Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 discussion

[cyberghostface]

This just came out in the US so I figured I'd make a post here. For those who have seen it, what did you think?

As an aside I'd like to also recommend James Gunn's two early films, Slither and Super. Slither is a sci-fi/horror/comedy starring Yondu himself Michael Rooker as a guy taken over by an alien parasite. Super is a dark comedy starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page as two psychotic wannabe superheroes. As a warning both films are rated R and are pretty graphic but if you're a fan of the GotG's oddball humor you might get a kick out of them.

Comments

[spider_man6]

-I really loved it. A lot of people say that it didn't top the first film, but in my opinion, it was better. It wasn't a sequel that was bad (Iron Man 2) or one that was just good (Age of Ultron). It was a unique and cool take.
-I thought the character arcs for the team members were great, especially Rocket and Gamora's. Drax was a comedic highlight, and I loved his interactions with Mantis. They were priceless. It was also interesting seeing Yondu grow and change by the film's end.
-The villains were definitely worth the money for entry. Taserface was funny, and Ayesha was a character who you couldn't help laughing at. Also, not going to get too deep into spoilers, but there is a heel turn in this that made me go WTF, and I liked how it was worked in versus the promotional material.
-The soundtrack rocked. I particularly liked the opening scene with Baby Groot dancing to "Mr. Blue Sky" while the rest of the Guardians fight the Abelisk.
All in all, the movie was enjoyable. In my eyes, 9/10.

[ericadawn16]

I'm actually looking forward to watching both films again now that I know exactly what Yondu meant in the first film by describing Peter's dad as "Yeah, that guy was a jackass", which now seems like a real understatement. Still, it feels like a lot of Yondu characterization was us understanding him better because we what we saw of him was colored by others especially Peter.

[zer0man]

Well, having come relatively fresh from viewing, there's quite a bit to process. At the very least, I can give my pros and cons.

PRO: Exceptional soundtrack. Most Marvel films tend to utilize licensed music very well, and there is no better proof of that than the GotG films. Then again, I am a sucker for classic rock, so there's that.
PRO: Comedy. There were plenty of legitimately earned laughs in the film, the bulk of which seemed to stem from Drax's lack of subtlety and tact yet again.
PRO: The plot. To be able to follow up on an open plot point from the previous film and maintain the high stakes is not an easy feat, but this film did so quite well.
PRO: The callback to the classic Guardians. I read the old 90's run growing up, and I was ecstatic to see a few familiar faces make appearances during the ending and one of the credit stingers.

CON: The ending. Now I'm not so helpess a fool as to believe that all comic films should have a happy ending, but this one just felt a bit too bittersweet for my tastes.
CON: Baby Groot. Now, I know you think I am insane, but as much as I loved seeing him... he just seemed rather pointless and solely existed for squee factor. Yes, he tossed around a single Ravager. Yes he had access to a bomb and used it... But aside from that, there's nothing. I basically felt cheated, especially after how he was used in the previous film.
CON: Drax's comedy. Now, while I did say that the comedy was good, it also heavily relied on the same old things he demonstrated before: Lack of subtlety, lack of tact and bluntness on par with a wooden club. It went to the well too often.
CON: The Sovereign. I felt as though there were the most flat, most unappealing and quite frankly, the worst possible antagonists in the Marvel films to date. Yes, worse than Whiplash. Yes, worse than Ronan. And yes, worse than the Abomination. I couldn't take them seriously as any kind of threat.

Still, overall, the weight of its good aspects overpowered any negative ones. So I do give it a positive experience.

