The 2014 release of Guardians of the Galaxy pretty much solidified Kevin Feige’s Midas touch when it came to Marvel movies. He’d already taken a collection of B- and C-listers and turned them into household names, and with Guardians he was getting down into the D-list, and sure enough, they were a hit, too.
And so, three years later as part of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a sequel came out.
The story for Volume 2 was already set up in the first movie, as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star Lord, learned that he was only half-human—his unknown father was an alien who impregnated his mother. Plus, of course, while it’s all well and good for the gang to end their first movie by becoming a team of heroes, there’s the question of how well this gang of misfits would gel.
There’s also a new member of the team, as Mantis is added to the group. A human character in the comics, who was believed to be the “Celestial Madonna” by the Kree. She was a semiregular Avenger throughout the 1970s, and was brought back numerous times. She is inexplicably changed to an alien empath in the MCU, and made a member of the Guardians, played by Pom Klementieff.
We also get to meet Ego the Living Planet, a Thor, Silver Surfer, and Fantastic Four antagonist whose rights had to be negotiated. (Reportedly, James Gunn hadn’t realized that Marvel Studios didn’t have the rights to Ego, as that was part of the FF license that was with 20th Century Fox, and didn’t have a Plan B if he couldn’t use the living planet. Luckily, Disney made a trade with Fox, allowing them to alter Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s powers in Deadpool in exchange.) While the comics version is a planet with a big face on it, Gunn cast Kurt Russell as a human-form avatar of the planet, as that would be easier for live-action actors to interact with. (Having said that, we do see the planet with a big face on it in a couple of shots.) Ego is revealed to be Quill’s father, a departure from the comics, where his alien father is King J’son of Spartax.
In addition, we get a nod to the original Guardians who debuted in 1969’s Marvel Super-Heroes #18. While only Yondu appeared in the first film, we get many of the rest of the originals, as a team of Ravagers: Stakar and Aleta (the two halves of Starhawk from the comics), played respectively by Sylvester Stallone and Michelle Yeoh, Martinex played by Michael Rosenbaum, and Charlie-27, played by Ving Rhames; plus Miley Cyrus as the voice of Mainframe, and also Krugarr, rendered as a CGI character.
And, finally, we get the Sovereign, a gold-skinned species who are used in part to hint at setting up the character of Adam Warlock, though that particular hint hasn’t yet been followed through on. (And Warlock’s big thing was fighting Thanos, a ship that has pretty much sailed in the MCU.) Elizabeth Debicki plays High Priestess Ayesha, and Ben Browder appears as an admiral. (Browder starred in Farscape, of which Gunn is a huge fan, and which was an obvious influence on Guardians.)
Back from Volume 1 are Chris Pratt as Quill, Zoë Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax, Vin Diesel as the voice of Baby Groot, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Michael Rooker as Yondu, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Sean Gunn as Kraglin, Laura Haddock as Quill’s mother, and Seth Green as the voice of Howard the Duck.
Pratt, Saldana, Bautista, Diesel, Cooper, Gillan, and Kelementieff will all next appear in Avengers: Infinity War. Gunn, Stallone, Yeoh, Rhames, and Rosenbaum will all next appear in Avengers: Endgame.
“Prepare for a really bad landing!”
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
Written and directed by James Gunn
Produced by Kevin Feige
Original release date: May 5, 2017
We open in Missouri, 1980. Meredith Quill is driving down the road in a convertible, listening to “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).” The car is being driven by a self-proclaimed “spaceman,” and he takes her to a forest behind a Dairy Queen where he’s planted a strange, alien flower.
Cut to thirty-four years later (so still 2014, when the first movie was released). The Guardians of the Galaxy have been hired by the Sovereign to protect their powerful batteries from an interdimensional beast. Baby Groot dances to “Mr. Blue Sky” while the Guardians fight the creature and the opening credits roll.
After defeating the creature—which involves explosives, big guns, Drax leaping down the creature’s gullet, and Gamora using her sword to expand a small cut on the creature’s neck to a fatal wound—the Guardians are given their payment by the Sovereign: Nebula, whom they captured also trying to steal the batteries.
Rocket secretly stole some of the batteries, which the Sovereign discover after the Guardians leave with Nebula. They attack the Guardians’ ship, but our heroes are saved by a lone figure in a very advanced ship. The Guardians crash land on a planet, joined by their savior, who identifies himself as Ego—and as Quill’s father. He’s an older version of the same man who was with Meredith Quill in the opening. Accompanying him is Mantis, an empath who is Ego’s slave.
Quill is very reluctant to go along with this—he’s never seen this guy before, even if he did save their asses—but Gamora convinces him to go with him to his homeworld. Gamora and Drax accompany him. Rocket and Baby Groot stay behind to repair the ship and guard Nebula.
