Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 initial thoughts
[ NOT spoiler-free ]
- For me, this is one of the few franchises that got better and better as it went along. This third movie was just absolutely phenomenal. As someone had said, it is a great send-off to the movie and the Guardians we've known.
- They did a great job exploring Rocket's origin. It really explains why he's never wanted to talk about his past. It was violent and heartbreaking. Nebula's line of "They did worse things to him than Thanos did to me" (or something along that line) summarized it best. You also understand why Rocket can be so violent: it wasn't much because he learned it from the people who engineered him, but because the last time he tried to get away safely, quietly, his friends - essentially his family - all got killed. And the person who caused it was so cold about it. So while he could be extreme, he does it so that no one can hurt him or any of his friends ever again.
- Which leads to this other point: Rocket is a grump and a cynic, but deep down he actually really loved the other Guardians.
- Adam Warlock! I didn't know what to expect from him, but after seeing the movie, I want to see more of him.
- Also: it's great that the movie managed to give Adam his own origin story, his own motivation for why he eventually ended up being a guardian.
- Drax was hilarious in this movie, as he always is, but Mantis kinda came for the crown a bit! The fact that she made him fall in love with a sock for fun and made one of the guards they had to get through fall in love with him were some of the funniest moments in the movie.
- On a more serious Drax note: "Drax. You weren't meant to be a destroyer. You were meant to be a dad." One of the best lines in the movie. I never would have thought that this is how Drax would "grow up" as a character, but it all made sense. It does.
- Kraglin had a fantastic growth too. He'd been trying to train with the arrow Yondu gave him over and over and over, trying to concentrate and plan and think. And he kept failing over and over and over. But when Knowhere was in danger, he finally remembered what Yondu told him: "Fly it with your heart." When he realized that he needed to get out of his head, man did he do some damage. It was amazing.
- The bad dog/good dog argument 😂
- Gamora. I like how they approached that. They didn't make her fall in love with Peter, even after all the fighting that they did as a team. They were barely even good friends in the end. Also, it's nice that she has a different family to belong to now (the Ravagers) but who still loved her just the same. It's good that they didn't try to change her. They made her realistic.
- Lol "You guys are just making up what he's saying" when Groot would talk
- Nebula. Oh, man, where do I begin. I've started really liking her as a character since GotG 2, and even more so during Endgame, but wow. She's really grown. She looks after the people of Knowhere, the Guardians look to her for big decisions and even resolution for internal problems of the team. The team respects her, even more than Peter most times. She still has rage inside, and she has trouble expressing other feelings without it, but I think she's made tremendous progress. And it's so obvious that she cares deeply about the team and even the lives of others, even if she doesn't outright say it.
- Okay. There's a lot to unearth with the not-so-subtle hints at Peter/Nebula. First off, it's obvious in this movie and even in the Christmas special that Nebula's been looking after Peter. But the fact that she would take him home whenever he was totally wasted and put him to bed, making sure he was comfortable? And when Gamora was going to hurt Peter out of frustration and Nebula jumped in to stop her, practically telling her to back off? And that when Gamora suggested that the woman Peter's describing, the one that he's fallen in love with because she's grown from being ruthless to being caring, is Nebula, and Peter started looking at her differently? Bruh. I don't know what they're playing at here, but alright. I'm onboard.
- Speaking of Peter, I like that he decided to come back home to Earth to reach out to his grandfather. I'd like to think he got a little help from the Avengers to get to that doorstep (info, means of transpo, things like that). It was great to see him in a normal life setting in the post-credit, too, where he's just eating cereal, talking smack about someone behind their back lol
Okay, that's it for now. Will come back when I remember the other things I liked (spoiler alert: there's a TON)
