As if to balance itself between the wild surrealism of WandaVision and the much more grounded approach with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the upcoming Disney+ series Loki appears ready to take inspiration from sources all over the entertainment spectrum. Featuring a time-jumping adventure to fix past mistakes and plenty of character-focused moments in the downtime, this new Marvel show looks as though it will be different from anything that came before, while also feeling oddly familiar.
Loki's director and lead writer recently shared what sorts of media they had in mind while creating the new series, and their picks run the gamut of the expected and decidedly less so. The story features Loki having to deal with the Time Variance Authority (TVA), a bureaucratic company tasked with keeping time in order, as he presumably has to travel throughout the timeline and undo the mischief he caused. Director Kate Herron, for a start, took some cues from Jurassic Park of all places. Now, since this is part of an action-oriented franchise, one might think Herron would focus on the bombastic set pieces and special effects of the surprisingly timeless original movie. One would be incorrect.
"Jurassic Park, for me at least, is about a guy working, 'Can I be a dad? How do I feel about kids?' I think that is very relatable," Herron said in an interview with EW. "So I think for us with Loki, I think the thing I brought to it is that I'm very character-focused and I'm always trying to give the audience an understanding of, how does these characters feel in these big huge universes?" Now, don't read too much into that. It's doubtful that Loki will end up as a father figure to some lost soul... or will he? This is the same media franchise that features an adorable sentient tree and a machine gun-wielding raccoon, after all. Papa Loki seems positively tame in comparison. But the point is, it seems Herron wants to strike that same balance with Loki where high octane action scenes and much more subdued but sufficiently deep character moments can live in harmony.
Meanwhile, lead writer Michael Waldron had a similar focus on characterization, though he took a much more conventional source as his inspiration, namely Mad Men. "We're going to get to invest six episodes worth of time and get to tell maybe a more complex, layered character-driven story than you'd get to do in a big blockbuster where you've got so many characters to service in just a two-hour runtime," Waldron said, explaining that Mad Men's impeccable writing and character studies were sort of a master class in efficiently getting across the information the Loki team needed to convey in just the span of a short miniseries.
Other influences included Blade Runner, particularly with the feel of Owen Wilson's character Mobius, who is described as a bit of a hard-boiled detective type. Plus, it wasn't mentioned as an influence, and it likely wouldn't be considered one, but DC's Legends of Tomorrow almost feels like a spiritual predecessor based on Loki's premise, even down to the button-up company who keeps time flowing smoothly while the ragtag hero or heroes pretty much just do their own thing.
But that's nothing compared to one of the final influences mentioned by Herron, citing the visual style of children's show Teletubbies. How will that manifest in Loki? Well, it looks like interested fans will have to wait and see, cause she's not telling. However it turns out, Loki is sure to be a trip and a half, and that's just from the speculation.
Loki will premiere June 9th on Disney+.
Source: Entertainment Weekly