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Back on my MCU bullshit again I guess
I went and saw a movie. In the theater. Like in the Before Times. It was Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and I'm having so many feelings right now.
Reactions at the top: I LOVED LOVED LOVED it. I don't really see it throwing me into full-on fandom feels (though we'll have to wait a few days to see); it's more like I got a full dose of feelings and the general sense that I'm very satisfied with where the movie left everyone.
Nobody in the main team dies.
I genuinely did believe that someone was going to die, at various points being particularly worried about Rocket (in multiple scenes), Drax, Nebula (on the exploding ship) and Peter. So the actual ending we got was simply gorgeous. It's just bittersweet enough not to feel too saccharine, with so many of the characters headed off to their own destinations - but it doesn't feel like an end, it just feels like they've either found where they belong, or they need to go out and find it.
THE MOVIE DIDN'T DO THE THING WITH GAMORA. I was fully braced for the thing, the thing where nu!Gamora would be treated the same as old!Gamora and would fall in love again with Peter and rejoin the Guardians. And they didn't do the thing! I loved that while they did become friends and it's not impossible that they might fall in love again someday, the movie was respectful enough of Gamora that I actually *could* take the idea of a renewed romance at some point in the future, because of how Gamora's autonomy and her relationship with her new team were treated in this one. She's a really different person, not just starting from a different place but having developed differently (it's clear that life with the Ravagers has hardened her in some of the places where being with the Guardians softened her) and that's okay; she's a different person and she's got her own life, and a big part of Peter's arc was letting go of the idea of trying to get back what he had and just letting her live her life, with or without him.
And since Peter and Gamora aren't actually a couple in this movie, it's a big blockbuster movie full of feels and character relationship development that doesn't have a single second of romance. (At least nothing that's not largely friendship first and foremost - maybe a little with Rocket and Lylla, and a little with Peter and Nebula and the "pretty eyes" scene, but absolutely nothing aiming at an endgame pairing and nothing that's not basically platonic.)
I still think Nebula has one of the best arcs if not the best arc in the whole MCU. I still can't believe what we got with her was so good, and I also really love that she remains a complete weirdo and not even one iota sexualized right to the end. She gets some amazing scenes in this one, all across the spectrum from funny (the car door!) to soft (crying when she hears Rocket's voice!) to heroic (particularly flying the ship with her direct electrical interface in the big climax; you can see her brace herself for how much it's going to hurt).
I love how Mantis's relationships with her teammates were developed in this movie, especially Drax but also Peter in particular. And I love that she got to use her powers in some really cool, interesting, and useful ways. She really is one of the most powerful and versatile people in the group, despite not really having a combat skill set in a movie based around combat. Also, she had a bunch of really neat scenes - spinning around like "wheeee!" in the space suits, taming the monsters, getting furious with Nebula for bullying Drax and then making Drax forget she called him stupid because she doesn't want to hurt him, screaming Peter's name when he fails to make the jump to Knowhere.
I love that the whole movie was about saving Rocket. The movie's unflinchingness with his backstory was really unexpected and awful - the uncleaned cages, the horrifying and not at all cosmetic surgical mods on the other experimental animals.
I love that the movie continues to do what the previous two movies did, which is that characters get to have their stand-up hero moments but nobody (not Peter, not Rocket, not anyone in the group) wins their fights alone.
I loved Adam! That was a real surprise, because I knew (vaguely) that he would be in the movie and expected to have exactly zero feelings about him from the stills and what little I knew of him from the comics. And I do wish the movie had spent a little time developing his inner life at all, especially dealing with his mom's death. But on the whole, for as little screen time as he got, he was honestly very charming and came across as exactly the type of dysfunctional misfit weirdo who would get along really well with the Guardians once he stopped trying to kill them. I think he comes across very plausibly as someone who is not only a little out of kilter mentally, but also simply doesn't have the life experience to understand (yet) exactly how he feels about things like killing people. I also really enjoyed his pet critter, and Peter and Gamora just casually taking it along with them after taking him prisoner.
