Guardians of the Galaxy [Aug 2014]

[Furiously]

I don't want to tell you to turn your brain off, because I hate when people use that as an excuse for shitty movies.

This is what everyone said about Pacific Rim.

They were still wrong. That movie was dogshit.

I'm fine with being wrong as long as it brings more giant robots fighting giant monsters.

[Maven]

I overreacted, and I overdid it. I apologize. Moving on.

[Phildo]

The entire plot of Pacific Rim was "giant robots fight monsters for reasons".  This movie was a lot better at hiding its blemishes.

That said, how exactly did a single warship get to the homeworld of a race powerful enough to fight the Kree empire to a standstill?  Why did they even need Thanos if that was possible?  There, now I'm doing it, too.

[Velorath]

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yeah my girlfriend had no idea about gotg at all pre movie and far and away rocket was her favorite character.  What, were you somehow expecting people to be calling for a rocket solo movie after this?  Some criticisms are fair but to say people are not incredibly happy with rocket or that his role somehow 'got lost' in the movie?  I just don't know what to say to someone living in an alternate dimension.

[TheWalrus]

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I'd totally watch a show about a raccoon with a machine gun.

[Raguel]

image joke; not sure if it needs a spoiler but just in case:

[Khaldun]

I can only say that my Facebook feeds are lit up by non-comic nerds who were very surprised that they flat-out loved the talking raccoon in the movie. As well as the rest of it. But I'm sure Merusk is fully in touch with the beating heart of the nation on this issue.

[Merusk]

Ok, Psycho.

[Evildrider]

[schild]

Nobody should be surprised to like a non-furry style animated animal voiced by Bradley Cooper. NOT liking him would be more surprising. And you don't pay for Bradley Cooper in 2014 unless you have a script that makes it worthwhile.

This is Hollywood. They do, despite all signs pointing elsewhere, know what they're doing.

[SurfD]

This is Hollywood Marvel. They do, despite all signs pointing elsewhere, know what they're doing.

Fixed that for you (at least untill the final verdict on Ant Man).

[Lakov_Sanite]

Even is antman is a terrible flop disney/marvel will still have an excellent batting average as far as films are concerned.

[Ironwood]

Indeed.  And they're probably due one. Though I hated IM3.

[Shannow]

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Mainly for the characters...(who knew?)

- The actions scenes were overwhelmingly generic blah...I fell asleep in a cpl (late night showing but whatever)
- The most fun part were watching the characters interact and riff off each other. Quill, Drax and Rocket were great. Gamorah was rather boring and Groot obviously stole the show.
- I thought they went a little too quickly from , we hate each other ant want to kill/sell each other to 'lets form the team to save the galaxy'. Spend more time on that than another over edited, over FXed space chase.

- Anyone else vaguely reminded of Ice Pirates?

- Almost wish this wasn't a Marvel film because of all the extra nerd bullshittery and easter eggs etc that goes with it. Movie stands on its own just fine.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I've been thinking of the transition from hating eachother to friends but it isn't too much of a stretch when you break it down.

Quill doesn't hate anyone.  He's not even really a loner since he grew up with the ravagers, even if he's gone solo recently.

Rocket just wants a payday, he never hated Quill or Gamora and was fine working with them so long as he gets paid.

Gamora was never wanting to kill Quill in the first place, she'd already decided to betray Thanos and simply wanted the gem.

Drax is the only one with any real animosity to anyone but while Gamora might be an assassin working with Ronan, she didn't actually kill his family and may not have had anything to do with it since we can assume Thanos sent her to Ronan exclusively to help find the gems faster, not go on his personal crusade.

Groot is Groot.

I don't disagree they became  team rather quickly but I wouldn't say it was a huge stretch.

[Khaldun]

I sort of think that they added up how they worked together to get out of prison and were thinking, "Hey. This kind of worked." And then to deal with the shit that goes down on Knowhere. They're all lonely people in their way.

Think of how folks often were way back in the young days of the Internet when they logged into a nerd forum for the first time. Lots of folks were like "Oh my god, I love everybody here" and started disclosing all sorts of stuff. It took a while for everyone to discover, "Actually, I don't love some of you, and a few of you are psychos". I'm assuming that something like that is ahead for the Guardians...

[Riggswolfe]

Honestly, as a person who plays lots of Tabletop RPGs I'm used to groups forming pretty quickly. This movie basically was a tabletop RPG group put on the big screen in my opinion.

[Ghambit]

Honestly, as a person who plays lots of Tabletop RPGs I'm used to groups forming pretty quickly. This movie basically was a tabletop RPG group put on the big screen in my opinion.

This.  Your classic adventure-quest, which is why it stands apart from every other Marvel movie out there (which are pure action).  Really, it's the 1st real Marvel "adventure" movie done so far, and they did a pretty good job of it.  Could take it further and say it's the best sci-fantasy adventure movie in a long while; the Marvel part of it wasn't even apparent, thankfully.

