By the time James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy rolled around, 10 installments deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was abundantly clear that these movies had developed a villain problem. Loki is always a blast, sure, but that just underscores how painfully dull characters like Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian from Iron Man 3 and Christopher Eccleston’s Malekith from Thor: The Dark World really are. If the heroes were fun and alive with personality, more often than not, their adversaries at this point were just brick walls meant to be smashed. Guardians Of The Galaxy runs into this problem head-on in a scene between two brick walls, as Lee Pace’s Ronan The Accuser gets into an argument with Josh Brolin’s Thanos—years before an entire movie was dedicated to fleshing out the Mad Titan as a thoughtful and compelling villain.
The scene involves Thanos summoning Ronan to the big space rock we last saw in the stinger from The Avengers so he can yell at him for losing Gamora and “the orb” (an object that is later revealed to be an Infinity Stone). Ronan, who is essentially a religious fanatic who decided that everyone in the universe should be punished for disrespecting his all-mighty Kree race, needs Thanos’ help to… do something bad. It’s actually unclear why Thanos is involved, which is one of the problems with the scene. Another is that both Pace and Brolin play the characters as little more than growling tough guys, so it’s about as exciting as one villain saying, “Don’t fuck with me,” and the other saying, “No, you don’t fuck with me.”
Pace is a fantastic performer (it’s outrageous that this is the MCU role he’s stuck with), and Brolin proved years later that he can do some interesting stuff with Thanos. But neither one does much of anything here. It doesn’t help that they’re in what could be the least interesting location in all of the MCU, with Thanos’ intimidating throne little more than flying chunks of stone attached to rockets so they make a chair shape. It’s bizarre, especially when taken alongside everything else in Gunn’s film. Guardians Of The Galaxy is a fun movie, and virtually everything else about it is at least reasonably entertaining. Two of the main characters are a gun-toting raccoon with a bad attitude and his talking tree buddy. The film opens with Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord singing along to “Come And Get Your Love.” And there’s a general breeziness to the dialogue that allows low-key jokes like everyone’s refusal to use the name “Star-Lord” feel more natural than, say, a very similar gag in Ant-Man.
To be fair, it’s not entirely Guardians Of The Galaxy’s fault that Pace’s Ronan The Accuser is such a bore. That’s entirely consistent with his characterization in the comics, where he began as a standard cackling villain but eventually grew into a perpetually straight-faced space cop. Also, one could argue that his absolute seriousness works as a good setup for how gobsmacked he is by Star-Lord, Rocket, and the other goofballs who eventually defeat him in the end. But it’s not really worth having the fun sucked out of every room he enters.
Then there’s Thanos, who had already been established as the main villain of the MCU at this point, meaning his brief appearance here is supposed to be a tease for bigger things to come. The wait for those bigger things was long, with another eight movies coming between Guardians Of The Galaxy and Infinity War, but it’s probably a good thing that Marvel had so much time to work out who Thanos is supposed to be. Here, the only indication that he has a personality is when he flashes Ronan a smile after sending him off with his tail between his legs. Speaking of Ronan, time has not been nearly as kind to him: When he popped up as a younger Accuser in Captain Marvel, he was somehow even less interesting.
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Another prime contender is when people unfamiliar with the comics are finally let it on what the Infinity Stones are, and how the series has been building up this ongoing story on basically a subconscious level.It’s pretty fun to rewatch this one and realize Captain Marvel likely played a pretty big role in why the Kree are now being forced to make peace. Ronan’s absurdly fortified room on his ship also makes a lot more sense now that we know he saw Carol tearing through his whole fleet.
I would have like Ronan to be more fleshed out in Captain Marvel rather than be reduced to a proverbial ticking time bomb.
It feels to me like they could have explored Ronan’s story more in CM2 if CM and CM2 (and maybe even CM3) had come out before GotG, but since Captain Marvel’s MCU entry was so delayed, now they’re using her to retcon certain things and it’s not lining up nicely.
It was kinda funny how they made a big deal of him returning and he was basically just a glorified cameo.
