Not sure if you caught my edit which was happening while you were responding. What are your thoughts on the Chitauri and the Avengers’ resident assassins?
You’re probably right about Hawkeye and Black Widow. They’ve not had their origin or past movies but we know they were not good.
The difference with the Chitauri is… they didn’t have a choice. It was world invasion and they had to stop them. I don’t think those four on the ship in this movie even thought twice about trying to take anyone alive or you know escaping without massacre. But yeah, they made sure we as an audience didn’t shed any tears about it.
I’m surprised folks are saying this one’s plot isn’t as strong as the first. I think it was actually much stronger. The first was a pretty bog-standard macguffin chase/hunt with a weak villain. This one’s got a great hook with ‘family’ that even the villain ties into strongly.
I like it a lot. Batista should get an award for ‘most improved’. Either he got better or the script just got better at using him.
I haven’t seen anybody mention young Kurt Russell. I guess we are all just getting used to seeing creepy young versions of our favorite actors.
I did like how far over the top they went with his hair.
The problem is… the villain’s actions made no sense. His reasoning and his pursuit of those goals, someone mentioned it above… waiting a millennium and he did those things and wound up with this predictable result. I mean the Marvel villains aren’t especially deep but this guy… he is described as this super-aged being who suddenly has the patience of a toddler for no apparent reason at all other than it needs to be wrapped up in a 2 hour movie.
WARNING SPOILERS
He didn’t wait a millenium. He’d been breeding progeny for all that time, none of which made the grade. As to predictable result, I’m not sure what you mean. Presumably, Peter would have succumbed to him except for the love of family: his mother and the other guardians.
On patience, dude has waited a long time for an child that could actually fulfill his plan, after so many failures. I can imagine after all that time, being on the cusp of succeeding would make you very impatience.
The only thing I found annoying with the main plot was why he let Peter stew for 30+ years with Yondu. I chalk that up to him probably tracking hundreds of offspring at any one time and having no reason to expect that Peter was the winning lottery ticket.
Since it was basically a constructed body, although we only knew for sure at that point that he was an alien, any weirdness is immediately excused by my brain, so the uncanny valley ends up avoided. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.
I liked it, but there was one big goof for me. In the final battle…
Pac-Man? Really?
Other than that, I was smiling the whole time.
I’ll admit, the murdering of the space pirates really put me off. Not just because of the quantities of lives they were taking, but just the sheer glibness of it. Like it’s not just a game to them, that they rack up a kill-count, but how easy it is, and how enjoyable it is to them in an offhand way, like they’d find an excuse to do it all the time (to happy-go-lucky music)… These are heroes like any other to kids, and they’re going to learn the attitudes from them.
I don’t know if it made the final cut, since I’ve only seen the rough-cut of the film, but there was one pirate leaning on a bar having a beer after a seemingly bad day, and the quill passes him by, behind him… and then comes back and nails him through the heart. That shit is cold. Even if they’re murderous pirate scum.
In the final, it passes in front, shattering his beer mug, then turns back and kills him after giving the pirate time for a double-take.
If I remember correctly that particular Ravager wanted to squish Baby Groot, so… serves him right? :D
All spoilers… do we need a spoiler thread so we can really talk about this movie? I feel like if I’m coming in this thread there’s gonna be spoilers…
[spoiler]Taserface and his gang spaced the rest of the crew before that. They’re not good guys. I dunno… as much as I want to believe Yondu is better than that (and Rocket took out one and Groot got one), that was also part of him cleaning up the mess he made of his time as a Ravager.
I mean, one thing we know from both these films is that the evolved universe beyond Earth is pretty crazy, very dangerous, and life in general isn’t all that treasured.[/spoiler]
Anyway, as a big Marvel fan, I really enjoyed it. It has the same fun tone of the first one with a lot more character development. Kurt Russell makes a great Ego and man, it’s awesome that they put a face on a planet just like he looks in the comics. Soooo many little touches like that. I said it in another thread, but if I could go back and tell comic reading me that I’d eventually see all that stuff on the big screen, comic reading younger me would think current me was on drugs.
[spoiler]They focused on one shot for Rocket. He proceeded to shoot a lot before it was all over. It’s presumed he killed many.[/spoiler]
I just didn’t find Ego’s connections, made up for the movie since it’s not even in the comics, that compelling. I’m talking about the children angle. The whole devour the universe thing… okay. That seems to be the per usual. And while you could say hey he just spouted the thing about the mom because that’s what villains do, just monologue for no reason and reveal facts that don’t make sense to reveal… that just made it less believable.
