Guardians of the Galaxy [Aug 2014]

[01101010]

Interesting how former wrestlers are often pretty decent in movies.

I guess wrestling requires a certain amount of charisma and presence that translates over.

Edit: Thinking of The Rock, Bautista, Rowdy Roddy Piper, etc.

They are all acrobatic stunt actors by trade... so it really is not hard to buy.

[Evildrider]

Interesting how former wrestlers are often pretty decent in movies.

I guess wrestling requires a certain amount of charisma and presence that translates over.

Edit: Thinking of The Rock, Bautista, Rowdy Roddy Piper, etc.

They are all acrobatic stunt actors by trade... so it really is not hard to buy.

There are a lot of really bad wrestler actors too.  No one is going to break out and be another Rock though.  The only one that had a chance was Stone Cold, but his body is so beat and he couldn't really act outside his character.

[Riggswolfe]

Not  necessarily a good tagline... it would be the same tagline you'd use for Eldest (edit - yeah, Eragon) ( was that the name of that crappy dragon movie/book?)

Uhhh...no. At best Eragon would be a bunch of 12 year olds who just started RPing.

[Margalis]

Eragon is just "Dragon" with the D changed to an E - the next character over in the alphabet. Basically the laziest possible way to make the word "Dragon" trademarkable.

Guys, I have a great idea for new superhero. I call him "Xolverine"

[MahrinSkel]

Interesting how former wrestlers are often pretty decent in movies.

I guess wrestling requires a certain amount of charisma and presence that translates over.

Edit: Thinking of The Rock, Bautista, Rowdy Roddy Piper, etc.

It makes more sense if you think of "wrestling" as a mix of interpretive dance and improv.

--Dave

[Riggswolfe]

Eragon is just "Dragon" with the D changed to an E - the next character over in the alphabet. Basically the laziest possible way to make the word "Dragon" trademarkable.

Guys, I have a great idea for new superhero. I call him "Xolverine"

*laughs* I never noticed that before! Though in fairness I've paid very little attention to Eragon other than my daughter talking me into watching that piss-poor movie. I remember my main thought being "ok, Jeremy Irons is a well known paycheck whore but Rachel Weisz? Did the director have blackmail material on you?"

[Ironwood]

It's not hard to get such material on Rachel.

[Margalis]

*laughs* I never noticed that before!

I didn't notice it until someone pointed it out to me.

It's pretty clever in that changing the D to an E totally changes the pronunciation. But you'll never forget the name again, now that you know how dumb it is.

[Phildo]

Guys, I have a great idea for new superhero. I call him "Xolverine"

He'll be a doctor of Mutantology.  We can call him Dr. X!

Big actors signed up for Eragon because the book series was hugely popular, and still was afterwards despite the movie flopping so hard.  Source: worked in a bookstore during the release of the series finale.

[Khaldun]

It's as popular as it is in part because some nerd YA readers: a) hadn't read LoTR or even some of the early LoTR pastiche-ripoffs like Shannara, so they don't spot how woeful the rehash of Tolkien is and b) they really liked the life story of the author: home-schooled teenager writes fantasy novel while still a teenager! Awesome!

[Samwise]

I saw this last night.  Predictably, after all the massive hype I was a bit let down that it's not my new favorite movie in the world, but it was one of the better Marvel flicks for sure.  I actually expect to like GotG2 more, because to me the parts of the movie that shone were the ones where they were doing cool shit as a team (which is a reversal for me because usually I find the "origin story" more interesting than the actual hero stuff).

Rocket was my favorite character far and away.  That really surprised me.

[Velorath]

Rocket was my favorite character far and away.  That really surprised me.

One thing that's nice about them doing such a good job with Rocket is I've been seeing a good amount of media coverage about the nightmarish health care issues his co-creator Bill Mantlo has been dealing with for the past 20+ years since being the victim of a hit and run.

[Setanta]

Just saw this today. It was a fun movie that had me laughing and enjoying myself. I don't think it lived up to the hype but TBH I enjoyed it more than the Avengers.

[Soulflame]

Just got back from this.  Good movie, the whole family enjoyed it.  I'd put it on par with Avengers.

[grebo]

Brought my kids yesterday.  First half was awesome.  Great stuff.  Second half was the same exact tired shit we've all seen a hundred thousand times.  What the fuck.

[Lakov_Sanite]

So you went into the space action movie expecting...less spaceships?

[TheWalrus]

SPACESHIP!

[Soulflame]

Different movie altogether!

[Abagadro]

Different movie altogether!

[Soulflame]

All right, but apart from the movie titles, the nobodies, the music, the artifacts, the pursuit, the lovable band of misfits, the force of destruction, SPACESHIP, and Chris Pratt, how are the movies in any way similar?