You know what doesn’t really make sense about Ronan? His plan at the end of the movie. We’re told all he has to do is touch his power stone infused hammer to the surface to destroy Xandar. But like…he’s standing on it. His ship crashed and he as no way to quickly escape or anything. So it seems pretty short sighted. Even if the power stone allowed him to survive the destruction wouldn’t he just be…floating there?
I would like to think that James Gunn had this in mind when writing the script for Guardians, but since Captain Marvel hadn’t even been signed off on as a project at the time, this seems more like a happy accident.
“Vers is a Starforce traitor! The treaty with Xandar is liberal nonsense! Build the wall to keep out the Skrulls! Make the Empire Great Again!”The Supreme Intelligence’s Galacti-Twitter feed is always a fun read.
“They can’t prove collusion with Thanos!”
“The Skrulls are sending us shape-shifters, mind-readers and infiltrators. And some, I assume, are good people.”
I would argue that’s a MUCH better pick than this scene. It not only sets the stage for Infinity War more clearly than any other scene before or since, it’s also an example of the cosmic weirdness Guardians brought to the MCU and how confidently they strode right into it. You have The Collector talking to the Guardians of the Galaxy about Eternals wielding the Infinity Stones in a room surrounded by things such as Howard the Duck and Adam Warlock’s cocoon. And general audiences didn’t blink an eye. That’s incredible, much more so than a little clumsy foreshadowing between a bland villain and a villain from a future movie that they hadn’t fleshed out yet.
That’s quite a fun notion. No Prize to you!
The ‘twist’ of making the Skrulls the ‘good guys’ was okay, but it would have been just as good to have had a movie where we were uncomfortably forced to cheer for Ronan, like the “The Man In The High Castle.”
I disagree about Aldrich Killian not being a good villain. He was such a prick, you just wanted to reach through the screen and punch him in the face.
Isn’t the real villain Tony Stark? All the people he’s needlessly insulted and schemes he’s recklessly initiated have caused countless needless extra deaths. How It Should Have Ended had it spot on with the rest of the Avengers saying they’d sign the Sokovia Accords if they renamed it the Tony Accords.
Considering I see IM3 as, being something from Shane Black, a ‘buddy cop” superhero film, Killian is just about on point as an 80’s throwback villain for that. Having some motivation is fine, and he does, but we need just enough to justify watching him get his ass kicked in Act 3.
Lee Pace’s Ronan doesn’t get much chance to shine, but man do I love his quiet, bewildered delivery of “What are you doing?” when Peter starts singing to him. It’s like what’s happening is so completely divorced from every aspect of his life up until this moment he’s totally incapable of responding to it.
Ronan’s “What are you doing?” is up there as one of the best lines in all of the MCU movies. And yes, I think it is better than, “Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?” which says a lot.
Yeah, it says a lot, alright. It says that you don’t know good lines in movies very well.
Oh, I do know good lines. In this case it’s more about the line reading than the line itself. Cap’s line is the better one (much better one) on paper but Pace (who is a better actor than Evans, yeah, I said it) kills it with Ronan’s line.
More like Dummsh
Wow, did you think of that yourself, or did the person who changes your diaper throw it in for free?
Yes, I’ll be sticking with my answer Alex, lock it in for $500
You just combined lexicon from three different game shows, you dense fuck.
I explicitly asked for no Whammies, and yet here you are
I don’t want to overstate this, because Ronan isn’t a particularly interesting villain, but I do think the “Ronan is boring and awful” line with regards to this movie is a bit much. I think he more or less works within the context of Guardians of Galaxy – he’s a humorless fanatic with a very clear, understandable motivation. Ronan isn’t going on anyone’s list of the best Marvel villains, but he’s basically effective here.
I’m still a bit unclear what his motivation is. We’re told he’s a fanatic, but what is he fanatical about? What are his beliefs, and how are they opposed by the people around him?
Its stated clearly in the film he is unhappy the Kree Empire signed a peace treaty with Xandar. Basically he’s an ultra-nationalist that can’t accept the war is over.
