Guardians of the Galaxy (2014 Marvel film)

I knew the comic was wacky, but I didn't know how wacky until I saw the trailer:



This is one funny idea for a film. It could be very good or very bad, but we'll know for sure in August when it hits theaters. The comic book is a cult classic, and I gotta say, they kind of turn the whole Avengers thing on its ear, done mostly for laughs.

How can you not like a movie that features "Hooked on a Feeling" and an angry, warlike raccoon that kills aliens?

Just plain wacky.

 

I enjoyed the GotG in comics, but I would never have expected a movie to be made based on them. There was always a lot of wise-cracking going on between the characters in the stories though, and many humorous situations amidst fighting the baddies. The only thing I can guarantee about this movie is that I'll go to see it - good or bad.

 

Is Mouse Rat going to do the score? I'm happy to see Chris Pratt in a feature.

 

The Inhumans was supposed to happen but got shelved.

 

Looks cool and fun. I'll be there good or bad on opening day.

 

Looks like a breath of fresh air compared to some of the more "serious", humorless comic book movies of late (I'm looking at you Man of Steel).

James Gunn also directed one of my favorite recent horror comedies, the hilarious Slither (2006) starring Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks.

 

80% this will bomb.

 

Another totally intentional Lucas reference right at the start of the trailer. This is becoming some kind of in joke and game with the Avengers series of films.

 

But 20% of it will be a smash!

 

It's a tough call. Humor and whimsy are very hard to do, let alone satire. Somebody going in expecting another Avengers will be disappointed. But maybe there's room for a comedic adventure provided the comedy is funny, and the adventure is fast-paced and exciting.

But... I'd agree with you that it's a big risk. I gots no idea what the budget on this thing is, but there's no huge names as live-action actors in it, so I'd be surprised if it cost more than $100M. I think it's funny as hell that Bradley Cooper did the voice of the raccoon. And John C. Riley is often very funny.

I had the same impression of this that I did with Seth Macfarlane's Ted: it could either be a huge hit or a huge flop, but nowhere inbetween. It's a good guess as to where it'll land.

 

It looks like it might be a lot of fun.

 

Are big name actors even necessary for a film like this? Was Iron Man successful because of Downey Jr. or because it was IRON MAN? His career was basically in the toilet before Iron Man resurrected it so I think the film itself, the character and the Marvel name were the real stars.

 

I think Chris Pratt might surprise people as a comedic lead, and the effects budget looks pretty decent.

 

It's a difficult one.

Any big budget movie that isn't based on a bankable well known ip is a risk. Whilst this one seems the weirdest film to come out of the Marvel factory so far, everyone is acting as if these characters are completely unheard of whereas their previous films were sure things. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think I'd heard of Thor or Captain America before the movies, and Iron Man certainly wasn't the Batman/Superman/Spiderman-level phenomenon he is now.

Do I think the movie will be good? Maybe. I've only really loved the Avengers, and thought none of the standalone films came close to that level (and some were pretty rotten). So I'm not expecting it to be amazing. BUT James Gunn is an interesting choice to write and direct and they've assembled a cracking cast (Chris Pratt is one of the funniest comedic actors around; go watch Terri and tell me John C. Reilly isn't a great actor; I'm intrigued to see a bald, evil Amy Pond).

Will it make money? It'd be a brave man to bet against Marvel on their current run. But even if it's a huge bomb, they've got at least $2 billion profits *guaranteed* from Avengers 2, Thor 3 and Captain America 2 & 3 on the horizon, so I'm sure they'll survive.

 

The movies have elevated Iron Man/Cap/Thor to a higher level but they were always very well-known superheroes - they might not have been well-known to non-fans, but they've been big names in the comic book community for decades.

The Guardians are WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more obscure than IM/Cap/Thor. They're as cult as cult gets. Crud, I was a big comics fan through my teens (early-mid-80s) and I know zilch about them!

The IM/Thor/Cap films weren't sure things, but at least they revolved around well-known characters. "Guardians" is a radically different subject...

 

I want a Werewolf By Night Tv series.

 

When I was a kid, I fantasized about all of the comic books I was reading being turned into movies. Now that I'm an adult and it's actually happening, I have to say most of them have turned out to be a huge disappointment.

The Avengers movie, Iron man 3, Man of Steel....all of these were terrible movies as far as I was concerned, and they ended up being huge blockbusters. Clearly, I have no idea what will succeed.

I imagine this will be a bomb, but hope I'm wrong, if only for Chris Pratt's sake. He strikes me as a good guy, based on his comedic ability on Parks and Recreation.

 

Downey for me totally made the first film, because his initial character was so arrogant, smug, and obnoxious, it was terrific to see him totally brought down to his knees and humbled by his terrible injury, then forced to accept his role as the hero and re-evaluate his life. The original 1960s comic book character was merely a millionaire playboy, not a cad, but I think the later improvements in the comic were well-serve by the movie. And I can't think of anybody on earth who could pull off that emotional range like Downey. In particular, his ability to convince you he's literally the smartest guy in the room makes the films work.