Yondu is drinking in a bar, and bumps into two fellow Ravagers, Martinex and Stakar. However, Stakar wants nothing to do with Yondu, as he broke the Ravager code by trafficking in children. Stakar also tells the bar’s proprietor that there are a hundred Ravager groups, and the other 99 will never patronize this bar again because they served the hundredth. Yondu tries and fails to defend himself, and Stakar and Martinex walk away in disgust.
High Priestess Ayesha of the Sovereign approaches Yondu, offering him a substantial reward for the Guardians of the Galaxy. He tracks them, using a tracker he put on Quill’s ship ages ago. However, Rocket was ready for an ambush and takes out most of Yondu’s people with various booby traps. Still, eventually, they surround Rocket, and Yondu makes it clear that he has no intention of turning the Guardians over to the Sovereign, though he will sell them the batteries Rocket stole.
Several of Yondu’s Ravagers, led by Taserface, have expressed disaffection with the special treatment Yondu gives to Quill, and Kraglin—who had been defending Yondu up to this point—expresses that disaffection to Yondu, which leads to a showdown between those loyal to Yondu and those not.
Nebula convinced Groot to free her to save Rocket, and she then shoots Yondu in his fin. This gives Taserface’s side the upper hand, and they take Yondu, Rocket, and Baby Groot all prisoner.
Taserface spaces all those loyal to Yondu, but Nebula stops him from doing so to Rocket and Yondu because they’re more valuable alive, as both will fetch a significant bounty. Thinking him a harmless plant, and adorable as heck, Taserface’s people keep Baby Groot free, using him for entertainment. When the Ravagers are all asleep, Baby Groot walks by the cell, and Yondu and Rocket tell him to go to the captain’s quarters and get the prototype fin in the drawer. After several false starts, and after some help from a very repentant Kraglin—who did not expect Taserface to kill so many of his friends—Yondu gets the fin, which enables him to control his arrow once again.
(One of the false starts is the prosthetic eye of one of the Ravagers, which Rocket decides to keep. This item will remain in his pocket until the Guardians encounter a one-eyed Thor in Avengers: Infinity War.)
Yondu uses the arrow to kill the mutineers, though rather than kill Taserface directly, he uses the arrow to blow up a console behind Taserface so his death will be more painful. This proves tactically unsound, as it gives Taserface time to contact the Sovereign and give them Yondu’s location.
Ego reveals to Quill that he is a Celestial, and that he’s almost as old as the universe itself. He built the world they’re on, and sought out other life, eventually finding Quill’s mother and having a son by him. He wanted an heir, as it takes the power of two Celestials to enact his plan. The flower we saw in the opening is one of millions that Ego has planted all over the galaxy. Once they’re activated, they’ll remake every world.
Ego had hired Yondu to bring Quill to him, but the Ravager instead kept Quill for himself. Ego has been looking for Quill for all this time, finally tracking him down after hearing the story of a human who touched an infinity stone and lived, who he figured had to be his progeny.
At first, Quill thinks this is very cool, especially since he can also access the power of Ego’s world. He’s thrilled that he has finally found his family. However, Gamora thinks something is off about this whole thing.
Nebula arrives at Ego’s world and attacks Gamora. Their battle takes them down into caverns beneath the surface, and it soon becomes clear that Nebula’s hatred is because Gamora always had to win every time Thanos pit them against each other—when all Nebula wanted was a sister. They wind up having a rapprochement—and then they discover a mountain of skeletal remains in an adjacent cavern.
Mantis, who has become friends with Drax, finally tells him the truth, even as Ego does likewise to Quill: Quill was one of thousands of offspring Ego had with women throughout the galaxy. But Quill is the only one of those children who has Celestial DNA. Ego killed the others once it was clear that they couldn’t help him with his purpose, and left their bodies in the cavern below the surface of the planet.
Or, rather, of Ego. Ego himself is the planet, as Yondu explains to Rocket. The form he takes on is just what he uses to interact with people. Rocket has to do 700 hyperspatial jumps to get himself, Baby Groot, Yondu, and Kraglin to Ego, which is a brutal journey. At one point it takes them past a world where several Watchers are being told a story by someone who looks just like Stan Lee.
Gamora and Nebula attack Mantis to find out what’s going on, but Mantis has already told Drax, and then tells them. But Mantis is concerned that Ego will have turned Quill completely to his side by now.
That turns out to not be the case, because Ego reveals that he is the one who put the tumor in Meredith Quill’s head to kill her, because Ego really did love her—but that love was a distraction from his true purpose that he couldn’t afford. Between that revelation, and Ego also smashing Quill’s Sony Walkman, Quill loses it and fights back.
One of Mantis’s roles is to put Ego to sleep to calm him. She’s never done it without his consent before, but the Guardians convince her to do so. This keeps him quiet long enough for the Guardians to fight back. They head down to the caverns to leave a bomb in Ego’s nerve center.
