Guardians of the Galaxy
The moment the ooga-chakas of Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” kick in during the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, it becomes apparent this isn’t your standard Marvel fare.
The trailer, which premiered last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, reveals a possible new direction for Marvel Studios in which the staid heroics of the superhero genre are exchanged for irreverence and risk-taking.
The first full-length trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy stands out for divulging almost nothing about the movie’s plot. Instead, the trailer focuses on the assemblage of the guardians — a ragtag gang of intergalactic criminals described in the teaser as “a bunch of a-holes.”
This subversive humor runs throughout the trailer, with quips from Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord and the aforementioned “Hooked on a Feeling” playing as the guardians stand in a mock police lineup.
The marketing for Guardians reflects the knowingly tongue-in-cheek nature of the trailer. The movie’s first poster, released shortly after the trailer, features the simple and conceited tagline, “You’re welcome.” With this approach, it appears Guardians of the Galaxy will be a Marvel movie that takes itself less seriously than its predecessors.
“The movie has a lot of edgy humor, unusual for a comic book movie,” director James Gunn (Movie 43) told Total Film. “But we were encouraged by Marvel to take risks, so we did.”
The cast of Guardians of the Galaxy certainly adds to the film’s peculiarity. Pratt, best known as the delightfully dimwitted Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation, does not fit the image of the typical superhero flick leading man, such as Man of Steel’s Henry Cavill or Captain America: The First Avenger’s Chris Evans. The cast also includes frequent comedic actor John C. Reilly, professional wrestler Dave Bautista and Zoe Saldana, who swaps her blue Avatar skin for a green exterior as Gamora.
Also featured are an animated raccoon known as Rocket Raccoon and its tree-creature bodyguard called Groot, voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, respectively. The introductions of these characters to the Marvel universe represent the studio aiming for a less serious approach with Guardians of the Galaxy and perhaps future movies as well.
However, none of these casting choices are as striking as the selection of Gunn as director. Gunn, whose writing credits include 2002’s Scooby-Doo, its sequel and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, has a relatively short directorial resume. He has previously tackled superheroes, though, directing the 2010 film Super starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page, which also served as a deliberate subversion of the genre. Still, with Marvel movies attracting directors such as Kenneth Branagh and Joss Whedon, Gunn, who also wrote the screenplay for Guardians of the Galaxy, definitely serves as a noteworthy component of the film.
Gunn will look to serve as more of an innovator in the Marvel universe, even highlighting his childhood influences in Guardians.
“There is probably no film that influenced me more as a child — no film that excited me more or that I loved more — than Raiders of the Lost Ark,” he told Total Film.
Guardians of the Galaxy, which will hit theaters on Aug. 1, is the first Marvel production featuring all-new characters since Thor in 2011. Bookended by Captain America: The Winter Soldier, coming out in April, and a new Avengers flick set for 2015, the film is under a great deal of pressure to draw the kind of box office numbers Marvel has come to expect.
In its earliest marketing, Guardians of the Galaxy appears to be a Marvel experiment of sorts, one in which the studio tests the boundaries of the typical comic book movie. The success of Guardians will perhaps determine the likelihood of the studio to seek out new franchises and unique storytelling in the future.
