Guardians of the Galaxy: SPOILER POST

(WARNING!!!)

The following post contains spoilers for the 2014 Marvel Studios superhero film, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. If you have not yet seen the film, I’d recommend that you please refer to my Spoiler-Free review of the film (and then see the film) before reading this post for here I will be discussing key moments of the film in detail.

You have been warned!!!

(Spoiler-Free Review: http://rimoviecorner.blogspot.com/2014/08/guardians-of-galaxy-2014-review.html)

Well, considering that this year I’ve done spoiler posts for every major superhero film that has come out this year so far: ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, and ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, I figured that I should finish this year 4 for 4 and do a spoiler post for Marvel Studios’ latest and strangest film, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, which I have to say really impressed me considering how I was fairly hesitant about it when it was first announced. My original reaction to this announcement can best be summed up by what Korath the Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou) said after Peter Quill pronounced to him that he was Star-Lord: “Who?” I legitimately did not know who the heck these characters were and I remembered at the time that I was even questioning why Marvel was deciding to go with this fairly obscure group as the focus of one of their Phase Two films. Well, that hesitation soon began to go away after the marketing campaign for the film began and I was very eager to see how this film turned out… and sure enough, it did not disappoint. So today, as I’ve done with all of the other Spoiler Posts this year, I’ll be talking about a few of the aspects of this film that I wasn’t able to talk about in my original review of the film for fear of spoiling things for those who haven’t seen the film.

THE SOUNDTRACK

I only briefly mentioned this part of the movie in my original review so now I’ll elaborate on it a little bit further. The soundtrack to the film is, quite simply, phenomenal; it’s easily one of the best soundtracks to ever grace not just a superhero film, but any film for that matter. While I haven’t seen the other two films he directed, ‘Slither’ and ‘Super’, I can tell that James Gunn definitely has quite the keen eye when it comes to picking really good soundtracks for his films, and here it’s no exception. It also works incredibly well within the context of the film itself. In the film, the songs that are played in the movie (a great selection of 70’s and 80’s tunes) are on a mixtape that Peter Quill has in the Walkman that he always has with him. He had it when he was taken by the Ravagers when he was a kid so, in other words, this is how he stays attached to the world that he left behind. While I do question why ‘I Want you Back’ by the Jackson 5 and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ are on the official soundtrack for the film, titled ‘Awesome Mix Volume 1’ (like the mixtape in the film itself), when in the movie they are actually part of ‘Awesome Mix Volume 2’, which was the gift Quill’s mother had given to him before she died (by the way, I cannot wait to see what songs will be in the sequel), this is a great film soundtrack that complements the movie incredibly well, in terms of both the film’s overall tone as well as being a crucial part of Quill’s character.

THE HUMOR

Pretty much every film in the MCU has had a good amount of funny dialogue and of course the same can be said for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. Of course, as you expect from a superhero film, ‘Guardians’ does play things seriously when it needs to but at the same time it’s not completely serious compared to some of the recent films from DC. As I noted in my review, one of the main reasons why I prefer Marvel films to DC films is because they’re much more light-hearted. ‘Guardians’ in particular is easily one of the funniest out of all of the MCU films (arguably as much or possibly even funnier than ‘Avengers’ though that might be up for debate). In fact, there were even some lines that I’m amazed managed to appear in a film that is part of the generally family-friendly MCU that is owned by Disney. The one that stands out to me the most when it comes to this film’s more risqué jokes occurs before the final battle when the Guardians return to Xandar to warn the Nova Corps about Ronan’s impending attack. Of course, they’re still considered criminals by Nova Corps after their capture and arrest on Xandar and later escape from prison, so Star-Lord sends a message to one of the members of the Nova Corps, Rhomann Dey (John C. Reilly), which basically says that ‘he may be an a-hole but he’s not 100% a dick’. Ultimately, the Nova Corps accept their help with Star-Lord noting that ‘they got my dick message’. I don’t think I need to elaborate any more on that. It speaks for itself.