THE MOVIE EXPLAINS HOW GROOT TALK WORKS. It's so subtle that I don't know how many viewers got it. I had to explain it to Orion, and then he went and looked it up online and apparently there's a tweet from James Gunn confirming my reading as the correct one. But basically - you hear what Groot is actually saying instead of "I am Groot" because Groot wants you to. The only people who can understand him are people who are sympatico with Groot. That's why Gamora can't understand him for most of the movie and then suddenly she can after the big fight scene, and that's why the audience can understand him in the goodbye scene at the end. You can only understand Groot if you are part of "we are Groot," and the audience is now too.
Kraglin getting a big hero moment!
Drax and the kids! And Drax also getting a "smart" scene there when he can speak their language and no one else can. ("You didn't ask!")
Saving the animals as well as the people! THE BABY RACCOONS. I DIE. (I also genuinely loved that it's not *just* happy-happy there, but also kind of realistically chaotic. The well-intentioned Knowhere woman going to help refugees and getting a furious monkey in the face!)
Cosmo is adorable. I love that they gave her a Russian accent, which is enough to suggest her backstory even if you don't know the comics character at all.
THE HUGS. Peter and Rocket! The group hug after Peter almost dies! Gamora and the Ravagers!
The dance scene at the end! What a good note to go out on. I also loved the various codas with Peter and his grandfather, Gamora and the Ravagers being reunited, and the Rocket-led team on a mission.
If I had any minor nitpicks, a lot of the movie felt like one long fight scene - but it's possible that this is just due to not having watched a Marvel movie in uhhhh really a long time, and the GOTG ones have always been fairly kinetic and active. I do wish it had slowed down pacing-wise a little more and given us more general interaction when there wasn't a fight going on (I would happily have cut down some of the long fight sequences for more quiet scenes with the team and a little more of Adam when he wasn't in the middle of a fight) and I also wish the movie hadn't gone for the lowbrow or visually punny jokes in a few places.
But that's it, that's the entirety of my nitpicks. I already want to watch again.
Reactions at the top: I LOVED LOVED LOVED it. I don't really see it throwing me into full-on fandom feels (though we'll have to wait a few days to see); it's more like I got a full dose of feelings and the general sense that I'm very satisfied with where the movie left everyone.
Nobody in the main team dies.
I genuinely did believe that someone was going to die, at various points being particularly worried about Rocket (in multiple scenes), Drax, Nebula (on the exploding ship) and Peter. So the actual ending we got was simply gorgeous. It's just bittersweet enough not to feel too saccharine, with so many of the characters headed off to their own destinations - but it doesn't feel like an end, it just feels like they've either found where they belong, or they need to go out and find it.
THE MOVIE DIDN'T DO THE THING WITH GAMORA. I was fully braced for the thing, the thing where nu!Gamora would be treated the same as old!Gamora and would fall in love again with Peter and rejoin the Guardians. And they didn't do the thing! I loved that while they did become friends and it's not impossible that they might fall in love again someday, the movie was respectful enough of Gamora that I actually *could* take the idea of a renewed romance at some point in the future, because of how Gamora's autonomy and her relationship with her new team were treated in this one. She's a really different person, not just starting from a different place but having developed differently (it's clear that life with the Ravagers has hardened her in some of the places where being with the Guardians softened her) and that's okay; she's a different person and she's got her own life, and a big part of Peter's arc was letting go of the idea of trying to get back what he had and just letting her live her life, with or without him.
And since Peter and Gamora aren't actually a couple in this movie, it's a big blockbuster movie full of feels and character relationship development that doesn't have a single second of romance. (At least nothing that's not largely friendship first and foremost - maybe a little with Rocket and Lylla, and a little with Peter and Nebula and the "pretty eyes" scene, but absolutely nothing aiming at an endgame pairing and nothing that's not basically platonic.)