Complicating this is that the Sovereign are right behind Yondu’s ship. A pitched battle rages, during which Mantis is rendered unconscious. Ego wakes up and Quill fights him, taking Yondu’s words to heart about how he shouldn’t think about accessing the power, he should just do it. (“You think I think when I use my arrows?”) Baby Groot is the only one small enough to get the bomb to Ego’s brain, which he does. Most of the Guardians make it to the surface—Nebula saving Gamora’s life at one point—except for Yondu, Rocket, Quill, and Baby Groot. Rocket only has one space suit left, which he gives to Yondu, who practically begs Rocket to let him be the one to save Quill. He didn’t keep Quill for himself because he was a useful thief, as he always told Quill—he kept him because he found out that all the other kids he brought to Ego were killed. (That was the child-trafficking that got him blacklisted by the other Ravagers.) And Yondu came to love Quill as his own son.
Rocket goes to the surface, shooting Gamora to keep her from going after Quill—he doesn’t want to lose any more friends today. The bomb goes off, and Yondu manages to save Quill at the cost of his own life. But Ego is also dead. The flowers he planted throughout the galaxy, which have started to terraform each world and has killed many people, stop what they’re doing and go inert.
Rocket sends word to the Ravagers about what Yondu did, and after the Guardians have a quiet funeral for him, the Ravagers show up to give him a proper Ravager funeral. Stakar, Aleta, Charlie-27, and Martinex all wish him well on his journey to the afterlife.
Kraglin gives Quill a Zune that Yondu picked up on Earth a while back, intending to give it to Quill if he ever rejoined Yondu’s crew. Quill in turn gives Kraglin Yondu’s arrow, though Kraglin’s attempts to control it go poorly.
Gamora offers Nebula a place with the Guardians, but Nebula wants to go after Thanos and kill him. Gamora gives the surprised Nebula a hug.
Stakar, Aleta, Charlie-27, Martinex, and two other Ravagers, Mainframe and Krugarr, get together for the first time in a while, and they think maybe they should team up again like in the old days.
The Watchers lose interest in the human’s stories, to the human’s chagrin, as he has so many more stories to tell—plus the Watchers are his ride…
Having been humiliated multiple times by the Guardians, and having earned the opprobrium of the Sovereign Council, High Priestess Ayesha puts all her hopes in the person being created in her fancy-shmancy new birthing chamber, whom she will name Adam.
Finally, we fast forward a couple years to Groot as a surly teenager, with Quill realizing how much of a pain in the ass it was for Yondu to raise Quill.
“Shoot her if she does anything suspicious—or if you feel like it”
There are many things about this sequel that are stronger than the first film, and there are also many things that are much weaker.
Let’s cover the weaker bits first, as there are fewer of them. This movie has some serious pacing issues. Several bits that are supposed to be comedic go on about fifteen percent too long: Rocket’s booby traps on the Ravagers, Baby Groot’s misfires in retrieving Yondu’s fin, Yondu’s massacring of the mutineers, and the seven hundred jumps to Ego’s world. In addition, the climactic battle goes on too long. One longs for a tighter edit of this film, as these pacing misfires damage what would be otherwise a near-perfect film.
Oh, and High Priestess Ayesha’s explanation of how the Sovereign are genetically engineered is clunky as hell, and Quill’s semi-flirty followup about more primitive birthing techniques and being willing to show them to Ayesha for science was just corny and leaden as hell.
Despite these flaws, however, this movie is an absolute delight. I didn’t buy that the Guardians were a family in the first movie because while the script insisted on it, the events didn’t justify it. Events do so here, and in particular the importance of chosen family is a theme that runs through the entire film.
Ego is biologically Quill’s family, and a father Quill has been searching for his whole life. He even made up a story when he was a kid that David Hasselhoff was his father, but he was too busy saving the world with his talking car (little Peter Quill having conflated Hasselhoff with his character of Michael Knight from Knight Rider) to raise his son. And for a time, Ego fills those needs, even giving Quill the chance to throw a ball with his old man, even though the ball is really a mass of crackling energy.
But it turns sour in a hurry, as Ego is also a psychopath who wants to remake the universe in his own image, and willing to wipe out entire worlds to do it.
Ego may be Quill’s father, but Yondu was his Daddy, as the Ravager himself puts it before his self-sacrifice. Quill is Star Lord because he was raised by Yondu, and he doesn’t really realize it until Yondu is dead.
Rocket’s self-sabotage plays into that theme as well, as the entire movie’s plot is driven by Rocket’s idiotic theft of the batteries from the Sovereign. To a lesser extent, so does Yondu’s self-sabotage, as he refuses to hurt Quill, thus costing him his entire crew (except Kraglin). As Yondu himself says to Rocket, the two of them are alike—orphans who were abandoned by their parents (in Rocket’s case, the scientists who created him), and who are scared to death that they’ll be abandoned again. So they do stupid stuff to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It cost Yondu his best friends, and Rocket realizes that he could just as easily lose his friends.
