the galaxy's guardians
May. 7th, 2023 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafitalWent to see the third (and final? who knows) Guardians of the Galaxy yesterday.
Before I cut away for spoilers, quick PSA for anyone sensitive to animals in film and TV may want to check Does The Dog Die.
Despite not being particularly enthusiastic about this film, I did like it. It has that James Gunn quality where the men are idiots but their humor is supposed to make us like the and the women are deeply annoyed at all the men all the time but they are still a tightly connected family unit. After 2 movies and their appearances in the other MCU films, it was more or less the same dynamic.
BUT, as I was commenting to friends in slack, these characters had all gone through so much between the 2nd film and the 3rd film, that it was interesting to see how they picked it up. I mean, between the 2nd film and now, they were all snapped away except for Nebula and Rocket, and Gamora was dead.
Anyway, it was all about Rocket this time, while the group figured out who and what they wanted to be. Rocket got fatally injured early in the film. Then, the rest of them had to figure out how to keep him alive, while the plot intercut between the group tracing back Rocket's origins and Rocket in near death reliving his earliest memories.
Which leads to.... a lot of animal experimentation. I normally have a pretty tough skin when animals are on screen, and it wasn't like explicitly gory or anything, but I was left thinking as we saw a sweet otter and a sweet rabbit and a very sweet and young rocket experimented on that this is NOT a film I would take kids to see. And there were A LOT of kids in the audience.
It was like a live action Zootopia for a moment there, if Zootopia was an experiment run by a weird megalomaniac scientist.
Anywoo, things I liked:
~ Loved Gamora, and that she wouldn't, couldn't, and wasn't going to be a prop for Quill's sadness and guilt over losing the other Gamora and causing the near half of the galaxy to be snapped out of existence. She just flat out refused. And I love that. Also love that, though they were mostly hostile to each other, they did find at least some way to work past that and by the end, they were acknowledging that though they could not be what Peter had with Gamora before, they couldn't pretend like that wasn't real.
~ Also LOVED Gamora returning to the Ravagers and how they all just hugged her and loved her and she was so happy to be back with them at the end of the movie. You get the sense of her upcoming adventures, away from her awful father, not burdened by the other Gamora. It's great. Loved it.
~ As gut wrenching as Rocket's back story is, and Nebula said it best when she said it was WORSE than what Thanos did to her, I did like knowing his story, and seeing how he is a genius, and his genius is not explainable even within the animal experiments. James Gunn has to answer for Lylla and Foor and Teef's deaths though. WTF, dude. Uncalled for.
~ Nebula's journey from weapon to surrogate and foster mom to a bunch of random animals and engineered children, co-parenting with Drax, and all the other refugees on Knowhere. Not what i expected for her story, but one I'll gladly take. She's making sure no other little kids go through what she went through.
~ Also glad Mantis found her own sense of self. And that it's not with Drax. Their squabbling is meant to be comic relief but I don't think it was doing her any favors.
~ I was a bit sad that the guardians broke up, but i like that Rocket formed another group and that you know there will always be a Guardians of the Galaxy, taking up the mantel as it's handed down, etc. It's how I wrote about them in my Thundershield series, and I believe how it is in the comics, so it felt very true and accurate.
~ And finally, pleased that Peter Quill went home to see his grandfather. The end credit scene was odd and amusing. Just him and his grandpa, having breakfast, gossiping about a neighbor (or step brother? not sure). It was cute and felt real. And as much as I'm whatever about Chris Pratt and Quill, I'm wondering when we'll see him again. The end tag said he was returning, though who knows how accurate that is lol.
~ Am quite fond of all the side characters, like Kragliin and Cosmo (good dog!) and all them on Knowhere. Cosmo the telekinetic dog! Saving the day! The true hero of the movie, and a nice balance and foil against all the animals that were experimented on.
Negatives include, not caring at all about the villain, getting tired of Drax's insults, and sort of wanting Mantis and Quill not to part, as they are siblings.
