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On this week's episode, we're going into space. It's Guardians of the Galaxy, Baby im previously on, we're gonna be recapping and reflecting on the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise thus far and getting you up to speed on where
all your favorite characters are in the airlock. We're gonna be talking Guardians of the Galaxy volume three, So if you haven't seen it spoiler alah, go and see it and then listen to this episode and in nerd out there's gonna be a relevantly spacey theory about Star Wars from listener Tony I love.
It coming up previously on. First up in the previously on, we will be looking back at the first two installments in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and the MCU to get you up to speed for Guardians of the Galaxy three, and also check in on where the characters from the Guardians team ended up after the very tie ins at They appear in mostly two Yeah, mostly end Game, Some thor Love and Thunder, and also of course the Christmas special.
Special Let's Do It. Let's Do It. God Is the Galaxy Volume one introduced US two that at the time extremely deep cut titular team. It was a bombastic space adventure. There was as music listened to by the hero star Lord, who was kidnapped as a child by space pirates known as the Ravengers and was raised by their leader Yondu.
You may remember him as an adult. He's a quick talking thief with quips for days, and on a routine mission to steal a valuable artifact known as the Orb, he becomes entangled with Gomora, the daughter of the tyrant Thanos. Remember him remember him important in the MCU when she is sent after him by a violent Cree alien known as Ronan the Accuser. Lee Pace in the MCU.
Still great, doing fantastic things.
Sleep espioning, He's Thespianing. Gamura and Quilla soon waylaid by bounty hunters Groot a talking tree and Rocket Raccoon, a gun toting raccoon. But then in the end they have to come together to save Gomora from another strange alien known as Drags the Destroyer, who wants to kill her because his family was killed by Ronan the Accuser.
There's some interesting, some interesting interesting context for our for uh Our Ronan the Accuser. On the es SO. Ronan is a member of the Cree race. As an accuser and important figure in the judicial process, but has broken off from the Cree because they signed a pea Street he isn't like, and so he's decided he's taken this job to get a certain orb that contains a certain gem for one Thanos, because Thanos has been colleckeding those
things big time collector. He wants all the gems. As we all remember, the Infinity Stones's tasked, Ronan was doing it, but Ronan has taken the gig. But also he wants to keep the stone so that he can blow up the treaty and decimate Zandar, the planet with which the Cree have signed a treaty with.
Yeah, and he wants to put the stone on his super cool hammer and make a super powered hammer. Jason, do you remember the first time watching this movie? Because I feel like I feel like, as MCU fans, the first time watching God into the Galaxy was just kind of a mind blowing experience. It was it was.
That that stage in the evolution of the MCU where I'm like, I can't believe they're doing this, you know, there was the real Obviously, putting all the Avengers together in a team was a pretty big swing, creating a shared universe as a big swing. But this is the real heat check movie, where you know, the big criticism of the MCU at launch was like, nobody cares about Captain America, nobody cares about Iron Man, nobody cares about
the Hulk, and that was true. And let me tell you, nobody really, really, really nobody gave a shit about the Guardians of the Galaxy and this is I mean, they're fun if you are a true like Marvel Comics, Marvel Cosmic Comics, NERD digging in the back issue, and that is not even the original team. This is like the team that emerges after Annihilation, Yeah, after a bunch of Cosmic Marvel crossovers. And it really felt like, God, I
don't know if people will like this. It'll be crazy if people like this, and they and it was fun, really super fun movie. Obviously, I think the music has become a hallmark of the series and continues with Guardians of the Galaxy three, and really they've expanded past the eighties they were there into the nineties and the two thousands now in Guardians three. That's a little bit of a spoiler, but just super fun.
I really enjoyed it.
What was do you what your thoughts were.
I saw it at like a midnight screening I think, or very late night screening at the Imax in London, which at the time I think was one of the biggest screens in the world. And I remember that opening so well with you know, Pias, He's going through space and he's listening to his headphones and he's kind of like kicking little lizards. I really came out of it like, Wow, they star Wars the MCU, and like what I felt, it was a very enjoyable way. And this was pre
sequel trilogy, right, so it felt very different. I mean, it's wild to think this was only the fourth film in phase two of the MCU.
So you say it was just.
A total tone shift. I think obviously like exploded James Gunn into the stratosphere and yet made the music and needle drops such a huge part of the MCU, which hadn't really been a thing before because it was such a score based, cinematic, operatic, serious take on the franchise, whereas this was much more pop culture reference heavy. You had Peter who grew up in the eighties, so he had these memories of an Earth that had never been updated,
which allowed for a lot of fun nostalgia. It was just a totally different vibe for the MCU.
Let me ask you this. So watching rewatching this, it struck me that we don't know how a lot of the Gems ended up where they are, Like, you know, we just Peter is tasked by the broker, who was just just a guy with a storefront shop, literally just a guy with a jewelry store.
He's like, it would be called to have an ORB.
Will you go get the ORB for me? And we never really find out how it got there. It would be so cool to find out at at some point in the future how all the Infinity Gems got to the places where they eventually got picked up at.
I would love that. I think that could actually be something really cool to do in the animated stuff because they do it. There is a great bit of exposition we get in this movie that kind of is the next part the team. They team up together sort of unexpectedly, this ragtag alliance of convenience, and then another one of my favorite big swing weird moments from this movie. We head to Nowhere, which is a floating outpost of kind of like ravagers and bad guys and anti heroes and space pirates.
Just kind of an open city in space inside the head of a celestial.
Casually, just a floating celestial head. So note that eternals lovers because you're hearing the word celestial for the first time here. And Celestials actually end up playing a large part in the ongoing Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, and they end up going to the Collector played by Benicio
del Toro, who's so great in this movie. It's so weird and he's so weird, and he's so over the top and he is even more of a fan of collecting things than Thanos, and he does that great one of my favorite MCU exposition dumps where he explains the histories of the Infinity Gems and how they were created. But that's it. You get the millenniare year old history and then they're just here. I feel like, let's explore that. I would absolutely love to know what if they've been
up to. Who had him before? We know it wasn't Adam Warlock like in the comics. Yeah, how did it end up on moregg mm hm? Who had it? What were they doing with it? Who put it in this nice little orb? So Yeah, they go and see the Collector and we get a very good info dump. We learn about the Power Gem. It's very powerful, give you almost infinite powers, and if you have them all then of course we know you can snap out half of the universe. Spoiler alert. That happened. They got a battle Ronan.
Ronan wants the Power Gem for himself, but he's also consistently snitching to Thanos about the Guardians, so Thanos kind of has a good idea of what's going going on. They ultimately head back to Zander, as you mentioned, where a lot of people thought they were gonna see Nathan Fillion as Nova. It didn't happen, but we did get to see the Nova Corps in one of the epic things falling out of the sky third act battles in Marvel History. It's still one of the most impressive ones. Uh.
Yeah, I have a I have a note for all super villains, obviously pointedly Ronan the Accuser in Guardian the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Volume one, but also General Zod in Man of Steel. If you're gonna destroy a planet, go anywhere and destroy it. You don't don't go to like the Capital City where all the military forces are.
Like make it, do it?
I understand like this was an act of humorist by Ronan. He wanted to like make a big speech before he did all the shit. But like, go to some go to the middle of the sucking ocean and.
Destroy take some notes from the Death Star, destroy it from far away.
You can do something you don't need to get on the.
On the planet and then ultimately anywhere, you know, get beaten in a dance battle with Peter Quill a very famous EMCU moment.
And this is honestly a mistake that a lot of super villains make. Mephisto has done this, you know, name War has done it. They always invade like New York City. It's like the Avengers, the x Men. Everybody lives here, live there, like please, it's somewhere's the middle of nowhere destroyed.
