My little rant on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (minor spoilers)
Nov 22, 2017 6:52:22 GMT
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 22, 2017 6:52:22 GMT
I'm not a guy that can see a movie and say "I like/dislike it" and move on. I have to analyze, figure out what makes a story tick. It makes the experience more fun, especially with bad stories.
And so here I am today, after watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 a few hours ago. It was... okay, I guess. But after enjoying the first movie so much, this felt like such a cookie cutter product. But why? On the surface, it's no different from the first movie. So I spent some time talking with my sister and worked out the problem that sucks the soul out of the tale:
THEY SPLIT THE GODDAMN PARTY.
Right towards the beginning of the movie, Peter, Gamora and Drax go off with Ego, leaving Rocket, Groot and Nebula behind on a different plot thread. This causes two major problems.
1. There are two narrative threads to keep track of. The Ego plot consists of nothing happening. Ego shows them his planet, Mantis is "scared of Ego, oh noes" and everyone sits around waiting for the other plot to get to them, since they are incapable of working out Ego's nefarious schemes for themselves (funnily enough, my sister figured it out within a few minutes of Ego revealing that the planet is him). The Ravager plot thread consists of everyone getting into various hijinx and trouble until they finally decide that they've wasted enough time contributing to funny scenes that don't further the plot, and show on Ego. This makes for a lopsided balance: the B plot is infinitely more fun than the A plot, but neither can build up a head of steam because the other keeps undercutting any momentum.
2. By splitting the characters, we are robbed of what made the first movie so damn fun: character interaction. If everyone was on Ego trying to work out the mystery of the planet and kept joking and arguing with each other, the humor would be much more fresh, because everyone could interact differently depending on who they're speaking with. Instead, every character is paired up with one person that is meant to further their one hangup of the movie: Peter pairs with Ego because of his daddy issues, Gamora and Nebula pair up because of sibling issues, Drax and Mantis pair up because... Drax being an ass at a naive native girl's expense is funny (*facepalm*), Rocket and Yanu pair up because Rocket suddenly develops an urge to outasshole Peter and he needs Yanu's guidance to discover that Peter is his friend. And then there's Groot, who doesn't have any hangups and is thus allowed to be silly and fun both times that the movie remembers he exists.
What I would have done is keep all of the guardians together, have them all go to Ego (there's no damn reason in the plot for separating the party in the first place, they just do it so the Ravagers plot can happen), and work out a way to include side characters like Yanu and Nebula into the main plot.
This would
1. Allow them to join in on the Guardian fun (imagine Nebula working so hard to defeat her sister only to be foiled by Baby Groot, or Yanu and Drax discussing parenting methods together -- and then imagine Nebula interacting with Drax as Yanu puzzles over Groot)
2. Advance their personal stories (Nebula could discover how much the Guardians mean to Gamora as she spends time with them while Gamora realizes how she has mistreated her sister, Yanu could bond with the Guardians as they search for the secret of Ego)
3. Advance the main plot (Nebula could learn the power of friendship and help the Guardians as they bicker with her constantly, Yanu could hide his shame at working for Ego as he reluctantly teams with the Guardians -- obviously, he couldn't know all of Ego's secrets the way he does in the final product, I'm just tossing ideas out there)
But Marvel, in its infinite wisdom, chose to split the plot threads, and split the character threads so that each character only truly has one counterpart to come to terms with, meaning that there are in fact 6 threads going at once that have nothing to do with each other (four personal plots between a Guardian and their binary counterpart, two story plots that are almost entirely unaffected by any of the personal stuff). This dilutes the story so heavily that nothing ever truly matters.
Anyway, that's a rant that I'm just putting out there. Any of your own thoughts on the movie? To be clear, I didn't dislike the film. It was a soulless corporate cash grab that did its job reasonably well; I laughed a few times and mostly didn't gag, and it was a pleasure seeing the gang all on screen again. I just feel that having the gang together would have done wonders for this story.
And so here I am today, after watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 a few hours ago. It was... okay, I guess. But after enjoying the first movie so much, this felt like such a cookie cutter product. But why? On the surface, it's no different from the first movie. So I spent some time talking with my sister and worked out the problem that sucks the soul out of the tale:
THEY SPLIT THE GODDAMN PARTY.
Right towards the beginning of the movie, Peter, Gamora and Drax go off with Ego, leaving Rocket, Groot and Nebula behind on a different plot thread. This causes two major problems.
1. There are two narrative threads to keep track of. The Ego plot consists of nothing happening. Ego shows them his planet, Mantis is "scared of Ego, oh noes" and everyone sits around waiting for the other plot to get to them, since they are incapable of working out Ego's nefarious schemes for themselves (funnily enough, my sister figured it out within a few minutes of Ego revealing that the planet is him). The Ravager plot thread consists of everyone getting into various hijinx and trouble until they finally decide that they've wasted enough time contributing to funny scenes that don't further the plot, and show on Ego. This makes for a lopsided balance: the B plot is infinitely more fun than the A plot, but neither can build up a head of steam because the other keeps undercutting any momentum.
2. By splitting the characters, we are robbed of what made the first movie so damn fun: character interaction. If everyone was on Ego trying to work out the mystery of the planet and kept joking and arguing with each other, the humor would be much more fresh, because everyone could interact differently depending on who they're speaking with. Instead, every character is paired up with one person that is meant to further their one hangup of the movie: Peter pairs with Ego because of his daddy issues, Gamora and Nebula pair up because of sibling issues, Drax and Mantis pair up because... Drax being an ass at a naive native girl's expense is funny (*facepalm*), Rocket and Yanu pair up because Rocket suddenly develops an urge to outasshole Peter and he needs Yanu's guidance to discover that Peter is his friend. And then there's Groot, who doesn't have any hangups and is thus allowed to be silly and fun both times that the movie remembers he exists.
What I would have done is keep all of the guardians together, have them all go to Ego (there's no damn reason in the plot for separating the party in the first place, they just do it so the Ravagers plot can happen), and work out a way to include side characters like Yanu and Nebula into the main plot.
This would
1. Allow them to join in on the Guardian fun (imagine Nebula working so hard to defeat her sister only to be foiled by Baby Groot, or Yanu and Drax discussing parenting methods together -- and then imagine Nebula interacting with Drax as Yanu puzzles over Groot)
2. Advance their personal stories (Nebula could discover how much the Guardians mean to Gamora as she spends time with them while Gamora realizes how she has mistreated her sister, Yanu could bond with the Guardians as they search for the secret of Ego)
3. Advance the main plot (Nebula could learn the power of friendship and help the Guardians as they bicker with her constantly, Yanu could hide his shame at working for Ego as he reluctantly teams with the Guardians -- obviously, he couldn't know all of Ego's secrets the way he does in the final product, I'm just tossing ideas out there)
But Marvel, in its infinite wisdom, chose to split the plot threads, and split the character threads so that each character only truly has one counterpart to come to terms with, meaning that there are in fact 6 threads going at once that have nothing to do with each other (four personal plots between a Guardian and their binary counterpart, two story plots that are almost entirely unaffected by any of the personal stuff). This dilutes the story so heavily that nothing ever truly matters.
Anyway, that's a rant that I'm just putting out there. Any of your own thoughts on the movie? To be clear, I didn't dislike the film. It was a soulless corporate cash grab that did its job reasonably well; I laughed a few times and mostly didn't gag, and it was a pleasure seeing the gang all on screen again. I just feel that having the gang together would have done wonders for this story.
