First new post of the new E-Vac Station blog for reviews,
news, analysis, and jokes on comparing Hollywood stars to male genitalia. So
let’s start our new series of reviews (which we’re calling Bullet Points) with a review of Guardians
of the Galaxy (which, incidentally, could just be called “Marvel’s Pricks
in Space”).
You can probably look at any reviewer worth their weight in
gold to see that this movie is good, since most critics who are open-minded and
not anti-comic-book-movie have all being saying this film is either good,
great, or amazing (spiderman). But that’s not how we will be doing things here.
I don’t want to waste your time with three to four pages of writing telling you
something that everyone else can tell you that should have been obvious already
given the lackluster summer we’ve had for movies and this being the only one
that looked even remotely fun (outside Dawn
of the Planet of the Apes). No one gains anything out of this that you
couldn’t have gained anywhere else already since this isn’t coming out until
WEDNESDAY.
Short answer, yes, this movie was fantastic and fun. If you’re
going to see anything this week or next (since we can all probably see how bad
the TMNT reboot will be), you should
go see Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s
one of the few movies I got a genuine laugh out of while I could still enjoy
the spectacle of the visuals and action when things got serious. It also sets
ups some interesting stuff and we get plenty of references and Easter Eggs to
Marvel lore, specifically the cosmic aspect of the Marvel Universe. So rather
than explain why you need to see this in terms of quality, I’m going to explain
why you should see it as it connects with the other films.
For those who already know, think of this as just a confirming
we all saw the same things in the same movie and clearing up what references
goes to what. For those who are still having trouble catching on, YES, this
film is still connected to The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the
Avengers. There are some obvious connections worth mentioning and plenty of
non-obvious ones worth discussing. There will be lots of spoilers and some
speculation. So if you have seen it, go on. If you are trying to figure out if
this is worth going to keep up with Marvel Lore, you should just assume yes,
but I’ll explain how. But, as I said, spoilers.
Starting with the most obvious connections, the mid-credits
sequence of Thor: The Dark World and
the end credits of Avengers directly
connect to the events of this film, specifically the villain as Guardians of the Galaxy has two main
focuses. The first is introducing us to the Cosmic-Side of Marvel with the fun
characters in space, but also to set up the big villain for Avengers 3 by explaining the “Infinity
Stones” mentioned in Thor 2 and even
giving us some dialogue and interaction from the villain at the end of Avengers. And, luckily for everyone,
these two aspects are directly connected in the comics to a large degree, so
that makes explaining painless and easy.
Thanos, the Mad Titan, is the smiling purple-face we see at
the end of Avengers who gets some
dialogue in this film (and is played or will be played by Josh Brolin in the
very near future). He comes from the small little planet/moon of Titan where through
mediation and training of his “Externals” powers, he became an iron-fisted rule
of his little world and killed many in his wake. In short, without any magic
McGuffins, he’s a fairly powerful being and would likely be capable of handling
the Avengers by himself without too much of a problem.
His first appearance was in the Iron Man comics (#65) but
his most famous and notable appearance was in one of the earlier Marvel
Crossover Events, The Infinity Gauntlet
(and now you see how things are beginning to connect). The Infinity Gauntlet,
much like the Cosmic Cube, is an all-purpose plot device that allows the
writers to basically do whatever they want with its power. In order to fully
utilize the power of the gauntlet, the wearer must have all 6 Infinity
Gems/Stones. In the films, this refers to the Tesseract (Avengers), the Aether (Thor
2), and now the unnamed Infinity Stone from Guardians of the Galaxy.
In the comics, Thanos uses the gauntlet in a show of mass
genocide on a universal scale. Why? Because he has met the figure of Death and
wants to impress her and win her love. In the comics, Death is actually
personified by a cloaked grim-reaper-looking figure, but a female. Only two
characters have met her and both have fallen madly in love with her where they
go out of their way to meet her. These two being our still movie-less Deadpool
and Thanos himself. What his purpose will be in the movie, I don’t know since
we haven’t established Death yet or really much about Thanos other than he’s
considered a ruthless genocidal maniac (according to dialogue between various
characters in Guardians of the Galaxy).
Another thing to note is that at the end of Thor 2, the post-credits sequence
introduces us to Benicio del Torro as The Collector. That’s where we first hear
of the Infinity Stones setting up for both this film and the eventual film when
Thanos gets the Infinity Gauntlet. That being said, once given the stone, The
Collector states, “One down, five to go.” What both he and the audience are
unaware of is one of the items in one of The Collector’s cases is a
creature/cocoon that will (in the comics at least) become Adam Morlock, another
cosmic entity who is the protector of the Soul Gem (another gem for the
Gauntlet). So while we don’t have visual confirmation beyond that little Easter
Egg, we’ve technically been exposed to 4 of the 6 Infinity Stones throughout
all the films thus far (unless there’s one we haven’t been privy to).