And then there’s Nebula and Gamora, whose mutual hatred finally comes to a head and the two belatedly realize that their anger shouldn’t be directed at each other, but at Thanos, who raised them so horrifically, tormenting and torturing them both, and pitting them against each other. It’s a classic abusive family turned up to eleven thanks to all those involved having super powers and/or massive fighting skills of some sort.
Nebula and Drax sum it up perfectly: “All any of you do is yell at each other; you’re not friends.” “You’re right—we’re family.”
All the performances are spot on here, as good or better than in the last film. Chris Pratt remains the goofy center of it all, leavened by the tragedy of watching his mother die—a tragedy that is always bubbling near the surface—by gaining and losing his father twice over (counting Yondu in that). Zoë Saldana’s Gamora is less brittle, more forgiving, becoming a better person out of Thanos’s shadow, a journey she helps Nebula start as well. (That journey for Nebula will be a fascinating subplot of the next two Avengers films.)
Dave Bautista is even funnier as Drax, and Pom Klementieff is delightfully adorable as Mantis. (Having said that, Mantis’s naïveté is a bit too close to Drax’s literalness and also this character bears no actual resemblance to the comics character, which is frustrating, as the comics Mantis is a great, kickass character despite an awful costume, and it would’ve been nice to see her.)
Both Michael Rooker and Sean Gunn bring a lot more to the roles of Yondu and Kraglin. In the first movie, Kraglin was pretty much Second Ravager On The Right, but he’s given some nice depth here. And Yondu proves to be more complex and sympathetic than he was as Redneck Antagonist in the first film.
Kurt Russell makes a fantastic bad guy, as he sells Ego’s, well, ego. You have no trouble believing that Quill would initially embrace him as his pater familias, but you also have no trouble believing in Quill’s turning on him after he shows his true colors.
But as with the first film, the real stars are Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, and especially Karen Gillan. Nebula’s anguish and pain is etched on every blue pore of Gillan’s face, as she perfectly embodies the victim of abuse that she and Gamora both are after being raised by the mad Titan. And Cooper and Diesel continue to be a delight, with Diesel making every (now high-pitched) “I am Groot” meaningful, while Cooper makes Rocket the most complex character—and, yet, still the funniest. He gets all the best lines—in a movie full of great ones—and also has the most pathos and one of the strongest emotional journeys.
Also as with the first film, the use of music is superlative. ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” is a great soundtrack for a fight against a giant interdimensional hellbeast, Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me” is the perfect romantic background for Quill’s attempts to move his relationship with Gamora forward, Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son” proves the perfect coda to a movie full of children with serious Daddy issues, and Looking Glass’s “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” is pretty much the theme of the Ego/Meredith/Quill storyline. All these songs are exquisitely utilized, but none more apropos than Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” twice used to superb effect.
The first movie brought them together as a family, but they don’t really become a family until Volume 2, and it’s great fun to see.
Next week, still cosmic, but mostly on Earth, as we meet the master of the mystic arts, Doctor Strange.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is Groot.
It’s tough to leave an insightful comment when I agree with you almost entirely. My assessment after I saw this film was that if it were about 15% less goofy, it would be perfect. I have the same opinion of Ragnarok, and Ant-Man & the Wasp, so clearly this is the tone that Marvel is going for, and it’s ever-so-slightly not what I’m looking for, so I forgive it.
The first impression I got from this movie when I saw it in theaters was that it was a lot more violent than the first one. The massacre of the mutineers, for starters, convinced me that my kids were still too young to see it, whereas they’d enjoyed the first one. That impression holds up to this day, and my kids are that much older. As for the tone of the movie and goofiness, I like a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Brought a tear to the eye when I saw Browder on the big screen. I will forever be grateful to the Guardians of the Galaxy, because my wife is a huge fan and it convinced her to watch Farscape.
I’m not quite as sold on the second outing though. Some of it is just a matter of tastes; the banter is just a little too mean-spirited for mine, so I didn’t find it all that funny. Like, the scene where Yondu ‘humorously’ murders his mutinous crew drags on from mildly unpleasant to painful. The friction between crew members moves a bit past endearing to grating. I did like the development between Gamora and Nebula a lot; it left me hoping for a real opening up of Gamora’s character… hopes that were shattered in the Avengers movies, alas.
I agree though that Pratt is very good here. Quill’s loss and pain is so close beneath the surface that his actions in Infinity War make perfect sense–after all, drawing on that pain and whaling on bad guys has sort of worked for him in the past.
Quill’s eulogy for Yondu at the end of the movie was great, too. Funny and heartfelt.
Hate to correct you, but technically speaking Sean Gunn is next seen in Avengers – Infinity War. He performs all of Rocket’s on-set/mo-cap work.
To me, this movie feels more Soap Opera than Space Opera, not that that’s a bad thing, as I enjoyed the heck out of it, too.