I still don’t get why he’s so unhappy about it. There’s a line where he says something along the lines of, “I was shunned for my beliefs”, but what are those beliefs? It still just feels like half a characterisation.
He mentions his father died fighting in the war, as well as his father before him. Its partly personal.
And if that were his sole motivation, I’d get that, although it would be kind of dull. The problem I have is that they have him characterised as a fanatic and then never tell you what he believes in. If they’re not going to explore it even slightly, don’t mention it at all. It just becomes frustrating when there’s no further exploration of this supposedly important character detail.
He says what he believes in in the movie: blood for blood vengeance. Kree died in the war, so it’s anathema to stop fighting until the enemy pays the price for every Kree death. He “accuses” Xandar of the crime of killing Kree, and his punishment for that is killing Xandarians.He’s a fanatic militarist that believes only war and punishment can protect the Kree Empire, and the “peace treaty” is a cowardly attempt by the Xandarians to escape the punishment for their crime of warring against the Kree Empire. (With a sideline of cowardice from the Kree that shunned him for his zeal.)It’s not the most interesting or complex fanaticism, but it is explained.
This is the truth.
And Quill explains, calling Ronan a “turdblossum” – which was George W. Bush’s nickname for Karl Rove!
The highlight of the dance off is either Lee Pace’s reaction or Gamora’s horrified shake of her head when Peter tries to get her to dance.
I kinda love how the villains in GotG seem to have fallen right out of He-Man. Sure, Ronan is no cackling Skelator, but their one-note characterisation felt right at home in an 80s kids cartoon, which is of course appropriate given Quill’s background. Funny how Nebula is now far more nuanced characters in the MCU, too.
Yeah. I mean, I think that confrontation between Quill and Ronan or the opening “Come and Get Your Love” sequence would have been ideal choices for this article, because they showed Marvel’s ability to tell stories in genres that are far removed from the real world (like space opera) while still anchoring them to audiences points of reference that don’t feel shoehorned in.
I’m not sure this scene is the best “one that says something about the MCU as an ongoing blockbuster phenomenon.”Granted, I don’t have as much of a problem with MCU villains as this site does, but wouldn’t the credits sequence of Quill dancing to “Come and Get Your Love”, or virtually any of the cosmic/space locations better point out that the MCU was branching (way) out from earth-based, grounded (as much as superhero stories can be) settings and situations?
Yeah this was a bizarre choice, to choose GotG as the film from which to pull the “boring villain” example from, when the movie far better represents how absurdly out-there Marvel was willing to go in their source material and resulting films. Any scene showing how crazy and crazy-funny the movie is would have been a better choice. Save the “boring villain” choice for another film. (I personally would have done it earlier, with Iron Man 2 or 3, or upcoming Avengers: AoU, or Dr. Strange.)
Also Guardians of the Galaxy does have a first rate villain: Karen Gillan as Nebula, who is full of rage and menace here as her feud with Gamora is established, before her gradual face turn in later movies makes her one of my favorite Marvel characters
This is such a good point!God, the scene choice for this article series is even worse.
Thor 2 – easily the most boring villain and possibly the biggest waste of talent in all cinema – “Let’s cast Christopher Eccleston and give him 30 seconds of screen time with no dialogue.”
Well, Kaecilius: How long have you been at Kamar-Taj, Mister…Dr. Stephen Strange: Doctor.
Kaecilius: Mister Doctor.
Dr. Stephen Strange: It’s Strange.
Kaecilius: Maybe. Who am I to judge?
Agreed, this scene is a bizarre choice. This is one of the very best movies the MCU has produced; the jailbreak scene, or Peter talking Drax out of killing Gamora, or Drax petting Rocket, or for fuck’s sake, ‘WE ARE GROOT’… And THIS is the scene that…Oh. This was written by Sam fucking Barsanti. Of course.
Yeah, but all those things have been discussed on this site ad nauseum. I liked that this article focused on a weakness rather than a strength.
Indeed, the man with a desk covered in porgs is too cool for the MCU.
