The Little Blockbuster That Could

Every week during the Summer of Superheroes, SuperMike Matthews breaks down the ins and outs of a current superhero franchise.

                                                                

This week: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY! 

 WARNING: The following post discusses the film in its entirety. If you want to see Guardians and haven’t yet, you should probably bookmark this and come back later. If you don’t want to see the film, so be it, but I urge you to reconsider. 

I worry that I put myself in something of a corner when I teased this Guardians of the Galaxy post in last week’s stinger. True, I saw the movie the very next day, as planned, but that part wasn’t the problem. The thing I had no way of knowing was whether or not I would have anything remotely interesting to say about it afterwards. All told, it was a bit presumptuous.

Fortunately, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Guardians since then. Unfortunately, a lot of that thought has come at the instigation of film critics who, sensing the presence of a widely lauded summer blockbuster, emerged from their perpetual, private screenings of The Master to tell me that I am exactly what’s wrong with the entertainment industry today.

Artist's Depiction

Now I’m no enemy of criticism, as my past writings will prove. In fact, I’m much more frustrated by fans who would argue that you shouldn’t ‘waste time’ putting serious thought into a movie that stars a talking raccoon. (I’m not necessarily suggesting that people with that opinion should die in a fire… but, you know, look at the name of this blog.) I think Guardians is a great movie – and apparently 92% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes feel the same – but it does have its share of shortcomings, several of which I’ve seen pointed out and agree with. After all, loving something doesn’t mean denying its flaws, it means accepting them*. The reviews that really bother me, then, are those in which the writers clearly – and perhaps willfully – misunderstood the movie due to their own preconceptions of the superhero genre. Reading them, you’ll find that they’re either overflowing with confirmation bias, or inexplicably written with the thesis statement of ‘this film reminds me of another film, and is therefore terrible.’

 * The same thing applies to people. Important life lessons happening on the blog this week. 

In begrudging fairness to those critics, Guardians did receive a surprisingly disproportionate amount of hype and attention in the months leading up to its release. This was mostly because of the obscurity of the characters; the Guardians have been around since 1969, but the lineup seen in the film debuted only six years ago, meaning the team was just barely older than the cinematic universe it would soon become a part of*. This news was naturally met with delight from fanboys everywhere. “While DC keeps struggling to get Wonder Woman off the ground,” they cackled, “Marvel is about to put out a movie starring Rocket freaking Raccoon.” Yes, one of those cacklers was me.

 * Actually, the members of the current team, as individuals, all have publication histories that go back anywhere from 38 to 54 years. It’s a bit complicated. 

The film was perceived by audiences as a victory lap, and in more ways than one: it would be a crucial blow not just in Marvel’s battle against DC, but in the overall battle for superhero legitimacy. If Guardians succeeded, just about any superhero property could plausibly do the same, from Stilt Man, all the way to Lady Stilt Man. (The film’s post-credits scene even sneaks in a knowing reference to one of the all-time low points in comic book movie history.) Because of that, it almost makes sense that proponents of capital-C Cinema would place such a huge target on its back. To them, Guardians might have been their last chance to put an end to the superhero ‘fad’ once and for all. Of course, when the film finally premiered, and shattered records for an opening weekend in August, it became somewhat evident that they were fighting a losing battle.

Would I lie to you?

The other, more important reason for the excitement surrounding Guardians was its tone, which was radically different from the comic book movies we’d become used to seeing. It had no pretentions of grittiness, no concern with making itself seem like ‘legitimate’ cinema (a la the Nolan Batmen), and could barely even be bothered to take itself seriously. Honestly, what other superhero property would put out a trailer that called its protagonists “a bunch of a-holes” while Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” played in the background? Hellboy might have been able to get away with it, but that doesn’t mean its marketing team would have tried. Listening to people talk, you would think that Guardians was going to be the superhero movie that redefined superhero movies, something so shockingly different that it would completely explode the status quo for all time.

