Guardians of the Galaxy - Preview Review!

Credit to wikipedia for the movie poster

Last night on Monday, July 7th I was herded into my local IMAX theater with my fellow nerd-kind to see a short, 17 minute preview of Guardians of the Galaxy.

I will be upfront and honest with you guys: I know very little about the Guardians from the comic books, but I know this movie (and other Marvel movies, really, for that matter) will all end up being tied together.  Even though I didn't (and you may not) have a particular interest in Guardians, I know that because it's going to set the groundwork for future Marvel movies it's going to be a must-see.

And really, after this preview, I say with certainty that it's going to be a must-see.


Let's start off with what we actually saw before we start dissecting the details, yes?

The last picture before we had to turn our phones off...

We were fortunate enough to see a few scenes from the movie that had been cut together.  However, the scenes seemed rushed and slightly out of place, so it's likely that they were not presented in direct, sequential order.

It began with the lineup that we're familiar with from the trailers:

Credit to wearemoviegeeks.com

 We had a brief run-down of each of the characters backgrounds.  From left to right: Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is the stepdaughter of Thanos (the big purple dude from the Avengers easter egg).  She was essentially raised to be a weapon, but has supposedly gone rogue.  Thanos is off, presumably destroying the galaxy with Nebula (Karen Gillian, not shown above).  Next up is Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), who is a human as far as we can tell.  He has a disrespect for authority that is equally matched by his love of 1980s rock music.  Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) is not, in fact, a raccoon.  He just looks like one.  Something something genetically modified something something.  The big dude to the right of Rocket is Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) who has apparently been "on a rampage across the galaxy seeking vengeance" for his dead family.  Finally, the space ent looking fellow on the end is Groot (Vin Diesel).  Not much is known about Groot, other than he is the bark to Rocket's bite (pun slightly intended), and is a somewhat comedic tank.  He also has a very limited vocabulary, only ever saying "I am Groot".

We don't know when, how, or why they were captured at this point.  After this scene the Guardians were sent to the showers where they were sprayed with orange stuff and further donned some fashionable, yellow prison suits.

There was a big mess hall introduction scene where the Guardians walked in and were heavily booed by the other inmates.  Gamora above all others was booed the most.  Thanos and Gamora have gone and killed a lot of people in the past and the inmates were not happy about seeing her there.

Thanos from Avengers, in case you needed a reminder of what he looks like.

Credit to screenrant.com for the image

Rocket Racoon, however, had another thing to say about that.  After an extremely impressive show of force in which Groot picks up the biggest baddie in the prison by their nostrils, the other inmates know that picking a fight with this gang may not be worth it.

We then cut to a scene where the Guardians are grabbing food, and Rocket is coming up with a plan.  "I've escaped out of 22 prisons, this one won't be any different." While he's explaining his plan to Gamora and Peter, Groot has already jumped to step 3 in the plan sending the prison space station into chaos.

I won't spoil details about what the escape steps are or whether or not the Guardians manage to actually escape, but I will say that the fight scene that ensues was pretty great.  

After the cinematic portion of the movie was over, we were also presented with a new trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy with a few bits worth noting.

We got a half-second glimpse of The Collector.  If you didn't stick around for the Thor: The Dark World easter egg at the end, then you have yet to meet this guy:

Credit to wikipedia for the image

At the end of Dark World, Sif and Volstaag give this guy the aether to keep safe.  Sif and Volstaag  believe that having the tesseract and the aether on Asgard together is not wise, and specifically mention the infinity gems. (Which, when combined together in the comics, allowed Thanos to kill one third of the universe.) Best to keep these items apart.  However, the Collector seems to want to...well...collect all of the gems.  What's up with that?

Speaking of the gauntlet and infinity gems:

Credit to the Marvel Wikia for the image

Like I said, I don't know much about the Marvel universe outside of the movies.  However, I can tell you that we saw a large dude in robes wielding some sort of awesome axe/scythe hybrid looking weapon with a glowing gemstone embedded in the blade. (Ronan the Accuser, played by Lee Pace. -Ed)  My bet is that it's going to be another infinity gem, but who knows which one?  The gem itself was a purple/pink, but given that the tesseract has already been confirmed as the space gem it's hard to say.

Hopefully this Preview Review has gotten you interested in seeing Guardians of the Galaxy!  It will be playing in theaters starting August 1st, 2014. You can check out the extended trailer we saw here:

Any thoughts on the characters?  Or on the gems?  Will this movie flop, or get more people interested in the Marvel universe movies?  Sound off in the comments below!

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