Aside from that, here are some of my personal favorite hilarious moments from this film; there’s the sort of random reference to ‘Footloose’, the story of the great hero Kevin Bacon and how he convinced a town full of people ‘with sticks up their butts’ that dancing is the greatest thing in the world, during a scene where Star-Lord is talking with Gamora (Gamora’s response, asking ‘who put the sticks up their butts’, is priceless). There’s the scene where Rocket lays out his plan for getting the group out of prison, part of which apparently involves in them needing to steal one prisoner’s prosthetic leg. Star-Lord then proceeds to acquire the leg… but it turns out that Rocket was just joking; he didn’t really need the leg (though in a later scene, he asks if he can take a Ravager’s robotic eye). But probably my favorite moment in the film occurs during the finale on Xandar. The group is on Ronan’s ship, the Dark Aster, when they are approached by a group of his soldiers. Groot then proceeds to impale quite a few of them (did I also forget to mention this is probably the most violent MCU film to date) with one of his arms and slams them against the wall multiple times. Once he’s done, he turns to the group and innocently smiles. Of course, these are just my personal favorites but there are plenty more incredibly hilarious bits of dialogue in this film. Sound off in the comments below about your favorite lines/moments from the film.

THE EMOTIONAL RESONANCE

Probably the one thing that surprised me the most about this film was how much I was emotionally invested in it. For being one of the funniest of the MCU films, it actually starts off on a pretty damn depressing note as a young Peter Quill watches his mother die before his eyes before he is taken by the Ravagers. Talk about a dark way to start off a superhero film. Anyway, the emotional resonance of this film is easily one of its greatest strengths. Despite the fact that the Guardians are criminals and, to quote Peter Serafinowicz’s character, ‘a bunch of a-holes’, you do care about them because they’re all just trying to find a place where they belong and over the course of the film they become quite the close family. The scene where Rocket gets emotional over someone calling him ‘vermin’ certainly hits in the feelings department as is the scene during the finale when Groot sacrifices himself to save the group when the Dark Aster crash lands on Xandar despite Rocket pleading with him not to do it (also, the bit where Groot puts one of his twigs on Rocket’s face to comfort him… let me tell you folks that really got me teary-eyed).

Thankfully, as we see, Groot does survive because he has the ability to regenerate. This results in an incredibly cute mid-credits scene where he dances to ‘I Want you Back’ behind Drax’s back (he stops dancing when Drax looks over at him, continuing to do so once Drax looks away again). And yes, despite this, I am aware that now every MCU film since ‘The Avengers’ has had a character supposedly die but then come back (Coulson in ‘Avengers’, Pepper in ‘Iron Man 3’, Loki in ‘Thor: The Dark World, Nick Fury in ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’, and now Groot in this movie) a little bit later, which some feel is one of the big ‘problems’ with the MCU (I’ll get into another problem some people have with the franchise when I talk about the villains). This has never really bothered me before and it certainly didn’t here. Though I will say this… even though Marvel has pulled this trick for every Phase Two film (as well as the first ‘Avengers’ film), I have the feeling that a permanent death will happen sooner or later… maybe in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ (we all know how Joss Whedon likes to kill off major characters so I’m guessing one could potentially kick the bucket in the film). Ultimately though as I said, I’m not too bothered by this recent trend.

THE GUARDIANS

If I was asked who my favorite member of the Guardians were from the five in this movie, it would actually be a little tough for me to decide because I really like all five of them. Though, if I had to choose just one, I guess I’ll have to go with Groot. Yeah, I know that it’s an obvious answer but Groot’s just so likable. Sure, he’s Rocket’s partner-in-crime but he’s also the most innocent of the five. Rocket was also one of the best of the bunch with his hot-headed nature. But I have to say that the one that surprised me the most was actually Dave Bautista as Drax. I remember reading an article somewhere online in which the writer predicted that Drax would end up being the least popular of the five Guardians because he was the most serious in nature given his whole backstory and his thirst for vengeance. However, that serious persona actually resulted in him having quite a lot of funny lines with my favorite occurring during the scene where Rocket says that metaphors will go over his head (“Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast… I would catch it…”). Gamora, like Drax, is also more serious in nature which means that she doesn’t have as much comedic dialogue as the rest of the group. However, I will say that she had two of the best lines in the entire film; one is during the escape from prison where, during an argument amongst the group, she laments that she is “going to die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy”. The other is during a scene between Gamora and Star-Lord where he tries to kiss her but she stops him before he can do so, saying that she wasn’t going to fall for his “pelvic sorcery”. Finally, we have Star-Lord, the ‘Han Solo’ of the group perfectly portrayed by the charming and hilarious Chris Pratt, the third major Chris of the MCU after Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans.

