Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3
Aug. 2nd, 2023 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI was lukewarm on the first Guardians of the Galaxy (too many jokes), but then really liked the Gamora, Nebula and Rocket featuring scenes in Avengers: Infinity War, so I went back and watched the second Guardians movie, which I liked better, and now I've seen the third one, which, awwww. At some point I must have really fallen for these characters without ever noticing. Also I had a few fears after the trailer and knowing this was supposed to be the third and last GotG movie, and was much relieved that these fears were unfounded.
What I was afraid would happen: Rocket getting killed off (nope, phew) or James Gunn doing what Fringe did with Olivia with Gamora, i.e. that he'd push the reset button by letting 2014!Gamora somehow get all the memoiries of Original Gamora and then her relationships with everyone are identical. (Nope, doesn't happen, either.) In retrospect, I should have had more confidence, because Groot dies in the first movie and little Groot who grows up through the subsequent movies is not identical, he's an offspring and a new person. I'm not completely against resurrections, but they are rarely done well, and if the deaths had dramatic meaning, I want them to stay around. Which Gamora's death did. Plus if the narrative - not the characters, there's a difference! - treats two versions of a person as identical, especially when it comes to romance, it creeps me out. So I was really really glad this movie didn't do that. The one relationship that stays almost identical is the one between Gamora and Nebula, which makes sense because most of their shared memories are identical, and this Gamora did choose Nebula over Thanos in Endgame. But otherwise this is a Gamora who didn't go through all the adventures with the Guardians and thus can't have those relationships, and her character growth through the movie is brought on by a mixture of horrow at the villain du jour's genocidal plans and compassion awoken by Rocket's situation, not through romance with Peter Quill. Peter at the end accepting she's a different person instead of insisting on replicating the relationship he had with "his" Gamora is also character growth on his part, so all my fairs re: this particular subplot were laid to rest.
Meanwhile, Rocket "It's been your story all along" is a bit too meta, Gunn, and also not really true, but certainly Rocket's story is one of the most compelling, and it's really the gut wrenching heart of this particular movie. The earlier ones already offered some brief information on him being the result of awful experiments, but here courtesy of the flashbacks it felt like a crossover with a Richard Adams novel. (The Plague Dogs, not Watership Down.) And good lord am I ever relieved Rocket freed the animals at the end when everyone else was freeing "only" the human looking life forms. The High Revolutionary was as boo-hiss worthy a villain as Ronan and Ego, only more so, due to what he did to Rocket and his other victims on screen, not solely in backstory.
Lastly, having the gang end the trilogy on separate paths not for sad reasons but to explore chances they didn't have before, with a reunion possible at any moment, was the kind of bittersweet and optimistic ending that felt right for the trilogy, plus of course there had to be a gigantic dance scene.
Trivia question: was Karen Gillan pregnant when they shot this movie? It looks like she was, and if so, it makes sense they didn't try to incorporate it into the story (it wouldn't make sense for Nebula) and instead went for the looser outfits and strategic obstacle shots option.
What I was afraid would happen: Rocket getting killed off (nope, phew) or James Gunn doing what Fringe did with Olivia with Gamora, i.e. that he'd push the reset button by letting 2014!Gamora somehow get all the memoiries of Original Gamora and then her relationships with everyone are identical. (Nope, doesn't happen, either.) In retrospect, I should have had more confidence, because Groot dies in the first movie and little Groot who grows up through the subsequent movies is not identical, he's an offspring and a new person. I'm not completely against resurrections, but they are rarely done well, and if the deaths had dramatic meaning, I want them to stay around. Which Gamora's death did. Plus if the narrative - not the characters, there's a difference! - treats two versions of a person as identical, especially when it comes to romance, it creeps me out. So I was really really glad this movie didn't do that. The one relationship that stays almost identical is the one between Gamora and Nebula, which makes sense because most of their shared memories are identical, and this Gamora did choose Nebula over Thanos in Endgame. But otherwise this is a Gamora who didn't go through all the adventures with the Guardians and thus can't have those relationships, and her character growth through the movie is brought on by a mixture of horrow at the villain du jour's genocidal plans and compassion awoken by Rocket's situation, not through romance with Peter Quill. Peter at the end accepting she's a different person instead of insisting on replicating the relationship he had with "his" Gamora is also character growth on his part, so all my fairs re: this particular subplot were laid to rest.
Meanwhile, Rocket "It's been your story all along" is a bit too meta, Gunn, and also not really true, but certainly Rocket's story is one of the most compelling, and it's really the gut wrenching heart of this particular movie. The earlier ones already offered some brief information on him being the result of awful experiments, but here courtesy of the flashbacks it felt like a crossover with a Richard Adams novel. (The Plague Dogs, not Watership Down.) And good lord am I ever relieved Rocket freed the animals at the end when everyone else was freeing "only" the human looking life forms. The High Revolutionary was as boo-hiss worthy a villain as Ronan and Ego, only more so, due to what he did to Rocket and his other victims on screen, not solely in backstory.