[kid_a_aslan]

It was better than IM2 & 3, and Thor 2 combined imho, but i'm not a fan of what i felt was over the top buffoonery. Drax having comedic beats due to his naivety with earth culture as in the first film is fine but here he's just a walking joke, SPOILERS honestly i think yondus death was the only serious thing in it. Jokes are great but i feel it went overboard personally. Also am i the only salty old bastard in the room who gets uber-irate Over license being taken with these films. If the original comic property didn't exist and was at least somewhat popular are needed for a future avenue or tale they wanna do why do they change so much? I mean short of WATCHMEN (with slight edits & losing the ending space octopus, & perhaps DEADPOOL) why don't these movies respect the material respect these characters and stories as originally conceived? SPOILERS was EGO an Celestial? And if not why not say he's an eternal , not even counting he's not quill's dad. They could have had ego do the heel turn but had starlords dad be on of the golden people and just an asshole like that race. I mean another take that irks me as well is why does 'hollywood' cherrypick and say talking animals and super fantastical alien sci-fi concepts fine but EGO let's also make human because our plot needs it. Perhaps i'm unfamiliar with EGO on the whole and these are 'continuity' traits of he/she/It but more to the point it's like 'we' feel our audience can accept the F4 but not GALACTUS. It's all from a comic to start with, even the animated shows represent better. Why do movies say we're gonna film this storyline but screw this, this, and this. I just don't approve. Sorry for ranting/Meandering but are my issues valid or i'm just being to hardcore fanboy? Don't get me started on BvS and snyder smooshing 2 solid stories that could have been major trilogies but he says let's go ahead and smoosh together and do neitheir one justice. Sigh alas i digress. Still ignoring all of the above it's a fun ,popcorn,sci- fi movie. 7/10, i did appreciate the last one more tho.

[kid_a_aslan]

Also yeah the music was great but that music was always great. It seemed a lil at times to be wanting to get that extra love via classic songs that noone hates that i know of lol. Lil too easy. Like you could film paint drying and blast ' Seven nation army' and it's gonna be pretty badass lol. I kid but only a lil ;)

[kid_a_aslan]

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Ego_(Earth-616)

[kid_a_aslan]

Okay i step off the soapbox on the EGO human avatar issue. But he was never a Celestial and he actually should have probably been used in THOR films since 70% of EGOs history involved THOR. :) lol

[akodo_rokku]

Random completely surprising pro: Ben Browder!

[mastermahan]

Considering John Crichton was the prototype Star-Lord, I thought that was incredibly appropriate.

Plus, he looked pretty damn funny in gold facepaint.

[ericadawn16]

Am I the only one who enjoyed Iron Man 2?
Obviously, I wouldn't put it past Winter Soldier for quality but it had Black Widow, Coulson, Howard Stark backstory...it's one of my favorites.

[cyberghostface]

I didn't think it was bad but I think Marvel's interference hurt it. The Avengers Iniative stuff was unnecessary.

I would like to see Sam Rockwell again in the MCU though.

[bruinsfan]

I would pay Marvel to keep him out of any future movies.

[janegray]

No, I liked it too.

I think the issue is that so many Marvel movies are outright excellent or at the very least WELL above average. So, when a movie is merely good, it's regarded as a piece of crap.

[thatnickguy]

I did. I don't think any of the Marvel Studio films are outright bad. But I'd still put Iron Man 2, Thor 2, and Incredible Hulk at the bottom of the ranking compared to the rest.

[zer0man]

I liked it pretty well. Sam Rockwell's take on Justin Hammer was done rather well, I think. A good mix of snark coupled with a bumbling ineptness was kinda endearing, and it was satisfying that is was Widow and Pepper that humbled him. But I do agree that the world-building in it was a necessary evil: We had to put in enough to build up to the Avengers to whet the appetites of those eagerly waiting, at the cost of it being not as enjoyable as its previous entry..

[ekrolo2]

I guess I'm gonna be the odd one out (no surprise there) and say this one really got on my nerves. I've never been one of those guys who felt like the MCU films overloaded things with humor, sacrificing all else but this movie definitely did. There were barely any scenes that were played straight, almost all of them have Gunn & co toss in at least one gag (that's usually painfully cringeworthy) that totally undermines whatever was setup beforehand. The best example off the top of my head was Ego explaining his plight as a lonely God only for Drax and Peter to go into a painfully unfunny dialogue exchange with him about his dick and how he possibly had sex with Star Lord's mom.

