James Gunn’s swan song to the Marvel Universe is aiming for your heartstrings, relying on previous films to enforce emotional stakes.
There is precisely one joke in Guardians of the Galaxy 3’s new trailer, so either the movie’s going to be a 2.5 hour fever dream of a depressive episode, or they’re saving the good zingers for the theater. James Gunn’s final Marvel movie certainly has style going for it, so let’s see what else the new head of DC is cooking in his MCU swansong.
Our first proper look at post-Endgame Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) after the recent Guardians Holiday Special is not painting him in a flattering light. He’s in a dingy space bar (presumably on Knowhere), heavily drinking. Also, Rocket’s here (voiced by Bradley Cooper), presumably coming to smack some sense into Quill OR steal his spaceship. Or both?
This was literally the only time in the entire trailer that the diagetic sound matched up to the soundtrack. I want ballads, glam rock bangers, and rugged crooning in a Guardians film, and I got none of that! Anyway, this shoot out looks like a continuation of whichever situation Peter was drinking over.
The whole gang, walking slowly away from a firey… explosion, I guess? Note once again the Guardians now use their Abnett/Lanning era comics uniforms, save for Groot (who looks Distressingly Wide here) and Gamora.
Just in case you had somehow forgotten that Peter was not over Gamora, here’s a flashback to the first film to jog your memory.
Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is innocent and has never done anything wrong, except for the fact that she appears to be wearing a prison jumpsuit here… as does Peter.
Like man, I’m sorry your girlfriend died, but join Marvel’s sad spouse club. This whole scene where Peter’s comparing Gamora 2 to Gamora 1 is icky as hell. Hopefully there’s actually going to be more to their relationship than Gamora 2 telling Peter she’s more than his memory of her predecessor.
But where *is* this mysterious prison the Guardians (and Gamora) have been sent to. And what’s in Peter’s hand though? and why does Nebula (Karen Gillan) rip off her sleeve on her cybernetic arm? There’s no reason for it. I dig it, but I don’t get it.
Nah, this “obviously Counter-Earth” according to an informative and delightful commenter on my last Guardians slideshow. We saw more footage of Counter-Earth in other trailers; it’s full of humanoid animal biped wagies in suburbs, likely a product of the High Evolutionary.
Here’s our first look at the base of the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a kind of mad scientist type who’s whole bag is genetic experimentation. Note the assistant’s smocks looking similar to the pink-skinned being we saw with Peter, Gamora, and Nebula earlier.
The Guardian’s ship, the Bowie, heads into an imposing fortress—presumably to meet the High Evolutionary.
This trailer has a lot of shots of a poor distressed young Rocket, but does little to tell us the origin story we’re seeing played out here, when he is experimented on in the comics on his home world of Halfworld to achieve sentience.
He’s just a little guy. Here, ti’s made clear that it’s the High Evolutionary who performed these experiments on Rocket in the MCU, not the Halfworld Robots from the comics.
This could absolutely be a scene in a horror film. I hate it.
Here’s the thing; the big crux of my issues with Quill’s emotional arc following the ‘she’s not who I remember’ post-snap emotions. First, this is the exact same plot that we’re seeing with Ant-Man in Quantumania when Scott Lang is reminiscing about his child, which is a much more compelling hook. Second, it fronts Peter’s feelings about Gamora in all these trailers, when there’s an interesting relationship we don’t get to see—the one with her sister, Nebula.