I wouldn’t say the finished product lived up to that expectation, but then, I can’t imagine a film that could. The truth is, Guardians isn’t actually that different from anything we’ve seen before. Star-Lord is basically a pre-Starfleet Captain Kirk. Rocket undergoes almost every beat of Han Solo’s Episode IV rogue-turned-hero arc. Gamora is given some reasonably strong material, but the real fleshing out of her character is all either implied or mentioned in passing. Drax the Destroyer’s single-minded simplicity works surprisingly well, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s not much to him. And as Groot, Vin Diesel basically plays the Iron Giant again. I’m not saying any of those things in a negative light; it’s simply to indicate that the film wasn’t bucking convention at every turn the way some might have hoped. It’s still been tremendously well-received, and I think that’s because James Gunn wisely focused his energies somewhere else entirely. Guardians of the Galaxy may not be an unpredictable movie, but it is a very, very weird one. That, in fact, is its biggest triumph: it’s completely alien, but never alienating.

Much was made of the fact that Guardians would feature, among other things, a talking raccoon and a giant tree-man. Yes, characters like Rocket, Groot, and Yondu took a lot of balls to put onscreen in such a big-budget movie, and a lot of the crazy things that were featured, like Knowhere and Cosmo, came straight out of the comics, but the more impressive feat is that after a while, you kind of stop noticing. Rocket isn’t just a talking raccoon; he’s Rocket, and Rocket just so happens to be a raccoon. If it was up to him, the matter of his species would never even be part of the conversation. The same goes for Groot, despite his speech impediment. Even Drax, whose inability to understand figurative language is (very successfully) played for laughs throughout the film, is never actually made the butt of the joke. Almost every character in this movie is weird on a superficial level, but that unfamiliarity doesn’t preclude any of them from being fully realized people, and it certainly doesn’t define them as it would in a lesser film. That’s what Guardians is all about in the end: a group of imperfect people who come together and learn to accept one another’s flaws.

And boy, are they flawed. Reckless, selfish, self-important, misanthropic, sadistic, immature, and completely unable to communicate effectively. These are people we quickly grow to care about and want to see succeed, but darn it all if their personalities don't make things difficult for them in the most entertaining way possible.

The weakest part of Guardians, then, is its narrative conflict, and specifically its villain, a figure that, unlike his castmates, leans on familiarity at the expense of a fully realized character, continuing a discouraging trend among post-Avengers Marvel films. It’s fine to build characters off of archetypes in the way that Guardians does, because it gives us an immediate understanding of who these people are and what makes them tick. That in turn allows the writer to begin expanding or subverting our expectations right away. The thing is, that second step is extremely important, and for its main cast, Guardians achieves that in spades. But when it comes to the film’s vengeance-obsessed villain, Ronan the Accuser? Let’s just say we’re lucky we even got the archetype. Thankfully, he dodges the bullet of simply being evil for evil’s sake, because he is given a backstory: his father and grandfather were killed in the Kree-Xandar war, and when a peace treaty ends the conflict, he is forced to seek justice on his own terms. In that sense, he isn’t even out to destroy the galaxy, despite what the film’s title may suggest. He really only has a beef with Xandar, which, while still a bit extreme, is a clear motive that we can easily wrap our heads around. All the same, a motivation doesn’t equate to a personality, and a personality is exactly what Ronan comes out lacking. Did he love his father? Did he know his father? Has he denounced his fellow Kree after the treaty, or does he hope they will consider him a hero? What does he plan to do after destroying Xandar? These are all questions the film seems to consider unimportant, and that’s too bad, especially given the complex morality of the character’s comic book counterpart, who is always working for what he considers to be his people's best interests (and also isn't dead).

Still, this version of Ronan is defeated in a dance-off to The Five Stairsteps’ “O-o-h Child,” and that is unabashedly awesome.

 Absolutely unforgivable? Wasting two-time Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou on a three-minute role as Korath the Pursuer, one of Ronan’s Kree henchmen. This makes him the third prominent black actor, after Idris Elba and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, to be cast in an MCU project as an extremely minor Marvel character that wasn’t even black to begin with. Tactics like those may promote diversity on the surface, but all they really do is prevent these great actors from reappearing later on in roles more worthy of their talent. –Ed. 

