Saw Guardians of the Galaxy. Loved it. They should create an awards category for fun stories about fleshed out characters doing insane things in space. Whoever greenlit a sequel before the first movie came out looks pretty smart now that it took home a record-smashing $94 mil in America alone. James Gunn makes future catch phrases and internet memes almost as well as His Holiness Joss Whedon.
But. I get that every studio has some rule that comic book movies have to smash all the toys together in the third act in a big CG’d explodorama. It has something to do with the basic comic-y story archetype in which people gain powers through some cosmic accident, the magic of teamwork or both and after a couple of false starts they have to overcome something plausibly unachievable before their personal growth/laser breath/team building exercises/whatever. And I get that the movie winks at every trope from “I have a plan…” to gathering various necessities for a heist to people standing up one at a time to signal they’re on board with a crazy scheme. You could make a plausible argument that a consciously ridiculous finale will age well as its meta-silliness becomes more clear on repeat viewings. Still…nnneh. Spoilers below the fold. Only go if you have seen it or plot precognition does not bother you.
* Who negotiated that peace treaty? It seems like Nova Corps could have asked for a clause that puts the other guys on the hook for genocidal rampages by fully empowered agents of their government operating (presumably) on the clock.
* The Nova corps does not have a navy? One ship operating in hostile territory without any escort craft or resupply, even a big ship, ought to be something you can handle. If the Brits kited the Bismarck you can handle one of whatever that is. Presumably the bad guy empire has a lot of those ships, so one guy operating freely in your space makes me wonder why the bad guy empire bothered to sign that treaty.
* Even in scifi terms the climax makes my head hurt. You have what amounts to a couple of aircraft carriers welded together a few miles up in the air and its only goal is to land. It doesn’t even have to land well, it just has to hit the ground without disintegrating everyone inside. On top of its ludicrous mass and momentum the ship has a set of interstellar propulsion drives pointed ass-upwards. Picture the USS John F. Kennedy, on wheels, at the top of a very steep hill with its 280,000 HP drive fully engaged. Resisting the not-even-freewheeling aircraft carrier, the defense fields…a rugby scrum of Smart cars. A lot of them but still, they’re fighting gravity, momentum and drive engines the size of an office building. No, dammit. Maybe if they were trying to prevent it from taking off.
* The specific thing you want to land would probably do just fine if you tied it to a missile and fired it at the ground. A shuttle pod would be gravy. Landing the whole boat seems like it takes a lot more time and provides a more digestible target for the defense.
* Future space civilizations must have a nuclear weapons ban with better teeth than their swiss cheese peace treaties. You hardly need some mega-cosmic power to sterilize a planet. Pick up some uranium on the way and have six or eight hundred Tsar Bombas ready by the time you get there. Speaking of which,
* If gatling guns can hole the ship then I shudder to think what some shots from real ordinance would do. Or, considering that the fate of a planet or maybe everything everywhere is at stake, god forbid you nuke it.
* ETA: Putting myself in the place of the bad guy, I’m thinking ‘My kingdom for a couple of Phalanx turrets…’
* The guy who established boarding protocols for the bad guy navy should get lifted by his neck and thrown against a wall.
* The suicide bombing tactic make me scratch my head. Wouldn’t ships with seemingly infinite ammo that can blow up almost-indestructible things do a lot more harm by strafing? No one had bombs? It looked like one ship cratering caused about ten or twenty sticks of dynamite worth of damage. Also, considering that they had miles to approach in piloted craft, the guys who augured into rivers or swimming pools must have felt like morons.
* Did they mean to cros-over with the Riddick series? If not then maybe retire ‘necro’ as a prefix for everything. It baffles me that even after the color scheme, non-Euclidean geometry and indiscriminate murder someone in production thought viewers still might need another cue to remember who the bad guys are.
Okay, pedant tag off, I enjoyed the hell out of the movie. I only got miffed at things that did not make sense even within the logic of the story itself. You all can let me know whether I sound like a moron for judging it like Star Wars when I ought to think Spaceballs instead.
Suffern ACE
And that guy’s eye…
lamh36
@Suffern ACE: god , I laughed so hard when dude got the leg and Rocket was like, oh…I didn’t actually need that…lol.