[spoiler]This text will be blurred[quote=“Stepsongrapes, post:46, topic:129575”]
The only thing I found annoying with the main plot was why he let Peter stew for 30+ years with Yondu. I chalk that up to him probably tracking hundreds of offspring at any one time and having no reason to expect that Peter was the winning lottery ticket.
[/quote]
Yeah, exactly. Especially since he said he wasn’t aware Peter was “the one” until after he heard about the Infinity Stone thing from Vol 1.
[/spoiler]
Overall, I liked the film. Less than the first, but it’s still a fun movie.
My issues -
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There’s (initially) no central plot or plot device to drive the narrative. Instead, it’s kind of a day in the life thing. We can see the conflict coming from a mile away because the “side conflict” isn’t compelling enough, interesting enough, or fleshed out enough to actually be what will provide us with a satisfying movie. But the characters don’t, so they, and the movie, feel like they’re meandering.
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The first movie took place on Earth, then in space on a Kree battleship, then on that ruined planet Quill was investigating, then Xandar, then a prison, then Nowhere, etc., etc. This one didn’t have those cool locations that made the galaxy feel big and inhabited. It had the Sovereign planet, then the weird space brothel thing for like two seconds with the other Ravagers, and some (mostly unimportant) shots of Earth. So it felt a lot “smaller” than the first movie, and made it feel like the Guardians were just kind of floating around in outer space, not really interacting with a gigantic space community, like in the first movie.
What I did like was the character arcs and interactions. They really gave the new characters some meat to their storylines. A lot of movies do the whole “They were bad, now they’re part of the team” thing. Witness Bucky in Civil War (to some degree), or Scarlet Witch. Those characters did very little, but we just accept them as part of the team because the movie tells us too. Guardians actually took time to make us root for Yondu, Nebula, and Mantis, and understand why we’d want them hooking up with the Guardians, and how they could find a place in that team. That’s really nicely done. It adds to their roster without making it feel like they just got added because comic movies, man.
On Ego:
[spoiler]I have to assume that the museum display Ego showed Peter of himself as a young human seducing countless alien life forms was just illustrative, right? He didn’t actually appear as feather-haired, leather-jacketed young Kurt Russell and get busy with a tentacled Glorbax on Suluss IV, right?
I liked that Ego’s feelings for Peter’s mother were kind of ambiguous. You don’t really know if he actually loved her, or if he convinced himself he did because he was infatuated with the idea of the human emotion of love. Same for Peter. Like, did he actually love Peter and want a father-son relationship? Or was he just fooling himself and when Peter betrayed him, his actual planet-sized ego (pun intended) came to the fore?
I do wonder why Ego needed Mantis to sleep. Conscience maybe?[/spoiler]
But hey! Dairy Queen!
I don’t think he knew himself, and yeah Mantis role seemed… odd.
I still really enjoyed the movie. I just found the overall plot to be… meh.
I think I liked it more than the first movie, basically due to the added backstory for more characters. The plot isn’t what I was going for, tbh. As for the murdered mutineers, I’m good with it but I can understand how it’s a bit jarring for some fans of Marvel movies. Heck, I got a kick out of the multi-colored “poofs” for Kingsman, as well - it was just over-the-top enough to make me grin instead of grimace. I think they were trying to echo both that and the “branch scene” in the first film, tbh.
This.
This is why I started the thread. If you don’t want spoilers, don’t go into a thread with a movie discussion. I started the thread and then avoided it until now. Anyone else who is spoiler-averse can do the same.
It’s a movie discussion thread for goodness sake. Not a “hey look at the new trailer” thread.
So I’m with you, Dave.
-xtien
Awesome. Everyone started using spoiler text and I’m like, uh… my entire post is gonna be a spoiler.
Let it be known that from here down you’re gonna get SPOILT! :)
So Gunn says that Adam Warlock would’ve been one Guardian (or character… depending how they used him) too many… I think that’s probably true given the story they filmed, but now I’m wondering about how he’ll fit into the Infinity War storyline, if at all? I haven’t looked at the Marvel Master Plan in awhile but IIRC, they decided not to break up Infinity War into two movies now? So you can’t use Warlock next year?
I can totally see Gunn going with Warlock/Magus for Vol. 3 with the two competing Guardians teams on either side… (for those that don’t know, Sly’s reuniting Ravagers at the end approximate the original Guardians of the Galaxy).
Anyway, there’s Marvel Comics overload in this film. It’s so awesome. :D
I’d be surprised if Stallone’s group at the end turned out to be more substantive in the greater Marvel plan. I think they’re meant to be a fun bit for comic fans and a decent end-credits joke for everyone else. I doubt they’re going to get Sly Stallone, Michelle Yeoh, Ving Rhames, Michael Rosenbaum, and Miley Cyrus together again.