Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) (3 Viewers)

[Josh Steinberg]

James Gunn talks about Oscar nominations and snubs on his facebook page -


https://www.facebook.com/jgunn/posts/10152445297411157

Thanks for sharing, it was a fun read.


re: Gunn on Lego Movie - I really liked "The Lego Movie" - but one question I have about it's snubbing I haven't seen addressed anywhere. The movie isn't entirely animated; a crucial moment in the plot is live action, and the entire movie is kind of built to lead up to that moment. Is there a chance that some arcane Academy rule would make the movie ineligible for "Best Animated Film" because a key sequence is entirely live action? That was my immediate thought when I first saw the nominations, I was a little surprised that everyone is shouting "snub" but that no one's asking that question. The Academy has had weird eligibility rules in other categories before, so nothing about their nominating or voting process would really surprise me at this point.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Thanks for sharing, it was a fun read.


re: Gunn on Lego Movie - I really liked "The Lego Movie" - but one question I have about it's snubbing I haven't seen addressed anywhere. The movie isn't entirely animated; a crucial moment in the plot is live action, and the entire movie is kind of built to lead up to that moment. Is there a chance that some arcane Academy rule would make the movie ineligible for "Best Animated Film" because a key sequence is entirely live action? That was my immediate thought when I first saw the nominations, I was a little surprised that everyone is shouting "snub" but that no one's asking that question. The Academy has had weird eligibility rules in other categories before, so nothing about their nominating or voting process would really surprise me at this point.

I wondered about that as well. According to Wiki, here are the rules:


"An animated feature is defined by the academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time."


I'm pretty sure the live-action parts of "Lego" lasted less than 25 percent of the movie, so that wouldn't appear to be a disqualifier for it...

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

No wonder none of the Star Wars prequels won...

 

[Wayne_j]

I wondered about that as well. According to Wiki, here are the rules:


"An animated feature is defined by the academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique, a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time."


I'm pretty sure the live-action parts of "Lego" lasted less than 25 percent of the movie, so that wouldn't appear to be a disqualifier for it...

That doesn't mean that the academy is aware of their own rules.

 

[Ejanss]

Thanks for sharing, it was a fun read.


re: Gunn on Lego Movie - I really liked "The Lego Movie" - but one question I have about it's snubbing I haven't seen addressed anywhere.

Like, the fact that animators were also voting on the category brought up "Maybe it wasn't really that GOOD?"


(Which might also explain the, quote-fingers, "snubbing" of both of Phil Lord & Chris Miller's "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" movies...No, seriously, what's the attraction to those insufferable Ritalin commercials?)

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Like, the fact that animators were also voting on the category brought up "Maybe it wasn't really that GOOD?"

That wasn't my question. My question was about the film's eligibility for Best Animated Film as a key portion of the film is live action. Colin was kind enough to do some research into it, and I appreciate him doing so. Please don't misquote me or quote me in an intentionally misleading fashion. Thank you.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

That doesn't mean that the academy is aware of their own rules.

Perhaps. The question was simply whether or not the rules would've left out "Lego" because of the live-action footage, and the answer is "no". The live-action stuff at the end wasn't insubstantial, but it's not more than 25% of the film's running time...

 

[Brett_B]

I am not sure if this was discussed already, but I will ask anyhow.

Last night while re-watching this movie, towards the very end of the film when Yondu was talking to his crew mate about Quill's father right after Yondu said, "he was an asshole" there is a faint voice saying, "What are you doing tomorrow?". What is bizarre about this is that the quote did not appear in the subtitles. It was not the voice of Yondu or the crew mate.

Has anyone else heard this?

 

[Sean Bryan]

I am not sure if this was discussed already, but I will ask anyhow.

Last night while re-watching this movie, towards the very end of the film when Yondu was talking to his crew mate about Quill's father right after Yondu said, "he was an asshole" there is a faint voice saying, "What are you doing tomorrow?". What is bizarre about this is that the quote did not appear in the subtitles. It was not the voice of Yondu or the crew mate.

Has anyone else heard this?

I just checked out that scene and there was an "engine/space jet" type of sound effect that sounded a little electronic. Listening for the phrase you mentioned, it did kind of sound like those words. But honestly, I think it's just "one of those things".

 

[Brett_B]

I just checked out that scene and there was an "engine/space jet" type of sound effect that sounded a little electronic. Listening for the phrase you mentioned, it did kind of sound like those words. But honestly, I think it's just "one of those things".

Thanks, Bryan.

I was watching this on a smaller TV, not on my main system with surround sound. I thought I had heard that comment, and immediately replayed that scene to make sure that is what I had heard and it was there. That is when I turned on the subtitles, and that quote did not appear. Very weird.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Road to Endgame Revisit #7:
I don't actually own either of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, out of an unfounded, probably mistaken, yet unshakable belief that Disney will someday do a UHD upconvert of the first film and release a Guardians of the Galaxy, Vols. 1 & 2 UHD double feature.

So I hadn't included either film in my game plan for these revisits. But after work today I was at the grocery store picking up something for dinner, and on a lark I decided to check out the Redbox. And sure enough, the first Guardians of the Galaxy was in there, on Blu-Ray. This is the first and probably only time I will spend $2.00 to rent a movie just to listen to the audio commentary.

