1y ago

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is a fractured mess and easily the worst of the series

Finally got round to seeing Guardians 3.... What a waste of 2 1/2 hours that was. I enjoyed the first 2, but 3 was just terrible. The "story" is awful. Numerous, cheesy, cliché bits thrown together here and there. Nothing interesting or very cohesive. Nothing ever had a sense of consequence.

Even the soundtrack couldn't quite save it (though was easily the best part).

"Written and Directed by James Gunn".

Good luck DC, you're gonna need it.

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Disagree, loved the first one, enjoyed the second one but it didn't grab me as much as the first, and then the third one absolutely hit it out of the park for me. Granted it used a lot of emotional baggage that's been packed up along the way, but it shouldn't be dismissed just because of that.

I agree in that the stakes for 3 are incredibly low. It starts trying to save Rocket's life, but that's nowhere near the same level as playing keep away with an Infinity Stone, or stopping a mad god from destroying the universe.
Rocket dies, or he doesn't, it has an impact on a dozen or so characters.
Then, once Rocket's life is saved, it becomes keeping him away from the High Evolutionary, who wants to use Rockets DNA to fuel a new race of beings just as creative (and destructive?) as Rocket.
But this is, ultimately, Rocket's origin story. The flashbacks are heartbreaking, and, yeah, even though it's smaller in scale, it has more emotion behind it than 1 and 2. It's about the characters and each gets a chance to shine (even Cosmo!)
- I agree in that the stakes for 3 are incredibly low. It starts trying to save Rocket’s life, but that’s nowhere near the same level as playing keep away with an Infinity Stone, or stopping a mad god from destroying the universe.
  I enjoyed it a lot (probably more than 2 but less than 1), and for me the smaller stakes were one of the reasons why it worked.
  Marvel have done the huge stakes already and it's hard to top what they've already done - Thanos eradicating half of the universe. Much of what hasn't quite worked in Phase 4 so far is that they've been trying to do exactly that though - it's no longer about saving the universe, now it's about saving the multiverse, and after a while the stakes get so big as to be meaningless. When you've already done the massive stakes, bringing it back to a smaller scale and more personal stories about beloved characters seems like a smart way of reconnecting with audiences without trying to top the untoppable - at least for a while.
  I cared about the stakes in this film far more than I cared about the massive multiversal stakes in Ant-Man 3.
- This is why I loved the third more. I'm sick to death of the "end of world/universe" plots. I much prefer personal stakes. Almost every other marvel movie since endgame has tried to change the world or universe in some big way, and I'm bored of it.
- While I actually like the stakes to become lower again (we can't keep increasing the stakes forever), I agree that the movie wasn't what I was hoping for. The origin story stuff and cohesion of the group was nice, but the High Evolutionary was really odd overall.
  
  Yeah for real, the High Evolutionary was such a weird choice. Throughout the movie, I kept thinking to myself, "this is the villain?!"
  Matteo from Superstore as his top henchman probably didn't help things.
  Rocket's origin story was cool, though.

Only thing I thought was a painful cliche in the movie was the "no, I won't kill the villain (after mowing down all of his minions like they were nothing) because I'm the good guy!" trope.
- I don’t think they actually spared the high inquisitor, or whatever his name was. He was left behind on an exploding ship. Basically, Rocket just didn’t feel the need to personally execute violence on him.
  Adam Warlock, however, was spared - and that made sense to me, since he was a puppet being closely controlled by the masterminds and generally didn’t have the worldly intelligence to break free.

I had similar thoughts. It’s worth seeing it once if you’ve seen the others but not as good as the previous two. Some animal scenes were a tough, at least for me. It’s unlikely that I’ll rewatch this one.

I liked it fine (I liked the first two a little better), but I thought the soundtrack was a bit of a mess. Ultimately I thought it was a perfectly adequate way to wrap up the trilogy.
As for having a sense of consequence, you have seen a Marvel movie before, right? It's always cotton candy, even though Rocket's flashback storyline was quite grim.

I watched it last month and it's telling that I can't quite remember what it was about. They're trying to save Rocket for a big part of it, and there's a lot of flashbacks to how Rocket came to be. But then that gets resolved and it becomes about... the High Evolutionary, who wants... something? He wants Rocket because he's smart, and he's gonna go do... something? And Adam Warlock is there, except he's a joke character?
I enjoyed it overall, but I have a much clearer recall of the overall dramatic arc of the Christmas Special.
- The High Evolutionary wants Rocket because of all the beings he has created and destroyed, Rocket was the only one capable of independent thought and creativity.
  He wants to create a race built on that model, because none of the other civilizations he created ever reached that level.

It wasn't amazing but IMO the first 2 were also just ok, so I generally enjoyed the 3rd about the same.

The whole MCU has been going downhill since at least Endgame. Too interconnected to follow, too convoluted.

I think they kind of squandered Rocket's origin story - it would have been better served as some kind of mini series in my opinion - given how much it was bigged up.
Tone was all over the place. Same with the music, which felt like it was serving itself rather than fitting in with the film. The cast has very obviously gotten older, which isn't necessarily a problem in itself but reinforces the idea of the series being past its best.
Thing is, I know people liked seeing Rocket's origin story and enjoyed the film. So 🤷‍♂️

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