Special Edition Podcast

Special Edition – Guardians of the Galaxy

Show Notes

Come and get your love. Prodigal son Ron Richards returns to school Josh Flanagan, Paul Montgomery, and Ryan Haupt on the proper navigation of a special edition. Their topic? The magical, musical, mirthful Guardians of the Galaxy. But does everyone find it so charming? Yes. Yes, spoilers, they do.

Running Time: 00:38:50

Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-Star

Music:
“Come and Get Your Love”
Redbone

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Comments

  1. I love this movie and I love Marvel Cosmic. It was a joy to watch from beginning to end and I gotta see this movie again.

  2. I’m really looking forward to listening to this podcast. I saw the movie on Friday and absolutely loved it and have been waiting to find people to talk to about it! But, I’ll listen to what your thoughts before I add my own.

  3. Great review on the film! I saw it Friday night and loved it as well. Great hearing Ron back in the saddle with yoy guys again, buthe let his musical tastes, which are cool, detract a little bit. Not everything has to be Morrisey or Punk to be good. And the Runaways were NOT a big band at the time they were around, their notoriety came really off the solo careers of Joan Jett and Lita Ford and that caused peopleto look back at the group. But I am nitpicking.

  4. There was that coccoon again in the end credits behind Howard. An easter egg for Adam Warlock perhaps? It showed up in Thor 2 as well.

  5. I enjoy the movie very much. First Marvel movie I went to see to the theater. Everybody was into it and laughing.

  6. Sheesh. No love for Howard the Duck?

    I was thrilled to see him at the end. It was a really cute gag I thought, and I’ve love to see the character done justice in a movie one day.

  7. I love these review podcasts – nice to have Ron around!

    As I mentioned briefly above, I loved this movie. Of course the Star Wars allusions were fantastic. I also got a little Indiana Jones feel from the move. Chris Pratt was equal parts Han Solo and Indiana Jones – the loveable rogue character. And of course, Star Lord’s theft of the orb was incredibly reminiscent of the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

    What I found myself thinking about after the movie was over was how strong the theme of family played through the movie. Each of the characters had their own particularly experience with family that was very much the defining moment for the character. Drax is the most obvious. With Star Lord, I found it interesting that he loses his mother but gains a father-figure (of a sort) in Yondu. Gamora is the adopted (abducted?) child of an abusive and violent despot. Gamora and Nebula together seem to display two responses to growing up in an abusive (foster) family. Both of them want to see Thanos dead, but you get the sense that Nebula is a much more broken individual than Gamora. Ronan also, in addition to his religious zealotry, seemed motivated by what had happened to his father and grandfather (something he mentions a few times). And of course, John C. Reilly thanks Star Lord because he has a family, whom we see him coming home to in the end.

    I couldn’t help but think of something from Timothy Zahn’s The Last Command. I read this back in high school and haven’t reread it since so the scene isn’t quite exact in my mind. But, I remember a scene where Wedge talks about how the Republic has had to put their faith in the most unlikely characters, thinking back to the farm boy that Luke was when he destroyed the death star to the group of smugglers who went against Thrawn. Xandar was in the end saved by a similar group of unexpected heroes in Yondu and the Ravagers, and Star Lord and the Guardians.

    The only thing that I had some trouble with was Ronan. He was very mustache twirling, and I was really curious as to how much people unfamiliar with this material would have understood about him. But, as I thought about it, it seemed to me that we really don’t need any more explanation of Ronan’s motivation than the fact that he was a zealot and a fanatic. As with any zealot and fanatic, the underlying reasons for their actions really don’t matter and tend to disappear. Or, at the very least, it’s incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. In that sense, Ronan does work. He gives these little remarks about his fathers and Kree justice, which clearly make sense to him (pulled off by Lee Pace’s acting) but are pretty much meaningless to everyone else.

    I cracked up with the post-credits scene. I took it as a little inside joke to people in the know but also a joke played against the normal Marvel movie expectation. This is really the first movie that comes outside of the Avengers universe, and as part of this new wave, the little post credits scene tells you not to expect what you’ve gotten used to with the other movies. Or maybe they just wanted to get Howard the Duck in. Of course, if and when they actually try to make a(nother) Howard the Duck movie, that’s when all of this Marvel / comic book movie thing will have jumped the shark.

  8. It’s GREAT to hear Ron back on the podcast, and Ryan’s always fun, but also, I was curious about Conor’s views on the film as a non-cosmic-guy (as I understand it!) – whatcha think, Conor?

  9. Loved it.
    THE BEST opening of all Marvel films. Starlord listening to his walkman kicking extraterestrial rodents left and right,even using one as a mic!! Dance moves and even some MJ moves had me rolling. Set the tone for the whole movie!!
    BTW is Cosmo the dog a reference to WE3?
    I never read Abnett &Lanning’s run, but this is the first thing I thought of.

    • We3 (which is Vertigo/DC) predates the A&L run, so maybe there was some influence there. Interesting question, but I’ve never heard one way or the other.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      No connection between We3 and the creation of Cosmo so far as I know. Just a takeoff on Laika and other animals used in spaceflight trials.