Given how irreverent this movie is, and given how irreverent his entire body of work is, I was surprised just how earnest James Gunn is on this audio commentary. He really loves his actors -- especially his brother Sean Gunn, who was the body double for Rocket on set and plays Yondu's top henchman Kraglin on camera. Lots of directors praise their collaborators on audio commentaries, but it's often very general praise that feels like typical Hollywood schmoozing. Gunn's praise is very specific; he doesn't just say that someone's great, he points out precise moments when they're particularly great, and has pretty detailed explanations for why they're particularly great. After listening to this audio commentary, I understood why his cast was so loyal to him after Disney (temporarily) fired him. I was also surprised by the depth of the worldbuilding that Gunn had engaged in. As the movie travels to new environments, Gunn has involved backstories for most of them, histories that never get discussed in the movie but help shape what we see in those environments.

It was a particularly interesting movie to revisit, because of how subsequent MCU movies -- particularly Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Captain Marvel -- affect my appreciation of it. The Phase One movies each gave me a particular experience the first time I watched them, and subsequent viewings (including these revisits) more or less mirrored and reinforced that experience.

Guardians of the Galaxy was so subversive, so outside the boundaries of what I expected from an MCU movie, that I don't think I appreciated everything else that was going on in the movie. I was so surprised, and so delighted to be surprised, that the only part of the experience that made an impression was the film constantly yanking the carpet out from under me.

But so much of what happens in later movies has its roots here. Outside of the nine realms under Asgard's dominion, this is our first real foray into the Marvel Cosmic Universe. In my mind, Infinity War was Josh Brolin's debut as Thanos. I had completely forgotten that he'd already been cast for Thanos's couple of scenes in this movie. The look of the character is halfway between the traditionally animated CG version at the end of The Avengers and the photo real motion captured CG Thanos in Infinity War. The depiction of space, Knowhere, the Kree, so many elements that would play major roles in later movies were established here.

I'm not a huge fan of the look of the film. A lot of the production design feels very designed to me, rather than something real. I don't love Ben Davis's cinematography. The lighting makes the live action elements very clear, but it also helps highlight the seams between the live action elements and the CG elements. The vibrant colors, while a welcome contrast to the dreary miserable look Davis brought to Avengers: Age of Ultron, often feel garish and tacky in ways that take me out of the world. The color grading is sometimes beautiful -- especially on the Milano -- but often feels like video to me instead of film. But I appreciated the look of the film more knowing what it was laying the groundwork for. I think Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and Avengers: Infinity War are beautifully shot films, and you can see Gunn and Davis figuring things out visually in this movie that would be executed better in those subsequent movies.

One thing about watching this movie with the audio commentary on is that none of the humor plays. And that creates room to really appreciate the character work, the attention to detail in the performances -- especially the CG performances of Rocket and Groot. There are so many tiny beats that I didn't notice in the movie theater that cumulatively have a huge impact on the audience's investment in this team.

My first experience with Chris Pratt was as Bright Abbott on "Everwood", a character who was lovable and emotionally vulnerable. Watching in theaters, I saw the emergence of the Chris Pratt movie star persona, a plausible action star who is also funny the whole way through. Watching with the audio commentary on, I saw a lot more Bright Abbott in Peter Quill. These movies and the Jurassic World movies really launched Pratt's career. There are a lot of surface similarities between Peter Quill and Owen Grady. But watching Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Grady feels like a cardboard cutout. Quill by contrast in this movie has such a rich internal life.

Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan are such an interesting pairing as the adoptive sisters Gamora and Nebula. Saldana, coming off the Star Trek movies and Avatar and Colombiana, was the biggest star among the live action actors on the core team at the time the film went into production. Karen Gillan, at the time, was pretty much only known for being a companion on "Doctor Who". Gunn mentioned in the audio commentary that he fell in love with a particular piece of concept art for Nebula, and a primary consideration in Gillan's casting is that she was one of the only actresses with the height and the build to embody that concept art as it was on the page. But they're both such great actresses, never wasting a single moment on screen, and they have such a wonderful chemistry together on screen. Even when they're literally trying to kill each other, you can feel the immensity of the feeling they have for each other just under the surface.

Dave Bautista is well known to wrestling fans, with a career in the WWE going back nearly twenty years. This is one of those castings where I literally could not imagine another actor playing this role. The energy he brings to this role, the way he delivers his lines, his complete and unerring commitment to Drax's literalness is just one of a kind. In the commentary, Gunn mentions that Chris Pratt is so tall and physically large that it became difficult to find actors who could share scenes with him and not be diminished in the comparison. Bautista is truly massive, but it's that intangible something that he brings to the character that really makes Drax come alive.

I am generally not a fan of celebrity voice casting for animated roles. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel here are exceptions that make the rule. Diesel's voice acting in The Iron Giant is crucial to that film's success, and it's easy to underestimate just how much he conveys with all of the varied readings of the same line. If Rocket had just sounded like Bradley Cooper, it would have been a disaster. But Cooper creates a new distinct voice for Rocket, and he calibrates his performance to be a little more heightened than the vocals of a live action performance would be; walking that line, figuring out how much is too much and how much is not enough, is something that professional voice actors excel at, but something that live action actors working in animation seldom seem to be aware of.

Connections to other parts of the MCU: Thanos appears. Knowhere is introduced. Benicio Del Toro's Collector appears in multiple films. The Kree are introduced. Lee Pace would reprise his role as the rebellous Kree general, Ronan the Accuser, in Captain Marvel. Djimon Hounsou would reprise his role as Ronan's loyal subordinate, Korath the Pursuer. Alexis Denisof reprises his role as The Other, from The Avengers, and is quickly killed off. The only really continuity issue that stood out to me is that the Kree Empire is governed by a vastly power A.I., the Supreme Intelligence, in Captain Marvel. But 19 years later, in Guardians of the Galaxy, Ronan has broken with the Kree Emperor. Less than twenty years seems like a really short period of time to completely change the top of an interstellar empire's leadership structure. But perhaps it's not a mistake, just a really good untold story.