Guardians of the Galaxy
Spoilers Ahead
When watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of Star Wars - and not because of those reviewers erroneously calling it "The Next Star Wars."
No, it was more "They think I-III has too much CGI, but they like THIS?!"
And "These guys are basically a team of Han Solos. How...boring."
And "Oh look, there's Peter 'I voiced Darth Maul but I still badmouth the film' Serafinowitcz. I...don't know how I feel about that."
And "Oh god, Howard the Duck? Ugh, better be prepared for more Lucas-bashing."
And "If this is what people think Star Wars is then they are woefully mistaken."
All in all, this movie really underwhelmed me. I did like it, and I'll go into what I liked near the end, but on the whole I didn't feel it lived up to the hype. It was funny, but not as funny as people were making out to be. It was exciting, but not as exciting as people were making it out to be. It had a good Various Artists soundtrack, but not as good as people were making it out to be.
So am I just writing it off as a failure? Hell no! I'm going to reserve final judgement until I've seen it again removed a bit from the hype, and try to judge it more on its own merits.
As for first impressions, despite being overhyped it was genuinely enjoyable for the most part. The only main characters I really liked were Rocket and Groot - ironically the biggest Han and Chewie analogs, but that wouldn't be too bad if they were the only ones - but there was nobody I particularly disliked either. It was fun seeing Lee Pace and Karen Gillan play someone different, though to me they'll always be Ned the Piemaker and Amy Pond respectively. Benicio Del Toro was delightfully weird as The Collector, though I wish he had a bigger part.
I think that this film's real success is tying all the other Marvel movies together using a silly side-story. It introduces Thanos, and subtley tells the backstory of both the Tessaract from Thor/Captain America/The Avengers, and the Aether from Thor 2.
And yeah, fear of reprisals aside, I loved the Howard cameo after the credits and think Seth Green was a great choice.
Other than that, well, I just need to see it again when it comes out on DVD.
It seems to me that the sort of people who give an impression of being "OT supremacists" focus on Han Solo (or their impression of him early on in the trilogy) as "what they like about Star Wars" (when they aren't seeming to focus on Star Wars as "military SF," although those people might be more "EU fans.") It also seems to me that to see that as the be-all and end-all of Star Wars seems to somehow diminish it, such that I wonder just why they're so obsessed with their personal sense of it failing them. After all, there are plenty of other science fiction series that have "rogues in space"...
ReplyDeleteI suppose I can admit, though, that where the other major characters of the original Star Wars can be placed in "Campbellian archetypes"/"fairy-tail roles," Han does seem more a figure from a classical Western, and that's no doubt helped him stand out in the impressions of many.
So far as that cameo you mention, I will admit to wondering how many people leap at every chance to smirkingly invoke the movie Howard the Duck to put down George Lucas "because he was the executive producer," then turn around and say he should have left Star Wars "to the professionals," because for The Empire Strikes Back "he was the executive producer..."
It might be clear by now that I have to admit to not having seen Guardians of the Galaxy myself. I guess I haven't got in the habit of seeing "the Marvel movies."
I wrote about the Han thing in an article before.
DeleteI love Marvel movies and characters, even if I feel the comics themselves stretch too much for my taste. It's fan hypocracy that bugs me.