, and having fostered a new generation of Danish animators.
Plot-wise, the film is somewhat of a distillation of a part of the comic, using the opening part of album 1 (Ulven er Løs/Cry Wolf) to establish the setting, while using albums 4 and 5 (Historien om Quark/The Story of Quark and Rejsen Til Udgårdsloke/The Journey to Utgards-Loki) as a basis for the main plot. After a misunderstanding, (albeit a deliberate one set up by the Trickster God Loki), the two mortal siblings, Tjalfe and Røskva, finds themselves recruited from their home in Midgard to work as servants for Thor, the God of Thunder, at his home Bilskirnir in Asgard. As, it turns out, they are not the only outsiders in the home of the Aesir. Loki, it turns out, has made a wager with the Jötunn, Ymir, about trying to civilize an especially unruly Jötunn boy by the name of "Quark" by raising him in Asgard. Thor quickly takes an intense dislike to the little troublemaker, and decides to try and deliver him back to the Jötunns in Utgard, but that proves easier said than done...
Tropes:
- Animated Musical: Extremely downplayed. The film has exactly one short musical sequence added in, which (for obvious reasons) wasn't featured in the comic.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: A swift version, Utgards-Loki uses Elle, a Anthropomorphic Personification of the concept of Aging, to age Thor to death. However, Tjalfe's faith in Thor restores him back to youth.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. The Norse Trickster God Loki and the Jötunn Loki, the latter distinguished by his nickname of "Utgards-Loki", are both prominent characters in the story, the latter being the main antagonist of the story.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Thor might be brusque and very short-tempered most of the time, but he can be a pretty nice guy underneath it all. At the end, he proves that he is quite grateful towards Tjalfe for saving him from Elle, by rewarding him with sword, acknowledging him as a man in his own right.
- The Silent Bob: Quark doesn't talk, preferring to let his actions speak for him.
