Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the next post in my series covering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, we are going to Space as we tackle “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Directed by James Gunn, this movie stars Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax The Destroyer, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, and Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot. This movie also introduces another Infinity Stone that we’ll see midway through the movie. For now, let’s start at the beginning.
The movie begins with a flashback to the year of 1988. We see a young Peter Quill (portrayed by Wyatt Oleff) listening to 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” on his Sony Walkman before his grandfather Jason (played by Gregg Henry) tells him to go to the hospital room to see his mother Meredith (Laura Haddock) before she dies of terminal cancer. She gives Peter a present that his grandfather puts in his backpack. His mom tells her to take her hand, but Peter refuses and screams and cries when she dies. After the grandfather takes him out of the room, Peter runs outside the hospital where he gets kidnapped by an alien spacecraft. After the Marvel Studios logo, we cut to present day on the abandoned planet Morag. We see a guy with a mask go through this desolate planet before it is revealed to be Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). He turns on his Walkman to play Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love”. What follows is a dance scene that is still funny and awesome to this day. After the song is over, he uses one of his gadgets to grab a mysterious orb. As soon as he has the orb in his hands, he is interrogated by some of Ronan’s henchmen. He gets past the guys and runs and jumps onto his ship, which is called the Milano. He flies for a bit before a geyser hits it. After some flipping, he regains control of the ship and flies away with a lady who was on the ship. As “Go All the Way” by Raspberries plays, Peter hears some news about the Keene before getting a video call from Yondu (played by Michael Rooker), who asks him where he is. Peter denies him the coordinates and Yondu responds by putting a bounty of 40 thousand units on him. Yondu reminds Peter during that call that the rest of the Ravagers wanted to eat him. Meanwhile, on the Dark Aster ship, we get introduced to Ronan The Accuser (Lee Evans) as he executes a guy from Xandar with his hammer-like weapon. Ronan then tells Nebula (Karen Gillan) to get the orb, but Gamora (Zoe Saldana) goes to get it instead. We then see Rocket (Bradley Cooper) roast some people on Xandar, including a Stan Lee cameo, before he sees the bounty on Peter Quill. Quill then tries to sell the orb, but the Broker denies him when Quill mentions Ronan. Quill then sees Gamora, who steals the orb before chaos ensues between the four of them. The authorities arrest all four of them and send them to the Kyln, which is a big prison. Some exposition about the four of them follows, with Peter flipping the authorities off. As they are walking in the Kyln, the four of them have some funny banter. Rocket denies that he is a raccoon, while Groot repeats “I am Groot”. Gamora said that she was betraying Ronan. Quill sees a prison guard listen to his music player. He gets shocked and everyone gets their stuff as Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” plays. We also see Rocket’s back, which is filled with metal parts. The music stops when Peter gets hit by a drink can. Groot then uses his tree fingers to go up someone’s nose while Rocket reminds everyone that Peter is their “booty”. They each go to their cells before we cut to later on in the evening. Somehow, some of the other prisoners got to Gamora and plan to kill her before Drax (Dave Bautista) arrives. Gamora beats a couple of guys up before Drax puts her in a chokehold. Quill convinces Drax to keep her alive while showing him the signal for killing someone. Drax doesn’t get the signal/metaphor, but is convinced anyway. Gamora tells Peter and Rocket that the orb is worth 4 billion units.