Allow me to register my shock that, of all of the great “Marvel Moment” moments he could’ve chosen from, he went with the one he could bitch about for clicks.Shock.
The feature tends to spotlight less the highlights of the movie of the day and focus more on Disney’s strategy for building a cinematic universe. The fact that Guardians is so out there and loopy, I think, makes this franchise-obligated scene stand out more as a dull chore.
Indeed. There are certain problems inherent in the device of foreshadowing events in your “stingers” that haven’t been more than roughly outlined. I question whether any actor or director could really get a proper feel for these characters working from a single sheet script. And is is known for certain whether Gunn even personally directed the “stinger”? That really seems like a “second unit” kind of job.
Naturally the stingers work much better as a post- or mid-credits tease because then they are removed from the natural flow of the story. Throw one into the middle of the movie and it interrupts the narrative momentum. But once the story is told, we can begin to wonder what’s next. Naturally, this scene wouldn’t have worked at the end, since by then Ronan’s dead. And the Howard the Duck stinger after Guardians was more of an in-joke, unless he’s getting a movie too during Phase 4.
Even by that standard, the opening credits scene announced a major departure in tone and a lot more risk-taking for the series. The Ronan/Thanos meeting was the “insert series continuity scene” that had already been established (and led Whedon and others to leave the studio) in earlier movies. Yes, it moved the Thanos plot, but we already knew from Avengers that Thanos was using proxies to go after the stones.
I can see that, in which case I think a better scene would be the one with the Guardians meeting up with the Collector. It ties in the plot of the Infinity Stones, demonstrates what the Power Stone can do, and also features a lot of the weirdness of the world GotG is creating. It’s a great way to indicate that Thanos is not the only one who realises these stones are a big deal as well.
As much as I like the concept of this article series, there’s this weird “too cool for school” vibe to a lot of them, that’s kind of a turn-off. I’m not expecting them to be all fan gushing, but picking a “boring” scene from a movie like Guardians is a prime example of it.
“Too cool for school” sums up new A.V. club so perfectly. These poor sods just don’t realize that they well NEVER match Sean O’Neal’s masterful snark, either in terms of humor, heart, or basic intelligence.
In fairness, not everyone’s body is biologically designed to distill alcohol into pure, unadulterated snark.
Like how the Dissolve was just like the old A.V. Club, except no one was allowed to have any fun.
It’s been AV Club standard practice pretty much from Iron Man to belittle superhero movies in general and the MCU in particular. No, these movies only entertain people. They don’t make one THINK, the way a self-indulgent single shot following a dancer on LSD down a hallway where people are pointlessly beating each other up and setting each other on fire presumably makes one think, think about A! R! T!
They play y’all like Sega. Every time there’s anything looking like criticism leveled at Marvel films a lot of people do a lot of clicks and comments
I don’t think that’s it. They definitely don’t give a fuck about comments, and I think they’d get more clicks with straight-up fan boy coverage. No, I think they think they won’t be taken seriously if they don’t display at least mild contempt for superhero films.
I’d always heard comments are part of the metric used for “success” of these sort of things but couldn’t say for sure..I do get that it’s a bit ridiculous, I’m certainly not the biggest fan of the Marvel stuff but would argue if one isn’t it’s not really needed to keep going on about it.. Running long form coverage and then needling everything just feels a bit unnecessary
I think they needed to have at least one article like this, lest it drift too far into “Sponsored Post” territory
It’s not the best or even a pivotal scene in the film, but with the final destination of Endgame in mind, this glimpse of Thanos might be the most relevant scene in the movie. I think it was a good learning experience for Marvel: they tried writing Thanos the way that he speaks in the Infinity Gauntlet series, and that went over like a lead balloon. Since then, they’ve made his speech more naturalistic, which fits more squarely in Brolin’s wheelhouse. Originally GotG was supposed to be a Thanos movie, and Ronan got subbed in later in development to save Thanos for Avengers 3/4. This awkward scene is the handoff that’s needed to set up the dynamic between Gamora and Nebula (which doesn’t work without Thanos making an appearance to tell everyone Gamora’s his favorite) and for them to run a search-and-replace on the rest of the script where all of the lines marked “THANOS” are now “RONAN.” I’m betting that Ronan having no stake in the Gamora/Nebula feud (and not really pursuing the stone for his own sake) is a big part of the reason his character doesn’t seem to have a story in the movie. He’s just a middleman.It was clumsy, but fundamentally it worked: GotG requires Quill to dunk on the villain, and having the Guardians beat Thanos in their movie would bleed much of the threat out of Infinity War and Endgame, so they wasted Lee Pace by casting him as the disposable straight man villain for Quill to punk and the Guardians to defeat. The original story was probably more consistent with Marvel storylines where Quill and Thanos consider each other peers and frienemies, but Infinity War works better because Quill (and everyone else) is completely outclassed by Thanos.
