Guardians of the Galaxy Unleashes the Squee!
The Guardians of the Galaxy trailer debuted last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. And it is everything I could’ve possibly wanted it to be. Well, almost. Here are my impressions of the first trailer for Marvel’s riskiest film to date.
Recent incarnations of the Guardians of the Galaxy have always been a tongue in cheek, and I’m happy to see that Marvel has embraced the strange. They clearly want to play Guardians for the action comedy that it lends itself to, and I think that is absolutely the right strategy for this flick. I mean, all of the Marvel films are laced with humor, but this is the first film that features relatively unknown characters in a particularly incredulous context. Giving their audience permission to laugh is going to be paramount to the film’s success. That said, people ate up the magi-technological weirdness of Asgard to the tune of over a billion dollars in combined earnings for both films in the Thor franchise. Certainly, Guardians, with its space opera roots in the vein of Star Wars, is more accessible to a typical audience than trans-dimensional space vikings? This movie should make all of the money.
It’s also clear that Marvel is committed to developing the cosmic side of their film universe away from the Asgardians. The trailer gives us surprise John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz appearances as Nova Corps officers, a brief reprise of Benicio Del Toro’s Collector (from the bumper at the end of Thor 2), and a clear shot of Nebula, Thanos’ granddaughter and all around bad girl. Combined with the Infinity Gems hinted at in previous movies, all this points towards a mounting Infinity War, for which I am stupidly excited. Frankly, I’m just waiting to see Warlock (my fingers are crossed for a surprise appearance in GotG–I’ve always been a Warlock fan)…
Also, I loved the Indy homage at the opening… Chris Pratt (or is that… Special Agent Burt Macklin?) is the man.
But the trailer wasn’t all roses, if you ask me. Besides the Nova Corps and Starlord, we’ve heard no one else speak, and while Gamora and Drax are on the “normal” end of things, I confess I’ve been wanting to hear Bradley Cooper’s Rocket, more for peace of mind than anything else (because an uplifted raccoon with a gun fetish is a pretty risky move on Marvel’s part). Also, Groot. But I think I can wait for Groot. Because, you know, it’s Groot… He isn’t exactly known for quoting Shakespeare. In fact, I’ve been somewhat surprised that, besides the Nova Corps line-up, the only footage of Rocket and Groot in the trailer was, well, a color corrected clip of the same test footage we’ve been seeing for a while, with the addition of the prison backdrop. I understand wanting to play it close to the chest, but I am looking forward to seeing these characters in a different context.
What a year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? A two pronged assault, one rooted in the contemporary politics of the Earth, the other taking us deep into the cosmos. I couldn’t be more excited.
Caffeineforge 
HUZZAH!
I dunno, man. I think Thor and the Asgardians are infinitely more relatable than GotG. Western culture has a history with Asgard, the space-age bit was a just a twist on the familiar. We’re being asked to adopt a whole new mythology with Guardians and I don’t think it’s going to be a commercial success. I will see it. I will love it. I hope I’m wrong about it’s popular reception.
It is a whole new mythology, granted. But it is as relatable as, say, Star Wars in my opinion. That is to say, it’s not that tough to figure out who is good and who is bad, and there are spaceships and lasers, and wookies (Groot), and in this movie R2-D2 is a… talking Raccoon… Well, you get my point.
In contrast, Thor has easy to grok trappings (Norse myths, swords and spears and stuff), but it’s a thin veneer that covers ancient aliens, technology that is sufficiently advanced and therefore indistinguishable, dimension hopping, flying boats, etc. I think for the average viewer, that is /much/ more likely to go cornball than a good old fashioned shoot’em up space opera. Also, it appears to be the year of space operas, since the Wachowskis’ space opera, Jupiter Ascending, opens the week before. And that one has Channing Tatum as a pointy-eared space elf (for the ladies)…
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