I remember going back to the late-1970s Comic Con conventions, people like Stan Lee would get up in front of the crowd and say, "now that Star Wars is a huge success, we can't wait to turn out comic books into huge, epic blockbuster movies!" And it didn't happen for decades. I think Stan was stunned by the success of the first Superman movie, and for years, Marvel kind of had to play catch-up with both Superman and Batman. They finally hit it big with Spiderman, but I agree: what they're making is not quite my idea of the way the comic books are. They're clearly made for a much more modern audience, and they tend to make a lot of decisions that water down the concepts and throw in too much spectacle that gets in the way of the story.

It's interesting to note that the very first Spiderman movie was fairly well done (though I never liked the casting), and the first Dark Knight movie was also terrific. But after that, both series seemed to be kind of going through the motions to me. I think they were OK, but not quite living up to what we had seen before. The Fantastic Four movies were also lukewarm -- not horrible, not great, but merely OK. The Hulk wasn't even that good.

I think they turned it around, big-time, with The Avengers, and I liked the casting, I liked the story, I liked the visuals... the whole thing was tremendous. I never even liked the comic book (though I occasionally read it in the 1960s), but I thought they brought some emotional weight to the characters, plus they justified how two non-superpowered humans could hold their own with the others. But it does prove you have to have a terrific writer with the sensibilities of somebody like Joss Whedon to pull this stuff off, balancing real emotion, believable dialogue, snappy one-liners, interesting side-characters, huge set pieces, while somehow making the audience identify with these strange beings.

 

I think you missed my point. I 100% agree with what you wrote above, it's a brilliant performance, Downey was fantastic and it revived his career in a blink of an eye.

My point was that Robert Downey Jr. was not the reason people showed up to buy tickets opening weekend. Prior to the film being released I didn't hear a single person say "Hey, the new Robert Downey Jr. movie is opening Friday, we gotta go!" MARVEL and IRON MAN were the reasons they showed up to see the film,"Iron Man is gonna be AWESOME!", then fantastic reviews and word of mouth pushed it from there. The Marvel brand is the real movie star right now (how else could a muddled, confused piece of crap like Thor: The Dark World make hundreds of millions of dollars) and I think on that alone Guardians Of The Galaxy will be a sizable hit.

 

Sorta underwhelmed by the trailer. It wasn't really funny enough to hook me that way. But it looks interesting. I'm looking forward to a better trailer.

 

Absolutely, I totally agree with that. In fact, co-star Terrence Howard claims that he had to lobby for the studio to take a chance on Downey because of his past record with drug problems and arrests. Howard later said he was very hurt when he had been promised a huge raise for the next film, and instead he was dropped, a less-expensive actor replaced him, and Downey didn't stick up for him. (And I think Downey wound up making over $50 million on the third film.)

Man, that was horrible, wasn't it? I'm amazed when a movie this confusing and weird can make a ton of money. I thought the first Thor at least anchored a lot of the movie on Earth, and I was put off in the second film by the amount of time they spent on Asgard and other worlds. But I also never cared for the Thor comic book, either.

The fear is that Guardians of the Galaxy could wind up like a similar 1980s Marvel comic book, Howard the Duck, which I think most people have forgotten about. Cutesy animals in a sci-fi setting don't always work. I worked on the trailers for that one back in 1986, and when the editor walked into the room, "I said, 'wow, I really look forward to this! I love the comic book!' and the guy shook his head and said, 'then you're gonna hate this piece of s@@@.'" He was right. Here's that trailer:



God help us if Guardians of the Galaxy is like this.

 

I find the casting of Chris Pratt somewhat puzzling - unless the producers just wanted to hire the first actor who would say yes to the likely low dollar figure they offered. He literally has no appeal outside of the U.S.

To me, he always seems to be that 6th year senior at the fraternity that barely grew up and now plays golf with your brother. A real "bro" with a perennial stain on the front of his golf shirt.

A Chris Pratt action figure should come with a red Solo cup.

 

I read earlier today that Chris Pratt lost 60 pounds for the role. I think he's quite funny and I'm looking forward to the film.

 

Thor the comic was always boring. It strove for this faux "high language" and the stories were incomprehensible sometimes. I thought Thor The Dark World didn't make sense at first, then when I thought about it: It was structured like a comic book in that it dwelled SO LITTLE or building character they just popped onto the screen and WHAM off they went as pawns for the battle. Well, if you think about it, comics are a very superficial and rocket paced and leap about madly. So I think Thor the Dark World was a very faithful reproduction of the scattershot frames of a comic book. It makes sense, but don't expect more than a sentence of explanation anywhere! The moon men attacked the earth a thousand years ago....

 

Ah, so it wasn't just me! That's a relief. I remember the comic went all over the place, and I assumed either I was just too brain damaged to understand it, or the writers were all stoned out of their minds (or both!).