THE VILLAINS

As I noted in the review, I’ve heard a lot of people say that the weakest part of the film for them is the villains which I also noted apparently connects to a major problem that some people apparently have with the MCU in that the villains of the MCU films, to put it simply, ‘haven’t been that good’. Now I hate to be controversial here, but I feel that this is being incredibly unfair to any of the villains in the MCU who aren’t named Loki. Sure, at the end of the day, Loki is still the best MCU villain by far and there have been some fairly weak MCU villains, like Malekith in ‘Thor: The Dark World’ or Ivan Vanko in ‘Iron Man 2’ or Emil Blonsky in ‘The Incredible Hulk’. But even with that said, that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been some really good MCU villains. Obidiah Stane was a pretty awesome villain in the first ‘Iron Man’. Red Skull (‘Captain America: The First Avenger’) may not have been the most ‘developed’ superhero film villain ever but he still had a great villainous presence which I’d say can sometimes make up for a lack of proper character development. Hell, ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ actually got by without really even having a singular main villain at all. HYDRA was the ‘main threat’ of the film and the titular ‘Winter Soldier’ was more of a henchman. So in short, even if most of the MCU villains haven’t been as great as Loki, that doesn’t exactly mean that a lot of them are ‘bad’ villains. Case in point, I really liked both of the main villains of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.

First off we have Ronan, played by Lee Pace. I thought that Pace did an excellent job in the role. The makeup for the character was phenomenal (as it was for the other main villain, who I’ll get to momentarily) as Pace was quite unrecognizable as Ronan the Accuser. That and I do feel that if anything, it wasn’t like he didn’t have any villainous motivation other than the whole ‘just because he’s evil’ thing. He’s a radical Kree who opposes the peace treaty between his race and the Nova Corps’ home world of Xandar so he teams up with Thanos. He agrees to get him the orb that Peter comes across on the planet Morag in exchange for Thanos destroying Xandar for him. However, after he acquires the orb and realizes the great power within it, he makes the incredibly ballsy move and defies his ‘ally’. I felt that there was at least more depth to Ronan than Malekith, who had a lot of his scenes (including one that showcased what clearly must have been his major motivation; his family) cut from ‘Thor 2’. I also liked that the final battle between him and the Guardians wasn’t so anti-climactic. I was worried that it was going to be that way when Star-Lord fires a weapon at Ronan, and it almost looked like he was instantly defeated but thankfully that wasn’t the case. And then guess what… they do it again. Rocket crash-lands Star-Lord’s ship the Milano into Ronan’s ship where he then proceeds to hit Ronan with the Milano. But after the Dark Aster crash-lands on Xandar, Ronan still manages to survive and it isn’t until the Guardians use the Infinity Gem within the Orb (more on that in a little bit) that Ronan is finally defeated. Whether or not you think he’s a good villain you at least have to give him credit… he endured more than some of the other MCU villains.

If we’re focusing on character development, then I’d say that Nebula (Karen Gillan) was a more interesting villain than Ronan was, given her relationship with Gamora. They’re both adopted daughters of Thanos and there is quite the sibling rivalry between them, especially considering that Thanos favors Gamora over Nebula. Like Pace, Gillan was fantastic here as she had quite the menacing presence in the role (her first major role as a villain). However, I do wish that she had more to do in the first half of the film because during that part of the film, she’s really just ‘there’ and doesn’t really do much other than just doing whatever Ronan tells her to do. Thankfully, she does get more to do in the second half of the film (after the Guardians visit the Collector on Knowhere) and her fight sequence with Gamora on the Dark Aster is one of the major highlights of the film. Also, unlike Ronan, she does survive the final battle. After her battle with Gamora, she falls off the ship (after cutting off her robotic hand) but then proceeds to land on a Ravager ship which she then commandeers. I’m glad that this happened because I am interested in seeing more of her in the MCU. I am aware that in the comics she started out as an enemy of the Avengers so… given that ‘Avengers 3’ is likely focusing around Thanos, maybe she can be in ‘Avengers 3’, perhaps? If anything, I’m just glad that there are more opportunities for her to appear in future MCU films because she wasn’t killed off in this movie.

