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Guardians of the Galaxy
Sep. 1st, 2014 02:16 amSo I finally got around to seeing Guardians of the Galaxy today.
It was pretty decent fluff -- I was expecting the sexist stuff, so it didn't bother me as much but a few things did --
1) Rocket's "I want his leg" and "I want his eye" thing. Given the bit of Rocket's backstory we got at the beginning of the movie, it didn't make sense to me that he'd actively go out of his way to remove other people's prosthetics simply as a joke? Being augmented and having your body and mind adjusted in ways beyond your control *is* what created him, right? So why would he want to rob others of that? :-/ It's a small thing but it *really* bothered me.
2) It was too much of a Team-Up Movie. I know this sounds weird, but it's totally possible to have an ensemble movie where new people are introduced and then have to learn to work together as a team -- without it being a team-up movie. A team-up movie generally ends up with the same tired story beats of "We fight each other b/c we don't know each other," "We grudgingly work together because of circumstances and it works surprisingly well," "the team breaks apart because of petty differences," "after some brief soul searching the team resolves to act together for some new cause," "final victory only achieved through trusting each other." GotG, like The Avengers, felt like a very run-of-the-mill Team-Up Movie, when it could have been more.
The problem I have with team-up movies is that you end up skimping on character development and a more thematic/cohesive plot challenge. The plot challenges are only designed to make enough logical sense to drive the team apart and then pull them back together again. Character-development-wise, the structure makes it hard to navigate from "allies of circumstance" to "true allies" -- the 2nd act where everyone gets separated and decide that they need each other is often rather contrived, because there's no time to go into *why* each character chooses to go back and care about the team. So you end up with very simplistic motivations of "friendship," or "we work better as a team" or "the plot called and it needs us." Part of the problem is that you don't get time to go into everyone's backstories.
The most obvious manifestation of this in GotG would probably be Drax -- I had no idea why Drax would consider any of the others his "friends" -- they don't include him in the deal with the Collector (did he miss out on all the infinity stone exposition?), they yell at him doing the one thing that mattered to him -- seek vengeance with Ronan, they roll their eyes at him half the time, they don't really come to his aid (where was Groot when Drax was fighting Ronan?). And it's not like he had it bad in the prison -- he was respected and feared. His primary goal of avenging his family means that he has very little reason to risk his life for anyone else, especially given how he's treated the majority of the movie.
It also manifested in the lackluster "call to arms" scene. When Rocket posed the question of "But we'll die," I was like, "yes please talk about this. Talk about how everyone in this group has spent so much of their lives just focused on *surviving* and just barely carving out a tiny bit of space for themselves, that to ask them to walk into almost-certain death is super counter-intuitive -- every bone in their bodies must be screaming 'run away! survive to live another day!' Talk about it as a way for them to choose to make their lives *more* than just eking out a life as a former weapon, driven by anger and revenge and fear. Talk about it in context of their own character arcs instead of in the context of the team's development." But we just got "hey we're friends."
Earlier I said it was possible to have an ensemble movie where characters are introduced and have to learn how to work as a team -- without it being a Team Up Movie. I think Captain America: tWS provides an interesting counter-example. Over the course of the movie, Steve first had to learn how to work with Natasha, and then with Sam, and then Fury, with a bit of Maria Hill and Sharon Carter thrown in. But because it wasn't trying to do a Team-Up Movie, there wasn't the requisite breaking apart during the second act. Instead we had Steve and Nat and Fury each working through their own character arcs and letting *that* drive their "should I trust you" interactions. Whereas Team-Up Movies usually go only as far as "should I team up," or "should I trust you," CATWS had the luxury to go into the "why should I trust you" and the "how does choosing to trust you change me." Thus the great Sam/Steve, Steve/Nat, Steve/Fury, and Nat/Fury interactions. Also, without "should we team up" being the center of the story, the Call To Arms portion in the bunker wasn't "for the sake of friendship," but rather a conversation around the larger themes of fear and surveillance.
I would have *loved* to see a GotG where Rocket and Gamora have a conversation about being made a weapon, or where Gamora/Drax/Peter talk about losing family and feeling displaced, or where Groot/Drax/Gamora show through small actions how much they understand the feeling of not being heard or written off as stupid/a woman/a tree. More time for them to talk about feelings of vengeance for all the horrible things done to them. Imagine if Peter did Sam's "he's not someone you save, he's someone you stop" speech, except to Gamora before she heads out to confront Nebula. Then Gamora could have gone into a little more of her relationship with Nebula and Thanos. Imagine Steve/Fury's argument about whether to take down all of SHIELD, except between Peter and Rocket about whether the primary objective is saving civilian lives or getting the infinity gem.