Speaking of Drax, he's a completely different character. If GotG 1 Drax was a regular guy with the caveate of being too literal, Drax is a pants shitting moron in this. Pratt is doing that thing that annoys me with Downey where he barely gives a performance and expects us all to love him just for being on-screen, Baby Groot might be the most blatant Disney merchandise thing the MCU has ever put in.... Seriously, why's Gamora the only one who feels like a natural extension of her first movie self?

As you can see I was not a fan of this one, it's probably one of my least favorite MCU movies and a sequel that made me wonder how the actual fuck I possibly liked the first one.

[lucean]

I really enjoyed the movie and how it juggled a lot of stuff. In a weird way, I still think that epic action is a weakness for GotG movies, I can't explain it, but the humor and a lot of the character moments worked for me. Starlord still does absolutely nothing for me, but I did feel the surrounding cast got a lot of time to shine.

It was actually somewhat amusing as I felt so many of the parts worked that the one storyline that really failed annoyed the hell out of me. I really enjoyed the concept of the Gamora/Nebula story and thought the few scenes together were really good, but it got sidetracked by the need to have that at times gross Peter/Gamora relationship relevant without really being relevant.

[outlawpoet]

The romance plotline was admittedly weak, but I dig Gamora otherwise. Nebula grew on me this movie. She was kinda one-note in the last one, but Karen Gillian has won me over from within a badly written role yet again.

The cinematography of large action scenes was really muddy. The most effective ones actually succeed by blocking most of the action offscreen, (see Opening Credits with all action defocused so we can see Groot, or the space battles we spend most of the time looking into a cramped cockpit for).

Yondu was originally a good guy, so I really enjoyed his face turn.

[lucean]

Oh, I really liked Nebula in this movie and hoped they had done more with her and Gamora as I really dug what they established of that relationship in this movie.

[shadadukal]

I liked it better than the first film. It built on what was established to deliver some emotional pay-offs.

I especially liked the arcs for Peter, Yondu, and Rocket.

Hoping we'll get teen Groot in Infinity War.

[commodus]

Question for those who have seen it: Do they have ROM or any of the Space Knights in the movie? I remember hearing that the director wanted to include them in the first one.

[outlawpoet]

Marvel still can't show ROM in the armor. Last I heard Hasbro/Parker Brothers was trying to gin up a competing cinematic universe of it's own based on their properties, including ROM.

[astrakhan42]

He's a big part of the IDW Hasbroverse with Transformers, GI Joe, MASK and fellow former Marvel characters the Micronauts.

[beyondthefringe]

Is it just me, or were the Ravagers in this pretty much the most incompetent bunch of bad guys ever? Save for a very few--Yondu and his friends--they were like comic book ninjas: the more there are, the less effective they became. First they get totally pwned by a single Guardian, and then they get utterly massacred later on. At no point did they feel like the effective threat from the first movie.

I did appreciate the idea of the older Ravagers basically being the proto-Guardians, i.e. the original 30th century team... that was a nice nod to continuity of a sort.

[janegray]

To be fair, Yondu IS a one-man army. In the first movie, he is alone against an entire company of heavily armed highly trained elite soldiers, and he got ambushed to boot so he had no preparation time whatsoever and they were all pointing their weapons at him, and he just got in a ship crash so presumably he is at least dizzy. AND STILL he utterly and completely hands their asses to them in two seconds flat. Not even the guys inside armoured spaceships are safe.

Yondu is a total force of nature. If he kicks your ass, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are weak, like getting your ass kicked by Superman doesn't necessarily mean that you are weak.

As for Rocket, he had one mayor advantage: the environment (a dark jungle) heavily favoured a small agile climber that can see in the dark. Even then, the moment Yondu shows up, he is immediately defeated.

[beyondthefringe]

True. I loved seeing Rocket and Yondu have their crowning moments of badassery against the Ravagers, but seriously, they still came off pretty bad, getting their asses handed to them in manners bordering on the comic.

(Me: Man, that raccoon has some serious rage issues...)