Hell, I would have gone with the 2 second scene of Groot screaming while Rocket fires a gun from his back.
My choice would have been the prison escape. It’s a classic get-the-heroes-together scene, it highlights the various Guardians abilities, and it’s perhaps the scene that really shows off that this film is still going to deliver the Marvel goods.
I’ve been enjoying this series so far, but your right. This is a bizarre choice. At this point Marvel started to gain the confidence to show off more of a sense of humor and the more out there regions of the universe.
I understand that they didn’t want to choose just action sequences. My personal pick then would be the introduction of The Collector and the backstory of the stones. It gives Kirby just as important of a place as Stan Lee in the MCU. It shows off a much, much wider universe than any of the other films even hinted at. It provides the backstory for the McGuffins that eventually kill half the universe, it also introduces the Elders of the Universe and hints Adam Warlock and the Eternals.
Speaking of Ronan, time has not been nearly as kind to him: When he popped up as a younger Accuser in Captain Marvel, he was somehow even less interesting.
To be fair, how exactly do you follow up with being defeated by a dance-off, even if Captain Marvel was a prequel? Ronan was nothing more than an underwritten plot device to connect both the Guardians and Captain Marvel to Infinity War.
I think they just needed to show off some more friction between Ronan and the rest of the Kree to foreshadow him going renegade. If you saw ‘Captain Marvel’ before ‘GotG’, I doubt you’d think there was any chance of him being significant later on.
They did show SOME friction in that Jude Law’s completely evil character was still hesitant about letting Ronan off the leash. Like “I’m bad… but that guy is CRAZY,” type stuff.
To be faaaiiiirrr
The Avengers movies don’t have a villain problem. Villains shouldn’t have to be “sympathetic”. Some people are just shitty people.
Disappointed that this is the pick for Guardians Of The Galaxy moment, but it is a good example of the MCU’s villain problem. Luckily, they’ve fixed since Phase 3 gave us their best ones: Zemo, Ego, The Vulture, Hela, The Grandmaster, Killmonger, Ghost, and the new and improved Thanos.
Yes, I know it’s the TV shows and hence in the quantum state of part of/not part of take it or leave it but my favourite villain by far in the MCU when extended is Hive, especially that ending where they’re just contemplatively chilling out in such meditative fashion.
If we reach into TV shows, Kingpin and Killgrave are the best executed villains. It helps having time to build them over multiple episodes (or seasons). I understand why Captain Marvel reverted to a less fleshed-out villain. He’s a soldier/that’s his mission works for the plot and allows the movie to spend more time on Carol growing into her power and the relationship with SHIELD/Fury that will be critical in Endgame.
Hive was okay, but I didn’t like that he took over Grant Ward’s body. I would have preferred if Ward had stuck around as a constant fly in SHIELD’s soup as he became a lot more interest when he turned into a HYDRA zealot.
My issue with Hive is that Ward was such a better villain on his own.
Ghost? for real?!? I’d argue she’s a strong contender for the worst villain.First of all, her tragic back story is almost identical to Whiplash’s (father stole tech from a SHIELD Tech genius and – whoa man – things went awry).Secondly, she was just a frown’y personality with CGI blur-movement: weaponised “Meh.” Her character arc was extremely short but somehow they made it feel like a long, predictable, boring story.
