Following up both 'The Avengers' and 'Iron Man 3' is going to be tricky business for 'Thor: The Dark World,' but after this 'Thor 2' trailer, it looks like they figured out what worked and what didn't in the first film and went from there. Slightly more grounded -- and with most of the set up out of the way -- this looks to be a much bigger and better 'Thor' movie.

Most of the main characters from the first film return (including Kat Dennings and Rene Russo), with Chris Hemsworth playing the titular Thor, but this time Natalie Portman's love interest character looks to be given much more interesting things to do. There's some sort of intergalactic war that threatens Earth if not also Thor's world of Asgard, which Portman's Jane Foster is put in the middle of, and it looks like the only way to defeat this problem is teaming up with Tom Hiddleston's Loki.

And Loki is held in a Hannibal Lecter-esque cell (which is all the more fascinating as the film also features Anthony Hopkins), which makes it look like this sets up one of the most durable plot points in all of cinema: Two characters who don't like each other who have to work together to solve a problem.

With the less set-bound locations, and real scale in the trailer, this already looks way more appealing than the first film. 'Thor: The Dark World' opens November 8. Here's that trailer:

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