Guardians of the Galaxy

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Maybe. It is if you recognize the name. It's James Gunn, specifically. He wrote and directed Slither and Super. I think I think his first film credit was Tromeo and Juliet. He wrote the script for it back when he was in his mid-twenties.

He's from St. Louis.

[Dalty]

Unavailable in my area, dammit!

[Quasar]

[Dalty]

Watched it elsewhere. Didn't really tell me anything or make me think "Must See".

Got a slight John Carter (OF MOTHERFUCKING MARS!!) vibe from it. Hope the big sci-fi elements don't put off the casuals.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

The only thing I got from John Carter was bland-stacked-on-bland and utter soullessness. I didn't get that vibe at all from the GotG trailer.

Here's some test footage of Bradley Cooper putting words in Rocket's mouth:

[neglet]

I might have watched that trailer a couple of times just to freeze the scene with Chris Pratt shirtless.

[Jubbers]

I might have watched that trailer a couple of times just to freeze the scene with Chris Pratt shirtless.

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You're talking about this trailer, right?

[Mango]

"The Lego Movie" was awesome.

[Quasar]

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

That's part of a larger poster (I got this from an article on HitFix):

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It just occurred to me that Stan Lee probably won't be in this one. I think his deal is specifically for characters and teams he created or wrote for. He has a cameo in Captain America, even though Cap is a Simon/Kirby creation. Lee's first published work in comics was in Captain America #3, though, and Lee did bring Cap out of retirement in the early sixties.

Lee didn't have much of a hand in any of the versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy. I think he co-created Groot back in the sixties. That's his only tie, as far as I know.

[Dalty]

I am still not getting a massive buzz for this. Maybe I need to be spoilt a bit. I was excited but the trailer has left me a wee bit cold.

Any harmless info about the characters / universe they are in that you can share they will leave me largely unspoiled?

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Your reaction to it seems to be different from the reactions of most of the people who watched it.

I can tell you lots, but I'm not sure how closely they are going to be keeping to the comics. Some of the things I could tell you (like the Gamora character's relationship to one of the characters seen in a previous Marvel movie) might be spoilers and might not be. It'll depend on the direction the movie takes.

I guess I can tell you that Groot only ever says "I AM GROOT!" Rocket Raccoon likes to say "Blam! Murdered you!" when he is shooting and killing people. He's also a good pilot and strategist. At one point, he mocks Tony Stark for having such primitive tech. (The Guardians' corner of the universe is way more technologically advanced than Earth's.)

Star-Lord is essentially Han Solo/Mal Reynolds. He's half human. I'll hold off on other stuff until I know more about what they're doing in this movie.

Quasar probably has a bit he can contribute. The character he's named after might figure into some of this, since he's also a part of the Cosmic Marvelverse.

[neglet]

I love Chris Pratt so I'll probably go see this, although I know nothing of the comic.

[Quasar]

Goits should probably binge watch Parks and Rec since it's Chris Pratt's major role before this movie.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I've seen all of Parks and Rec. Started it in October, I think. I'm now caught up.

[neglet]

He also had a small role in Zero Dark Thirty, not comic at all. He is awesome.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

The role was small, but the pecs were not. Granted, the pecs weren't small during the first couple seasons of Parks & Rec, either. Fleshy? Yes. Small? No.

[Dalty]

He's the little yellow guy in the Lego documentary that is currently showing, yes?

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

He's one of them.

[Mal Shot First]

Your reaction to it seems to be different from the reactions of most of the people who watched it.

I can kind of understand Dalty's reaction, though. I know it's only a teaser trailer, but it doesn't exactly tell us much about the movie. The characters are introduced only verbally - we know their reputation, but don't actually get a glimpse into their lives. Beyond telling me that the characters are basic archetypes, the trailer doesn't really tell me much about them. They look kind of interesting, I guess - haven't seen an angry raccoon character before. But it's not nearly enough to get me excited about the movie.

I think I may be getting tired of superheroes.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

The prospect of getting tired of superheroes never would have occurred to my ten-year-old self. Of course, back then, there wasn't a movie superhero hiding under every rock. We had Superman, and we had Batman. We also had something that vaguely resembled the Punisher, but most of America only got that one on video.

[Mango]

For me the lowered interest (mind, I will still be in theaters to see it because comic books) has more to do with these guys being relative unknowns.
This is somewhat sad, I have hopes for quality original IP superhero movies. But yeah, I know little about these guys beyond the fact that they aren't even the Guardians of the Galaxy that I used to read about.
The trailer seems to be trading on a bit of ironic enjoyment and lameness. A hipster movie maybe.
In that sense I actually liked Guardians of the Galaxy even before they existed.
That's kind of a lie, I barely remember the old comics.

I guess what I'm saying is that while I can easily be excited about any new super hero film that comes along This trailer doesn't say "Hey! this is one of your favorite heroes finally being done right!" or "Maybe this will suck, but here's a guy doing super things!" Instead it says "Here are some lame people that John C. Reiley seems to be justified in mocking."

[Mal Shot First]

Not that there's no entertainment to be found in a group of misfits who overestimate themselves. That's sort of what Mystery Men is about.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I have the first couple issues of the '90 version. I'm not huge on it. A big part of it is the Jim Valentino art. I never cared for his straightforward superhero work. He was an indie artist, and he could never quite scrub the indie look off the page. He did cartoony well. His Normalman stuff is decent. Whenever he tried to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, though, it just looked awful. It looked like stuff Dark Horse would have rejected.

ShadowHawk looked even worse than his Marvel work. It looked out of place among the other Image artists' stuff. I always wondered if they were embarrassed by it. (They didn't seem to be too embarrassed by Liefeld's stuff, though, so what did they know?) I know it's supposed to be about story, but, c'mon, this was Image. Image wasn't about story until the mid-nineties. That's when Moore started writing Supreme and Smith brought Bone over.

The current Guardians team came into being in 2008, I think. It's solid stuff. It was the brainchild of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. They're Marvel UKers. It has a definite Marvel UK flavor. Abnett's worked on 2000 AD, Judge Dredd, and Death's Head II. (I look back on Death's Head II with real fondness, but I think I might be the only one.)

Abnett and Lanning also did a volume of The Authority together. I haven't read it. I never made it past the Ellis stuff, truth be told.