"Guardians of the Galaxy"

[Meest]

Agree with most of the reviews other than Ronan wasn't quite in the league of Darth Vader, can't see kids being afraid of him or in general doesn't have the aura that shit is bad when he's coming. They did repeat the whole person is cornered and in danger, then owns them almost instantly, they did it one too many times, especially the Yondu scene. Thanos CGI was a bit not up to spec, just hope it gets more money thrown at him when he has a bigger role. He also didn't have enough evil genius dialogue or the way he threatened people, again hopefully they show him being the chess game master with the pieces all going according to his plan. They didn't have the wise wizard character so a bit of the exposition was forced, maybe could have used another ally that doesn't join them but talks to them in the prison.

Thought it was really good otherwise, good mix of deep emotional drama with fun adventure, will it be watched 50 times over like Star Wars fans of old, don't think so but current times there's so much more you can get don't think that will ever happen again. Watched with friends who have a young boy think 6 years old and he was absolutely giddy throughout the whole movie, edge of his seat, can see him watching the DVD a bunch of times.

Thanos in general has huge potential and hope there's some cosmic asskicking coming up, everyone is powered down but it does make sense with the rest of the MCU characters, just need to introduce some cosmic power not coming from the stones.

[Havok]

I have to say I was underwhelmed. Nowhere near as solid as Winter Soldier, but far more action packed than the disappointing X-Men DOFP.

Team needs to stop evil guy from getting his hands on the cosmic energy mcguffin doohickey. It's getting boring. Avengers, 2nd Thor, 1st Cap. (Even Iron Man 1 has an energy doohickey, it's just not a cosmic one.) I mean I get that they have to set up the Infinity War, but for fucks sake, no one is going to believe that anyone... ANYONE can defeat Thanos when he has all these UNOBTANIUM GEMS on one glove.

Marvel would have been far better off going with Secret Wars because then you allow for the human element of Doom allowing Captain America to keep coming back to life and the Beyonder is a great reason to have guys fight for no reason. Of course Marvel's best villain is in the hands of Fox and they fucked him up royally and there are no signs that this next go round will be any better for Doom so that could put a damper on that. However a great after credits scene in Avengers 3 after the Infinity War is won by RDJ's awesome is the big giant 'splosion moving out among the cosmos into the fabric of space and time ripping it apart and a white light shinning through followed by the words "...I am from beyond...".

That said, it was fun and it was nice to have some cool space shit in sci-fi again outside of Star Wars and Star Trek.
I was a little disappointed with how they showed the Nova Corp, but that may have been a conscious decision to not try to make them like the Green Lantern Corp or have this giant army of super powered cops that there is no way the GOTG could actually get away from.

Drax was slightly disappointing as I wanted a little more destroying and Star Lord is just an on par Ryan Reynolds copy. Rocket was by far the best character and the only one to really solicit any type of emotion from me. Groot was Groot. I am Predictable. If you didn't know he was going to say "We are Groot" or some semblance of that by 5 minutes after his introduction, then this must be your first movie. Gamora was sexy and a great fighter with daddy issues. It was all pretty standard issue.

Surprisingly, I liked Ronin and his costume was great and eliminated the need for him to be the hulking giant he is always portrayed as. I would have liked more insight into why he was such a fanatic, but he was a decent villain. Plus he whacked the Mouth of Sauron and I liked that.

Thanos looked pretty good and you get the feeling that all of this was a game and he knows he is going to end up with all the Gems regardless and this is all just a way to eliminate some powerful opposition as he collects them. I mean, did he really think Ronin was going to give him the Gem once he had it? Of course not.

All in all it was a good showing, especially for a completely unknown commodity. I think it is also going to allow Marvel/Disney to really take chances with their movies now. I think we are going to see some cool and wacky shit because of the success this looks to be having with this.

And Howard the fucking Duck.

[LadyTevar]

One thing I liked about the movie was the protrayal of hard-vac on humanoid bodies. For once it wasn't instant death, it wasn't bloat-n-die, but a slow crystalization as the heat leaves your body. I think it was mucked up in the next scene where they roll out onto the floor, but since we don't know what happened between tractor-in and roll out, they may have had a brief run through something that helped revive them

[Kuja]

Rocket was by far the best character and the only one to really solicit any type of emotion from me.

"There. I stood up. You happy? I'm standing. We're all a bunch of jackasses standing in a circle."

