Qt3 Movie Podcast: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Do Guardians of the Galaxy get better as they progress, like Iron Mans, or do they get worse, like Avengers?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/05/08/qt3-movie-podcast-guardians-galaxy-vol-2/

I was actually discussing this with a friend the other day. We generally had the same thought which applies to all movie series.

The first move you see is all new. You have no idea what to expect and its all a surprise. This counts for a lot when watching a movie, or in fact, doing any activity for the first time. So even if the 2nd movie was technically better, you would still look upon the first movie more fondly.

Noah Taylor was Daddy Bucket in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Great actor, poor part.

I’m with Dingus on Lee, but “Tony Stank” still makes me smirk. That line could have been delivered by anyone, mind.

Kelly’s excellent Drax impression and the reaction to it pretty much sums up my feelings about the movie: sure they already made that joke plenty of times in the first movie and they are reapeating it over and over again, but it’s still amusing every time you hear it, even if not quite as much as the first five times.

Does Vin Diesel actually get paid money to do Groot’s voice in these movies?

I mean, the first one was bad enough, literally just delivering one line over and over again.

But now it’s just delivering that one line, with his voice heavily digitally altered. I mean, couldn’t literally anyone do it? Couldn’t a voice synthesizer do it?

Since I didn’t get in to the podcast early enough …

I enjoyed the movie although I didn’t think it was as good as the first. I felt the story lost a sense of focus. Stuff like Baby Groot dancing instead of showing us the majority of the battle. It was fun, but not great …

The other thing this movie lost was sense of stakes. As soon as Drax survived the crash landing, I realized that no one was in danger. As I said, fun but lack of purpose.

Also, two favorite cameos: John Crichton (Ben Browder, Farscape) and Cheddar Bob (Evan Jones, 8 Mile)!

Also, definitely rolled a tear with Drax remembering his daughter and Mantis taking the emotion

But a main character, and someone quite important to Peter, did die.

Dude, spoilers! Ha ha, I’m just screwing with you. Carry on.

Sorry about missing your email, @Justin_D_Herd. I definitely would have liked to bring up that second “cameo” on the podcast, although I have to disagree with you that it’s a cameo. I think it’s just an actor playing a smallish role. That doesn’t really count as a cameo.

I don’t know about the other actor, though, because I don’t know that show. I think it’s one of those shows my dad–a huge Star Trek fan–used to dismiss as a show where aliens became aliens by having one weird distinguishing characteristic that meant they weren’t human. Like a spoon indentation on their foreheads. “So, what?” my dad would ask. “They’re Spoonheads? What?”

I do like your point about stakes, because my mom made a similar point. Watching movies with her became somewhat onerous for me when she would commandeer the remote and pause if it got too suspenseful. She would then demand that I tell her if the character in peril survived the ordeal. I’d refuse, because that ruins the scene/movie. She’d say, “Then I won’t watch it.” It was crazy making.

After we saw this I told her I was concerned while watching that this would be blocking her from enjoying the movie. She said it didn’t at all. Partly because of your point about stakes. But mainly because, “This was all fantasy. They’re not real people.”

This was fascinating to me. For her, a movie like Twister has real people in it, in peril. Or even Lethal Weapon. She cannot stand the suspense because they are more real. In a movie like this, her brain just says “it’s a comic book” and so no worries. It wasn’t real to her. She went on to say, “I don’t expect to be alive when they have battles in space.” So, again, there were no stakes for her. It was all fantasy.

This fascinates me because there is no distinction for me emotionally if a movie (or a book, or a television show) creates compelling characters. I still get hooked, and am susceptible to the pull of suspense and the exhilaration of survival and the pain of loss whether they be in a submarine or on a space station in the year 2257.

Anyway, thanks again for the email. I hope the others who sent in their thoughts will expound upon them, because I couldn’t get to everything people like @marquac and @spacemonkey said.

-xtien

“Mantis! Look out!”

My wife’s kind of like that, she’ll just totally tune out if she can’t buy the premise and by that I mean it’s got to have both feet planted solidly on nonfictional ground. I did get her to see Winter Soldier with me, because it was a weird mashup of spy thriller and superhero flick. And it helps that Captain America’s powers, while significant, are pretty much extensions of what a person could do. You know, can’t fly, not bulletproof, etc. I would never get her within eyeshot of the theater showing Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

My wife, daughter and I saw it Saturday hoping for more of the same as Vol. 1 and happily we got it.

Theater was packed so we sat in the front row, and during the opening scene I was thinking “I can’t possibly take this movie all in,” so I was relieved that it shifted into lower gear.

Though my daughter was not amused with Baby Groot getting space booze poured on it’s head. It seemed more violent than the first one, from what I recall.

But “I’m Mary Poppins, ya’ll!” cracked me up as did many other lines.

Fun movie.

True. But it was also a cheat because Starlord was in the same stakes in the first and survived it. I know @tomchick liked Gamora’s big gun sequence but it fell right in that weird stakes issue, along with weight issues. It felt like maybe a Serious Sam game, with insane guns that no one should be able to lift, but they’re big dumb fun.

My fault on email. Meant to send night before but slipped mind with working. Sent in hoping you had a delayed schedule. No such luck.

Cheddar Bob definitely wasn’t a cameo, since he did feature prominently as a Ravager. It was crazy to see him after so many years. He didn’t have many lines but he was noticeable and he got a singled out death as opposed to another faceless kill during the chaos of the arrow.

Ben Browder is one of my favorite leaders in Sci-Fi. In Farscape, he plays an astronaut that goes through a wormhole and comes across this giant living ship. The cast of characters are awesome, and they’re Henson Labs creations. His villain, Scorpius, is a Joker style villain that ends up installed in his head at one point.

After Farscape, he ended up in Stargate SG-1.

Anyway, I mostly enjoyed the movie. The comedy was off (“sensitive nipples”)… I kinda wonder how this plays if done back-to-back. Does their energy help sustain this one or is this too much of a step in the wrong direction?

This forum need a like button. Oh, wait.

-Tom

Re: the whore line, it’s a callback without a setup. According to Gunn, Drax took the other prisoners literally when they called Gamora a whore in the Kyln. Unfortunately, that’s not a thing we see in the final movie, so it becomes an out of character moment.

Every time I hear “Uncanny Valley” I mentally add “…of the Dolls.” You should do that, too. Especially when you are explaining it at parties to people in the film industry. Because they will get it. In fact, they are probably doing it while you are explaining it to them.

Listened to this a bit late… so Tom is still going on about his Session 9 “theories”?

As a person who still uses a Zune (HD), I heartily endorse this movie. The humor was a little more irreverent than the first one (“sensitive nipples”), but the sheer amount of it lightened the depressing father/son and sister/sister plotlines. The Scotch tape scene in the middle of the last battle had me cracking up. I really hope this series continues separately after Avengers 3. Though I wish Karen Gillan’s makeup lady was also doing Zoe Saldana’s, cuz that stuff kept coming off.