Physical it's definitely the physical version of monologuing. It's like, don't tell somebody your plan before you've enacted it, and don't go to the central city, especially here where as we see there are like thousands of Nova court ships. Like this is like a heavily defended place. Yes, and of course you know spoiler alert, but it is an empty movie and it's not Infinity War. The Guardians come out on top and as little dance battle. We got a little dance dance battle, which is one of Again
these are those hallmarks. It's interesting because it's so sincerely its stylized that I don't know if it's full camp, but there are definitely campier elements to this movie than a lot of the MCU movies. Having a dance battle, this kind of ongoing joke about the headphones, the tapes, the music, Peter's nostalgia. His ship is called the Milano, though I will say on merchandise, including the recent Lego release,
they call it the Guardian Ship. So I wonder if Alyssa Milano sent them a little letter.
Well, I will say that Ronan, I mean Lee paces straight out camp in this movie. Oh yeah, he knows every every line reading is just so insan.
What are you doing when he's chewing every piece of scenery? God with his full six and a half foot stature and his thespian training. Lovely pace still blows my mind every day when I think that he was in the MCU and this is.
Just such a you stead accused your rich in peace treaty will not save you.
It would be the tinder on which you burn. And he's wearing like a dramatic glamorous hood and he's got a giant hammer. He's really doing the most in a delightful fashion. And as the movie comes to an end, we learn an important plot point for Guardians of the Galaxy volume two that Yondu didn't just kidnap Peter for no reason. It was not random, It was not a mistaken identity, which I think was kind of the vibe
that Peter had been told. In fact, the night Peter's mother died of a brain tumor and Peter ran out and was so upset he was kidnapped by Yondu because to have been hired by Pizza's mysterious father who happened to be a powerful deity. And Pizza now learns this shocking fact and we head into the wilds of Gudians of the Galaxy volume two. I mean, this movie made so much money for the movie, an incredible seven hundred and seventy three million dollars worldwide.
And you know the moment when Groot creates the group ball to save everybody, It still gets me it's and it's so beautiful in there with the little flowers and his I think they've made him like meaner ever since he got reduced to a twig. Like he had this very placid and gentle look in his eyes in the
first movie. And it's you know, when they're sitting there inside the group, Ball and Rocket his leg but you'll die, you know, and don't do this, and it's like and you just look at Grout's face and he's so at peace with it.
It really is just like a wonderful moment, you know what. I think. I'm so glad you brought that up, because that actually is such a vital part of why I think these films have become so popular. It is this bombastic, silly, camp colorful adventure much like the old space adventure serial
kind of stuff. But it has a very effective emotional heart, and that is a lot of that comes from Group, from Rocket, from the relationships of this found family, from Drax, who lost his family and then comes in and tries to rebuild even though all he really wants to do is kill the man who killed his family. And I love that, yeah, because that's the line I think when when Group says we are group.
And by the way, setting the stage for something that happens in Guardians and twist letting you know that, yes, if he wants to. Groot does have a somewhat larger vocabulary, which is sort of cannon in the comics. I mean when he appears in I believe it's Annihilation conquest, right? Or is an annihilation? Yeah, it's Annihilation conquest right, right? He is like saying full sentences and stuff before the movie came out, and then all of a sudden it's just iron grout.
Yes, it's a very interesting evolution of the character. And the version that we know as the Gardens of the Guardians of the Galaxy is the Annihilation Conquest version. Though. It's very interesting because that's two thousand and eight and their original team was nineteen sixty nine, you know, created by some legends in comics like Gene Colan and you know Roy Thomas was in there. Arnold Drake was the one who wrote the first issue, and then obviously I
just we always have to shout him out. It was Bill Mantlow, who who was a co creator of Rocket Raccoon, who sadly was in a hit and run accident many years ago and is still in care at the moment of his brother, and you can go to the Hero Initiative and find out ways to support him and other comic book creators, because these movies do not exist without them, and ol Mantlow is like a huge part of the Guardian's legacy, especially when it comes to Volume three because
of the importance of Rocket Raccoon. But before then, it was twenty seventeen. It was three years after Guardians of the Galaxy Volume one, which was originally just called The Guardians of the Galaxy but is now retroactively called Volume one, as we are now with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume two mixtape relevant now right Rewatching this movie, yeah, and writing a recap for it is like one of the funniest things I've ever done.
And you're gonna understand nuts movie.
It is absolutely bonkers.
It's fucking insane.
I love Kurt Russell so much, so I'm just so happy to always watch a Cut Russell movie. But I will begin with this sentence that sums up the energy of this movie specifically, and also quite a lot of the energy of Volume three. While protecting some magical batteries for the Golden Aliens known as the Sovereign, in order to free Nebula from the aliens crutches. The Guardians are saved from a battle with their supposed Sovereign allies by
an unknown Batton. It is led by the celestial Ego known in the comics as Ego the Living Planet, who is literally a planet in the comics, who soon reveals himself to be Peter's biological father. As they head to Ego's homeworld, Aisha, the Golden Skinned Lady played by Elizabeth de Becky, who is the leader of the Sovereign the High Priestess and is very relevant for Gardians of the Galaxy volume three, she hires Yon Dou and his Ravagers
turned down the Guardians. Important to note here something Jason has pointed out to me that I had forgotten. The reason she can hire Yon Do is because Yonder and his Ravagers have been thrown out of the Ravager community. Why for trafficking children. For trafficking children, and not only trafficking them, but trafficking them to their deaths. You ain't dressed like us, but you'll never hear the Lords of Freedom. Would you die?
Yon?
The cord will never flesh over your greed. I guess you didn't.
And that and that is the car a Gourd played by Sylvester Stallone who summarily ejects Yandu from the Ravager community for being a serial trafficker of.
Children to any chilanet who end up dead?
How many children?
I mean at the end of this movie and this in the final third of this movie, you will see a pile of bones. Who are the children who, unlike Peter, did not survive being trafficked. Well, he never delivered Peter to Ego, but you know you delivered the rest of them. And this pile of bones, folks, you've heard me talk about this before.
The pile of bones. It's immens It's like forty.
Feet high, maybe maybe ninety one hundred feet wide. It's like a pile like it's got to contain certainly thousands now you might say thousands.
Now Ego said it at least thousands, right.
And now now many have said to me, well, you know, in an attempt to you know, to absolve Yandu quite long theologists. I get it, and I get it because like listen, they make Yandu is the father figure this movie and he's he's he's actually a good guy. Throughout the rest of this series, they point out that surely Ego had other traffickers, which is probably true, right, Like, if you just do the math, it seems like unless he, unless YANDU was rounding up like one hundred at a time,
it probably would have taken too long. So maybe Yandu is only responsible for like twenty twenty percent of the pile, but that is still so many.
And by the.
Way, I would then counter with what is the minimum number of child children that you could deliver exactly death?
Oh you are enough, You're fine. I will also say, as proven by the existence continued existence of Peter Quill, it was very easy for Yondu to actually save one of those children and not deliver them to Ego. It took you like thirty years to find this guy. Yonder really could have been not delivering.
The to say apparently he was getting them too old, because you know, the implication is, but he kept Peter alive because Peter was small enough to like wriggle through like ducts and different things.
He was used as a thief.
So I guess what they're implying there is that the other kids that Yondu delivered the ego were maybe a little bit older, like, oh yeah, young adults side not quite so.
Acceptable trafficking age, you.
Know, legally, Yeah, yeah, if you're killed by your father, who is an omnipotent celestial being, when you're an adult, it's not as bad.
I'll just say as if.
It was a kid, Yandu might be redeemed in the course of Guardian's Galaxy two and three. That may have happened, but he'll never hear the horns of freedom when he dies, and the colors of a gourd, the colors of a gourd will never flash over his grave.
They will never flash over his grave. And that's all I have to say about that. But that's what we have to say about that. This is a movie that's all about daddy issues. You've got Themura Nebula who are kind of battling each other. Nebula wants to kill Thanos and they end up in this fight that ends luckily for everyone in a sisterly reunion of some kind. You also have the fact that Yondu, who is sent by Aisha, doesn't actually want to give over Quill because that is
his you know, he he has love for him. He's a good guy. Human trafficker, but a good guy. And of course the biggest daddy issues belong to Peter, who learns that not only is his father Ego omnipotent super being, but also a giant dick, just a super dick.