ETA: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Its the first Marvel movie I’ve ever seen where I literally knew none of the backstory. yet I still loved it and can honestly say I can’t wait to see what the sequel does.
also too that extra scene…who woulda thunk we’d see that character again
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
Can’t wait to see it. Didn’t tonight because my friends went to a 9pm showtime and come on, it’s Sunday, that’s too late to see a movie even for me.
So I’m in robe and slippers watching Netflix.
When’s the open thread, btw?
JR
After “Red Matter,” I’ve basically given up on quality premises in scifi for the next decade or so.
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
@JR: Never ever confuse modern sci-fi movie writing with whatever bullshit people like Damon Lindelof, and the two nobodies who wrote the first Star Trek reboot, Transformers, and the we’re-only-doing-this-to-maintain-the-copyright Spiderman movie, churn out.
ETA: For instance, “Moon” and “Source Code” were both great! And they both came after the little Red Matter incident.
Tommy
@JR: I realize I am late to the game, but I just started watching Dr. Who a few years ago. Gave me hope for scifi.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
There’s definitely a closer relation between Guardians and Flash Gordon than between Guardians and 2001: A Space Oddyssey or The Andromeda Strain, but who, having seen any bit of the ad campaign , wouldn’t know that going in?
It’s a good flick, swashbuckling fun. Best use of ’70s pop music in a soundtrack since Boogie Nights, too.
And now that I’ve donned the knee pads for Marvel Studios, they owe it to me to turn Damage Control into a feature film.
srv
I was going to go see it, but I think this ruined it for me.
Tommy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): The little town next to mime, well a pretty cool comic book store.I go there from time to time and can’t keep all the stuff straight. Seems to be lot of stuff going on. I pick up some comics and find there is a back story I am not aware of.
Jinx
Good points. Also:
It totally makes sense that a bunch of people who get into a fight on a street would all be sent to maximum security space prison.
And if one of said people was the daughter of the ruler of the mighty autocratic power we just signed a peace treaty with, I’m sure we’d just still imprison her and let her get shivved in prison the first night.
Exposure to the vacuum of space kills you very slowly, is not painful, and is easily recovered from within moments.
Metal explodes, but people made out of wood are nigh invulnerable, even to massive amounts of bullets.
The dude who can blow 40 billion units for baubles probably should have a better employment selection process. And house his collection in a place somewhat less easy to blow up.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tommy:
Lot’s of titles, lots of timelines. Every now and then my 24-year old tries to ‘splain it ALL to me. For some damned reason he can’t read the glazed-over look in my eyes.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Jinx:
“The dude who can blow 40 billion units for baubles probably should have a better employment selection process. And house his collection in a place somewhat less easy to blow up. ”
Chalk it up to hubris,
Suffern ACE
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): the collector is kind of daft as super villains go.
The place must be secure or at least hidden well. I mean, the Asgardians put the Aether there. I thought it was kind of silly to give one on the infinity stones to the Collector in that movie. Did they think he wouldn’t try to collect the others after he got his first one?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Suffern ACE:
If there’s one thing flaw I’ve picked up on the Asgardians over the years, it’s that they aren’t very bright. I mean, yeah, they fight like motherfuckers, but how many times are ya going to let Loki screw ya over.
Suffern ACE
@Jinx:
It turns out that Star Lord isn’t exactly human. Figuring out what that non human part is is a mystery, but it might not be something that needs air. Gamara was raised by Thanos, who apparently lives on an asteroid in a dark part of space. I think she is used to cold places without much atmosphere.
VFX Lurker
I was so happy to see the beautiful, playful space scenes. Big washes of color and nebulae with planets hanging in the night sky. Just lovely.
A friend also exclaimed: “When was the last time you saw science fiction films present a POSITIVE vision of the future?!” (He didn’t count the STAR TREK reboots as “positive,” and yes…the near-utopia shown in the film exists in the “present,” not “the future.”)
Hal
In the comics the Nova Corp are super powered. Think Green Lantern Corp, but the nova process gives them super strength, flight and increased resistance to injury. They weren’t a Star Fleet type group with multiple vessels.
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
GeorgeLucas fucked that movie up something awful, but you can’t blame that on the character as conceived in the comic books. If Marvel can get Guardians of the Galaxy right, and the consensus seems to be that they did, it’s better than even odds that they’ll do HtD right this time.