THANOS AND THE INFINITY GEMS

While he may not be the main villain of ‘Avengers 2’, it’s very much clear that they’re clearly building up Thanos’ role as the main villain of ‘Avengers 3’. This film gave us our first look of the character as portrayed by Josh Brolin and I must say that even though he’s only in the film for a very brief amount of time, he’s already made quite the impression. The motion capture effects for him do look pretty good… not only that, but he looks frigging huge compared to what he looked like in ‘Avengers’. This film shows that it’s looking like Marvel will be exploring more of the ‘Cosmic Universe’ in the next few MCU films. One way these films will impact future events will be the introduction of the rest of the Infinity Gems, the six stones (Soul, Time, Space, Mind, Reality, and Power) that, when used with a glove known as the Infinity Gauntlet (which made a brief ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ appearance in Odin’s treasure room in the first ‘Thor’ movie), gives the user god-like powers. As of now, three (potentially four) Infinity Gems have been revealed.

The first was the Tesseract from ‘The First Avenger’ and ‘The Avengers’, which has been confirmed to be the Space Gem. That makes sense considering that the Tesseract was, to put it simply, a ‘portal’ between worlds. The second Infinity Gem introduced in the MCU was the Aether from ‘Thor: The Dark World’. Now I don’t know if it has officially been confirmed yet but some reports are stating that it is the Reality Gem, which allows the user to fulfill any wish they might have. Finally, the one that appears in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, contained in the orb that Star-Lord finds on Morag, is the Power Gem. However, while so far these three have been the only official Infinity Gems revealed in the films, there is supposedly a fourth that is in Loki’s staff that he used in ‘Avengers’. If so, I’m guessing that it’s the Mind Gem considering that Loki used his staff to brainwash people like Hawkeye and Dr. Selvig. So in that case, we have yet to see the Time and Soul Gem but it’s pretty much a given that we will soon see them. One thing I’m interested in seeing is how Thanos will collect all of the Gems because right now he actually does not have any of them, nor does he have the Gauntlet. The Tesseract and Gauntlet are on Asgard, the Aether is with the Collector, the Power Gem is with Nova Corps, and (again, if it does contain one of the Gems) Loki’s staff is currently under the ownership of Baron von Strucker (as seen in the mid-credits scene of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’).

THE POST-CREDITS SCENE

Well, I guess I’ll finish this off by just briefly going over the post-credits scene for the film; not the mid-credits scene where a baby Groot dances to ‘I Want You Back’… I’m talking about the other one. Now for the record, this scene doesn’t actually really add much to the story but I felt that it was at least worth it just for the incredibly odd/random cameo that occurs in it. Earlier on in the film, the Guardians had met with the Collector on Knowhere where they learned that the object within the orb that Star-Lord found is one of the six Infinity Gems. The Collector’s assistant Carina then proceeded to grab the stone in defiance for his abuse towards her, causing an explosion that destroys his archive. We return to him in the post-credits scene as he sits in his archive drinking when one of his exhibits, the telepathic Russian cosmonaut dog Cosmo, comes up to him and licks his face. Someone else starts talking and then we find out that this ‘person’ is actually none other than Howard the Duck. Yes, the same duck that appeared in the infamous 1986 bomb of the same name is in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and would you believe it, he’s voiced by Seth Green. I have to admit… I did not see that coming… that being the fact that Green voiced him (I actually did know he was going to be in the post-credits scene).

"What do you let him lick you like that for?...Gross!"

Like I said, this scene actually doesn’t add much. According to James Gunn, this was just done for fun and wasn’t supposed to be taken that seriously. Still, it is pretty surreal that Howard the Duck appears in this and for that matter is now officially a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (I’ll let that sink in a moment for you folks…). Then again, he did appear in the ‘LEGO Marvel’ video game so maybe it’s not that surprising that he would appear in the MCU, even if it was basically just done as a joke. So that’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ for you. It’s certainly one of the strangest superhero films ever but it’s also one of the best in the entire MCU. It’s incredibly funny but also takes itself seriously when it needs to. Not only that, but I found myself emotionally invested in the film… a film that stars a talking raccoon and a tree creature that can only say ‘I’ and ‘am’ and ‘Groot’ (in that order). Because of that, I say the following… Kudos Marvel Studios, Kudos director James Gunn, and Kudos to the great cast and crew of this film; you truly made a phenomenal superhero film. When this was first announced, I had no idea who most of these characters were. Now, I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel that is set to come out in 2017.