# Guardians of the Galaxy \[Spoilers, I imagine\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 1, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556 "2014-08-01T04:44:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/221 "2014-08-15T09:30:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s my point. The Guardians of the Galaxy - the people who were saying Xandar was the good guys - are criminals who escaped from the Kyln. Realistically, they’d have been a lot more likely to have been wishing Ronan good luck in his quest to destroy Xandar. Well, except for the part about Ronan trying to kill them/already having killed their families/wiping out entire planets/being allied with Thanos who also wipes out entire planets… I got the impression that while they had individual problems with _aspects_ of being imprisoned, they (at least, Rocket and Groot) were self-aware of their own criminality and so knew how the game was played (Rocket, especially, seems to treat the escape as a game), so wouldn’t blame Nova Corps as a whole, or view them as evil. IOW, the Guardians may view themselves as heroes (like Jayne Cobb’s own internal dialogue does, too), but they also know they’re not “good guys”, and Nova Corps are. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/222 "2014-08-15T12:14:28Z")
Little Nemo: > [@](#): > > Realistically, they’d have been a lot more likely to have been wishing Ronan good luck in his quest to destroy Xandar. Except that for the most part, each of them is already pre-disposed to hating Ronan more. Gamora always hated him and had been planning to betray him; Drax wants to kill him; Quill is upset about how Ronan cost him the ability to sell the orb. (Rocket and Groot, maybe not so much, admittedly.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/223 "2014-08-15T15:09:12Z")
Yeah, probably none of them are particularly fond of Xandar… but Ronan wants to destroy the entire planet. You’d have to be 100% a dick to approve of that. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/224 "2014-08-15T17:23:42Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > More to the point, it seems likely the Kyln is used to hold criminals who are _dangerous_ in some way - not necessarily physically. Plus, I doubt there are many places on Earth which are really all that proud of their prisons, either. I bet most Earth prisons are smart enough not to keep the prisoners weapons and spaceships with their personal effects though. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/225 "2014-08-15T18:39:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s my point. The Guardians of the Galaxy - the people who were saying Xandar was the good guys - are criminals who escaped from the Kyln. Realistically, they’d have been a lot more likely to have been wishing Ronan good luck in his quest to destroy Xandar. Do you think most of the inmates in the prisons of America were siding with Osama bin Laden on 9/11? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/226 "2014-08-16T14:32:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yeah, probably none of them are particularly fond of Xandar… but Ronan wants to destroy the entire planet. You’d have to be 100% a dick to approve of that. Well I don’t believe that anyone is _100%_ a dick. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/227 "2014-08-16T14:57:01Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Well I don’t believe that anyone is _100%_ a dick. All right! You got my dick speech! ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/228 "2014-08-16T14:58:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > (snip)Basically, they were a couple of thieves.(snip) No, you don’t understand. They really wanted that stuff. In fact, they wanted it much more than the person who originally owned it did. Surely that isn’t stealing? Plus, if we have to start a Kickstarter campaign to do it we need to get George Lucas a ticket to this movie. He needs to see the movie he should have made, and a CGI character who the audience cares about. That racoon brought tears to my eyes more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/229 "2014-08-17T01:40:53Z")
Well, now that Star Wars and the MCU are under the same ownership, we could always just hope to have Rocket and Groot added into the Star Wars movies.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/230 "2014-08-17T05:10:12Z")
To date, **GotG** is the 6th highest grossing film of the year at $204.5M [according to Box Office Mojo](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm). It’s been out for 2 weeks. By the end of the year, I think this is the top grossing movie of the year. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/231 "2014-08-17T10:00:31Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > To date, **GotG** is the 6th highest grossing film of the year at $204.5M [according to Box Office Mojo](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm). It’s been out for 2 weeks. By the end of the year, I think this is the top grossing movie of the year. Eh, I’d like to see performance data from the first two weeks compared to subsequent weeks. My guess is that there are precipitous drop-offs. And remember, you still have _Hunger Games_ yet to be released. Interesting, though, is that Marvel has 4 of the top 7 grossing films (to date). Disney is sure doing things right. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/232 "2014-08-17T17:22:57Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > Eh, I’d like to see performance data from the first two weeks compared to subsequent weeks. My guess is that there are precipitous drop-offs. And remember, you still have _Hunger Games_ yet to be released. Interesting, though, is that Marvel has 4 of the top 7 grossing films (to date). Disney is sure doing things right. I don’t think Disney had anything to do with Spider-Man or X-Men. But if you include Maleficent, they do have half of the top 6. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/233 "2014-08-23T18:34:14Z")