Origuy
Google’s Doodle for Monday celebrates John Venn, the inventor of the Venn diagram, with a little game that finds the intersections of two sets.
gwangung
@Hal:
Well, they were a single planet entity in the comics (who still used vessels and mounted weaponry in at least their guest appearances in FF). Just figure, a) their super powers are useful against individuals, not necessarily vessels, and b) are probably restricted to the equivalent of the Xandarian Special Forces/Green Berets.
Tommy
@Origuy: I’ve put a lot of graphs in studies. Or PPT to be honest. Often Venn. I had no idea there was actually a guy named John Venn.A tip of my hat to the dude.
tybee
Venn and his diagrams. discrete mathematics. i remember it well. sorta.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jinx: They all have rap sheets longer than I am tall, and Rocket makes a hobby of prison breaks.
Gamora is the daughter of the Mad Titan, not the daughter of the Kree leader, which is actually a sentient computer. Ronan rebelled and allied himself with Thanos for revenge. He is Drax’ mirror.
In the comics, the Collector is an Elder Being. It’s possible that he was one of the beings in the flashback who was able to harness the stones for a time. He almost certainly was at least an observer. All the Elders are daft in some way; his brother the Gamesmaster was the driving force behind one of the Avengers vs JLA stories back when that was a regular occurrence. None of them think any more of us short-lived mortals than we do of beetles.
Frankensteinbeck
Almost all of your objections have an answer! They’re connected to something the movie didn’t make very clear: Thanos is a nihilistic immortal of immense power who wants to destroy all life. He has no connection to the Kree, so…
1) Ronin is not a government agent, or connected to their government in any way. He really is a terrorist, and the Kree are merely assholes who don’t care.
2) The ship and most of Ronin’s minions come from Thanos (who likes people dying and wants the infinity stones for the infinity gauntlet). It is at least plausible it could go anywhere, including an empire’s homeworld, undetected.
3) Ego. Already a zealot of Captain America style physical superiority (but more so, ’cause Kree) over regular beings, he believes the infinity stone has made him unstoppable. He’s not trying to do things the smart way. He thinks he doesn’t have to. This is especially clear because he says he’ll go kill Thanos. Even with the infinity stone, that’s hilarious. He’ll just be gift wrapping it for Thanos, Titan of Death, which is why Thanos doesn’t get excited.
4) More ego. Ronin wants his dramatic entrance.
5) Humans are considered truly fucked up to have explored large scale production of weapons of mass destruction. Only real lunatics ever think of those at all.
6) Nobody has any nukes, although really you’re just covering up for ‘dogfights are exciting’ mentality. It’s a legitimate plothole in the entire continuity.
7) The bad guy navy are a bunch of zombies created by an evil god to give a terrorist grunts. They’re not smart.
8) Again, they’re idiots not really capable of independent problem solving. Zombies.
9) Everything is called ‘necro’ because those are Thanos’s spaceships and soldiers. They work for/were created by a self-proclaimed god of death, and are zombie-ish. Thus, ‘necro’.
Final note: As an immortal, Thanos rarely gets excited. Maybe he will if he gets close to snagging all the infinity stones, but he’s usually ‘I can wait a millenium’ patient.
@Jinx:
1) They all have rap sheets as long as their arms. Quill is a Ravager. That’s maximum security right there. Rocket Raccoon? Fuck, maximum security’s not enough, as you saw.
2) Gamora is not associated with any government. She’s not a princess. She’s the adopted daughter of a murderous super-being.
3) I’m told this is actually true. Vacuum kills you non-immediately, and you die of the cold long before decompression does anything significant. Around Earth solar radiation is a much bigger concern. Beyond that, they’re both enhanced beings and that’s involved in their quick recovery.
4) You’ve got ’em. This is, indeed, dramatic license.
5) Seriously, hubris. The Collector is powerful and well defended against casual threats, but he’s also an arrogant slave-keeping SOB famous for being irrational. Likes slave girls.
EDIT – @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Geek minds think alike. I never read GotG, but I knew this stuff.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Loki gave the Aether to the Collector. I’m really curious as to why.
One thing that is consistent about the Collector is that he makes a priority of collecting things to stymie universe-destroying plots. He’s actively after the stones now, as opposed to any time in the last billion years, because of Thanos.
Little side note: when James Brolin walked into the Marvel panel at Comic-Con, he was wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. Dunno why more people haven’t heard about that.