Multiple time child murderer, and also the reason that his mom is his dad, but the reason his mom died.
Yes, we learn that not only has Ego spent millennia traveling the universe trying to sire children so he can terraform planets with the celestial.
Powers, very very rucio.
Very titan ish, and he is going to find the child who can harness the celestial powers and the two of them can terraform the universe in Ego's nightmarish, delightful Kurt Russell form, And as Jason pointed out, heartbreakingly, it is also revealed that Ego, for some reason, gave Peter's mama brain humor evil. I mean, already very pful behavior, but seems extra evil like unnecessary, unnecessary, unnecessary bad times,
so all bad. And if that wasn't bad enough, short car, I guess what we already talked about it Jong Du Piasa. The dad was helping his real dad kill all these children. So no bad times. You know what I realized?
So much evil happens in the MCU, and who must make MCU because of the gig economy, just like just the sovereign. You have this massive fleet. Just go get Peter Quill?
Why are you? I get it?
Yon Due knows him, But yeah, why don't you just like be like, hey, where would we where would he go? And then act on that information to do it yourself? Ego, you are immensely powerful. We've seen you move around in human form, go to Earth and meet up with Peter's mom and go, and clearly you went to other planets did the same thing. Why why do you need all these like Postmates deliveries of kids?
Just go do it. You could use your powers to summon them to you or something. I'm sure there is, and you're just gonna trust some random guy and like a flying kind of junk trap I don't know. And look, look what happened.
The one kid who you were looking for is the one kid that YANDU is like, I'm gonna keep this one.
And not only that, but you're so bad at planning that that like stopped you in your tracks. You were just.
Spinning your wheels for years and years after waiting to find Peter Quill and his little Zoon and.
The big I would say, the big introduction here is not Ego. As much as I would have loved to see Cut Russell become a super big bad in the MCU, I love cut Russell. I love Ego The Living Planets, such a weird character. The real heavy hit hair is Mantis.
Oh.
I love Mantis. Mantis for the comics. Was delighted to see her come to life in the MCU.
Yeah, just such a delightful performance by Palm clem teeth and just a wonderful kind character whose powers does an EmPATH allow her to control people? We will see her play an absolutely immense part in Infinity War, only to be thwarted by the idiocy of Peter Quill.
Oh we were, we were right there, Peter Rat.
We ain't gonna wrap no issue, stop it, no blip, no, no, five years. It was about head. Embarrassing, embarrassing. It makes me so angry. So the good thing is because Mantis is such an EmPATH, she connects with drags, creating one
of the best buddy duos in the MCU. It was delightful to see them in the Holiday special together, and she reveals Ego's full plan the guard This gives the Guardians kind of upper hand, and while Ego is helping Peter harness celestial powers which are so immense that they would immediately make Peter the most powerful person in the MCU, they end up battling. He uses the powers to distract Ego.
Ego is destroyed, the planet is destroyed, and because Ego has destroyed, Peter's powers are gone, his celestial powers, because he'd be too overpowered. It would be two powerful.
So let me ask you this, because clearly the powers are gone, but his celestial hybrid physiology is clearly quite durable.
Yes, and it was. His physiology was noted by the Nova Corps. That's where it kind of first came from. So it is there, and I do think in God, it's some of the better and best. Actually, we kind of talked about this and we'll talk about it more stuff in volume three. We do get to see him kind of have a super hero movements and almost like my favorite one of my favorite books and TV series,
Shadow and Bone. There's a great way that magic works in that and you will see people who are good at shooting guns, and the gun shooting goodness comes from their skills in magic. Kind of like wanted having, you know, bullet power curving as a superpower. So I kind of think that that inherent superheroic nature and celestial physiology. I
like that that's a good catch. It's still that he's not celestial fully now, and he can't be like blasting planets, but he's definitely got a little bit more than.
Your average He does average guy. He does at the end of Guardians survive excuse me. In the middle of Guardians Survive the vacuum of space, and he does survive many spoiler, he is a He continues to be able to be in the vacuum of space for a extended period of time.
Yes, and sadly, Peter does not only have to say goodbye to his biological father, who was a super dick so no one misses him, sorry, but he has to say goodbye to Yondu, who sacrifices himself to save Peter in an ultimate moment of what the MCU sees is redemption, what we see as good for you but doesn't mean you didn't traffic thousands of children.
You did travel in his final moments. One can only hope that in addition to Peter, the many many other nameless children run through his mind run through his mind in the final seconds of his life, and we thank him for his sacrifice.
Yeah, and this is really where we get our core Guardians team. Even we have Mantis joins and we end up. Even though Nebula heads off to kill Thanos, which leads us to the kind of events of the big Infinity one endgame, she is already now part of the team, and you kind of have that core crew going forward into the rest of the MCU and the wider Marvel galaxy.
That takes us to the Non Guardians movie. Now, uh, where these various characters ended up. The first one where we see some Guardians characters is Infinity War first Non Guardians movie. We see them in a mission to take down Thanos. They are the away team. Basically they go to Titan with Tony, with Peter Parker, with doctor Strange. You have Mantis, you have Drax, you have Goamura, you have Peter Quill and they again almost pull it off. Yes, they come very very close.
They come very very close. But it's Peter Quill. He has a lot problem because prior to this, Gomore has gone missing. Viewers know that heartbreakingly, she has been taken by her father Thanos, to be thrown off the cliffs of Vormer in a sacrifice for the soul Stone. As Thanos told us, what did it cost him? Me everything? You know, he's feeling sad about it. He wishes he didn't have to kill his daughter, but he does, and in that shocking one of the most annoying moments in
the MCU. I was very happy to hear that James Gunn did not believe that this was the route the character would have taken. In the press tour in the lead up to Guardians the Galaxy volume three, Peter Quil finds out from an EmPATH possessed Thanos that Gomora is dead, so he punches him in the head. We are we are so close that the glove is coming off, the gauntlet is coming off. There will be no click, there will be no blip.
I just want to shout out Mantis in this scene because it is her. You really get a feeling for the depths of her power. She's able to keep Thanos, who is unjust like you know, he beat up the Hulk, he beat up Thor's. He's a match for he has many stones. Yeah, without you, without the stones, he's a match for almost any of our heroes. And Mantis has him on the ropes for a while, just like keep.
Baren drags Ultimate Team up. It's working, it's.
Really, really, really great, so shouts to Mantis. It didn't work because Peter lost his shit and I get it. It's heartbreaking to find out that you're the woman you love was thrown off a cliff on a mirror in order to relate to book and in Finney's stone. But but just let us beat him right now.
Be angry afterwards, take the take, take the gold let, and then do it. But no, he blows up. All goes horribly wrong. The only other member that wasn't on the team at that point, in that very moment, Nebula, had been being tortured by Fanos, but she manages to escape because he kind of puts the Chittarian charge and as we know, Tari can't really get shit done, so she escapes, teams up and she is one of the few members of the Guardians who does not end up getting dusted as we head into endgame.
Do let me ask you this, Do robots, do androids get dusted? M just just just synthetic life. I'm not saying it's not life, but I'm saying, would Ultron get dusted? Would you Acosta get dusted? Would Danger the uh, the sentient human formed embodiment of the Danger Room get dusted?
I don't think so. In MCU canon, I cannot.
Really would Cyborg get dusted just the human part?
Everything I believe, would.
Death Luck get dusted? Just the human part them.
Is too it adds many more rules. I feel like in the comics when the blit happens, it's just you just eradicate life, right, and it's just Iologically he wants to he wants to impressed death, he wants to sleep with his girlfriend who say and note him, and he does it to impress her. I feel like in the movie's sentient life is a grey area because we don't like vision seems to still exist, and that could be
that he didn't never like a loophole. Really, Nebula is a loophole, I think because she actually that is such a great point. She is essentially her father's own downfall because he has tortured her so much, replaced her eyes as a form of torture. We see him pulling her apart and kind of going through her memories, and Karen Gillen is so brilliant in that role. I really love Nebula and that is such a great catch because you're
absolutely right. She essentially becomes a loophole, and then she goes on to join the Avengers in endgame and become a primary part of taking down her father.