Oh and hai, I'm back from my hiatus/work.     

[eldaec]

Honestly, as a person who plays lots of Tabletop RPGs I'm used to groups forming pretty quickly. This movie basically was a tabletop RPG group put on the big screen in my opinion.

This is a pretty good tagline.

[jgsugden]

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?)

[Khaldun]

Eragon. Crappy movie from a crappy book.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It doesn't matter what a movie tagline is, it won't save a shit movie and it won't hurt a great one.  Hell even trailers can't hurt a good movie, prime example look at frozen.  All we even knew about that movie was it had a dumb talking snowman and a moose, suddenly biggest disney cartoon ever.

[Khaldun]

Yup. Marketing makes a difference mostly for a movie that is kind of good but not great or a movie that is kind of not-good but not shit--you can persuade people that what they just saw was better than it was or not as bad as they thought. A really great movie will usually overcome even a bad marketing campaign, but a fairly good movie can't. (Case in point: John Carter, which was not great but was good.)

[Ironwood]

Terminator.

[Phildo]

look at frozen.  All we even knew about that movie was it had a dumb talking snowman and a moose, suddenly biggest disney cartoon ever.

I think Disney saying "we're releasing a new animated musical" would be all you'd need to make a few million.  Being really good certainly helped for repeat viewing, but Disney is a brand that people will buy every time.

[HaemishM]

Disney is a brand that people will buy every time.

This is becoming pretty true for Marvel films as well. They certainly are earning that good will.

[Lakov_Sanite]

look at frozen.  All we even knew about that movie was it had a dumb talking snowman and a moose, suddenly biggest disney cartoon ever.

I think Disney saying "we're releasing a new animated musical" would be all you'd need to make a few million.  Being really good certainly helped for repeat viewing, but Disney is a brand that people will buy every time.

In the case of Frozen most people didn't even know it would be a musical, the advertising was THAT vague.  You really had to search for info to know it was even based on the snow queen story.  I actually think Disney was more worried about people not wanting musicals anymore than anything.  Either way it's just like Khaldun said, marketing can only push a movie so much in either direction.

[kaid]

[Ragnoros]

Movie was a lot darker both literally (was hard to see stuff sometimes) and figuratively, as well as more violent than I expected. Perhaps James Gunn's influence. Other marvel movies mostly use death for major plot points, and mostly knock people around or imply death occasionally. GotG racked up a body count from word go.

Loved Drax. The movie needed a straight man, and he nailed it as a character. Although, I'll agree as a superhero called 'the destroyer', he suffered from Worf levels of destroying. He seemed outclassed by every other strongman in the movie. It would have been nice to see him get more of a hulk "last resort/trump card" treatment on power level, given his reputation. Still loved him, he just ended up being the least useful/impressive of the group.

[Tannhauser]

He went toe to toe with the main bad guy, what other Guardian could have done that?

[Ghambit]

In 2004, the character lost his flight and energy blasts, and a portion of his strength and resilience. This version of the character played a role in the crossover comic book events Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest, and became a member of the relaunched Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Hoax]

I saw it IMAX 3d on Monday. I did not think the 3D was great. It wasn't bad but I was hoping for better. IMAX was nice and added appropriate levels of size for some of the ship flying and space scenes.

Its quite good. Drax > Groot > Rocket > Star Lord, but those four made the movie. Zoe Saldana did nothing and Gamora was a large letdown as someone who did read lots of Warlock back in the 90's. She could have at least had bigger boobs or looked more dangerous. As it was she was not very scary or impressive as a fighter and didn't really do anything but fight her equally hohum sister. Everyone has said that though because it was the only huge flaw that stuck out despite the movie being so damn fun.


The Gamora I remember was more like:

[Khaldun]

So I hate to tell you but that's not the Gamora you "remember" if you remember the Starlin Gamora from the very beginning. I mean, she was slinky and stuff but she wasn't Power Girl in measurements.

Though on the other hand, as I think on it, she was in all of Starlin's Warlock books, almost entirely a "tell, not show": a character we were incessantly told was the most dangerous woman in the galaxy who really did nothing especially dangerous until Thanos murdered her off-camera and Warlock absorbed her into the Soul Gem.

In the Abnett/Lanning reboot that's the basis for the movie, she finally did some dangerous shit, though. Among them doing a Wolverine and voluntarily getting burned half to death in order to shut off a machine, knowing she'd regenerate. But she never really did anything particularly "assassin-like" even then, just a lot of kung-fu fighting. She might really need a reboot in general to make her more a stealth killer in the comics, but she certainly needs something like that in GotG2. If the model is "The Dirty Dozen", she really needs to be the stealthy, disguise-wearing, seducing "French Resistance" character, which she was absolutely not in this film.

[Margalis]

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.