I’m also very curious how they’ll resolve Quill’s parentage. I find it hard to believe the Nova Corps hasn’t heard of the Spartax, so Gunn may be going in a different direction with that.
Tim F.
@Jinx:
Ya know, I think they had to have that scene to demonstrate what the stone does to ordinary folks. You needed at some point to know that 1) it pulls you in like Sauron’s ring and 2) ordinary folk should keep their distance. Plus a naked infinity stone is not the sort of thing that even someone like him handles on a regular basis so you can understand a minor lapse in EH&S best practices. I am sure his security is fine for most situations.
Frankensteinbeck
Oh! And the six eyed giant in the infinity stone flashback, and the giant whose head is being mined by outlaws? Both Celestials. Celestials are cool. It will be a major continuity failure (but, alas, one that would have happened in the comics) when they don’t get involved with the Thanos situation.
dmsilev
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
If I may cross universes for a second, that applies equally well to the Oans. For a race “inspired” by Doc Smith’s Arisians, they sure aren’t very good about predicting consequences of actions.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m an Avengers fangirl, myself. My collection starts with Your Young Men Shall Slay Visions. I’ve never forgiven Byrne for breaking them up….
I kind of wish they hadn’t used Ronan for this. He’s hardly the only Accuser the Kree have, and most people would have never known the difference. Any Accuser would have been powerful and arrogant, and they’re not particularly known for being bright.
@Tim F.: Most of the Collector’s ship is in a pocket dimension. From any external danger, he just closes the portal to the Prime universe.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Frankensteinbeck: I love how Kirby the MCU is looking. Asgard made me squee.
There’s a lot going on in the Marvel universe right now the Celestials should be getting involved with. Like Black Swan. Oy.
Frankensteinbeck
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I’ll win a No Prize by proposing that the Celestials ARE dealing with these problems. They are, at least, in canon known for intervening in non-physical ways, seemingly without taking any action. There’s that artificial planet where four Celestials just stand around. Everyone knows they’re actually very busy with Things Beyond Our Understanding, they just don’t move.
Nina
When Gamora is floating in space, doesn’t someone say ‘her implants will keep her alive for a few minutes’?
Nina
When Gamora is floating in space, doesn’t someone say ‘her implants will keep her alive for a few minutes’?
Jack the Second
The suicide bombing annoyed me, but mostly because it was patently trying to dance around the Load Bearing Boss. They needed all of the minions to be dead after the Boss Fight was over, but didn’t want to pull the Avengers “everyone falls down” again (especially since they’re probably going to use it in Avengers 2). If I was in charge of the rewrites, I would have either left them for the billion fighter ships to dogfight up or had the Heroes also nuke them with the infinity stone while taking care of the Boss.
The other thing that annoyed me was that they almost averted the Girl Fight trope, when they pulled an Indy on the cyborg when she first showed up, but it was only postponed.
low-tech cyclist
They should create an awards category for fun stories about fleshed out characters doing insane things in space.
Fun stories about fleshed-out characters doing insane things in space? That reminds me that I haven’t re-watched my Firefly DVDs in awhile.
Tim F.
Maybe, but on the other hand Nebula’s entire character was a walking Chekhov’s Gun. Punching Gamora was literally the only meaningful motivation that the movie gave her. You can’t build up the pressure like Gunn did without giving some catharsis.
But yeah, the Indy was awesome. I loved Drax.
bago
Well, the mass cannon leaving a hole in Ronan’s chest was a nice touch, but you should be more upset about the fact that it’s firing didn’t drive that puny 180 lb human profoundly back into the infrastructure.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Nina: Rocket. I think the objection was less to Gamora surviving than it is to Quill. Most people going in didn’t know that Quill is only half human.
Nice little fan moments:
Cosmo’s cameo! Everyone is obsessed with the bird, but Cosmo made me happy.
When I realized that John C. Reilly’s character is Rhomann Dey. It would be nice if the MCU didn’t follow the MU’s fate for his people.
Ben Grimm
My guess is that Quill’s father will turn out to be Adam Warlock (with a completely revamped origin), but others have speculated Starfox, aka Eros, aka Thanos’s brother. Adam Warlock is very closely tied into the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, and has been a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, so it’s not much of a stretch. Plus, the Magus/Church of Universal Truth storyline is absolutely ready-made for a movie.