> [@tripthicket](#): > > Finally made the time to see it yesterday, well after the crowds were gone (afternoon matinee, maybe 6 or 7 people in the theater, including my family of 3). Also, my first time with IMAX 3D. Not sure how much the IMAX part added to the experience (maybe spoiled by my HD TV at home), but the 3D was better than I expected (haven’t seen a 3D movie in decades, so, yeah, technology). Neither of these things impressed me enough to buy tickets for them in future. Saw it last night, also IMAX, 3D. I had the sense to get up and move back a few seats after the previews because there’s a lot happening out at the peripheral vision. It really is impressively high definition. For the folks who are wondering about staying power – at 6:15 on a Friday evening, the theater only had a handful of people in it. But the whole cinema looked deserted, so I’m guessing going out to the movies isn’t the thing it was twenty years ago before HD TVs and streaming. Good movie – things roll right along in your basic Star Wars, heros get swept along in events sort of way. The character of Gamora seemed under-used and maybe a bit soft for a cybernetic assassin brought up by (essentially) Ming the Merciless. The raccoon, on the other hand, was pretty brilliant. Especially when he turns out to be the brains of the group. My one real complaint with the movie is that the characters have way too plot armor from physics. Whether they’re in an exploding art museum or a crashing spaceship (or in front of a crashing spaceship), it seems as though they only have to duck behind a counter or dive out of the way and it’s all good. I wish movie makers would understand that when a billion ton spaceship falls out of the sky, it doesn’t matter how many seat belts you’re wearing, you’re not going to be crawling out of the wreckage with a couple of scratches – you’re going to be sublimating from the wreckage as a motley assortment of molecules and vapors. (I think Pitch Black was about the only movie I’ve seen that made a spaceship crash look even halfway convincing.) ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/234 "2014-08-24T01:24:43Z")
Some small defense, none of the characters are baseline humans. You have the genetically enhanced cyborg raccoon, the heavily modified cyborg assassin, Drax, the half-human half-unspecified guy, and Groot. And Groot comes off the worse for the spaceship crash. I mean, yes, it’s a bullshit explanation (or if you want the preferred terminology: a handwave), but we know nothing significant about how tough these folks should be expected to be. In any case, this is the same universe where a mostly baseline human can use rocket packs to plow himself face-first into a concrete wall with no ill effects (Iron Man). ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/235 "2014-08-24T17:25:48Z")
Back on top, baby. [GotG reclaims the top spot over the Turtles](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/). My $300MM worldwide prediction from the other thread sure looks weak. Domestically it’s less than $10MM behind the current 2014 champ: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. My guess is only Mockingjay Part 1 will compete with it inside the US. Weirdly, it’s playing as well outside the US as inside. $251MM US $237MM Foreign. That’s well unlike the others in the top 10 where 2/3 or more of the take is international. Maybe it doesn’t translate well? Still, it’ll break $500MM next week overall. I welcome the sequel. And wow, is Sin City 2 tanking. $6.4MM on nearly 3000 screens? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/236 "2014-08-25T16:07:02Z")
Saw it Friday night. Enjoyed it. There were issues, but it was enjoyable and fun. > [@bienville](#): > > Oh, and much as I enjoyed Groot, there was no reason to have a well known actor associated with the role other than to have another name to put on the poster. Vin Diesel did an interview, and said he took the script home and asked his kids which character he should be, and they picked Groot, the tree guy. So there. He might have been Drax. > [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Why did Yondu abduct Quill when he was a kid and after his mother just died? That’s when he was given the assignment to pick up Quill and take him to his father. > [@](#): > > He was supposed to deliver him to his father (who I guess is still unknown?), but obviously didn’t do so for 26 years. What does Quill believe to be the reason for his abduction? He was convenient, and the ravagers wanted to try Terran, but Yondu decided to raise him instead? > [@](#): > > Based on the 2nd Mixtape that his mother made for him, did she know this would happen? I would assume no. I would assume she meant it as a birthday gift to go with the previous tape, i.e. more cool music that showed their connection. He just didn’t want to open the present for some reason after her death. > [@Neverending\_Elbow](#): > > I did enjoy it, but not as much as the Avengers. Probably only because the Villain in GOTG was so… bland. Maybe he’s more interesting in the comics, but here I didn’t really feel how threatening he was to be, based on how other characters reacted to him. I suppose they wanted to make him really serious to balance out the wackiness of the heroes, but he was so humourless it actually undermined his threat level for me. I have to agree. For some reason, Ronan just didn’t seem that intimidating to me. Maybe it was the tone of the movie as a whole, but he was bland, even for a religious revenge-fueled nutbag. > [@Tangent](#): > > Nebula was cool–though even after seeing the movie, I am still having trouble believing that was Karen Gillan (_Doctor Who_’s Amy Pond). I definitely want to see her again in the sequel. So even after I saw her name in the opening credits, I didn’t recognize her. I was (a) trying to figure out who she played, and (b) wondering who the actress playing Nebula was. :smack: > [@bienville](#): > > So, it seems no one joins me in being disappointed by The Collector. > Asgard entrusted The Aether to his keeping. Asgard (while withholding moral judgements about his practices) considered his collection to be one of the most secure keepings in the entire universe. Not only does the place get blown up by a disgruntled employee, but it is housed amongst a den of thieves spaceport/mining colony. Asgard deemed this one of the safest keepings in the entire universe??? > > I was very disappointed to see The Collector undone so easily. I was looking forward to a much cooler character. I agree. Sure, blowing up the chamber from the inside surely helped bring down his defenses, but he was set up to be awesome, and completely secure. Surrounded by the worst hive of villainy and scum this side of Tatooine doesn’t make me think safe. Also, nitpick, keeping living creatures in boxes just barely bigger than they are is not a good way to keep prisoners. I mean, just dealing with the poop and pee is going to be an issue. Not that this is the only violator of that principle. (Continuum is guilty as well.) > [@bienville](#): > > Greed, for lack of a better motive, is good. 