This will just be a short note. I am impossibly behind schedule. I just wanted to say that GotG3 was an absolute masterpiece. I thought the first one was pretty solid, a well-put-together Marvel formula movie with some great lines, cool characters, and really innovative use of music. It was kind of a lighter version of Ayer’s Suicide Squad, in fact. The second one let me down, though. Especially around the villain. I wrote a blog post about that, actually. But the third one, now this one, it was just an absolute masterpiece. I am not going to take time to really review it. I just don’t have time. Focus is the issue of the day. I’ll just say a quick thing or two.
First, when you see Nathan Fillon as a tardigrade, you have seen absolute genius.
Second, I usually see movies and understand them or I don’t. When I do, I usually see things people don’t see and understand things from them that others don’t. When that happens, I call the movie genius and tell people what I saw. People are frequently impressed. This movie, though, had a combination of things that I saw and understood that most people wouldn’t, but it also really, really made me think. It stumped me in a lot of ways and challenged me to integrate its themes into my thinking. I was really at the limit of my ability to watch a movie, actually. I wasn’t 100% clear on which of its ideas to accept and expound, which ones to reject as erroneous, and which ones to let into my thinking to form my opinions and grow intellectualy. I am talking about its points of psychology, philosophy, spirituality, metaphor, and presentation. I’ve seen GotG3 three times now, and I’m going to have to see it a couple more before I’ll really be able to come to terms with it.
I said nothing when this movie came out. But I know among the fans, especially among us Snyderverse fans, there is a lot of vitriol about Gunn at DC. I wish I knew how things were going to go with our franchise. I wish I knew which films were going to get critical acclaim, which ones everyone was going to go see, and which ones were going to be remembered as masterpieces years later.
I just want to add this little bit for right now: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 was a philosophical masterpiece. I’m not going to say I am comfortable with all of it or that I agree with all of it, but it was a philosophical masterpiece. Gunn promised that he would build DC movies on powerful messages and themes. With his last Marvel Movie, he did. Boy, he did.
Also, for the Snyder fans: The teaser for Rebel Moon just came out yesterday. We saw the slo-mo with the dual-wield swords. Just like Drizzt Do’Urden on fire in a comic book. Zack picked up that technique trying to take Frank Miller graphic novels into the motion picture medium. Now he has taken that comic-book-as-a-movie signature into science fiction. Rebel Moon will show us Zack Evolved, but we already see that it will have that beautiful Zack Essence with it. It’s gonna have that dash of comic book in the mix. Remember, the Guardians of the Galaxy are superheroes in space. They are superheroes gone sci-fi, and Rebel Moon is sci-fi built on superheroes. There is a continuity here.
That’s just all I have time for today. I have to go see Blue Beetle today. How can I write my books about the Snyderverse if I haven’t seen everything DC and Marvel put out there? And I have to read the Bible, learn my Hebrew, and save myself from the uncomfortable piranha women everywhere. So just a short couple of words about Gunn’s last Marvel movie today.