Yeah, is a huge and obviously her connection with her alternate self basically sparks the final big fight on Yeah. Second, the Avengers compound post.
Sister Gomora, you know she is the one who's able to make that connection with her and put her on side.
Next, there's Drax, who we last saw. Of course he got uh, he got dusted very back. He uh put put in a great showing during the big fight at the Avengers compound against Santos and his forces, and uh we see him stab one of those big Chatari beasts
in the back, among other things. He's a very very tough guy and later we see him in the Guardians of Galaxy Christmas schedule as part of the hair Brain scheme to kidnap Kevin Bacon in order to cheer up Peter Quill, who is very very very depressed because one his girlfriend Gemora died and two she came back but the all version from where they were together and doesn't know him and has no interest in ever getting to
know him. Yeah, which is and honestly fair, because it's such a weird what a weird imagine coming to an alternate world and being like, hey, by the way, we get together later and you're just like, I can't know.
And also like he is annoying. Let's be real, he doesn't have He's not He's not coming at it with like a romantic or interesting sensibility.
I mean, were you know, having just watched the Guardians movies back to back, man, Peter, Peter makes a lot of his galactic body count in that first movie. He is just talking about it, talking about the furious scars that he has all over his body as a result of these galactic dalliances with various alien women.
Yeah, we get that really famous scene where he's you know, he goes up in the ship and kind of flies around crazy and then the girl comes out of his bedroom and he'd forgotten she was there, you know, So Pete, come on, man, what are you doing. Oh? Also, speaking of the Holiday Special, very important thing to note it that, honestly I still think is actually my favorite Guardian's thing. I loved it. The vibe was just so good and that was a massive moment for Mantis, who, again, like
you said, absolutely smashed it. Almost defeated Dan as Peter fucked it up. Comes back after the blip and we see her really coming into her own with Dras during the Christmas Special or the Holiday Special, they go on this funny kidnapping adventure, but really the big moment is that she reveals that she's actually Peter's half sister. She is also the daughter of Ego, so that was a big beat for her and it explains why her powers are so intense. Makes a lot of sense.
Next up, our good friend Rocket Raccoon played a very very important role in Infinity War, goes off with Thor in order to create a new Uru metal weapon, this time an X.
Oh yeah.
They go off to Nider and they create this X. Rocket then plays again in a really important role during the final battle.
He does not.
Get snapped notably, and then in the time between Endgame and Love and Thunder is running around in space with Thor, who is kind of like an adopted member of the team for a period.
Yeah, we really thought we were going to get the as Guardians of the Galaxy and it didn't really happen, but we got to kind of tease it, and then we got to see it a little bit with that one great opening fight scene in Love and Thunder, And obviously, again going back to Holiday Special, it's Rocket who really
befriends Cosmo. Cosmo first appeared in the post credit scene for Guardians Galaxy Volume one with Howard the Dark as part of the Collector's collection, but we really get to see Cosmo kind of be borret into the fold in the Holiday Special, which becomes a major part of volume three.
We should Yeah, so I guess should we talk about Cosmo briefly?
Then?
First, let's so Cosmo, of course the space dog sent up by the Russians during the early days of the Space Race. It just kind of was floating around up there, was picked up by the collector who loves weird one off kitchy things, and here is a dog in a Russian dog and Space Collector loved it, picked him up, picked her up, experimented on her, and basically gave her full human level intelligence, sentience, and an ability to communicate both with her mind and to and to use telekinetic powers.
Yeah, and a freak a cool like up Doug style, you know, speaking calla which really really gets used well in in volume volume three. I love to see Cosmo.
I think that's one of the coolest asmu's fintasts.
That's such a cool bit of real history kind of reimagined, like what if she wasn't just sacrificed for the space race and instead became this super cool hero. And I guess that's what Guardians does so well, because I mean the member that we have yet to talk about what he got up to after, you know volume two is Grout, who is literally a tree but has become one of I mean sorry, I shouldn't say that he is an alien species that looks like a tree. Super yeah, yeah, Superflora.
But two fans and people out there, this is a really one of the weirdest, big strange MCU characters and comic book characters. And the thing I love about it is like you see kids now who are going around and they are wearing like a little groot on their shoulder. Yeah, Like, this is a character that speaks so much to who and what the Guardians are and why they've become so popular.
It's kind of mind blowing. Especially like this is you know, you're talking about a Stanley, Stanley's brother Larry Lee but and Jack Kirby creation. This is like old school weird, super iconic creator stuff. And he has become one of the most beloved characters in the whole of the MCU.
And among our h our qure MCU characters. Is notable for basically being unkillable.
That's what I'm saying. He's I think it's fair to say he's immortal.
If there is even a splinter of groot that remains Groot lives on, like you have to chop up his entire body and like incinerate it.
At the highest possible temperature, because I don't I don't believe a little bit of even I think a little bit of ash. If there was just a tiny bit of liquid still in there, you could probably plant it and get annualized. I think certainly if he creates pollen and the pollen flies off I think he comes back like just you know, we've seen him reduced to essentially a twig, we see him grow up from a baby. In Guardians three, he is even more able to like morph his body than ever before and.
Essentially unkilled. You can't kill Groot cannot die.
Yeah, he's he's a key character, fun character. He's what's he been up to. He was in thor Love and Thunder. You got to see him there. We're seeing in the Guardians of Galaxy Holiday Special, freaking people out with his buff kind of early twenties body, and obviously as well, he's so popular that he even got his own Baby Grew animated series, which is very delightful and not necessarily
like important canon, but just very cute. So that's what they've all been up to, and now they're headed to old Guardians the Galaxy Volume three.
Let's get into it up next, Guardians the Galaxy Volume three, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three. Depending on when you're hearing this, it might come out the very day that you are hearing this release eight May fifth. It is the second film in Phase five of the MCU, after ant Man in the Wasp Quantumnia, and we're going to recap it now off the top of our heads, wow vere fo because obviously we saw it in a screening. We're not able to take notes, have devices out and
it's been a few days. But here we go as we attempt to do this. So we open on nowhere, which is now the headquarters of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Guardians have opened a kind of bar slash headquarter base, like.
Like p I office. You can come and hire a guardian.
What you all you the Guardians to do stuff as we saw, you know, just like we saw the opening of Guardians too, where you know, they're hired by the sovereign to uh to basically kill the battery eating monsters. I guess you could hire them out depending on.
Parents and what the rates are.
Now here's the thing. Peter Quill has fallen into substance of abuse. He is depressed because again Gomura was killed by her father Thanos, and then Gamura came back. But it's not but it's alternate version. Gomora, who from the past, who never had a relationship with him, doesn't remember him and is not interested in having a relationship with him, and basically Peter treats her as if she died, which she did. She did die, so he's basically acting like
she's she's she's dead and he's mourning her. But the alternate version Gomora remained in this timeline and is now running around with the Ravagers.
Yeah, Pias having a rough time of it. He is so wasted in that little bar that we begin the movie with Rocket listening to Creep by radio Head as all of this is going on. He has taken Pete's beloved zoon. That's how out of it Pieter is. He's not even looking off to the zoon.
So once again, it's a gig economy in space. And the High Evolutionary, who is the big bad of this movie and is a mad scientist, genius level genetic madman who also has like various corporations that are made up of his creations and has even created entire worlds, has tasked the Sovereign and our good friend Aisha, who we learn here are actually a creation of the High Evolutionary.
The High Evolutionary created the entire people and world of the Sovereign has tasked Ayisha with getting back his most prized creation, and that is Rocket Raccoon, who we see in flashbacks the things that Rocket endured throughout this movie at the hands of the high evolutionary and let's stop here to talk about that, because it is bracing.
Folks.
We know a lot of parents listen to this, listen to this podcast, and certainly you're thinking, oh, man, my kid loves Guardians one and loved Guardians two. I would say, if your kid is like, let's say, younger than thirteen, maybe younger than eleven, what would you say.
