If you read my recent Set of the Day on Ant-Man Behind the Lens, then you can pretty much guess why I added this to my collection. I was incredibly excited to see this set in-person because the images I had seen online looked visually interesting and it seemed like this set might be even better than Ant-Man. I won’t bury the lead here and say that this Behind The Lens set is bigger and better than Ant-Man. Let’s see why!
The first thing that strikes me about these cards is that the design is much improved. While I liked how that set tailored the design to Ant-Man, the more classic black with silver trim here looks great and you could even say that it is iconic. I would be totally fine if Upper Deck wanted to use this design scheme for future Behind The Lens sets as I think it fits the theme of the insert set perfectly. What impressed me even more were the photos used for the cards. The picture above taught me something I did not know. The director, Taika Waititi, played Korg (the rock guy) who pretty much stole the movie in my opinion. His quiet and polite disposition made him hilarious. The back of the card not only shares this but the detail about the cardboard cutout to help the actors know where to look is neat and that is the kind of text I’d like to see more of in Behind The Lens.
More importantly, the image selection in this set is much better than Ant-Man. There is a nice mix of movie sets (like the one below) and the director and actors. It doesn’t hurt that Chris Hemsworth as Thor is already pretty iconic and so seeing images of him acting feels special. The same is true of Cate Blanchett who is an amazing actress as well. I think Taika is a director on the rise and could be a superstar after this movie so it is nice to see lots of images of him in the cards. The fact that some of them are funny (also below) doesn’t hurt either!
As always in these articles, I want to show you all the cool cards but try to keep some good stuff a surprise at the same time. The good news with this set is that it is 16 cards and it doesn’t feel like any are filler to me. I’m glad I took the plunge on the Behind The Lens sets and I hope that Upper Deck can continue to make ones that are this high of quality because it is a nice treat for Thor fans!
Daily Trading Cards 