[Iroscato]

Holy fuckin' shit. That was the most entertained I've been all year, a great pick -me-up after all the sad news recently. Really did a good job of expanding the MCU into the wider galaxy. One scene that stuck with me is Groot going apeshit on the henchman as Star-Lord turns round to a delighted Drax. Funniest moment I've seen in ages
Hilarious, insane and a huge amount of fun. The wait was worth it.

[TOSDOC]

The prologue was barely over, and my wife was already in tears, telling me she hated me for bringing her there. That's code--she loved it. Then the opening credits rolled and we started laughing. Groot had her crying and laughing by the end too. Not many movies can do that to her. Marvel has another winner here, this was the best movie we've seen all year.

I give it 4 1/2 stars for missed opportunities in the Kyln--I was hoping to see a Skrull and a Brood in solitary. Oh, well.

[Ted C]

I give it 4 1/2 stars for missed opportunities in the Kyln--I was hoping to see a Skrull and a Brood in solitary. Oh, well.

There was a Chitauri in one the Collector's cells, and they're the "Marvel Ultimates" equivalent of Skrulls, I believe. I think that the Brood are probably too closely associated with the X-Men to be usable.

[Vendetta]

Also: Ronan's goons were Sakaarans.

Planet Hulk confirmed?

[ArmorPierce]

Looks like they also had a dark elf in one of the collector cells. Pretty cool.

[Darksider]

Also: Ronan's goons were Sakaarans.

Planet Hulk confirmed?

How would they set that up? Hulk is fairly stable in the MCU right now. There's no reason for anyone to shoot him into space. They'd have to have him abducted or something. Avengers 2 is the only movie left in this cycle, and Ant-Man is the only one confirmed for Phase 3. I just feel like they'd need more setup to do Planet Hulk.

[Elheru Aran]

I suspect what they'll do for Planet Hulk is that they're going to turn upon Hulk sometime in Avengers 2. We already know they are probably going to have a battle between at least Iron Man and Hulk at some point.

Either that, or they'll have it in the background in another MCU movie. "Hulk goes Insane, Shot into Space" or some such.

Planet Hulk is a pretty good story and they would be missing out on a lot if they don't pursue it. The main problem with it is that I don't know how they'll involve the Illuminati since the only two they can put their hands on, as far as I know, are Iron Man and Dr. Strange. Reed, Namor, and Black Bolt are Fox property under their FF license; Fox also holds Xavier. Either they'll just have the Avengers make the call, or make veiled references without actually naming anybody else.

[Vendetta]

I doubt they will do Planet Hulk, really. They haven't really expressed any intention to make Hulk himself much of a character, he's just the big green monster who is lucky if he's monosyllabic. And Planet Hulk is all Hulk.

[Napoleon the Clown]

If they did do a Planet Hulk story, I could see it possibly being a case where there's some threat that Banner agrees only Hulk can handle. While Thor has durability and strength on par with Hulk, he has plenty to keep him occupied. Banner, on the other hand, may be more inclined to going somewhere the army can't fuck with him and being able to do good things at the same time.

That's one option, anyway. Personally, I don't really see much room in the MCU for that story, though. As far as I know, they don't think another Hulk movie would do very well considering how the last two performed.

[Elheru Aran]

That's true. I could see it working if they started a 'track' for Cosmic Marvel with GotG though. Bring it back around with Hulk and the Sakaarans joining the fight against Thanos whenever they get around to doing Infinity Gauntlet, which at this rate I suspect will be Phase 4 or 5.

It does look though like there won't be a whole lot more Hulk movies, if any within the current MCU, agreed.

[Cykeisme]

Well, not saying that a Planet Hulk movie would work, but I'll say this:

Prior to GoG, a Planet Hulk movie would have seemed completely, abso-fucking-lutely, undoubtedly impossible.
In fact, any of the Marvel cosmic space stuff seemed completely impossible in movies; it seemed like "the sort of thing that works in geeky comics but would never be able gain acceptance for general public consumption on the big screen."
I was certain of this.

GoG has just blown my assumption into giblets, and proven that I was completely wrong.

[Sea Skimmer]

I saw it, it was fun but when even my sister is left questioning the logic of the end battle something is a off even by Hollywood action wrong. I kinda expected going on that the movie was made as a 'safe' test for expanding CGI, in that failure couldn't significantly harm anything else; looks like I'm not the only one thinking in those terms.