All in all, a good ending. The audience I saw it with loved it.
Before I cut away for spoilers, quick PSA for anyone sensitive to animals in film and TV may want to check Does The Dog Die.
Despite not being particularly enthusiastic about this film, I did like it. It has that James Gunn quality where the men are idiots but their humor is supposed to make us like the and the women are deeply annoyed at all the men all the time but they are still a tightly connected family unit. After 2 movies and their appearances in the other MCU films, it was more or less the same dynamic.
BUT, as I was commenting to friends in slack, these characters had all gone through so much between the 2nd film and the 3rd film, that it was interesting to see how they picked it up. I mean, between the 2nd film and now, they were all snapped away except for Nebula and Rocket, and Gamora was dead.
Anyway, it was all about Rocket this time, while the group figured out who and what they wanted to be. Rocket got fatally injured early in the film. Then, the rest of them had to figure out how to keep him alive, while the plot intercut between the group tracing back Rocket's origins and Rocket in near death reliving his earliest memories.
Which leads to.... a lot of animal experimentation. I normally have a pretty tough skin when animals are on screen, and it wasn't like explicitly gory or anything, but I was left thinking as we saw a sweet otter and a sweet rabbit and a very sweet and young rocket experimented on that this is NOT a film I would take kids to see. And there were A LOT of kids in the audience.
It was like a live action Zootopia for a moment there, if Zootopia was an experiment run by a weird megalomaniac scientist.
Anywoo, things I liked:
~ Loved Gamora, and that she wouldn't, couldn't, and wasn't going to be a prop for Quill's sadness and guilt over losing the other Gamora and causing the near half of the galaxy to be snapped out of existence. She just flat out refused. And I love that. Also love that, though they were mostly hostile to each other, they did find at least some way to work past that and by the end, they were acknowledging that though they could not be what Peter had with Gamora before, they couldn't pretend like that wasn't real.
~ Also LOVED Gamora returning to the Ravagers and how they all just hugged her and loved her and she was so happy to be back with them at the end of the movie. You get the sense of her upcoming adventures, away from her awful father, not burdened by the other Gamora. It's great. Loved it.
~ As gut wrenching as Rocket's back story is, and Nebula said it best when she said it was WORSE than what Thanos did to her, I did like knowing his story, and seeing how he is a genius, and his genius is not explainable even within the animal experiments. James Gunn has to answer for Lylla and Foor and Teef's deaths though. WTF, dude. Uncalled for.
~ Nebula's journey from weapon to surrogate and foster mom to a bunch of random animals and engineered children, co-parenting with Drax, and all the other refugees on Knowhere. Not what i expected for her story, but one I'll gladly take. She's making sure no other little kids go through what she went through.
~ Also glad Mantis found her own sense of self. And that it's not with Drax. Their squabbling is meant to be comic relief but I don't think it was doing her any favors.
~ I was a bit sad that the guardians broke up, but i like that Rocket formed another group and that you know there will always be a Guardians of the Galaxy, taking up the mantel as it's handed down, etc. It's how I wrote about them in my Thundershield series, and I believe how it is in the comics, so it felt very true and accurate.
~ And finally, pleased that Peter Quill went home to see his grandfather. The end credit scene was odd and amusing. Just him and his grandpa, having breakfast, gossiping about a neighbor (or step brother? not sure). It was cute and felt real. And as much as I'm whatever about Chris Pratt and Quill, I'm wondering when we'll see him again. The end tag said he was returning, though who knows how accurate that is lol.
~ Am quite fond of all the side characters, like Kragliin and Cosmo (good dog!) and all them on Knowhere. Cosmo the telekinetic dog! Saving the day! The true hero of the movie, and a nice balance and foil against all the animals that were experimented on.
Negatives include, not caring at all about the villain, getting tired of Drax's insults, and sort of wanting Mantis and Quill not to part, as they are siblings.
All in all, a good ending. The audience I saw it with loved it.
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Date: 2023-05-08 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-08 05:13 pm (UTC)