Thursday 20 February 2014

The Guardians of the Galaxy movie trailer.



These are exciting times for those of us who have the maturity levels of a ten year old.

First we get the senses-shattering Lego Movie and now we get the trailer for the Guardians of the Galaxy. Has any film of the last ten years ever been more eagerly anticipated than this one has?

Marvel Presents #3, the Guardians of the Galaxy
Well, yes. Even as one who liked the 1970s version of the strip and possessed several issues of it, I have to admit it's not necessarily the super-hero movie that's most cried out to be made over the years. But, still, as long as it's Marvel and there's super-heroics, it's going to hold a certain frisson for some of us.

Sadly, of course, it's not the Guardians of my youth. The likes of Vance Astro, Yondu, that wide bloke, that bloke who was made of diamonds, that woman with the flamey hair, and whatever the others were called, are notably absent.

So is Starhawk. But, given how annoying he was, that's probably no bad thing. And it can't be denied that, potentially silly as they are, the current bunch are a more diverse - and threaten to be a more interesting - set of characters for a cinema audience than the originals would have been.

I first encountered the Guardians as a very briefly run strip in Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic, in a Gene Colan drawn origin tale that didn't exactly bowl me over; mostly because the villains were called the Badoon and it all ended with a sing-along.

Karen Gillan autograph signing
Karen Gillan not being blue.
Photo by MangakaMaiden
 [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Fortunately, things were looking a lot better when they re-emerged with their own series in the back of Marvel UK's Star Wars comic where they'd had something of a makeover and put the Badoon behind them to have a bunch of unlikely adventures in space that lent them the same sort of appeal as Steve Gerber's other regular strip The Defenders.

The trailer's an odd thing, depicting our heroes as a bunch of losers and misfits - a role I'm not used to seeing the likes of Gamora and Drax being fitted into - and whether it'll turn out to be a fun romp or a film let down by its inability to take its leads seriously, only time will tell.

Will we get to see Warlock?

Will we get to see Thanos?

Only time can tell.

But, of course, for Dr Who fans, the real appeal of the movie is we get to see Karen Gillan painted blue. If you don't want to see a blue-painted Karen Gillan, then, frankly, I fear there may be no hope for you in life.

3 comments:

Aggy said...

Apparently they are using the Vince Astro origin for Starlord. Hopefully that will make him a bit more likeable. Although I'd love to see "Ship" (long gone in modern continuity)

Anonymous said...

I'm lookin' forward to that blue-painted girl, too, but this ain't our Guardians of the Galaxy, pal.
What we're thinking of is Steve Gerber's version, featuring Nikki, the little flame-haired lass from the human colony on Mercury, and her complicated relationship with Vance Astro, a 20th century astronaut who was essentially rendered a eunuch because he couldn't take off his body suit for fear of rapid decomposition, Charlie 27, a genetically engineered strong man from Jupiter who took a protective big-brother attitude towards Nikki, Martinex, a cold-ass science Spock-type from Pluto, and Starhawk, a cosmic-mystical dude in the Silver Surfur tradition. And Yondu, a noble primitive from another world, which may have been Gerber's comment about native Americans.
I don't see Warlock or Thanos showing up in this new film, maybe Thanos for a minute or two.
I'm not sure about their take on Drax and Gamora, but I kinda like the raccoon.
We have 'em over here, and if you ever see one, you would like 'em!

Unknown said...

Oh that does look good - I can see an eventual team up here with the Avengers movie once Thanos storyline evolves- I can't believe the original Gene Colan drawn comic came out in 1969 - (thinking it must have been reprinted or I picked up old stock as I cant recall being interested in US comics like this at 9 years old) I think this will be a big hit with the general public (its all new and novel to them 99% wont have known it was a comic book)although I expect we will soon (if not already) be seeing a lot of Marvel spin offs comics re the Guardians hope they reprint that 70s series in a nice handy (cheap) comic = Paul Mc