More importantly, in Thor
1 we get lots of Easter Eggs in Odin’s Treasure Vault, one of which is very
clearly the Infinity Gauntlet itself. This is a pretty strong sign that we’ll
be seeing Loki and Asgard again before Thanos gets to using the Infinity
Gauntlet itself. What’s really sad in all this is that in the comic storyline
of The Infinity Gauntlet, one of my
favorite things is how Dr. Doom is involved and how many times he tries to
steal the Gauntlet from Thanos during the fight only to repeatedly fail due to
his lack of understanding just how outmatched he is. It’s a minor thing, but it
sucks we won’t likely be seeing that.
The other main villain of the film is Ronan the Accuser. To
keep things simple, he’s the big-bad muscle of the Kree Army. The Kree is a
race of aliens that are constantly at war with another race of aliens, the
Skrull. It was rumored that the Chitauri were originally going to be Skrull,
but due to copyright issues with Fox (since the Skrull originally appeared in Fantastic Four comics and, therefore,
are part of that particular license), they were changed to the Chitauri fairly
last minute. Through the Kree, we get the likes of characters like Ms. Marvel
(exposed to radiation from Kree tech and abilities, which granted her a pretty
good set of abilities as well). So why are these guys important? A number of
valid reasons.
First, we’ve actually been exposed to blue-skinned aliens in
the Marvel Universe already… in Agents of
Shield. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the alien DNA or
material used to treat both Coulson and Skye was related to the Kree and that
they’ll somehow be involved more in Phase 3. However, I speculate something
even bigger. There’s a story arc known as The
Secret Invasion, in which many big names in the Marvel Universe
(politicians to heroes to ordinary people) are secretly swapped out for alien
doppelgangers of the Skrull army. This is also what breaks up the Avengers (one
of the many things that does).
I’m thinking we may actually get a Secret Invasion storyline in Avengers, and possibly BEFORE we get
to see Thanos. And here’s my thinking on that. Thanos is a god-like being of
unbelievable power and the Infinity Gauntlet multiplies that to a degree so
unfathomable that all the heroes, Gods, and cosmic entities of the known
universe had to band together to take him down in a unified effort… AND EVEN
THEN they still needed help from Death herself to talk him out of continuing
his slaughter. Thus far, we’ve established Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Captain
America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Falcon, War Machine, Winter Soldier, the
Asgardians, The Agents of Shield, and the Guardians of the Galaxy as the heroes
of the Marvel Universe thus far. And, in phase three, we know we’re getting
Ant-Man and supposedly the somewhat essential Dr. Strange. Granted, we likely
can’t get EVERYONE (since X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Spiderman are off
limits) but there are a lot of other things to establish LONG before we can
really have that big showdown.
There are several storylines I think we’d have to do first
to aid in establishing other parts of the Marvel Universe like the Inhumans,
The Secret Invasion, The Civil War, Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, Ragnarok,
House of M (not likely, but it’d be cool), and several cosmic storylines I’m
not familiar with, but could prove essential in providing more content to help
expand the universe more… but that also depends on how Marvel ultimately wants
that fight with Thanos to go down.
But that’s lots of speculation. Let’s focus on other bits
from the movie worth noting that might be important later.
Given this just came out and I’ve only seen it one time so
far, you’ll excuse me for having probably missed a few noteworthy things to
divulge more detail about, but I think that I’ve covered the heavy hitting
stuff. Oh! And the post-credits sequence (spoilers) features a cameo from
another Marvel character who hasn’t been given a movie just yet. That being
said, Marvel would be absolute quacks to give this guy another shot at the big
screen.
Back to the film and its quality, I’m still just amazed that
we were able to get something this visually impressive, funny, and exciting with
what seemed like such ease. How did Marvel pull this off with Guardians of the Galaxy but Warner couldn’t
have been bother to put in even half this effort with Green Lantern?
Also, last thing I want to say before I go. The following
characters managed to make it onto the big screen before Wonder Woman (DC’s
third most well-known name and one of the biggest women in all of comics): Iron
Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, War
Machine/Iron Patriot, Thanos, Loki, Winter Soldier, The Mandarin (sort of),
Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Gamora, Groot, Drax, Ronan the Accuser, and we’ll be
getting Ultron and Ant-Man before her too. Serioously, Warner Bros and DC… you
guys have dropped the ball to let this slip away from you for so long. We’re
literally getting lots of Marvel C and D listers dominating the Box-Office and
you can’t manage to shit out even ONE Wonder Woman movie after nearly 7 years
since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began? I won’t be the first to say it… but
that’s disappointing. See ya next time!
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