guardians of the galaxy

I am really sick of being commanded to like things by the Nerd Hivemind

Posted on by froborr

I can already see that Guardians of the Galaxy is going to go, for me, the same route as Pacific Rim:

World: Hype hype hype hype hype.
Me: …What is everyone so excited about? I don’t see what’s particularly special about this.
*movie actually comes out, I see it*
World: OMG THAT WAS THE GREATEST THING EVAR!!!
Me: Eh, that was okay, not great.
Everyone I say that to: How dare you? Anyone who considers this less than the absolute pinnacle of human achievement is a horrible person!
Me: *sighs, enumerates the flaws I saw in it*
Them: But raccoon with a machinegun/giant robot punching kaiju!
Me: …yes, and? I’ve been an anime fan for twenty years, neither of those even registers on the novelty-meter.
Them: [accusations regarding my character, statements that I “hate fun,” etc.]

Repeat for several months, during which “okay, not great” steadily devolves into outright hatred.

Admittedly, Guardians of the Galaxy was WAY more entertaining than Pacific Rim, but it was still ultimately just another disposable popcorn movie that should have been about the female lead and instead shoehorned in a vastly less interesting Whitey McManpain to be the main character.

(No but seriously everything wrong with Guardians of the Galaxy would be fixed if Gamora were the main character and her journey the main focus, and Starlord reduced to comic-relief sidekick.)

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Posted on by froborr

I can’t shed the worry that I’ve actually posted this thought before, but a search didn’t reveal it, so: Am I the only one who’s more interested in the next X-Men movie than the next Marvel movie? Obviously, it’s hard to judge a movie by its trailer, but based on what I’ve seen, neither the new Captain America nor Guardians of the Galaxy looks like it’ll be up my alley, though at the moment I plan to see both. Meanwhile, I really enjoyed X-Men: First Class and I love stories about time travel, especially ones that follow events in both time periods. (Once again I point to Frequency as the closest to perfection of any movie about time travel I’ve ever seen.) So I find myself, even though I disliked X-Men 3 and deliberately avoided the Wolverine movies, much more interested in Days of Future Past than anything Marvel’s got lined up this year. (Though what I’m really anticipating is the Black Widow movie, but that’s still a good couple of years off.)