I'd say it all depends on the capacity that your kid has for watching animals in trauma. I feel like it's very specific. I watched a lot of horror films as a kid, Yeah, but I was devastated by, you know, Warship Down.
This is very much like watershiped Down, Ship Down, the huge animals getting put through terrible, terrible things at the hands of one of the most evil characters that we've seen at the FC.
If you are somebody who uses the website does a.
Dog Die, you will likely.
Have issues watching this movie. It has a very vigorous and visceral representation of animals being tested on, of animals being harmed, and some animals rip to those animals sadly being killed.
Animals do die.
In animals do die and fictionally, fictionally CGI animals made by the hard working VFX people at the prop store.
I believe yes. And I will tell you as a kid, as a as a person who has a child, rented Watership Down because I saw cute bunnies on the cover of the VHS and thought this will be great cute bunnies and was really really messed up for a little while after watching that film. I could imagine, if you're a young kid and you love cute animals, that this is a rocky raccoon or rocket raccoon. This is going
to be this is going to be a hard watch. Also, I would say as a person, I had to I had to delay my screening because my dog got spade on the first night of the screening, so I defined it one this second night, and so going to that movie while my.
Dog was recovering from surgery was really rough. It was rough, It really rough. It's it's definitely very much in that horror movie Vein. And I would also say, you know, far less importantly, but just have to put out there. If you're a fan of the comic book version of the High Evolutionary. You will likely be shocked because this version is very, very, very evil. The High Evolutionary has a lot of problems, but this is a very This is a villain who, by the time you inevitably watch
him defeated, you are happy. It's extremely cathotic. You love to see it.
We'll get to that, yeah, And like it's a good point, Rosie, because the comics version of the High Evolutionary is a very frosty, remote, like emotionally unavailable, cerebral, kind of prefessorial, kind of semi villain. I wouldn't kill him, an out and out villain. But the movie version of the High Evolutionary is period but a bit a basic, like a raving madman, like a stark, raving madman who's even his like top lieutenants and assistants are like destrified, like on
the edge of losing it. Okay, So the High Evolutionary hires the Sovereign and our good friend Nisha and her newly hatched Adam Warlock.
You may remember from the post credit scene of Guardian's Galaxy volume.
Two, who's been hatched. He is fully presenting as an adult, but has the intellectual abilities well of basically like a maybe like a twelve year old.
Yeah, he's a baby. He is a baby, but he is a baby. He's really stupid. Yes, it's a very he's a he's a himbo, and it's gonna be a very controversial read on one of the most powerful characters in Marvel Comics history. Your gig, your gig economy question is right, Your point is right. Do not hire the baby alien even though he's very powerful, he doesn't know what he's doing.
He doesn't know what he's doing, folks. So they hire Aisha and she sends h Adam Warlock to go pick up Rocket in order to return him to the High Evolutionary, who is threatened to wipe out the sovereign if they
are not successful. So Adam Warlock got flies to nowhere is just a wrecking shop all in the streets, destroys the Guardian's bar slash Base, is fighting with Nebula, is fighting with Drax, is fighting with everybody, and long story short, they fight him off, but Rocket is very, very seriously injured in the scrap and unfortunately they can't fix They can't fix them, They can't do any medical care on him because there is a kill switch inside of his
chest that is copyright registered, copyright protected to ORG Corp, the main corporate entity, the CEO of which is the High evolutionaiy.
So basically they have.
To find the you know, the unlock key at corporate headquarters of Org Corp in order to save Rocket's life. Now we're on this mission, the Guardians enlist Gomora, who has been running around with her with her ravagers. They actually invade the Guardian ship at one point and they convince her, hey, let's team up. You want to break into org Corp because you and the Ravagers want to steal a bunch of like really really expensive and rare corporate ip that the High Evolutionary has created, and we
want to save Rocket. So will you help us? And the answer is yes, So the Guardians for money. So the Guardians plus Gomora break into org Corp. And it's it is a feast for the odds.
Yes, this is one of my favorite parts of the movie. We get a classic powerful James gun needle drop, we get space Hog and it's playing as they wear these rainbow colored face suits and kind of a little bit ether and Or Corp is very fun because it's a organic space, not a sentient being, but an organic space structure or very little metal. It's a space of skin,
essentially pretty gross in the best way. And so they get there and they decide that the only thing they can do is cut their way in, seeing as it's skin, which is great. They get in there, they sort of seem like they're going to do a great heist. I have to say, I feel like it's going quite well at the beginning until they come up against Nathan Fillion in a very hilarious role.
Right he's secure security head. Yeah, security guy. So a big fight, uh breaks off there in various little groups. You have mantis and drags Nathan Fillion, you have Gomora and Peter Quill kind of Peter trying to rekindle the romance, actually just kindle because again this is a different person, just kindle it in the first place. And they're off like trying to steal the flesh ball, that is the hard drive that contains all the information about the creation
of Rocket Raccoon. They managed to get the flesh ball, but it doesn't contain the key. The key, they discover has been downloaded into the neural implant of one of the two top assistants to the High Evolutionary, who they learn is not in ORG core headquarters. He is on counter Earth in his pyramid other pyramid shaped corporate building there.
And counter Earth is a kind of continuation of the experiments that create a Rocker raccoon the You know, all of this time the High Evolutionaries were trying to create very very smart animal hybrids that are peaceful.
Yes, he wants to create a utopian world, and for some reason for him, that includes making animal human hybrids. And this is very interesting because it's a Counter Earth is a big comic book thing from High Evolutionary's past, created by Royd Thomas and Gilkane, and it's this idea of a purer Earth. Yes, it's a better version of Earth,
and that is what he is going for here. But as we see, there are not There are many problems on counter Earth that are just the same as real Earth, even if you do fill it with very very very brilliantly to life animal human hybrids.
And now it seems like, you know, they land in a suburb and for the most part, everybody seems very generous and very nice. There is an animal human hybrid family that takes. They look like they are maybe, yes, some kind of bat or bat hybrid. They take Peter and the team in and give him delicious drinks and point him in the right direction where to find the high evolutionary, but also on the outskirts of the suburbs and kind of like closer into the city of counter Earth.
There's like, you know, there's drugs, there is crime, as timelessness, there's homelessness. And this is a very this is a sticking point for the high evolutionary who has views counter Earth essentially as a failure and is currently on onto another experiment in this line of experiments to create a utopia. He's created these other creatures who, again, who are very smart. They can solve all these kind of mathematical problems, they
can repair starships. But he's not he's still tinkering with it. He's not quite happy with it. But they all exist as children.
Yeah, And he believes that the key to fixing his problem and creating a true animal human hybrid super being is Rocket Raccoon, because Rocket is the only one of his creations that's ever been able to innovate every other one of his creations. He feels like can just repeat things that he's taught them. But Rocket was incredibly smart. Rocket was actually, as we learn in a flashback, it was Rocket who worked out how to make the animal human hybrids peaceful. It was to do with a filtration system.
It Rocket. The reason Rocket is still alive is due to his own innovation and creation with building things and invent things. In fact, Nebula has a very cool new arm in this movie, and we learn that it's Rocket who created it. So we're really getting to see how his horrific past encouraged his intelligence and inventiveness, as well as this kind of trauma and anger that it obviously gave me.
Now, during these flashbacks, we meet Rocket's friends who are part of the same batch of this animal experimentation that the High Evolutionary is doing. Now, these are evolved up animals that have been given various kinds of cybernetic implants,
very rough and very hard to look at ones. But so these friends of Rockets are Lela, who is a seattter with metal arms, Thiefs, who is a walrus with big wheels for hind legs, and Floor who's just like a very delightful, very sunny, very very optimistic little bunny rabbit with kind of a racknid metal racknid.
Legs and a scary mouth.
And a scary mouth, and they all get to they all create names, these names for each other, and they all bond over the idea that one day Master the High Evolutionary is going to create this utopia which ends up being counter Earth and they are going to get to live there in freedom and stare at the sky. And it is fucking heartbreaking. Ship Yeah, real talk like
it is really, it is hard. And again this is where if you have it, if you have to want to take a young kid to this, it's gonna be it's gonna be rough, because like me and as adults, I was like, this is this is rough.