For some reason, I found the cognitive dissonance of Jay & the Americans’ “Come a Little Bit Closer” and Yondu’s brutal Massacre of the mutinous Ravagers funny as hell. I must be a terrible person. ^_~
This is also my favorite Stan Lee cameo, as it implies that ALL Stan Lee cameos are actually the real Stan Lee. Oddly, and I’m only just now realizing this, Stan is referencing his Civil War cameo (Fex Ex man), even though this movie takes place before Civil War (though was released after it). Wibbly Wobbly, Timey-Wimey shenanigans, I’m sure.
P.S. There’s a stray backslash in the 5th paragraph.
Mantis putting her hand on Drax’s shoulder and crying is the best scene and Dave Bautista comic relief never undercuts his grief and anger. As far as Mantis, “This one” is humbly better than her comic book persona. While she has a sense of humor now in the next movie we may get to see a little badasssery. Nebula was one note in the first movie but arguably the deepest in two and the AVENGERS movies.
The first Guardians flick was a miss for me, so this is the only Marvel Studios flick I haven’t seen. I love the Charlie-27 Guardians, and I’m disappointed they shoehorned so many of them into these movies, as I was hoping for a Guardians series down the line
I think the Mary Poppins quote might be among my very favourite MCU quotes.
Also, wholeheartedly agree with the article.
More Michael Rooker = better movie.
‘Fraid you misremembered Mantis’ comics history. The Kree-Skrull War ended over a year before her first appearance. And she didn’t actually get inducted as an Avenger until about three panels before she left the book. Initially, she had helped nurse villain (but former member as a traitor) the Swordsman back to health in Vietnam where a mercenary operation went wrong for him. It was fairly strongly implied, for the ’70s, that she was a prostitute. He reformed, and she went with him when he returned to try to re-join the Avengers, this time as a good guy. As it happens, she had martial arts skills out the wazoo, so accompanied the team on missions albeit not as a member. Her total time with the Avengers was about two years real time, and she’s only reappeared as an Avenger in an ancillary Avengers mini-series or two since (she made a brief appearance in Avengers West Coast, but Englehart left the book and she was removed shortly after). She did hang out with the Silver Surfer for a while, and was a member of the comics Guardians.
The other interesting thing about her in the comics is that her creator, Steve Englehart, kept reusing her at different companies, albeit under different names. She was Willow in a JLA story and Lorelei both at Eclipse Comics and in an Englehart prose novel.
LazerWulf and Tom G.: thank you both, the post has been edited.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I loved how the big spectacular monster battle at the beginning was out of focus in the background for most of it. That was really brilliant, focusing instead on the most adorable thing in the MCU (until Morgan Stark in Endgame), baby Groot. His little fight with the small animal and periodic interactions with the rest of the group throughout the fight were perfect, showing how the group has grown together since the first movie.
Very pleasantly surprised at how well they did Ego, choosing to use a human avatar was an excellent decision. I did not know about the problems with getting to use Ego.
I felt Peter’s moment with Yondu at the end, with the panic he felt trying to save Yondu, was the emotional highlight of the movie. Chris Pratt showed off his acting chops in that scene.
I’m really glad they got James Gunn back, it would have been a monumental task to fill those shoes for GotG 3 and keep the same tone. What he said in those texts from his past were awful, but he owned it and apologized well before they were “unearthed”.
I don’t really remember what I thought of this film. For me, GotG is the weakest series in the MCU; I just don’t care for its style of humor or its characters that much, and I find them just a little too ridiculous and annoying. I think I found this film even more like that than the first film. I do remember being very impressed by Karen Gillan, though.
The movie is one of the most visually striking of the MCU movies, and maybe I was blinded by my fandom for Kurt Russell, but Ego being the villain as a pleasant surprise as I figured he’d be a more sympathetic figure.
The first film feels slightly tighter, but James Gunn indulging himself for this movie helps make both those film have far more emotional resonance than most of the other MCU films (granted most of the others don’t focus on such an emotional subtext), these are easily among the absolute best of the franchise. Glad to see he’ll be able to wrap things up after all.
I mentioned last week that I enjoy it when the Marvel movies wrong-foot longtime comics-readers’ expectations, for example, having the Skrulls be sympathetic. This is a perfect example of a movie not doing that. Someone who has no knowledge of Ego or his comics history might not anticipate the plot, but comics fans know this is Ego, and sure, maybe we’re saying he’s actually a Celestial now, but he’s definitely got a self-serving agenda, because that’s what Ego always does (it’s in the name). It doesn’t bother me when a movie fails to do that, so I don’t fault Guardians for it, but I enjoy it more when a movie does it successfully.
One of the things not mentioned here was Ayesha’s interest in Quill’s lineage. It was a chance for Quill to flirt with someone who wasn’t Gamora, and gave background about his father’s unknown origins.
I’m guessing that Adam Warlock is going to be the result of the Sovereign trying to create an ultimate being, but it would be interesting if Ayesha recognized Quill’s celestial background and somehow used it in the creation of Adam.