We then cut to Ronan and Nebula talking with The Other, who tells him that Thanos needs to see him immediately. Ronan then kills The Other before Thanos talks with him. Thanos (Josh Brolin) tells him that he will kill Ronan if he fails his mission. Ronan and Nebula then head to the Kyln, where we see Rocket talk with Gamora and Quill about their plan to escape. Rocket says that he needs a guy’s prosthetic leg. Groot takes the battery and the plan has to be improvised. Groot yells at the guards before the gun drones shoot at him. Rocket is angry at Groot, but he gets a big gun thanks to Drax beating up some guards. As Rocket shoots at plenty of stuff, Gamora and Peter get the arm and leg, respectively. Everyone, including Drax, get to the control panel. It turns out that the leg was not needed. As the guards shoot at the control panel, Rocket is setting up the plan. At the final moment, Rocket deactivates the gravity function, making everyone float. Meanwhile, the heroes fly away from the prison lobby. They all get onto the Milano, except for Quill, who realizes that his Walkman is absent. Quill tells Gamora to go while he beats up some prison guards. He gets to the guy who stole the Walkman while “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes plays. He knocks out the guy with the orb and flies to the Milano to reunite with his new acquaintances. Some banter and arguing follows between them. After a brief scene with Ronan and Nebula on the Kyln, we see Yondu and Kraglin (played by Sean Gunn, who is also Rocket on set) talk with the Broker. Yondu whistles for his arrow to get closer and closer to the Broker to convince him where a buyer of his is. Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, and Groot make their way to Knowhere while “Moonage Daydream” by David Bowie plays in the background. As they wait for the Collector (Benicio Del Toro) to meet with them, Drax, Rocket, and Groot, hang out at a bar while Peter and Gamora have a quiet moment outside. Gamora tells Peter that she was trained by Thanos to be a warrior. Peter then tells her the reason why he came back for the Walkman: his mom wanted to share her love of music with him. He mentions Footloose before letting her listen to some music. The song playing is Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love”. Peter and Gamora almost kiss before she puts a knife to his neck. They then stop the others from fighting while Rocket goes into a drunk rage about his past (which will be explored in Volume 3). Drax leaves the area as they finally meet the Collector. Rocket growls at a dog meant to resemble Cosmo (a character from the comics). The Collector is shown the orb, which houses the Power Stone. He then goes into explaining all of the stones (purple: Power, blue: Space, yellow: Mind, red: Reality, orange: Soul, green: Time). Meanwhile, Drax convinces someone to send Ronan to Knowhere. Rocket and the others want to get paid in units, but one of the Collector’s servants touches the stone, causing her and the room to blow up spectacularly. The heroes escape from the explosion, but are angry when Drax brought Ronan to Knowhere to fight him. That fight ends with Ronan easily defeating Drax and sending him to a pool of yellow ooze. Meanwhile, an aerial battle ensues with Nebula trying to get the orb. The battle ends with Nebula shooting down Gamora’s pod and basically killing her. Before she succumbs to Space death, Peter gives her his mask, which helps her breathe. Before he did that, he told Yondu to get him. After Peter and Gamora are safe on the Ravager ship, Kraglin welcomes them. Groot brings Drax back to life while Rocket teaches him a lesson. He said to Drax: “Everybody’s got dead people! That’s no excuse to get everybody else dead along the way!” With the orb attained, Ronan betrays Thanos and puts the stone onto his hammer-like weapon. Yondu punched Quill and gets the arrow to his neck. Quill convinces Yondu and the Ravagers to save him and help stop Ronan. Quill stops a potential attack from Rocket, Drax, and Groot and lets them know that he and Gamora are fine. The 5 of them then talk in a circle. The following scene has some pretty good banter between them. Peter tells them that he has 12 percent of a plan, making Rocket laugh his butt off. Peter then gets serious and asks for their help. The speech by Peter is great as they all stand in a circle and agree to stop Ronan at any cost.