It's truly and it makes you hate.
You fucking hate the High them. You will hate the High Evolutionary.
And if you have read the Grant Morrison Frank Quietly comic from Virtego, we three.
We suggested it on one of.
Our Yeah, we've suggested it in the past. Is it's such a brilliant comic. It's heartbreaking, but it's hopeful, and it essentially works as a story about three animals who are created as prototype weapons and their kind of journey to freedom. And it is very I think fair and likely to say that that was a huge influence on Floor and Rockets journey. And I'm Grant James Gunn is a huge fan of Grant Morrison. We know Grant's work will be a large part of their next steps at DC.
So it's kind of wild to see a little version of We three come to life, especially in Flaw, who I feel like is very similar to the rabbit in that pirate who is just heartbreakingly sweet and optimistic in the way they talk. It's really brutal stuff. I'm very it's very brutal. X Ray Vision will be.
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favorite podcast platform. And we're back. So the High Evolutionary is in his pyramid shaped corporate headquarters on counter ears and the Guardians figure out that he's there, and the High Evoution she knows that they know he's there, and in fact, he has set this trap because he wants
to write a Raccoon. The Guardians have Rocket Raccoon, and he knows that they need the key in order to unlock the corporate trademark lock on Time lock on Rocket's Heart in order to save his life, and this will allow the High Evolutionary to have Rocket basically delivered right into his clutches, and it kind of works. So the Guardians go to the corporate headquarters and there's a big fight there and one of many shootouts in the movie.
One of many shootouts many evolutionary.
Oh, we should add that Adam Warlock, who is saddened at the death of Aisha in one of the one of the previous scenes, goes to counter Earth, basically gets his clock cleaned and then kind of soft joins the Guardians of the Galaxy, or at least like adds some.
Yeah, because what we learn about the High Evolutionary, and we can assume that the Sovereign is one of the lucky communities. This didn't happen to He has gone through history creating these new worlds and then destroying them if they don't live up to his right, you know. So when they got to counter Earth and counter Earth is going to be destroyed because there's these drug problems as homelessness,
he wants to do it again. I thought the Guardians might try and save counter Earth, but it's too late. They're already destroying it. They're always happening.
So Peter and Peter and group get the code, get the past code from the head of the Assistant to the High Evolutionary.
His and not just like his memory, his literal head.
They killed him and take the head and take the peace out of the head. And while this is going on, the High Evolutionary has triggered the destruct of counter Earth, all of counter Earth and the Untold millions, if maybe not billions of animal hybrids that live there are all in the process of being destroyed. Peter gets the code back, they save Rocket's life, and as they are saving his life in the present, we get the flashback of basically
how Rocket escape from the clutches of the Higher. He discovers that the High Evolutionary plans to kill all of them, kill his friends, kill them all, so he played. He puts into motion an escape plan which he had apparently been been working on all of this time.
He had hidden little.
Pieces of machinery all around his cage, and he puts them together and it's a key in order to escape. He escapes from the crate, opens the other cage to get the other animals out, but the High of Issue shows up with his guards. They open fire, and very very very sadly Rocket's friends are killed. Rocket flies into
a rage. He jumps onto the High lutionary and just kicks, just tears, literally tears his face off, and then jumps in a spaceship and escapes, and then you know, we don't know what happens until we catch up with him at the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume one. Now we learn about that. And then as they're working on Rocket, it seems like it seems like it's not
going to work. They've unlocked his heart, but it's the heart isn't beating and Rocket is near death in his in some kind of limbo state, his consciousness is walking into a light. He sees his friends, he sees Lilah comes to him, and this is again, I'm like actually getting choked up. Talkdah.
Everyone's going to be crying at this.
Lilah comes to him, tiefs and floor there in the background, and and he's so happy to see her. And he's like, oh, finally I can just be with my friends and like, yeah, we can be together.
We're going to do that.
Lila tells him We're going to be together one day and just stare at the sky, all of us together and be friends. He's like, this is so great. I finally I can rest. And then she puts her metal hand on his chest and she says, but not now, because you still have something to do. He needs to go back and he needs to fight with the Guardians and free all the children that are the current experiment of the high evolutionary.
So he comes back to life.
They go to the High Evolutionaries now space borne Pyramid, they invade it, they free all the kids.
There is a.
Wonderful So the High evolution has put out the alert like, okay, all forces be on alert for the Guardians, get me Rocket Raccoon by any means necessary, kill the rest, and do what you have to do to get them. That sets up and this is a wonderful subversion. We've talked a lot on this podcas about about the third act big fight problems that Marvel often encounters. Right, I think this is one of the smartest, if not the smartest
subversion of that trope that Marvel has done yet. So rather than have this big showdown with the High Evolutionary, right the big Boss, the big fight is with his henchees, including these half animal, half android cyborg creatures and a bunch of human guardsmen. And it is awesome.
They do such a good job. But it has this great these large one shots, this really interesting use of slow motion. It really speaks. I think it's a great callback to some of the earlier fights that really made Guardian stand out. But it's been streamlined to the point where when you see it on that big screen it's incredibly impressive.
It it recalls the fight on running the User Ship from the first one, but with the kind of scope and ambition and general coolness of the Big Infinity War. Yeah, totals fight like it's that kind of thing.
But moral question you mentioned this, You mentioned the cyborg animal hybrid kind of characters who are used as part of the body count for the high evolutionary what are the morals here? Like, we're saving the ones who look like humans. Rocket was one of the ones who was unfinished and was kind of androidy. I feel like that's one of the things for me where I was left thinking about it afterwards, where I was like, who gets saved?
And how do we try and save them? And I understand they didn't have a lot of time to answer those.
Yeah, this was a moment where I did want I did find myself wishing for some kind of just even a line about how sad they were, you know, like something in the Matrix. I remember that moment in the Matrix where where Nea, where Neo is having explained to him that everybody they see in the Matrix is a person and that occasionally that means they're going to have to kill people who are plugged into the matrix. But that's just the way it is because they're trying to
free everyone. In order to free everyone, they're going to have to fight these pieces of the system that are trying to imprison them. I found myself wishing that there's something some kind of justification like that, where it's like, listen, we wish we could free these very very aggressive and hyper violent and hyper loyal creations of the High Evolutionary. We can't because they're trying to kill us. I did find myself wishing that had happened, but that does not
happen until they just kill them all. But there's a lot of killing, and it's the fight seat is freaking incredible. And then the final showdown with the High Evolutionary is a really cathartic, like one minute fucking beat down the High Evolutionary with his gravity powers that he upgraded his suit. Ever since Rocket tore his face off, he's like never
again and gave himself gravity powers. Well, Rocket had created a kind of like anti gravity power device that he then triggers after a little while of getting thrown around by the High Evolutionary, and he just proceeds along with the rest of the Guardians to beat the living tar out of the high evolutionary who then lies, you know, before them, And everybody's like, okay, well, Rocket, if you want to fish them off, you go ahead and do it. And then Rocket says, no, I won't because I'm a
guardian of the galaxy. I won't and which is again a very very noble statement, which comes after they kill.
Are creatures.
I mean, there's literally a moment where we get within the now Staalo is saying to Drags, we can't kill anyone with Gudians, that's what we do. And then Staloard and Groot go into a room where group pulls out many guns, which I will say, I do not believe he needs to kill people. But and then christ Stalald says, kill them all.
But now you don't kill if you're a guardian. I feel like there is a morally complex conversation to be had there. But I understood where Groot was. I understoodhere Rocket was coming from because he has been tortured and he doesn't want to enact that violence on the man who did it to him.
I'll say this when Peter Quill says kill them all. At that point, I was absolutely on the side because all of the people in that room were human enable c sweet followers of the High Evolutionary, not the hybrid Ania guards. It was just like the most evil top level cadre of the High Evolutionary, and I was absolutely like, yeah, get to get rid of I don't want to see any of them.