As far as stakes go, it's never as clear as it ought to be what Ronan is capable of, with or without the Power Stone, but I would say that the safety of Xandar is enough in doubt by the film’s end to create some reasonable tension. Yes, there’s a point at which it becomes obvious that Ronan will fail – namely, after all of our heroes are in point-blank range of his Planet Destroying Hammer of Doom – but because this story is being told on a cosmic scale, it’s not a given that the planet will emerge unscathed, the way it would have been if the whole film had taken place there. Even so, I think this is another area in which things can be a little hazy for those who aren’t familiar with the source material. As shown in the movie, Xandar is the homeworld of the peace-keeping Nova Corps, but what Guardians neglects to mention is that the Nova Corps serves as a police force not just for their own planet, but for multiple galaxies. The loss of Xandar would be equivalent to the loss of the Green Lantern Corps, if you’re a DC fan, or the destruction of the Rebel base on Yavin 4, if you prefer your fruit to be of the low-hanging variety. Ronan’s victory would result in widespread, intergalactic unrest, and I daresay knowing that would have made us a lot more invested in whether or not he succeeds.

I also couldn't help but notice some throwaway lines about evacuating the city, which I feel like must have been a response to something…

Right. That.

 Xandar's fate was particularly up in the air for me because it is eventually destroyed in the comics. The culprit is none other than Nebula, played in Guardians by Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan, sporting some awesome prosthetics and a nice sense of swagger. (That's pretty much the most positive thing I can say about the character. Sorry, Karen... I love you anyway.) -Ed. 

What If?

The future of the Guardians is pretty blue sky right now, with the only real loose end at this point being the identity of Peter's father*, but it’s hard to imagine a sequel that won’t delve even further into Thanos and the Infinity Stones. That’s too bad, honestly, because I felt that those elements of mythology were some of the few things that dragged down this first installment. I got pretty excited to see Thanos myself, but I always have trouble divorcing what the movies tell us from what I know through outside sources, and it seemed to me that for the average viewer, surprisingly little is done to bring him into context. He starts out as the guy that’s going to destroy Xandar for Ronan, but then Ronan decides that, nah, he’ll do it himself, and Thanos just kind of goes away. There’s some lip service paid to the fact that Gamora and Nebula are his adopted daughters, but again, we’re given no indication of why that should matter. Even his history with Drax was changed, albeit for valid reasons that help streamline the movie. To anyone who hasn't done their research, Thanos is just a big purple dude in a chair, and that’s a pretty big injustice to the character, one I imagine the sequel will look to fix.

 * Officially, it's this guy, but I wouldn't be surprised if the MCU version winds up being someone else. Who else? Your guess is as good as mine. 

As for the Infinity Stones, we now know a lot more about them (read: something other than their name), and have three present and accounted for, with three more to go. It's a nice touch that each of the identified stones is being held in equally secure but very distant locations: one in Asgard, one with the Collector, and one with the Nova Corps. When Thanos finally makes his move and starts going after them, things won't be easy for him, that's for sure.

The fact that Xandar now possesses the Power Gem is especially intriguing to me, because it suggests that this gem might become the MCU version of the comics’ vaguely defined Nova Force, a hivemind of energy that gives the members of the Nova Corps varying levels of superhuman abilities. Since the Gem is established here as a source of unlimited power that can only be safely harnessed when shared among multiple people, using it as a Nova Force stand-in would be a remarkably efficient use of established facts to retroactively turn Guardians into a Nova Corps origin story. Of course, if such a thing ends up happening, my above paragraph on Xandar’s significance would be invalid, because they wouldn’t have actually started policing the universe yet. Still, if Marvel commits to an idea as narratively satisfying as that one, I’d have no problem being wrong.

One last character to be on the lookout for: Adam Warlock. A major player in Marvel's cosmic stories, Warlock is a genetically perfect human being, and is usually in possession of the Soul Gem, one of the three Infinity Stones still M.I.A. The mid-credits scene of Thor: The Dark World confirmed that his cocoon was once in the Collector's possession - yes, Warlock has a cocoon - but his whereabouts post-Power Gem explosion are unknown.

Anyway… that's all I've got.

Look, a distraction!

 Next Week: RISE