I just couldn't buy them as serious threats without Yondu leading them, which I suppose is the point. Taserface was just... well, not all that credible. :)

[thehood]

Yondu's Ravagers? Sure. But the greater Ravager fleet seemed very competent.

[angelophile]

It's odd really. I enjoy the Guardians films (although possibly not as much as others), but I hate Super with all the heat of the combined fires of hell.

There was a lot I liked about the sequel and I felt the film managed to stay just on the right side of disappearing up its own bottom. But it veered pretty close on occasion.

Some good character work there, but not without issue. Den Mom Gamora still seems like a neutering of the character and the less said about the depiction of Mantis using all the Orientalist Geisha Girl tropes the better.

[beyondthefringe]

Mantis bothered me because not only did she come off as doe-eyed and child-like, she also had, like you say, certain other tropes... I was no fan of the original "This one..." from the '70s-era Avengers, but I thought she was redeemed in the Guardian comics when she became part of the team.

Here, she was just... off-putting. I want to see a lot more character development put into her next time to make her more of an adult.

[michaelsaint]

I enjoyed Vol.2 but, for me, it wasn't better then Vol.1. I am a bit of a comic purist and while Marvel cosmology has always been a bit imperfect, Ego being a celestial and not an eternal and being Peter Quill's father is a bit much for me.

I am not sure how Infinity War is going to work. Every MCU movie is bringing in more and more characters and with each movie it feels like there are more and more missed moments with characters and story lines that are could get more exposure. For example, I liked the concept of Civil War but it didn't have the same dramatic build up as Winter Solider and felt very rushed. The same could be said of this Vol.1 and Vol.2.

If Infinity War is supposed to have more characters in it than all the other movies, then I am definitely worried that will negatively affect the overall storytelling.

[wizardru]

I think it will work the way the Vol. 2 did...by making the smart choice of breaking the cast up into smaller groups, so they can bounce of each other and get focus. Civil War was not an Avengers movie, it was a Captain America movie...that distinction is important, because of the focus. Many characters got little or no screen time outside of fights because the film was about Iron Man and Cap and how their conflict came to a head.

Guardians Volume 2 is all about pairings: Peter and Ego, Rocket and Yondu, Gamora and Nebula and Drax and Mantis. I would assume Infinity War will do something similar.

[michaelsaint]

Yeah. I see that.

I guess I am just bummed there weren't more Rocket/Starlord moments or Drax/Rocket/Starlord moments and the like that would naturally happen in a less cluttered movie.

(And I realized I mis-typed in my original post. I thought Ego was an Elder, not an Eternal, but he was just allied with the Elders at one point, not an actual member. Such is the craziness of Marvel cosmic beings.)

[coldfury]

You had me fooled, since the 'floating space brain' concept is reminiscent of the Eternal's Overmind, or whatever they call their gestalt form.

[beyondthefringe]

I think he was considered an Elder for a while, but it was by some pretty spurious logic, since he didn't technically fit in their general criteria.

[bruinsfan]

The rest of them are immortal last survivors of their species, whereas he is his own unique form of life. But I guess if you keep running into the same people over billions of years you develop a sense of fellowship.

[thehood]

It's a different continuity, it's supposed to be like the comics. Plus i liked Ego being Peter's dad, it's certainly better than the cliché "space prince" angle.

[michaelsaint]

I definitely agree that anything is better than the cliché "space prince" but I don't really like that they picked Ego. There are a whole host of non-planet-sized cosmic beings to pick from.

Maybe Starfox?

Mind you, I like Starfox and think he gets more hate then he deserves, but

[deh_tommy]

I think Starfox would be weird coming off of David Tennant's Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, and his dubious powers would probably make more people more uncomfortable than they might already be with him.

That, and when one hears Starfox, they'd probably think of the Nintendo character instead.

[thehood]

Not sure Starfox would work with what they were going for though.

Maybe one of the Elders of the Universe?

[michaelsaint]

One of the Elders would have been a good choice too.

I thought of Starfox only because that could have tied back to Thanos.