I don't want to deal with it.
So they take the other High Evolutionary and as the High Evolutionary's ship is crashing, they then go on a mission much like Noah's Ark, to save as many of the creatures that are on this crashing corporate headquarters as they can. They start with the sentient creatures, so it's like the very very smart animal hybrids who aren't still trying to kill them, and this race of white haired children who was again the latest experiment that the High Eblution is working on.
They get all the kids.
Off the ship, but then Rocket you know, visits the area where he was kept in the cages and decides, no, no, we're saving all the animals too, and the monsters and the battery eating monsters three of them. From the beginning of Guarnian's The Galaxy Too, there's three of them kept on this corporate headquarters, and they Mantis basically turns them into friends, which then made be retroactively sad that they slice that one open.
Yiz. She actually realizes that they are not inherently aggressive creatures, just themselves. They just want to eat a battery. This is all they want. I love to see Mantison her new monster buddies. So yeah, they save everyone, and everyone ends up on Nowhere, which I'm very glad that Celestial's head was so big, because you're talking about a population bump of like at least five thousand.
So there's all these are tearing animals now on Nowhere, and one would imagine all these children creations of the High evolutionary and some hybrid creations. And they join a ragtag cast that was already living on Nowhere, including Kraglin, who helps out in the big fight and successfully learns to use Yondu's whistle needle in a wonderful moment where he kind of sees the visage like a vision of Yondu like basically urging him on, saying, like you could
do it, you can use this weapon. As they're defending Nowhere from the creations of the Highlustrey it's a nice moment, you know, from a now deceased child multiple time child traffic. The broker is hanging out with them on Nowhere.
Yeah, Cosmo, she's doing some cool telekinesis. She's a good dog. She's very very powerful.
Now we see she's able to keep Nowhere and the corporate headquarters, the high lushite corporate headquarters like in parallel orbit for a period of time just using her teleconnect powers, which is wow.
Like Gene VP, Cosmo MVP.
There's a wonderful subplot with Kraglin and Cosmo where he calls her a bad dog and it really just bothers her for basically the entire movie.
Yeah, it's really great. And then he finally she gets a good dog moment when she smashes some people with some giant rocks. So all good stuff.
Love con Peter once again survives the vacuum of space.
I thought he was gonna die.
I thought he was done. No Guardian perishes, shocking twist, shocking twist, but the original team does break up. Peter decides, you know what, I've got some unfinished business on Earth. My grandfather's still alive. I'd like to go visit him. Jack says, I don't even know who I am. I've
been fighting all this time. I've now met He really had an immediate connection and affinity with these children created by the Evolutionary, and it makes him think of what he missed with his daughter who was killed by Thanos, and now he's basically gone off to raise these kids. Mantis also leaves because honestly, being an EmPATH is wearying, and she's just been carrying the emotional baggage of all of this team for all of this time. She's fucking burnt.
Out and she needs to know who she is. So she takes some battery eating monsters and off they go.
A beautiful you love it, you love to see it. And the new team who we see at the first stinger is Rocket Raccoon, Leader now retconned as basically a super genius.
Who is accepted that he is a raccoon. He's accepted.
He would always say it, said.
It on his cage, So he finally he says, I am I guess so, Leader Rocket Raccoon Cosmo, Yes, which I think wonderful edition perfect.
One of the children rescued from the High Volutionary, who we discover is fi leavel I.
Would say almost certainly, with the purple flaming hands that seemed to be able to create weapons. Very cool deep cut.
Addition, there Adam Warlock, the baby, the baby, He's that he's being charm and he's being bumbling, he's bringing a Hugron energy to the entire thing, and and swollen Groot and it's a wonderful and wonderful team. They're out out in the galaxy just basically still for hire. And then were where do we leave Peter? We leave Peter on Earth. He goes back, he visits his grandfather, who recognizes him instantly, despite the fact that he's now an adult and less
like eleven. Something in the eyes, I would imagine, and we leave them around the breakfast table just talking about mowing lawns. And the words that come across the screen as the movie ends are.
The legendary Staalowed will.
Ritton in what you might be asking, no one knows, no one knows, all in all and emotionally powerful MSU film. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it depends your minds may vary depending on how big a Guardians fan you are. I like the Guardians. I love Rocket Raccoon. I Love Groot, I Love Goamora.
The Goamor ending is actually my favorite part of the while my first past this movie. We end up in a situation where so Nebula and Drags stay on Nowhere, They're gonna raise these kids, They're gonna run. Nowhere is
like a safe space for people, safe safe home. And rather than make Gamora and Peter fall back in love, which didn't seem at all natural to the character are, we get to see Gamura return to the Ravagers as a hero, and there's this great kind of there's this really wonderful five minute montage at the end that kind of shows where everyone is set to the Florence and the Machine song Dog Days are Over, which was definitely
emotionally manipulating me in a positive way. But Anna and we see Gamura and when she returns to the Ravagers, we get this great, like thirty second thing of this is her found family and this version of the world
she fits in here. It's not the Guardians, it's with the Ravagers, and they're hugging her and they're like do it giving her, you know, they're rubbing their fists on their head and it's just it feels really great, and I love to not see them try and pull some kind of fake romanced It would have felt really weird, and it was.
It was nice to have, to your point, this kind of parting where it's like Peter really wants it to happen, but it doesn't and he makes his peace with it, and it just feels very earned and natural and honestly with more returning to the Ravagers I have, I feel like she will hear the horns of freedom when she dies. She the colors of the colors of a gourd, the colors of a gourd absolutely will flash over her grave shouts to Goma. I found this again. I found this.
I thought visually it looks great for any of the people who were disappointed by the kind of CGI tone palette and esthetic texture of in the West Quantum Mania. This is much cleaner, and.
It has a diary. It has a very clear vision, and it's a very colorful, engaging, immersive vision. It fits very well into that world of Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a guardian's movie.
The creature work is unbelieved.
Yes, the creature work's unparalleled.
In high evolutionary is certainly one of the most evil characters and the most effective villains that we've seen.
I'll say this about.
The animal experimentation stuff, which again, it's gonna be hard for some people to peal it. I I think one of the things that Marvel has struggled with in the post endgame phases is stakes, and they've kind of fallen back on stuff like, oh my daughter, Oh my family, Oh this flashback of this thing that happened this uh, you know, Doctor SHARE's The Multiverse of Madness was like this romance that like with Christine that like never really
got off the ground anyway when they were together. And so I do respect that they went to a place that we hadn't seen before to create the steaks m h to make you hate the villain, but it is something that will be I think hard for people who love animals and kids to watch.
Yeah, my biggest I have very complex feelings about the whole movie, But my biggest kind of takeaway is that I love that we live in a world where a movie this weird can be seen as a commercial movie. It is extremely weird. It swings for the fences for me. Some of that stuff lands for me, some of it doesn't.
But this is a movie about a talking tree, a talking raccoon, aliens and they're fighting their way through organic space stations to save human animal hybrids, and it's probably going to be one of the biggest movies of the year. And that is the power of comic books to me, and comic book storytelling, and that's the thing that still makes me excited about these movies and the potential that they have.
I mean, you mentioned the space hog drop where they're kind of footing towards Org Corp. There are lots of moments like this where, for no reason at all other than James gunn is in his bag tying up a movie, he'll give you a slow mo shot or a three six year camera angle, or this this shot that lingers on the character's faces, or the weird way they float through space, and there are there are many of these that don't necessarily need to be there, and if they
do kind of need to be there, they certainly don't need to be that long.
But the weight of all.
Those things makes it such a unique visual experience.
And those were some of my favorite things. Those were some of my favorite things. Those moments where you lingo way you give the time, to the atmosphere, to the vibe, to the character, to the story. That's the stuff that makes this really hit.
So what do you think star Lord TV show?
Is that what they're gonna do? It legendary s what they're gonna do.
He's gonna he's Is he gonna be Captain America?
Is he not Captain America?
No?
But I'm dead serious. Is I would cry of the Avengers team.