/Monty Python

[01101010]

All right, but apart from the movie titles, the nobodies, the music, the artifacts, the pursuit, the lovable band of misfits, the force of destruction, SPACESHIP, and Chris Pratt, how are the movies in any way similar?

/Monty Python

Brought peace?

[Cyrrex]

Took two of my boys to see this over the weekend.  It is really entertaining in its own right, even if it might not be quite up to the hype.  Rocket was definitely my favorite.  I fully expected that character to be retarded, but it wasn't at all.  Groot was the boys' favorite, and it isn't hard to see why.

One thing that I feel should be said is this:  the visuals are mind-blowingly gorgeous.  The best I have ever seen.  This is how you do CGI and make it look real.

[SurfD]

One thing that I feel should be said is this:  the visuals are mind-blowingly gorgeous.  The best I have ever seen.  This is how you do CGI and make it look real.

Actually gives you a bit of hope that if they ever do decide to do a Planet Hulk Movie, where Bruce banner gets 5% screen time and Hulk the other 95% , that might look completely believable.  Would be kind of neat to see a pretty much 100% CGI cast in a "Live Action" CGI movie that looks almost 100% believable.  They could even pretty much jump the Uncanny Valley simply due to the crazyass "comic book" look Hulk and everyone he interacts with would have (it's not going to look "unnatural" when it does not try to look completely "natural" to begin with).

[Ironwood]

Was the 'Hype' over there that bad ?  I keep hearing 'hype' type comments and, apart from you chaps, all we heard pre-release over here for this film was 'talking raccoon and tree, this will never work.'

[Teleku]

I'm assuming they are referring to everybody here (and maybe some other internet hype since it's been very well received).

[Cyrrex]

I'm assuming they are referring to everybody here (and maybe some other internet hype since it's been very well received).

Yeah, this. 

Whatever, it is a fun movie and deserves most of the positive commentary. 

[Hoax]

Not just internet hype, it was critically well received basically everywhere. It has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Word of mouth from every source was positive. And then there was crazy amounts of internet hype. This movie would have blown my mind had I gone into it expecting nothing at all. Shame that really. I think I enjoyed it a little bit less than I should have and I saw it 4th day of release. I really feel for people just getting to it now.

[Ironwood]

I clearly missed most of that.  I knew from here that people thought it was good, but the rest of the world hadn't yet exploded to my knowledge.  (Even though they clearly had.)

[Nebu]

All right, but apart from the movie titles, the nobodies, the music, the artifacts, the pursuit, the lovable band of misfits, the force of destruction, SPACESHIP, and Chris Pratt, how are the movies in any way similar?

/Monty Python

Do you mind if we call you Bruce?

[Lantyssa]

I completely ignore the hype of what other people think simply because so many popular movies I considered crap and I liked lots of things that got panned.

Thankfully I did quite enjoy it and I'm looking forward to more.

[Merusk]

I was trying to figure out why this movie was doing so poorly internationally, as the international total is only 43% of US market's total.  I discovered it's not in Japan, China or India at this time.  Interesting.

[Megrim]

I actually wouldn't be all that surprised if it doesn't do as well as people think (though I am probably wrong). I liked it, but it honestly didn't live up to the hype. I thought the dialogue, especially, was somewhat stiff. Plus the whole Groot-cutesy-animu-face thing really didn't work for me.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I actually wouldn't be all that surprised if it doesn't do as well as people think (though I am probably wrong). I liked it, but it honestly didn't live up to the hype. I thought the dialogue, especially, was somewhat stiff. Plus the whole Groot-cutesy-animu-face thing really didn't work for me.

It's already beat transformers 4's 10-day with projected gross is 175.9mil total and is likely to be the top grossing movie so far this year so...I don't think it's under performing at all.  Also, it's not in china or japan and a couple other markets for some reason.

[Ingmar]

Test audiences wondering why the tanuki doesn't have giant balls?

[Merusk]

It did well enough to guarantee the sequel will be made, which is enough for most. It's 10-day domestic is better than TF4 did and it's already in the top 10 for the year.

It will overtake Spidey 2 but might not breach, Lego or Cap 2. Depends on if TMNT hurts it long-term since they're competing in the same space now that opening weekends are over. Part of that depends on how long they can keep it in the additional 235+ domestic theaters it opened in vs. TMNT.

Expendables 3 this weekend and Sin City next will draw some of both crowds, but not families. I can see families going for TMNT over guardians as one's a familiar property, though both are probably equally crude/ offensive to moms who want to protect their kids.

It should also never be understated just how much Marvel built up anticipation and prepped audiences for this. They've spent the better part of a year trying to sell this to audiences and it's paid off. Imagine if it had released without the teaser build from February or the tie-ins that got comic geeks talking about it prior to June/ July.