Lastly, having the gang end the trilogy on separate paths not for sad reasons but to explore chances they didn't have before, with a reunion possible at any moment, was the kind of bittersweet and optimistic ending that felt right for the trilogy, plus of course there had to be a gigantic dance scene.
Trivia question: was Karen Gillan pregnant when they shot this movie? It looks like she was, and if so, it makes sense they didn't try to incorporate it into the story (it wouldn't make sense for Nebula) and instead went for the looser outfits and strategic obstacle shots option.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 03:04 pm (UTC)Still had a bit of 'tell, don't show' thing in regards to characters. Where character basically just yell each other's character exposition/issues at them. And Peter not taking his gear with him aside from the guns for the sake of a dramatic ending was silly. But otherwise basically it worked well and was very effectively done.
As to Gillan, I gave it a quick google and there was a lot speculation but nothing ever confirmed/denied and she doesn't seem to have had a kid. Could just be keeping in shape being tougher as you get older.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 05:05 pm (UTC)Spoilers under here
Date: 2023-08-02 07:53 pm (UTC)Lovely vegan colleague was going to see it so I had to give her a "distressing content" warning, which she appreciated, because yes, those scenes were horrific in the way that films don't often go for.
(It does also have the most Marvel comics moment ever, re: "why did you save me?" "Because everyone deserves a second chance", and have the characters mean it. Because yes, I think that's probably at the heart of why I prefer Marvel to DC.)
Re: Spoilers under here
Date: 2023-08-03 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-03 07:19 pm (UTC)A question: given the many similarities between the film Guardians and the Farscape regular cast (with the changes made to them between comic and film making them more like Farscape eg comics!Quill has a completely different backstory in which he goes out adventuring entirely voluntarily as an adult, comics!Drax is an augmented human rather than an alien), are the time-displaced Gamora's relationship issues reminiscent of Aeryn having trouble accepting Moya!John after the death of Talyn!John?
no subject
Date: 2023-08-04 06:14 am (UTC)That's because she didn't stay with the Guardians. She and Nebula kept in contact, and that's how she enters the narrative in this movie (Nebula knows they're not going to be able to do the rescue Rocket mission on their own, so she sends Gamora a message) but since this Gamora had no connection to not just Quill but any of the other Guardians - she doesn't know them, they're complete strangers to her - , she had no reason to stay. She didn't stay on her lonesome, though; to Peter's shock, she teamed up with the remaining Ravagers and is now their leader (i.e. has Yondu's old job, but is a much more popular leader).
are the time-displaced Gamora's relationship issues reminiscent of Aeryn having trouble accepting Moya!John after the death of Talyn!John?
That's an interesting comparison which hadn't occured to me. The answer is no, not least because it's Peter Quill who is actually in the Aeryn position, and he has the reverse problem - he starts by insisting that the two Gamoras are the same and treating them the same, which naturally results in hurt and pining, and ends up accepting this Gamora is someone different. Gamora starts out being weirded out by the mere idea of her/Peter and through the movie comes to understand what her other self saw in him, and she comes to appreciate all the Guardians as people, but she does not fall in love with Peter again, and their scenes together aren't staged as UST or Gamora being in denial or anything like that. Their goodbye scene is affectionate and mature (as mentioned, she now understands why her other self had loved him, while he accepts that she doesn't and lets go of his attempt to make the Gamora he lost come back via the temporarily displaced one). All in all, I didn't have the impression that James Gunn is as "Peter/Gamora = OTP!" insistent like the Farscape scribes were about John and Aeryn. (Where I don't think the audience ever doubted that no matter how much angst John and Aeryn were put through they would end up together and not with anyone else.
I will say that Peter Quill and John Crichton both get to do the pining-against-hope/lashing out in misery thing of FS's late s3, though Peter like John when there's friend/world saving to be done snaps out of it and focuses on that. And now you're making me wonder how John would have reacted if he and Aeryn would have been in reversed positions, i.e. instead of two Johns, there are two Aeryns around. If one of them died I think he'd have acted like Peter Quill, but with both around, he'd have had a serious problem because being obsessively in love must be tricky if the one you're in love with exists twice?
Something I really appreciated is that while we do see how Gamora came by her "deadliest woman in the galaxy" reputation (and let's not forget, Guardians 2 reveals she won all those competitions with Nebula Thanos put them through despite knowing Thanos would operate on Nebula every time she lost), and while it is important that she learns to access her capacity for compassion and connect to others in any universe for her character growth, this doesn't need to include her falling in romantic love with someone. This Gamora also comes to care for the team she's working with very deeply - but that team aren't the Guardians. Which I thought was a good way to show both Gamoras started out as the same person with a certain potential, and that their choices let them develop this potential, but that this still doesn't have to mean they end up in identical places, which does feel like Moya!John and Talyn!John without the John/Aeryn OTP factor.