Movie night, incl. Guardians of the Galaxy

[schneefink]

Yesterday I was exhausted the whole day for no obvious reason, I had to take two naps until I felt okay. But! I actually got some work done! A little bit, but still, better than last week.

And I finally got confirmation from the fitness center that they'll cancel my contract, ugh that was stupid: first they didn't receive my cancellation notice, but I had a confirmation from the post office that I sent it, then they tried to tell me that I sent it too late because as it eventually turned out they didn't read the actual date written on my contract. But now that's done, and I felt like an actual adult for ten minutes, that was nice.

Then we had movie night! At LK's and M's place. We were planning to see Guardians of the Galaxy so there were 9 of us, and M joined later (she came from work to the movie and then went back to work at 1am because they got a surprise deadline, I don't know how she does it.) LK made tomato and mozzarella baguettes for all of us because he's great like that.

It's difficult to find exactly the right movies for movie night, but LK said he knew a SF comedy that none of us had seen before, which naturally we were very curious about, and then he showed us "Paul". It started out with two main characters at Comic Con - yay Comic Con! - but they are two white cis male nerds who stare at female cosplayers and think they're the greatest because they wrote something one time and keep saying "no homo" and I'm seriously supposed to be be interested in those guys? Or when they damage property and don't care, even if it's two bigots'? When they basically abduct a young woman and it's strongly implied it's because one of them is attracted to her? They might have a good heart or whatever, I still don't like their type. That said, the movie did have some hilarious moments, almost entirely with Paul (favorite line: "it's probin' time!"), and, well, it wasn't as bad as it seemed in the very beginning. There was an actual queer character, even (but hidden in the end credits, what a surprise.)

In the movie theater among the trailers was one for "Maze Runner", and I kept grinning and thinking "hi Stiles! Looking good, Stiles!" (and he did. I might have to watch the movie, I hope it's good.)


Then: Guardians of the Galaxy! I'm finding it very hard to say how much I liked it.

It starts with the tragic hero-loses-his-mom scene, sigh... but at least later in the movie we get Rocket saying "everyone has dead people! [get over it]"

Then we get outlaw!Peter, which is fun, and the four-way-fight for the orb on Xandar as well, but then I felt increasingly lost because it felt like things were happening in a vacuum. Who are the Kree, or those guys? Why are they important, how important are they? Who is Thanos and why's he so important/powerful? I know some of it from the comics, but a) this is a different continuity, who knows how they're changing things, b) I shouldn't have to. That follows through the whole movie: when Peter (I think) says they have to give the Stone to the Nova Corps because that's the only place it'll be safe: aren't there other empires around? Other planets? Which scale are we working with here? Dammit, give me a setting!
(Maybe I'm spoiled by the Vorkosigan books who go into a lot of detail about that, but still.)

I liked Groot (Groot! He's badass), Peter, and Rocket, even though they're sort of jerks. (I liked a fic I saw on Tumblr fic about Bucky threatening Rocket and make him apologize for asking for the prosthetic leg.) But, as Peter said, not 100% dicks. Rocket and Groot were great together. Drax was okay, I didn't really care much about him one way or the other.
I also liked Gamora, but she seemed... a bit strange. She's taken prisoner and the first thing she does is tell everyone she's planning to betray Ronan/Thanos? Isn't that extremely stupid?
Flirting with Peter can be explained by her not really having any opportunity to do so for the last few years, but shouting for his live when Yondu captures him instead of freeing herself and fighting, which she definitely be capable of, what? (Okay, let's say she was still weak from almost freezing to death.)
All in all, she doesn't seem like a good planner, or a good leader, or even wanting to be one. Which is fine! I just expected different from her reputation. What does being "Thanos' daughter" even mean? Apparently only that she's a good fighter. Fair enough, but it could have been more.

Nebula seems to support that hypothesis: a good fighter (cyborg! very cool), hates Thanos, but a lieutenant, not a strategist of leader. There wasn't much of her, I was disappointed.

I'm pretty sure the movie had more green, blue, and red-skinned aliens than black or Asian PoC (or should I say "non-stereotypically-Western white people?", because I'd totally count Eastern Europeans or Roma or Latinos etc.), and the only black person with a speaking role I can remember is an unimportant bad guy. Not good.

All in all: the space battles were cool, it was fun, it was entertaining, but nothing that really stayed with me. Except perhaps Groot being awesome.

Comments

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Imho, Gamora wants fuck-all to do with the life Thanos picked for her. Unfortunately, that's all she knows how to do, because she's essentially a child soldier.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

I agree, but because she's officially his adopted daughter (how she must have hated that!) and obviously has a big reputation I thought Thanos might have given her wider training than "just" fighting, but apparently not.