Anyways, I did enjoy the movie -- I just think it could have been much more.
It was pretty decent fluff -- I was expecting the sexist stuff, so it didn't bother me as much but a few things did --
1) Rocket's "I want his leg" and "I want his eye" thing. Given the bit of Rocket's backstory we got at the beginning of the movie, it didn't make sense to me that he'd actively go out of his way to remove other people's prosthetics simply as a joke? Being augmented and having your body and mind adjusted in ways beyond your control *is* what created him, right? So why would he want to rob others of that? :-/ It's a small thing but it *really* bothered me.
2) It was too much of a Team-Up Movie. I know this sounds weird, but it's totally possible to have an ensemble movie where new people are introduced and then have to learn to work together as a team -- without it being a team-up movie. A team-up movie generally ends up with the same tired story beats of "We fight each other b/c we don't know each other," "We grudgingly work together because of circumstances and it works surprisingly well," "the team breaks apart because of petty differences," "after some brief soul searching the team resolves to act together for some new cause," "final victory only achieved through trusting each other." GotG, like The Avengers, felt like a very run-of-the-mill Team-Up Movie, when it could have been more.
The problem I have with team-up movies is that you end up skimping on character development and a more thematic/cohesive plot challenge. The plot challenges are only designed to make enough logical sense to drive the team apart and then pull them back together again. Character-development-wise, the structure makes it hard to navigate from "allies of circumstance" to "true allies" -- the 2nd act where everyone gets separated and decide that they need each other is often rather contrived, because there's no time to go into *why* each character chooses to go back and care about the team. So you end up with very simplistic motivations of "friendship," or "we work better as a team" or "the plot called and it needs us." Part of the problem is that you don't get time to go into everyone's backstories.
The most obvious manifestation of this in GotG would probably be Drax -- I had no idea why Drax would consider any of the others his "friends" -- they don't include him in the deal with the Collector (did he miss out on all the infinity stone exposition?), they yell at him doing the one thing that mattered to him -- seek vengeance with Ronan, they roll their eyes at him half the time, they don't really come to his aid (where was Groot when Drax was fighting Ronan?). And it's not like he had it bad in the prison -- he was respected and feared. His primary goal of avenging his family means that he has very little reason to risk his life for anyone else, especially given how he's treated the majority of the movie.
It also manifested in the lackluster "call to arms" scene. When Rocket posed the question of "But we'll die," I was like, "yes please talk about this. Talk about how everyone in this group has spent so much of their lives just focused on *surviving* and just barely carving out a tiny bit of space for themselves, that to ask them to walk into almost-certain death is super counter-intuitive -- every bone in their bodies must be screaming 'run away! survive to live another day!' Talk about it as a way for them to choose to make their lives *more* than just eking out a life as a former weapon, driven by anger and revenge and fear. Talk about it in context of their own character arcs instead of in the context of the team's development." But we just got "hey we're friends."
Earlier I said it was possible to have an ensemble movie where characters are introduced and have to learn how to work as a team -- without it being a Team Up Movie. I think Captain America: tWS provides an interesting counter-example. Over the course of the movie, Steve first had to learn how to work with Natasha, and then with Sam, and then Fury, with a bit of Maria Hill and Sharon Carter thrown in. But because it wasn't trying to do a Team-Up Movie, there wasn't the requisite breaking apart during the second act. Instead we had Steve and Nat and Fury each working through their own character arcs and letting *that* drive their "should I trust you" interactions. Whereas Team-Up Movies usually go only as far as "should I team up," or "should I trust you," CATWS had the luxury to go into the "why should I trust you" and the "how does choosing to trust you change me." Thus the great Sam/Steve, Steve/Nat, Steve/Fury, and Nat/Fury interactions. Also, without "should we team up" being the center of the story, the Call To Arms portion in the bunker wasn't "for the sake of friendship," but rather a conversation around the larger themes of fear and surveillance.
I would have *loved* to see a GotG where Rocket and Gamora have a conversation about being made a weapon, or where Gamora/Drax/Peter talk about losing family and feeling displaced, or where Groot/Drax/Gamora show through small actions how much they understand the feeling of not being heard or written off as stupid/a woman/a tree. More time for them to talk about feelings of vengeance for all the horrible things done to them. Imagine if Peter did Sam's "he's not someone you save, he's someone you stop" speech, except to Gamora before she heads out to confront Nebula. Then Gamora could have gone into a little more of her relationship with Nebula and Thanos. Imagine Steve/Fury's argument about whether to take down all of SHIELD, except between Peter and Rocket about whether the primary objective is saving civilian lives or getting the infinity gem.
Anyways, I did enjoy the movie -- I just think it could have been much more.