@11. Tom: Interesting that Mantis had other incarnations. Wonder if she was based on a real person close to Engelhart. Reminds me of another character, called Starfire (not the Titans one), which her creator, David Michelinie, said was based on his real life girlfriend at the time.
Starfire
Agree that this movie was a bit too padded. Perhaps it was a matter of indulging Gunn after his success with the first. Perhaps a few bits here and there should’ve been kept for extended scene extras, but it’s still a very good movie.
And the room got a bit dusty during the part where Kraglen started yelling when he saw the other Ravagers show up for the funeral.
Other than that, Starhawk is one of my favorite characters from the old-school Guardians. Was hoping he/she would show up in cosmic form, but not sure how Gunn could’ve worked that in.
I have always said that if anyone ever wanted a Farscape movie, all they need do is watch the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, because they are basically the exact same thing. The characters, the setting, the storyline, the sense of humour – all are pretty much identical. I assume that casting Ben Browder in this must be the producers’ acknowledgement of that, because there is no way they’re not aware of the similarities.
And I must disagree about the gags dragging out – I love Groot’s bit with bringing the toe and the fridge and whatever the hell else, it’s hilarious, and it’s also a part of Groot’s character development. At the beginning of the movie, they tell him to stay out of the way and not get involved, so he dances around and fights a critter. In the middle of the movie, they need him to do something for the sake of the plot, and he tries his best but constantly gets it wrong. And at the end of the movie, they need him to plant the bomb to destroy Ego, and they have to trust that he can do it – and he does it.
But my favourite part, that had me absolutely breathless and crying with laughter, was “Have you got any tape?” A life or death battle with the entire universe at stake, and they all have to stop to ask if anyone has any tape, and then argue about why anyone would think they had any tape. I unreservedly love it.
I also love that Rocket is not just dismissed as the CGI comic relief, but has one of the strongest character arcs in the movie. And I still love the weird character point that Rocket has a thing for stealing people’s prosthetic limbs and organs. It’s such a ridiculous quirk, but they stick with it across the entire MCU and it’s hilarious.
I really enjoyed this movie. The only pacing issue I remember being unhappy with at the time was I felt Yondu’s funeral lasted way too long. I never read the comics so maybe I was missing some of the emotional connection.
@20. piratet: There was no emotional connection!. Take that back! Sniff.
One of Marvel’s best sequels to one of their best movies. Too bad the third one will be delayed until some time after The Winds of Winter comes out.
The scene with Rocket and Yondu was one of those scenes that just unexpectedly hit me in the feels and is part of what does bring these movies to another level. I’m also riveted to the screen whenever Karen Gillan is on – she has this crackling intensity that she delivers every single line with, and you can see it even in the way she just holds her body. It also provides some comic juxtaposition as she keeps this character even when among the other more relaxed guardians.
Vote for ‘My Sweet Lord’ as one of my favorite music moments, as George Harrison is my favorite Beatle :)
It’s funny how everybody identifies different scenes as the “too long” ones. I think that the “false start” scene with Baby Groot is too long, and the fight between Peter and Ego lasts too long for my liking, but I could watch Rocket blow up Ravagers all day long, and the funeral…well, there’s something wrong with my DVD, because the image always gets all blurry about halfway through the funeral. Happened in the theater too; not sure how to explain that.
The scene where Yondu was executing his (admittedly traitorous) crew with Rocket cheerfully executing anybody that Yondu missed, all with classic rock playing in the background, was just a tad disturbing. Baby Groot was more of a punchline than an actual character. The middle of the movie meandered just a little too long, and as others have mentioned, some of the gags dragged on longer than they should. The fight between Gamora and Nebula seemed a little over the top, even for a Marvel / Guardians movie.
Yondu’s sacrifice and funeral were beautiful scenes, with all involved knocking their performances out of the park. I think the first movie was definitely a better effort.
Like X2: X-Men United, this wonderful film is a case of a director showing what he wanted to do with a property all along, and just needed a little bit of success to get the green light to do it. It’s funnier, more moving and more postmodern than the original, full of take-your-base moments that are positively exhilarating in their audacity. And yeah, it really knows how to hit you in the feels.
Some personal highlights:
Mantis’ face being overtaken by horror as she realizes just what an emotional hell Drax lives in every minute of every day – while he, used to it, just smiles peacefully.
Drax valiantly straining to lift Mantis’ unconscious body above the collapsing surface of the planet.
The Mary Poppins gag, which you could argue relies on male fear of femininity but instead strikes me as one of the best — and funniest — tributes to gender fluidity I’ve seen in a movie.
Rocket’s sustained contempt for the name TaserFace.
The other Guardians walking in on Ego and Quill and seeing what the latter does not notice: that the room is full of corpses.