I still think Nebula has one of the best arcs if not the best arc in the whole MCU. I still can't believe what we got with her was so good, and I also really love that she remains a complete weirdo and not even one iota sexualized right to the end. She gets some amazing scenes in this one, all across the spectrum from funny (the car door!) to soft (crying when she hears Rocket's voice!) to heroic (particularly flying the ship with her direct electrical interface in the big climax; you can see her brace herself for how much it's going to hurt).
I love how Mantis's relationships with her teammates were developed in this movie, especially Drax but also Peter in particular. And I love that she got to use her powers in some really cool, interesting, and useful ways. She really is one of the most powerful and versatile people in the group, despite not really having a combat skill set in a movie based around combat. Also, she had a bunch of really neat scenes - spinning around like "wheeee!" in the space suits, taming the monsters, getting furious with Nebula for bullying Drax and then making Drax forget she called him stupid because she doesn't want to hurt him, screaming Peter's name when he fails to make the jump to Knowhere.
I love that the whole movie was about saving Rocket. The movie's unflinchingness with his backstory was really unexpected and awful - the uncleaned cages, the horrifying and not at all cosmetic surgical mods on the other experimental animals.
I love that the movie continues to do what the previous two movies did, which is that characters get to have their stand-up hero moments but nobody (not Peter, not Rocket, not anyone in the group) wins their fights alone.
I loved Adam! That was a real surprise, because I knew (vaguely) that he would be in the movie and expected to have exactly zero feelings about him from the stills and what little I knew of him from the comics. And I do wish the movie had spent a little time developing his inner life at all, especially dealing with his mom's death. But on the whole, for as little screen time as he got, he was honestly very charming and came across as exactly the type of dysfunctional misfit weirdo who would get along really well with the Guardians once he stopped trying to kill them. I think he comes across very plausibly as someone who is not only a little out of kilter mentally, but also simply doesn't have the life experience to understand (yet) exactly how he feels about things like killing people. I also really enjoyed his pet critter, and Peter and Gamora just casually taking it along with them after taking him prisoner.
THE MOVIE EXPLAINS HOW GROOT TALK WORKS. It's so subtle that I don't know how many viewers got it. I had to explain it to Orion, and then he went and looked it up online and apparently there's a tweet from James Gunn confirming my reading as the correct one. But basically - you hear what Groot is actually saying instead of "I am Groot" because Groot wants you to. The only people who can understand him are people who are sympatico with Groot. That's why Gamora can't understand him for most of the movie and then suddenly she can after the big fight scene, and that's why the audience can understand him in the goodbye scene at the end. You can only understand Groot if you are part of "we are Groot," and the audience is now too.
Kraglin getting a big hero moment!
Drax and the kids! And Drax also getting a "smart" scene there when he can speak their language and no one else can. ("You didn't ask!")
Saving the animals as well as the people! THE BABY RACCOONS. I DIE. (I also genuinely loved that it's not *just* happy-happy there, but also kind of realistically chaotic. The well-intentioned Knowhere woman going to help refugees and getting a furious monkey in the face!)
Cosmo is adorable. I love that they gave her a Russian accent, which is enough to suggest her backstory even if you don't know the comics character at all.
THE HUGS. Peter and Rocket! The group hug after Peter almost dies! Gamora and the Ravagers!
The dance scene at the end! What a good note to go out on. I also loved the various codas with Peter and his grandfather, Gamora and the Ravagers being reunited, and the Rocket-led team on a mission.
If I had any minor nitpicks, a lot of the movie felt like one long fight scene - but it's possible that this is just due to not having watched a Marvel movie in uhhhh really a long time, and the GOTG ones have always been fairly kinetic and active. I do wish it had slowed down pacing-wise a little more and given us more general interaction when there wasn't a fight going on (I would happily have cut down some of the long fight sequences for more quiet scenes with the team and a little more of Adam when he wasn't in the middle of a fight) and I also wish the movie hadn't gone for the lowbrow or visually punny jokes in a few places.
But that's it, that's the entirety of my nitpicks. I already want to watch again.