This past weekend, Brian finally sobered up enough to go and finish Guardians of the Galaxy after our little fiasco last Thursday night. And without further ado, we present more in-depth analysis (and nitpicks) of the highly entertaining Marvel film. POSSIBLE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!

BRAD: I have one question that’s been bugging me all weekend: Why doesn’t Drax ever wear a shirt?

BRIAN: Because his skin looks cool as shit with the skulls and stuff on it. Was he born that way, or did he have those done?

BRAD: I think that was a skin disease actually.

BRIAN: Like a bad case of shingles?

BRAD: Or a bad case of space poison ivy.

An interesting aspect of this comic book movie was, besides Groot, no one had exceptional super powers. No super strength, or power of flight or superior mental abilities like other superheroes like Thor, Hulk or Spider-Man. They are all basically ordinary. That’s rare for a Marvel superhero team movie.

BRIAN: I wouldn’t really even consider this a superhero movie though, just a space adventure. An erotic space adventure.

BRAD: Well, sure you have a point but within the MCU they are all superheroes. But that was my point this is a Marvel movie that doesn’t really have superheroes. Iron Man also is just a normal man in a super suit but his gimmick is more super than the Guardians.

The other thing I really liked in GotG is that there was barely any “origin” stories for the team members. The first 5 minutes had Peter Quill as a young kid losing his mom and that was basically it. All the other members briefly talked about their “origins.” Gamora took 2 minutes telling Quill about her family being killed by Thanos. Drax mentioned his family being killed by Ronan in just a few short sentences. Rocket had a great drunken rage scene explaining his origin. A lesser superhero movie would have 4-5 worthless flashbacks showing these origins and that’s just too much. 

BRIAN: And Groot was just from a race of tree people, right? Like Sandy Allen?

The only character who could have had just a little more background was Ronan. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to destroy Xandar so badly. But he was still a good villain. It was weird to me that he was played by Lee Pace since Pushing Daisies is one of my favorite shows ever but he did a great job. The whole cast kicked ass. I wasn’t sure about Dave Bautista at first but he fit Drax really well. And Chris Pratt has become one of my favorite actors now. He’s extremely likable but never douchy. Like Sandy Allen. 

BRAD: Lee Pace is actually in the new Hobbit movies as a bad-ass elf lord and he’s also a mean mo-fo in the new AMC drama Halt and Catch Fire. Pushing Daisies was a wimpy role for someone who can play quite the tough or menace. 

But yes, Marvel movies of late have had such two-dimensional or lame villains. I can’t even recall who Thor’s villain was in his sequel. Ronan started off awesome by clubbing that dude in the head but his fight with Drax was terrible. It’s like he couldn’t be bothered to fight him.

And I can’t stand it when a villain has such exceptional power like the Infinity Stone and could probably incinerate a foe in a few seconds, yet just stuns a person in a major fight that it doesn’t even knock them unconscious. This happens in practically every superhero flick. 

BRIAN: That was another thing, why was Ronan so much more powerful than Drax? Drax is this super-powerful dude but Ronan makes him look like a pussy.

Yeah I thought it was a little lame that he just knocked the heroes off their feet with his all-powerful weapon when he could have incinerated them all.

BRAD: Drax was blind with rage and sloppy. Ronan basically Mr. Miyagi’d Drax in the parking lot after the tournament. Ronan should’ve went to kill him but stopped to honk his nose. 

The other thing worth mentioning is the Super Nova defense fence that all those tiny ships made to halt Ronan’s ship. First of all, it looked cool and was unique. But logistically it looked stupid. Ronan’s ship is the size of 10 football fields. How can thousands of tiny Nova ships banded together stop such a huge ship? And why didn’t all those tiny ships fire upon Ronan’s ship while they were in such close proximity? And did the Nova Corps ever try this maneuver before? I guess they have since they designed the ships to meld together like that. Just seems odd to me that when confronted with a ship of that magnitude a really huge gun or bomb would be better than thousands of tiny space crafts. That’s like if thousands of row boats banded together to halt a battleship.

BRIAN: Why didn’t Ronan get his hammer out of his space car and blast Drax in the skull? Like Miyagi did to Kreese?

