Forget Star Wars Land. Give Me Guardians of the Galaxy.

Okay, not really. Give me both. We are only a few weeks away from the opening of the next Marvel Studios movie–a strange, weird, wonderful departure that has me remembering the giddy days of anticipating the next Star Wars or Lord of the Rings episode. Guardians sounds like a bizarre left hand turn from the tried and true super hero model that Marvel has perfected over the last decade. But already I’ve fallen in love with it.

Disney has been doing an interesting thing this summer. They’ve repurposed the Sounds Dangerous theater for 3-D previews of their summer tentpoles. First Maleficent, now Guardians of the Galaxy. On the one hand, this is a cheap, easy way to add an attraction, which looks even cheaper compared to what Universal is doing down the road. But on the other hand, each of the previews has been a generous length (10-15) minutes, the 3-D is sharp and clear, the theater is air conditioned, and there’s never a wait. At 10 minutes, Maleficent doesn’t look too bad. At 10 minutes, Guardians of the Galaxy looks like the best film of the year.

Obviously I’m speaking a little bit in hyperbole. The crazy fanboy side of me wants this to be amazing, and so far I haven’t been disappointed. As utterly ridiculous as this is, I could actually see myself going back and watching the 10 minute preview at the Studios multiple times. Let’s face it, I’ve got Muppet Vision memorized. I need new stuff. The movie is just so darn fun. It’s hard to find sci-fi that tries to be this funny, without veering into total camp. What was the last film to successfully do it? Firefly, maybe?

I do wonder if mainstream audiences will turn up. I’m fully aware that a talking tree and a homicidal raccoon seem like a weird pitch. But I hope people give it a shot I think it could really turn out to be something special. And then we’ll get that massive Guardians of the Galaxy dark ride that I’ve always wanted — at least for the last 6 months.

Starring Drew Carey

Starring Drew Carey

 

Comments (3)

  1. Well Shane, I watched it last night. It was FANTASTIC! Easily the funniest movie yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, great way of introducing these obscure marvel characters. It has reviewed strong, has wonderful word of mouth, and will be another Marvel hit.

  2. Marvel has earned serious goodwill from the movie-going audience. GotG won’t draw Iron Man or Avengers-sized crowds, but it will do better than John Carter of Mars. There will be a lot of people going just to see how it ties into the existing Marvel universe.

    I wouldn’t want to see WDW’s Tomorrowland become Marvel-ized, but Disneyland’s is in serious need of a unifying theme. GotG would be a nice addition to the existing Iron Man Innoventions there.
    Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if WDI is already working on plans to turn over a large chunk of DHS to Marvel, as the Universal licenses run out.

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