Matt McIrvin
I’d love to have that mask thing Quill can materialize over his face that lets him stroll around in vacuum without even wearing gloves, with his jacket flapping around. Eh, force fields or something, I dunno.
Trying to apply any kind of physics to the Marvel universe will just make your head hurt.
Central Planning
I’m still trying to catch up on the movies at the cheap theatre. $2 for SpiderMan 2 tonight!
Matt McIrvin
@VFX Lurker:
I guess the Nova Empire counts.
Space in general seems to be a pretty gnarly place, full of nasty people. I remember thinking that Peter Quill had amazingly rotten luck: minutes after his dear mother dies, he gets abducted by aliens in a fantastical glowing UFO, a setup right out of Spielberg… and the aliens just turn out to be the space-opera version of a meth-addled redneck biker gang.
Tim F.
@Matt McIrvin: Sure, but I can buy almost any scifi handwaving. Force fields, only works for one person, okay. What drives me a little nuts is people using the stuff they have with the rules the movie gives them in incredibly dumb ways. Now if the grunts are all disposable, dumb reanimated zombies then I can get a lot of what happened, and Ronan’s pathology explains a lot of the rest. I still have a problem with Xandar apparently relying entirely on flying Smart cars for planetary defense and nobody putting point defense cannons (e.g., a Phalanx turret) on an unescorted battleship but the rest at least kind of works.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jack the Second:
Tropes are only bad things if they’re used stupidly. You can’t avoid tropes, because all storytelling exists as part of a tradition and is unfulfilling (to put it mildly) without bring part of that chain. Gamora’s rivalry with her sister was a major part of her character and worth seeing through. Sun Pony knows she beat up other people as well.
Matt McIrvin
@VFX Lurker: …The one thing I loved about Star Trek: Into Darkness was actually the brief scene with Scotty at the nightclub in San Francisco, just because they went to such trouble to dress absolutely everyone in ridiculous eye-hurting fashions that looked exactly like something that would have been considered super-sexy on the original series. Didn’t like the movie otherwise, but aside from the implicit William Ware Theiss shout-out, I liked the glimpse at people who were just living their lives and dressing up in completely silly ways for a night out on the town.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Matt McIrvin:
Who had been hired to pick the boy up and take him to his father, and welched on the deal. And who think Quill’s father is obnoxious. Which made me think maybe they are going to introduce J’son of Spartax, but again, surely the Nova Corps would have heard of Spartax.
I like the Adam Warlock idea, and the Collector had his cocoon on his ship. Starfox would also be good.
JimV
I read Marvel Comics in the Golden Age / Stan Lee era of the 1960’s – 1970’s, but then lost touch. Thanks for the re-education in this comment thread. (Did the immortal question, “What made Hogun the Grim so gosh-darned grim?” ever get answered?)
Richard Grant
“James Gunn makes future catch phrases and internet memes almost as well as His Holiness Joss Whedon.”
One quibble – and I don’t mean the personal commuter air transportation in a Philip K. Dick novel — with the screenplay credited to co-writers James Gunn and Nicole Perlman as well as the possibility of ad-libbing during the shoot, we won’t be more certain about who made all of those future catch phrases and internet memes until one or more screenplay drafts become available.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Who needs uranium? All you’d need would moderately-sized asteroid with propulsion and a guidance system. Dropping dumb rocks or metal into the planet’s gravity well would do the trick.
This was used in Babylon 5, IIRC, where dropping large quantities of mass into a planet’s gravity well was considered a WMD (because it was a WMD).
Pococurante
@Ben Grimm:
“Cut! Cut! Cut!”
maeve
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
See also “The Moon is a Harsh Mistriss” (Heinlein)
Diana
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m impressed, and I own a lot of Marvel comics. This is awesome. Thank you!!!
Diana
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: why not Ronan? I don’t know much about the Kree but did Gunn leave anything important on the cutting room floor?
Eric Holler
@Ben Grimm: I’m thinking Gunn is more into the Guardians than Warlock. I’m hoping StarHawk.
Eric Holler
@Ben Grimm: I’m thinking Gunn is more into the Guardians than Warlock. I’m hoping StarHawk.
Eric Holler
@Ben Grimm: I’m thinking Gunn is more into the Guardians than Warlock. I’m hoping StarHawk.