I was ok with that because it looked cool. It probably would have made more sense if they all just trained their tractor beams on the ship to try to stop it. Or since they were able to blast a hole in the ship before, they all could have fired into the middle of the ship. The Dark Asster.

BRAD: I was very excited to finally see and hear Thanos, one of my favorite Marvel villains. He looked great but why would such a powerful villain sit on a floating rock throne in the middle of nowhere? His headquarters is a small asteroid with nothing on it. Literally nothing. Yet he had a throne made of rock with tiny jets on them to hold up the arm rests. Kinda silly. 

I absolutely loved Rocket. Everything he said and did I was always grinning ear-to-ear. I could watch a whole movie with just Rocket and Groot’s adventures. The humor in this movie propelled the appeal of this sci-fi space adventure ten-fold. It was up there with other space comedies like, Galaxy Questand Star Crash. This is a film with limitless rewatchability unlike the new Spider-Mans with Andrew Garfield and Man of Steel that make you suicidal.

BRIAN: Yeah, when’s Thanos gonna get off his fat ass and do something? He has the worst villain lair ever.

Yeah Rocket and Groot were so awesome, especially Rocket. But especially Groot. Let’s not go comparing it to Star Crash just yet though. That’s a level of amazing that’s virtually unobtainable. But yeah, the rewatchability factor is very high. I watched it 1 3/4 times in three days and I’d watch it again!

BRAD: I also thought John C. Reilly was going to have a bigger role. Why get someone like Reilly if he only has 5 lines. He had the same amount of lines as the guy who is in all the Edgar Wright movies and the voice of Darth Maul and even he did more in the final battle. 

The only thing I can think is he’ll play a bigger role in subsequent Marvel movies. Like he’ll be the super hero Nova from the New Warriors or something.

I forgot to include the infamously awesome Ice Pirates in my GotG comparison.

BRIAN: It’s entirely possible that Star-Lord has space herpes.

Noticeably absent from GotG: Pimpbots. Or really any other robots for that matter.

BRAD: Yeah good point. A sci-fi adventure with no robots. Strange.

We haven’t even brought up Michael Rooker yet!

BRIAN: Yeah, was Yondu raised in Alabama?

BRAD: The Ravagers are the far galaxy’s answer to the Sons of Anarchy or The Black Widows.

Another thing that kinda irked me was the abundance of alien races that were just people painted a bright color. Like couldn’t they spend a little more money to make creatures that looked less human? Just seemed kinda lazy.

BRIAN: I was confused as to why there were like a dozen different kinds of Xandarians. But your right, that’s one thing this movie came up short on: alien creature design. They were all basically weird-looking humanoids. Like Sandy Allen. 

Overall, I really did enjoy this picture. I’d say it’s in a dead heat with Edge of Tomorrow as the movie I had the most fun watching this summer, but Guardians obviously has a lot more staying power with its success and its already-announced sequel and the inevitable crossovers with these characters and the other Marvel characters. I can’t wait to see Groot fight Hawkeye to the death! Groot will kill them all! Like Sandy Allen!

BRAD: I’m torn because as a huge comic book geek who actually was really looking forward to this flick and actually knew the characters I want to say this was my favorite movie of the summer. I think that distinction will go to X-Men: Days of Future Past but I think because I was so pleasantly shocked by Edge of Tomorrow, a film I thought would be totally mediocre, I’d say that would be my second of the summer making Guardians third. It was an excellent blockbuster summer with every movie I saw non-disappointments and actually very enjoyable and dare I say it smart. I skipped any movie with the name Michael Bay attached to it. I also keenly avoided Spider-Man 2.

BRIAN: I definitely liked this better than X-Men: Days of Future Past, but I didn’t see that movie.

BRAD: FOOL!

BRIAN: Think they can kill the brother of Badula!

BRAD: Bubba Smith would’ve made a great Drax if he were still alive.

BRIAN: Yondu-Yondu-Yondu-Yondu-Yondu-Yooooondu

 

Brian’s Score: 9.1 Pelvic Sorcerers (out of 10)

Brad’s Score: 9 Space Hammers (out of 10)