And even scarier, Ego’s self-enamored (and misogynistic) waxing over the parallel he’s discerned between his chosen lifestyle and the lyrics to “Brandy” by Looking Glass. That he’s so clearly impressed with himself over this utterly facile metaphor is all the more frightening because he only comments upon it half an hour after it’s already been perceived by EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE MOVIE THEATER. He’s dangerous not just because of what he can do and how willing he is to do it, but because he’s at heart a philosophical simpleton who thinks he’s the embodiment of poetic greatness. The dumbest guy in a room is a threat because he usually thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room (just like the current “leader of the free world”), and Gunn and Russell depict that beautifully.
Oh, and most of all: Quill’s line about Ego killing his mom and smooshing his Walkman. Sums up for me the entire point of view of the franchise, which is that the trappings of popular culture become an important part of our emotional makeup because we experience them concurrently with things that are actually significant. Our brains create a hierarchy that’s based on proximity, not magnitude, and to be ashamed of that is to deny what it is to be human.
I dunno. Sometimes I think that I’m too much of a curmudgeon. I thought both GotG movies tried too hard. Specifically, they tried too hard to be that Han Solo parts of Star Wars. I really enjoyed the characters in their Avengers movies because breaking up the group and having them work with more established Marvel stars worked very well.
I just want to note that as I was reading this article, “The Chain” came up in my random playlist. Talk about shufflemancy….
I’d love to see a Nebula/ Black Widow team up at some point, if only because Karen Gillan and Scarlett Johansson are the tallest and shortest major actresses in the MCU.
@19. That tape scene is an accurate reproduction of every film/TV set I have ever been on.
Gaffer’s tape seems to operate on some kind of quantum level; it’s location can never be known by more than one PA at a time, and it’s never the one who needs it.
I did like this one quite a bit, but if I really think about it, probably not quite as much as the first — too much time on Ego and not enough time visiting other weird places in the galaxy. But on the other hand, it did add Mantis to the team, which was a very good thing indeed.
One thing in this movie that has always felt annoying and gratuitous to me is the Taserface gag. I have a pet peeve of alien characters knowing what very earthen-bound things are, and even though everyone speaks English, the idea that this alien dude could know what a Taser is was a little beyond my suspension of disbelief. Same goes for the “does anyone have any tape?!” scene. It was really funny for me until Drax asks about Scotch tape, which is just such an earth thing I winced.
Otherwise, the emotional beats are outstanding, and I loved the new planets introduced. The soundtrack in particular is possibly even better than the first one!
@33/Proot: IIRC, screen text in the first movie (in the “police lineup” sequence) established that they use universal translators, so they’re not really speaking English, we’re just hearing (I presume) how Quill’s translator interprets their words. I suppose “Taser” could just be how the translator interprets “electric stunner.”
As for Scotch tape, the Guardians probably picked up the concept from Quill.
“. It was really funny for me until Drax asks about Scotch tape, which is just such an earth thing I winced.”
Unrelated bit interesting fact: Scotch tape is an American term – like “Hoover” for vacuum cleaner or “Sharpie” for permanent marker, it’s a trademark that has become generic. In the UK we would say Sellotape, which is another trademark.
But why “Scotch”? Well, it isn’t made in Scotland, and it wasn’t invented by someone called Scotch. It’s actually a racist stereotype, like “Darkie” toothpaste which played on the idea that dark skinned people seem to have whiter teeth. The inventor, 3M employee Richard Drew, was unhappy with one batch of prototype tape because it didn’t have enough adhesive – this perceived meanness led to it being called “Scotch tape”. It could equally well have been called “Jew tape”.
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@35/Ajay: Unfortunately, a lot of language is derived from prejudice and stereotype — for instance, “sinister” meaning evil and untrustworthy comes from prejudice against left-handed people, as does the fact that “right” is both the opposite of left and the opposite of wrong. There’s no way to purge the language of every word or phrase with an unsavory origin like that — but it’s okay if that origin is far enough in the past that people don’t remember it and don’t intend the term that way. I think “Scotch tape” has become such a generic term by now that it’s outgrown its origins. (I always figured it was just called that because the manufacturers had a tartan logo, but I guess it was the other way around.)
It’s weird that a pejorative was allowed to become a brand name. Guess marketing was different back then and inventors were granted leeway, even when their cultural prejudices were applied.
@38/Sunspear: People back then (well, people not belonging to the disparaged groups) didn’t even think of ethnic stereotypes as offensive. They just took them for granted as the way things were. Walt Disney based Mickey Mouse’s design on minstrel-show blackface makeup, because in the eyes of white audiences, that wasn’t a hostile racist caricature but just a standard form of clown makeup. Similarly, old movies, cartoons, etc. are full of broad ethnic stereotypes that weren’t recognized by majority audiences as the hurtful or exclusionistic things that they were.
See, this is why I don’t go in for nostalgia. The past was awful.
Humour is subjective. Personally I liked Baby Groot, including the wrongfully retrieved items sequence (the fact it goes on for so long is what makes it funny), where as Drax fell pretty flat in this film. “Ouch my nipples” is some low hanging fruit for a laugh.