😉 > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Who was the Broker representing? Somebody had the Broker hire the Ravagers to get the Orb. It wasn’t Ronan - he was sending his own people to get it and they were surprised to find somebody else there. I don’t think it was the Collector - he had made a deal with Gamora to steal it which made no sense if the Broker was working for him. Thanos had a deal with Ronan. I don’t think it was the Xandorian government - the Broker gave every indication that what he was doing was illegal and besides, Xandor had plenty of people on its payroll it could have sent - it didn’t need to hire mercenaries. So who was the Broker supposed to be delivering the Orb to and why didn’t whoever this is show an interest when the Orb was lost? Whoever it was must be a major power and knew the location of the Orb - which is more than any of the other powers involved did. It seems like there was a major character just off camera who should have been present. We weren’t told. > [@](#): > > Second question: When did Ronan say he was going to destroy the galaxy? That’s what the heroes claimed. But Ronan wasn’t planning on killing everyone - he just wanted to destroy Xandor. Now I agree blowing up a planet is a bad thing but it’s a far level below killing an entire galaxy. Well, he is a religious nutbag bent on domination. I mean, he’s got Xandar, then Kree (because they betrayed the cause), then Thanos, then, hey, why not take over the galaxy? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It also kind of threw off the idea in the second half of the movie that Xandor was the side of the “good guys”. Xandor was, after all, the side that ran the Kyln and sent the “heroes” there without even giving them a trial. It makes it hard to reconcile this with the idea that these same heroes would later feel that Xandor was the one power that could be trusted to not misuse the infinity gem. I was put off by that, too. Xandar is supposed to be the righteous planet, yet they run the hellhole that is Kyln. Sure, the people put in Kyln are the worst of the worst, they still seemed pretty shitty about it. > [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > All of the “heroes” at that point were wanted criminals–KNOWN criminals. That was ultimately why I decided they weren’t standing trial and were shuffled directly to prison. They were previously convicted criminals. > [@tripthicket](#): > > One nitpick that made me frown: Nebula’s facepaint (or different parts of her head, or whatever that was supposed to be) was very sharp and clear, and fascinated me every time she was on screen. By contrast, the black streaks on Ronan’s face looked like the makeup artist assigned to that job let his toddler do it instead. Blotchy. Even facepaint applied by fingers (as this was shown to be, IIRC) is pretty much always better than that. Witness facepaint applied to braves going on the warpath, the black streaks under the eyes of football players, etc. [Nebula](http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3491086848/ch0036556) is a cyborg. Ronan had goopy stuff smeared on his face as part of his ritual preparation. Two very different things. It wasn’t just paint, it was some sort of presumably ancient concoction of herbs and spices in a slime of holy goodness. > [@muldoonthief](#): > > They had a running gunfight in the middle of the capital, with thousands of witnesses and presumably lots of security video as well. Can’t the “Guilty!” scene in a courtroom be assumed? Based on that, Quill was an innocent victim, first from robbery, and second for attempted abduction. Why was he sent to prison? > [@bucketybuck](#): > > Questions that nobody actually cares about. Um, yeah, I care about them. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/237 "2014-08-25T16:17:36Z")
My take on the “Guardians of the Galaxy” label is that it was used ironically to belittle the team by Ronan, something along the lines of “look at your ‘guardians of the galaxy’!” (as in ‘what a bunch of losers’). After that, the team turns it around on him when they have ahold of the infinity stone and Ronan asks something like ‘WTF are you?!’ And Starlord replies ‘you said it yourself - we are the guardians of the galaxy!’ This was foreshadowed by an earlier quip - Starlord says something like ‘I care about the galaxy because I’m one of the guys living in it’. In short, there was never any real notion that the entire galaxy was under threat. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/238 "2014-08-25T20:23:35Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Xandar is supposed to be the righteous planet, yet they run the hellhole that is Kyln. Sure, the people put in Kyln are the worst of the worst, they still seemed pretty shitty about it. The Kyln is also where the worst of Nova Corps end up. It was a guard telling the prisoners to kill Gamora in the showers so the clean up would be easier. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/239 "2014-08-25T20:26:10Z")
I don’t think that the Collector’s, er, collectibles were kept like animals in a zoo. I think they were all put in some form of suspended animation, so as to better preserve them. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556/240 "2014-08-25T21:10:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t think that the Collector’s, er, collectibles were kept like animals in a zoo. I think they were all put in some form of suspended animation, so as to better preserve them. Except they could react to passerbys. My nitpick is : The tape. No tape lasts that long, nor do tape players. So, we have one of two possibilities: Science could duplicate the tapes. but if so: why did he stress so much about going back for the tape? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guardians-of-the-galaxy-spoilers-i-imagine/694556.md?page=13)