No Raccoons or Intelligent Plants Were Harmed...
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 4:04 pm
To quote the end credits of Guardians of the Galaxy, "No Raccoons or Intelligent Plants Were Harmed in the Making of this Production". It wasn't great art, but it was a lot of fun - I've whited out the text below and left some space to avoid spoilers:
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The film begins with the alien abduction of Peter Quill (then aged eight-ish) moments after his mother's death, a fast forward 28 years, then through some fun crime stuff to the moment when Quill and his associates become the titular Guardians and save the galaxy from a stolen McGuffin, one of the Infinity Gems, which is wanted by Thanos, a rather nasty Kree called Ronan, and lots of others.
It isn't without flaws, largely the result of its comic-book origins and decision to give it a 12A rating - most notably, we never really see the results of the frequent use of weapons and general violence; at one point the walking talking(?) tree Groot is nice to a child, later in the film we know logically that the child has to be dead, but we aren't shown it, or much else to point out that people are dying here, and in large numbers, at least in part because of the hero's actions.
Despite this weakness I enjoyed the film; the plot makes about as much sense as most comics, e.g. more than the average Star Trek / Star Wars movie, the sets and special effects are gorgeous and definitely inspired by the comics, and the characterization is pretty good, with running gag about the various aliens not understanding Earth metaphors ("But who put sticks up their asses? It sounds very cruel?"), Rocket Racoon's addiction to seriously overpowered weapons, and so forth. Incidentally, I played a Rocket-like intelligent Meerkat in a Star Wars RPG last weekend and find that I was scarily accurate with my characterisation, except that Rocket never steps out of an elevator leaving a pile of bodies behind, BFG in hand, and says "Say hello to their leetle friend!" so I think I win on points. Though Rocket gets a bigger gun and blows more things up...
There are two short scenes in the end credits, neither very important; one shows Drax the Destroyer relaxing by sharpening his knives after the end of the story, with another character doing something funny behind him - the other shows the Collector, who also appeared in the end cuts of Thor 2, drinking with a surprise guest star.
There's apparently going to be a sequel in 2017, I look forward to it. And wonder how long it'll be before someone tries to model the ships...
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The film begins with the alien abduction of Peter Quill (then aged eight-ish) moments after his mother's death, a fast forward 28 years, then through some fun crime stuff to the moment when Quill and his associates become the titular Guardians and save the galaxy from a stolen McGuffin, one of the Infinity Gems, which is wanted by Thanos, a rather nasty Kree called Ronan, and lots of others.
It isn't without flaws, largely the result of its comic-book origins and decision to give it a 12A rating - most notably, we never really see the results of the frequent use of weapons and general violence; at one point the walking talking(?) tree Groot is nice to a child, later in the film we know logically that the child has to be dead, but we aren't shown it, or much else to point out that people are dying here, and in large numbers, at least in part because of the hero's actions.
Despite this weakness I enjoyed the film; the plot makes about as much sense as most comics, e.g. more than the average Star Trek / Star Wars movie, the sets and special effects are gorgeous and definitely inspired by the comics, and the characterization is pretty good, with running gag about the various aliens not understanding Earth metaphors ("But who put sticks up their asses? It sounds very cruel?"), Rocket Racoon's addiction to seriously overpowered weapons, and so forth. Incidentally, I played a Rocket-like intelligent Meerkat in a Star Wars RPG last weekend and find that I was scarily accurate with my characterisation, except that Rocket never steps out of an elevator leaving a pile of bodies behind, BFG in hand, and says "Say hello to their leetle friend!" so I think I win on points. Though Rocket gets a bigger gun and blows more things up...
There are two short scenes in the end credits, neither very important; one shows Drax the Destroyer relaxing by sharpening his knives after the end of the story, with another character doing something funny behind him - the other shows the Collector, who also appeared in the end cuts of Thor 2, drinking with a surprise guest star.
There's apparently going to be a sequel in 2017, I look forward to it. And wonder how long it'll be before someone tries to model the ships...