You know what they're doing, They're gonna need a cosmic Avengers.
I will say, he will be on the Avengers team.
He will. You can take that. Look, the truth is we're gonna need a cosmic Avengers because.
He knows about celestials. You've lived in a celestial head.
Whatever happens next, there's gonna be a lot of cosmic multiversal Shenanigan. So having somebody who has connections to the celestials, the eternals know that stuff in a creepily oversight type fashion. So I'm sure that they were probably aware that somebody on Earth is part celestial you know, So I think you're right. I think a legendary star Lord type appearance in the Avengers team as a leader or co leader of I think there will be many Avengers teams as we lead into this next phase.
Space Team, Earth Team.
I think that's very likely. I also do think the legendary staraloed I think that sounds like a Disney Plus show and you do it where he's going around the galaxy kind of having very Guardians esque fun. But we'll have to wait and see, because I don't know. I think that people who really love these movies, they love James guns Guardians of the Galaxy, So what does that look like without him?
Well, I can't wait to see. That has been our coverage of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, the end of this iteration of the team and certainly the end of James Gun's relationship with the MCU, although it certainly seems like James Gunn's brother will continue for a while seeing as how Kraglin is on the team.
Yeah right, I think so that's as right. Yeah, like these the truth is that actors exist in both these worlds Marvel DC otherwise as well, and I think that will continue with James at d C and James having such a deep history at Marvel, and these movies in general not necessarily becoming the billion dollar blockbusters that the corporations want them to be. We're not far away from a Marvel d C crossover, and James is somebody who
I think would be very interested in that. Up next, Verte out in Today's that outweayh you tell us what you love, am why or a theory that you're excited to share. Tony shares a Star Wars theory.
Tony writes us, I can learn out about a great many things, but Star Wars and the Marvel Universe comics and movies are near the top of my list. Long story short, my Star Wars fan theory is that the down Star Destroyer we see at the beginning of The Force Awakens is Thran's Chimera or Chimera two.
If the Parnel completely.
The shortage of Da Da, I think that the climax of Dave Filoni's movie This is Good, that is the itself. The culmination of the Star Wars streaming shows to this point will be the Battle of Jaku.
I would love to see it.
Which we don't see, but happens, you know, before we catch up with the events of the Force Weekends. Dave filoni saga has run in parallel with the cinematic saga to this point, telling its own story but referring its strategic times to the large rebellion, and this event offers a great opportunity to do both. We will see all of our streaming heroes come together, including a full on live action Rebels reunion complete with Freddy Prince Juior as Gaiden's forest Ghost. Oh my god.
People really want to see it. They really want to see it. Yeah, and you know what, he looks good like.
I think he's looking good.
Freddy could do it.
I theorize that we will also see other members of the Dameran family more Cgi Luke Kelleron Beck and.
Lizzo with a blaster. I would love to see it.
Yes, I hope that there's an appearance by the young Vice Admiral Holdo. They will all come together in an Adventures endgame style galactic Straverganzi thanks for an extremely entertaining podcast, and May the Force speed. Thank you. It's May third today, but you know, one day, ly me the Forced people with you, I'll say this. We understand certainly there have been rumblings that Star Wars, you know, the Star Wars ip World and Kathleen Kenny want to do some kind
of team up. They've been hunting for a team up thing, and I love this.
I think this would be such a cool way to do it. And I mean it's kind of hard to imagine because we live in a post MCU world, the world whether MCU exists and kind of changed Hollywood. But I mean a Star Wars event movie. Star Wars movies used to be the event movie. So doing a Star Wars event movie, you could be making the biggest movie on earth, especially with how much people love the TV shows and the movies, and to bring all of that together,
I think this itea sounds really cool. Tony. Keep this one in your pocket, pitch it, pitch it to pitch it to Lucasfilm. Thank you so much, Tony. If you have theories or passions you want to share, hit us up x ray at cricket dot com instructions in the show notes. That's it for us.
Rosy and he plugged.
I will be at Jeffrey's Comics in the LA area, specifically Torrents, one of my favorite places in the whole of America. I will be there with so many other cool artists on Free Comic Book Day. You can come and get free comics. And if you are not in our area, your comic book shop will have free comics. It is the rule of free comic book Day. May six. You can go there, you can grab comics, maybe they'll
you could give some donations of some food. Lots of different shops do it different ways, but you'll be able to get free comics. And if you come to Jeffrey's, I will be there signing things. I'll have some new zines that I'm making to prep you. Actually, four Guardians in the Galaxy have some fun new zines about some of the characters and their comic book history that will be free. I will also have Godzilla stuff that you
can buy. It will be rad And I will again say check out the Hero Initiative because they do a lot of amazing stuff for the creators who made these characters possible, and made this whole world possible, and made the state of Hollywood today possible. So check out the Hero Initiative and support it where you can.
I will plug the WGA, the Writer's Guilts of America. We're currently on strike against the Alliance of Television and Motion Picture Producers. Here's the thing. These corporations are enormously profitable, enormous profits. The CEOs, the eight CEOs of these corporations all together made like more than three quarters of a billion dollars eight hundred million dollar range, which if you're if you're scoring at home, is more than the two percent raise that writers are asking for. And there are
various other problems. I want, I want bar with you with them, all of which is to say, these studios sell one thing, and that is the stories the writers write. And we're at a stage now where writers, if my only job was writing for I would not be able
to be living. It would be very, very tough because listen, you might make you might make a good rate on a weekly basis, but you might only do eight or ten weeks of a mini room and then not be able to find anything for three months, four months, six months, eight months, a year, because it's getting harder and harder. And we talked a lot and joked a lot about the gig economy on this podcast, but the sus basically want to create a world in which writing for TV
is a gig economy. They'll pay you by the day, they'll have AI kind of create the outline, and then maybe they'll hire a couple of kids, like on a day rate, to punch it up whatever the computer created, and then they'll put that out as cheaply as possible so that the CEOs could continue to garner their enormous, enormous, enormous paychecks, and so that they can serve not the not the interests of the people who assume stories or
the people who create the stories, but the shareholders. Again, these corporations are seeing enormous profits, because the profits aren't the kind of profits that scale at the level that Wall Street likes. All of this is seen as a failure. David Zaslav pulled in some three hundred million dollars last year, and this is for the you know, basically shepherding Discovery into buying a thing that it can't afford, which resulted in numerous layoffs, and we're.
Seeing billions of dollars of debt.
So support your WGA writers. Support writers, post about them. If you see posts from writers on any of your social media platforms, give them your support. They would they would appreciate that.
If you do want to be bored. My stories on my Instagram are a source of constant WGA information. I have many links to many stories, many different posts places where you can go and pick it with our friends in the WGA. So if you want to be bored by it, Rosie marks my stories. That's what I'm using them for at the moment, is just to share the stories of writers, the realities of what this is like, because even this job wouldn't exist for us if people didn't write these stories.
That's right, that's very correct. Catch the next episode on Wednesday, May tenth for more market moves and return to the wilderness with Yellowjackets on the believed Showtime network.
You are not ready for that one, And you can also subscribe on YouTube, where you can now watch four episodes of the show. Sometimes we are here on Zoom. Sometimes we are in the fancy studio. You can follow us at XRV pod on Twitter, where we share all kinds of cool things and you'll get to keep up with the podcast and check out our discord. You can
join by going to the show notes. Hang out with a ton of amazing fans and listeners who talk about all kinds of cool stuff and very in depth ways, and me and Jason show up there sometimes.
Five star ratings. Five we gotta have them. You gotta give it to us. Here's one from Alison Gower. Absolutely awesome. It's so fun to listen to you. It's a great way to bond with my teen son, who, like me, is a huge comic Marvel DC fan. We've listened together and he often stops you to explain more to me.
No notes, Love you.
Thank you so much, awesome Alison, and shouts to your wonderful son. X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy's Rhard are editing in sound design, Who's by Vascilla's Photopoulos. Dylon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex wella Ford handle social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for theme music. See you next time, folks.
Bye