The attachment disorder conversation between Yondu and Rocket was pretty good.
Overall a good film, and weirdly probably the most emotionally powerful MCU film – I blame Cat Stevens.
The film led to some great Mary Poppins/Yondu cosplay mashups
Another “all right” in the MCU category
@40/line: definitely subjective. I agree that the Baby Groot/fin sequence was not too long, but I also loved Drax in this movie. A scene that still delights me is Drax’s mention of hearing the story of his conception as a regular family ritual.
Yondu gazing into Peter’s face as he begins to freeze over might be the most emotional moment for me in all the MCU films (or at least equaled by a couple of scenes in Black Panther).
Guardians 2 sets out to expand the world established in the first film and does a very skilled and competent job of it, for the most part. It’s definitely one of the more author-driven films in the MCU, thanks in no small part to James Gunn’s unique voice and well defined style.
I enjoyed Ego, even though I figured he was the bad guy well in advance (and I don’t think the film was trying to hide it as a clever twist, either). Russell always chews scenery well. And Rocket was a highlight this time around, carrying much of the film on his back. I felt the first time was able to convincingly sell me on the idea of these chareacters forming a makeshift family, and this sequel certainly carries that same idea through.
I didn’t have much of a problem with the extended gags. It’s not as if they detract from the main story. My favorite was probably during the opening act, with the Sovereign. Seeing them curse and bemoan their losses as if they were playing a videogame was priceless. Now that’s a way to turn the concept of drone attacks into something funny.
There is one aspect of this film that puts it well above its predecessor: Nebula. In the first one, she was a villainous cipher. In this one she became a full three-dimensional character and antihero, effectively becoming one of my top favorite MCU mainstays. Her poignant story with Gamorra is the first step in that character arc. Karen Gillan plays the hell out of Nebula’s frustration and anger. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see her becoming such a pivotal character in the following Avengers entries, and I’m looking forward to seeing them back in action when Gunn finishes Suicide Squad.
I liked this movie as much as the first. For different reasons, but it was a fun ride from beginning to end. I look forward to the third getting to us eventually, and for some GOTG characters to show up in the next Thor movie.
@43 Sean K.
Oh for sure he had his moments, my personal favourite was the awkwardly slow eating of chips. Just overall I found Drax too much comic relief in this film – but then again plenty of people loved it and I still overall think it was a good film. Just interesting seeing what frustrates some is hillarious to others.
@46 line– that scene wasn’t in Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2, it was in Avengers Infinity War.
You place Yondu in a “bar,” but it’s pretty obviously a brothel. An android brothel, at that.
What I loved about the characterization of Drax is that he is so very alien in his emotional and cultural norms. That’s something I don’t see often enough.
Also, he’s essentially a D&D barbarian.
It’s odd: you see movies through the cultural lens that you have and when I saw this one it was not through the lens of comics and movies (I’ve never really gotten into either genre at any point in my life) but through mythology and opera (my academic work was in classics and medieval studies; I know the wellsprings of western culture very well).
These are both traditions that took the exploration of human nature and relationships Seriously (with a capital “S”). Maybe that’s hard for us to do these days when we’ve been so carefully cultivated into viewing everything with ironic detachment—that in itself is a major indictment of our own culture.
Still, I was unexpectedly excited by the Kurt Russell-Chris Pratt storyline which to me recalled the Wotan-Siegfried plot of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle. As a man who is now 50, the story of Wotan and the complex relationship he has with his offspring and successor especially resonates.
What a wasted opportunity, to see Ego turn into nothing but a paper villain, with no development of his own, a mere set of twirling mustaches for the hero to inevitably defeat! It is, I suppose, a reflection of our own times, which glorifies youth and expects us to identify with our younger selves well past the point where it has become ridiculously untenable.
As a teen, I was unaware of how many writers had the same kind of background that I currently do. I probably would have been much more interested had I known. As the adult I am, I’m afraid this movie really confirmed for me that the problem wasn’t that it wasn’t my cup of tea, but rather that I was never really supposed to enjoy it.
Personally, I prefer this movie to the first one. It’s not as tight or well-constructed, but is a much more personal film. As Keith said, it really feels like this is a movie about a family. It’s a family of broken, screwed-up people, but a family nonetheless. The soundtrack also blows the first one out of the water, punctuating the film in all the right ways.
And to get a little personal, the ending does make me well up, but not for the typical reason. It’s not Yondu’s funeral itself that makes my eyes wet, it’s Rocket’s reaction. His quiet disbelief that he and Yondu weren’t abandoned by the people they loved, in spite of their actions, hits me hard. I’ve struggled with insecurity about rejection by loved ones due to my own anxiety and neural disabilities, so to see that reflected in a character and to have his worst fears proven wrong is extremely cathartic. It’s a beautiful, poignant moment that is played relatively understated. And for me, it makes the whole movie. The rest of it is good too, but that moment is always going to define the film for me.