On Friday, my wife and I saw the Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy. If you’ve been reading the blog, you can tell I’ve been quite excited about this upcoming event. In fact, I rated it #4 in my most anticipated nerdy events of all time. I won’t give too many spoilers here because I want everybody to experience all the surprises, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was funnier than most of the Marvel flicks and it did a great job of introducing the viewer to a new set of unique heroes. Also, my wife wanted to take Rocket Raccoon home and make him our pet. No word on whether he’d be allowed to bring giant anthropomorphic tree Groot along with him. I think we’ll just have to settle for a rescue cat.
Beyond the humor, beyond the great characters, there was something really important Marvel did with this movie for its entire cinematic universe. Comics are weird and many of them take place in far off mystical worlds. If Thor and the world of Asgard represented an olive branch to the weirder side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy represented an olive tree (Groot) and possibly an entire olive forest with Thanos, the Collector and a walking, talking 80s movie star who will not be named for fear of spoiling a key scene in the movie. Little by little, Marvel is coaxing the casual movie goer into the deep end of the kookiness that is the comic book world.
First, we saw that Thor could travel from Asgard to Earth (Terra) using a sweet, sweet rainbow bridge. In the Avengers, we watched Loki bring an army to Earth from the other side of the galaxy using some kind of wormhole (giving us our first glance at Thanos). In the cut scene of Thor 2, we saw two of Thor’s buddies deliver one of the infinity stones to the Collector, which connected Asgard to the world on the other side of the galaxy. Now, with Guardians, we have seen a complete story on this side of the galaxy that indirectly links Thor and the rest of the Avengers with freakin’ Rocket Raccoon and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
I was able to avoid almost all Guardians spoilers, but I’ve heard some major happenings going forward with how the Avengers may directly connect with the Guardians in future movies. While I wish I’d been able to avoid the potential plots for Avengers 3 and Guardians 2, it’s no surprise that Marvel would want to bring its super teams together. First of all, it’s more money for them (Avengers is the third highest grossing film of all time). Second, it gives Marvel the ability to tell whatever stories it wants. Can you imagine that kind of freedom as a writer for the screen? We have the technology to do weird stuff up there, but Marvel has the trust of the moviegoing public to put the strangest stuff in its comic library in theaters. Oh to be a screenwriter at Marvel right now.
Given the tectonic shift of Marvel moviemaking, I’m happy to be writing some out-there science fiction and fantasy. If Marvel calls me up, I’ll let you all know.
Top Image: Flickr Creative Commons Groot Garbage Bin by Arvell Dorsey Jr.
What’d you think of Guardians of the Galaxy? Let me know in the comments below.
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