  10. I had just turned 3 when Star Wars came out, and my son and daughter just turned 3 recently. So saying this film could be this generation’s Star Wars struck a chord. I went on the zon and ordered the four ships and five packs of mini-figures. I’m not a toy guy myself (except for my sweet collection of vintage Star Wars figures), but I’ll hang on to these GoTG toys for my kids to open a couple birthdays from now.

    The film was great, as most everyone seems to agree. The scene that touched me the most was when Dey/Reilly hugged his family at the end. From the previews I was just expecting wall-to-wall goofy humor, and I was surprised at all the heavy moments (especially that opening scene–that got me too.)

    Does Fox just have the first 50 issues of FF or something? I’m glad Marvel still has the Kree, but why them and not the Skrull or Badoon? Wish we could peek at those contracts.

    • I feel the same way about Star Wars/GOTG. I’m somewhat comforted that these characters can very well be what Luke, Han. Leia, Chewie, etc… were for us.

  11. Did Ron say the songs on the Mix Tape were obscure? I really don’t think that is right at all, I feel like I have know all the songs on there forever and if you go on Wikipedia I think all but 2 were in the US Billboard top #5 hits during the 70s. So I think it is complete believable his mom would have known and liked all those songs.

  12. I really enjoyed this movie, just a ton of fun and I had a grin on my face nearly the entire movie. Personally I loved the music, the wife and I have been listening to the soundtrack quite a bit since we saw the movie.

  13. IT WAS KURT OFF GILMORE GIRLS, THANK YOU!

    That’s been annoying me for ages

    • Yeah, the first time I showed up I recognized him, but didn’t place him. I knew what character he played, but couldn’t remember what show it was. When he showed up the second time I remembered it was Gilmore Girls and it made it really great watching him in the movie. After it ended and me and my friends were talking about all the different actors we recognized from other places I said “Yeah, and the guy that was with Yondu was Kirk from Gilmore Girls!” and everyone just sort of looked at me because I was probably the only guy who watched the show when we were in high school.

    • Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

      I watched Gilmore Girls too. ::fist bump::

  14. They really under utilized Kareen Gillen. She was completely uninteresting and acted flat (or maybe not flat enough?) for an android. Also, her being Amy Pond took me out of the fantasy. I don’t think she quite knew how to handle the character. LOVED the rest of the movie though.

    • Agreed. Why cast Karen Gillam for a one note character? I’m hoping she has a bigger part, like her comic book counterpart did, when they finally do their version of the Infinity Gauntlet.

  15. I was surprised you guys didn’t really talk about the first full appearance of Thanos. We got to see how he looked and spoke. I was a little thrown off by Thanos calling Ronan “boy.” That seems natural for Josh Brolin to say but out of place for Thanos.

  16. Paul, you mentioned something about the Micronaughts (I think) at the beginning of the podcast, but didn’t expand on it (I think). What were you referring to? Thanks!

  17. Does anyone else think The Collector looks like Will Ferrell’s character in Zoolander.
    Just seems real hokey.

    • Didn’t you notice the piano tie in the Collector’s display case? Dude, the Collector IS Mugatu! Clearly Zoolander and GotG exist in the same cinematic universe. Bowie features prominently in both films, AND remember when Quill pulled his underwear out of his pants during the dance-off with Ronan? Dead giveaway.

  18. Finally got a chance to see the movie AND listen to the show, which was a lot of fun and much like with Josh and the X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST show, I am jealous I was not on it.

    That having been said, I didn’t enjoy the movie as much as the guys on the show did. I liked it, it was entertaining, but I had some problems with it. I felt like it wasn’t really a cohesive story, more a series of vignettes. Granted the vignettes were fun and funny (and it was a very funny movie) but I felt like as a whole, there wasn’t a strong plot to hold onto. Also, I was really surprised to hear all the praise on the show for Lee Pace (who I love in everything else I’ve seen him in) who I thought was so over the top as to be Schumacherian. I did a lot of cringing every time he over-emoted, which was most of the time he delivered a line. It was hard to take him seriously as a villain because he was so silly. I thought he was by far the worst bad guy in a Marvel Studios movie. The Collector remains terrible on-screen. The Howard the Duck cameo was a supreme “ugh” moment and I think Ron nailed it on the show about it being all about hubris.

    Overall, though, I had a lot of fun and that was mostly due to the Guardians themselves, who are all very appealing, especially bouncing off each other. I thought that the best scenes were the ones where they were basically just bickering with each other. Chris Pratt was great. Zoe Saldana was great. Dave Batista was surprisingly great. Bradley Cooper made a fantastic choice with his characterization of Rocket. Vin Diesel was a strong Groot.

    If I was giving it a letter grade like they did on the show I would probably go with a B-. If I went with my standard Netflix system it would be 3 stars.

    (I will say this, I liked the characters so much that I am going to seek out the collections of the Abnett and Lanning stuff.)

  19. Next step I guess is to come in with the right characters for the next installment. Nova I believe is expected, along with Adam Warlock.

  20. It’s very nice hearing Ron’s voice again. I’ve missed it.

    Excellent show guys.

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