“Cherry Bomb” by The Runaways plays as the Guardians and the Ravagers figure out everything that the plan entails. Rocket tells everyone that he needs someone’s prosthetic eye before Peter says that they don’t need it. Everyone goes towards Xandar while the higher-ups on that planet are informed that Ronan’s ship is arriving. The Dark Aster is protected by a force field, forcing the ships to go from the bottom. Yondu’s ship gets hit and he goes down. Meanwhile, the Guardians (minus Rocket) get into the Dark Aster and shoot at some of the bad guys. Meanwhile, the Xandarian ships form a shield that prevents the Aster from touching the surface. After the four of them get into the Aster, Groot lights up the hallway with some fireflies. Drax is appreciative of his new friends, even though he roasts Gamora in the scene. Drax then shoots at Nebula, but she recovers thanks to her enhancements. Meanwhile, Yondu uses his arrow to kill everyone that is in front of him. Nebula then fights Gamora for a bit. Rocket and some others attack the small ships that go down to shoot at civilians while Quill, Drax, and Groot fight and defeat all of the guards that are protecting Ronan. Groot stabs some guards and flaps his arm around the room, knocking out more people. Groot then gives them a funny smile. Ronan then destroys the Xandarian ships that made the shield. Meanwhile, Gamora gets the upper hand on Nebula (who chops her hand off) and opens up the door for the three of them. Star-Lord then shoots a big missile at Ronan, but then Ronan gets back up and is unphased by it. Rocket then crashes the Milano and sends the Aster to the ground. Groot sacrifices himself saving the rest of them from the fire, saying “We are Groot” before it crashes. Before Ronan gets to decimate Xandar, Star-Lord interrupts by dancing and singing to “O-o-h Child” by The Five Stairsteps. The dancing by Peter distracts Ronan long enough for Drax to shoot at Ronan’s hammer. The stone is grabbed by Peter as a purple fiery tornado follows. Gamora yells at Peter to take her hand, causing him to have flashbacks to his mom. He grabs her hand, and then Drax touches his shoulder and Rocket grabs Drax’s hand. The power of the stone is shared equally by the four. Ronan says “You’re mortal! How?!” Star-Lord responds with “You said it yourself, bitch. We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy” and Ronan explodes to death. The stone is hurriedly put into an orb, stopping the light show. Yondu tells Peter to hand the orb over, and he does. After the Ravagers leave, it is revealed that Peter gave Yondu an orb that has something cute while the stone is safe with Peter. Rocket holds a piece of Groot and is sad before Drax pets him on the head. Later, Quill is informed by the Nova Corps that he is half-human, which made sense on how he was able to not die immediately after grabbing the stone. Nova Prime (played by Glenn Close) thanks them for their help. Peter is then given a new ship by them and then he opens the card that his mom gave him years ago. We hear his mother talk before Peter plays a new mixtape that she gave him. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell plays during a montage of Yondu getting the cute toy, the power stone being put in a safe place on Xandar, the new Baby Groot waking up, and the Guardians leaving for their next adventure. We are reminded that “The Guardians of the Galaxy will return.” A funny scene with dancing Groot happens while “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 plays and Drax cleans up his knife before the credits roll. Once the credits are done, we see The Collector drinking something while the dog licks his face. We then see Seth Green as Howard the Duck roast him for that.
When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was skeptical of it. After I saw it in theaters in October of 2014, I was proven wrong. The scene that hooked me was when Star-Lord (played well by Chris Pratt) was dancing on Morag on his way to the orb. That scene was the opposite of the gut-punch that was seeing young Peter crying over his mom’s death. Throughout the movie, I was entertained by the funny moments and the fight scenes. I teared up at the emotional moments, of which there were plenty. Two in particular are the team standing up after Peter’s speech, and when Groot sacrificed himself and said “We Are Groot”. There are too many funny quotes in this movie that I don’t want to ruin them for you here. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel play Rocket and Groot very well, respectively. Dave Bautista was serious and funny at the same time as Drax. Zoe Saldana was a badass as Gamora. Nebula had a unique accent thanks to James Gunn’s directing. Michael Rooker was great as Yondu in the scenes that he was in. John C. Reilly and Glenn Close played their parts well in this movie as part of the Nova Corps. The music in this movie is top-notch, from the songs played throughout the movie to the score by Tyler Bates (his Guardians of the Galaxy theme is fantastic). Most importantly, James Gunn is the man to thank for this movie. He had a vision back in 2012 to make a space epic for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he was able to make that vision a reality thanks to a whole bunch of people helping him along the way. Also, he helped make a movie (and eventually, a trilogy) about people finding each other as a family.
Overall, “Guardians of the Galaxy” remains one of my favorite movies, not just in the MCU, but in general. All credit to everyone involved with this movie. Next up in the series of posts is the next Avengers movie, which is subtitled: “Age of Ultron”. I will get that post out soon. Hope you have a great rest of your weekend, everyone.
(Here is the video from How It Should Have Ended on this movie.)
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