[Simon_Jester]

At this point, Marvel movies seem to have gotten so reliably profitable that they can afford to take risks on a big CGI movie, which is almost unprecedented. They already gambled and lost on a few movies involving 'merely human' characters (Daredevil, Punisher). But those were more like an old-school-ish action movie and didn't have aliens and ray guns all over the place running up the special effects budget.

[Havok]

Those also weren't Marvel. They were licensed and out of the hands of the people that get the characters and stories.

Basically at this point we are seeing Jack Kirby Stan Lee Marvel where it's all "Here you go True Believers! Get a load of THIS!" and it's pretty great.

[Elheru Aran]

Those also weren't Marvel. They were licensed and out of the hands of the people that get the characters and stories.

Basically at this point we are seeing Jack Kirby Stan Lee Marvel where it's all "Here you go True Believers! Get a load of THIS!" and it's pretty great.

Yeah, this is a fairly vital difference between the MCU and other comic-book movies. The company itself is directly involved with creating their films for once, rather than just getting a credit for creating the characters and stories. So they're more invested in getting it right and writing a story that actually fits the characters rather than trying to make the characters fit the story. Marvel is invested in its own heritage, which it knows full well it's creating with these movies. So they have a lot of incentive to do well.

I'm not sure if DC is going this route or if they've just managed to get lucky with producers and directors who are actually fans of the medium, such as Nolan and Snyder...

What's interesting is that it's starting to look like Marvel is crunching down somewhat on licensees of their properties such as Fox and Sony. Fox has put their F4 reboot on ice, IIRC, and while X-Men DOFP did well it had hardly any merchandising associated with it. Neither did Amazing Spider-Man 2. The MCU though? Toys out the wazoo. A number of deductions can be drawn from that... most of them probably incorrect, though.

[FaxModem1]

On a nice sidenote, Chris Pratt went to a children's hospital in character as Peter Quill:

Gawker

Nice Guy Chris Pratt Played Star-Lord for a Bunch of Hospitalized Kids
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Nice Guy Chris Pratt Played Star-Lord for a Bunch of Hospitalized KidsExpand

If you're weary of the internet's non-stop Chris Pratt lovefest, you'll find no solace this week. Pratt once again proved himself in the role of Male Jennifer Lawrence when he visited a children's hospital Wednesday, wearing his Star-Lord outfit from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Here's another photo of cool, nice guy Chris Pratt being cool and nice at Children's Hospital Los Angeles:

According to E!, Pratt showed up to the hospital's special screening of Guardians, where he handed out toys, posed for photos, and let the kids try on his Star-Lord gear. He also visited kids in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, the Children's Center for Cancer, and the ICU, who were too sick to make it to the movie.

And then this happened, overwhelming America's already-weakened tear ducts:

Pratt spent extra time with one patient, Dylan Prunty, who is a longtime Lego fan and recognized the actor's voice from The Lego Movie. They spent about 10 minutes reciting different scenes from the film.

In all, Pratt spent three hours with the kids, who probably didn't complain about how overexposed he is on the internet.

[darth_timon]

I loved this film. Was a tad underwhelmed by Ronan but loved pretty much everything else. It was colourful, the characters were pretty vibrant, and the attention to detail was very impressive.

The CGI and props were blended seamlessly and it's clear everyone looked like they were having fun making it, which makes the film more fun to watch as well. Very keen to see where they take a sequel.

[Alkaloid]

So, this was great. If I had an issue with it it would probably be I couldn't shake the feeling Andy got lost and accidentally stumbled into an episode of Farscape that had escaped and somehow evolved.

[Cykeisme]

Those also weren't Marvel. They were licensed and out of the hands of the people that get the characters and stories.

Basically at this point we are seeing Jack Kirby Stan Lee Marvel where it's all "Here you go True Believers! Get a load of THIS!" and it's pretty great.

This!

Yay!

[Havok]

Yeah, it's refreshing. I mean the Collector? Rocket Raccoon? Howard the Gawddamned Motherfucking Duck?! They are all so damned silly.

The thing is, Marvel is doing it all with confidence and not trying to explain things. We are just being dropped into the middle of the universe and it is what it is. And what it is is great.

[GuppyShark]

You've fought a 1000 year war against someone, there's a rogue warlord running around destroying your outposts and when he appears above your capital and starts laying waste to your headquarters you

A) Don't have any sort of forewarning
B) Don't have a military response