Finally, she got completely overshadowed by several degrees of magnitude by Walton Goggin’s character, who managed to accomplish more villainy with no super powers but a lot of panache.Ghost is the worst. I’m even letting the Ego thing slide.
So, which actor was more under-utilized in the MCU: Lee Pace or Idris Elba?
It would be a tough call if Thor: Ragnarok didn’t exist, but because it does: absolutely Lee Pace. Idris Elba gets to take the helmet off and show his face and play Aragorn for the whole movie.
Lee Pace, without a doubt. He didn’t even get to back one pie! One pie! And that’s terrible.
That’s two references from outside franchises. You’re playing with fire…
Lee Pace.
Elba was great in Ragnarok, stole scenes in Thor 1, & had one hell of a death scene in Infinity War. Pace got stuck as the 2nd-blandest cosmic villain in the franchise (after Malekith, of course), & apparently had what would’ve been his big scene cut out of Captain Marvel.
Christopher fuckin’ Eccleston
Without a doubt! Honestly if you didn’t see his name in the credits you’d have thought they’d just got a day player in to play the role.
I get everyone’s love for Elba, I really do, but in these movies he got the role he signed up for. Heimdall is just not an important character, he’s a fancy doorman. In the first Thor movie he’s less important than Thor, Jane, Loki, Odin, Selvig, and Laufey. He’s arguably less important than Sif and the warriors three. I’m not sure how much material he could have reasonably expected.
Guardians Of The Galaxy is a fun movie, and virtually everything else about it is at least reasonably entertaining.
That’s because it’s the best Marvel movie.At most it’s a tie with Winter Soldier, but that’s a different kind of fun.
“Tie with Winter Soldier” is the correct answer
You know your villain is dull when he’s not even the most interesting Ronan who goes around accusing people.
If Captain Marvel had premiered before GotG, Ronan’s arc might have made a little more sense. Then again, even as it is now with CM out, Ronan went from “good Kree soldier” to “zealous fanatic” over just two movies with no explanation.
I got to see an early preview of just the jailbreak scene in early 2014, and it was pretty clear from just those 8-10 minutes or so that Marvel was taking a step in a completely different direction. I have my issues with Guardians as a film (I find the third act to be pretty meh), but for a studio to take a step back from the enormous success it found in The Avengers in 2012 or even in The Winter Soldier earlier that year is pretty incredible.So much rad shit in the jailbreak – Drax going full MMA fighter on the guards, Rocket losing his shit with a machine gun on Groot’s shoulder, the prosthetic lag gag, Gamora beating her way through like six dudes up on the catwalks, “Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.”, Rocket hot-wiring the whole control room to fly outta there, ‘They crumpled my pants in to a ball! That’s rude! They folded yours!’, Quill going back to get his Walkman as the Pina Colada Song plays, so much rad shit. Some of the best characters in the MCU introduced with a bang in just under ten minutes.OOGA OOGA OOGA CHAKA
I will argue to my death that “Nothing goes over my head, my reflexes are too fast. I would…catch it” is the best-delivered line in the entire MCU. Just the little pause before and the emphasis he puts on “catch” just slays me.
“Nothing goes over my head, my reflexes are too fast. I would…catch it” I had literally not heard of Dave Bautista before Guardians. If I had I doubt I would have expected much. But he kills in every scene. Even just when he says “…metaphor…!” (and honestly I can’t remember what exact line he refers to there), he shows off natural comic timing and presence that a lot of trained actors strive for and don’t get.
Totally agree. I was kinda bummed when I heard they cast a wrestler, because let’s be honest, not a whole lot of wrestlers prove themselves to be high quality thespians. But man, was I wrong. Bautista is routinely and legitimately great in every scene he’s in, and has only improved as an actor both in the MCU and the other movies he’s done since. His laugh always cheers me up, and he seems like such a sweet guy, too. Yes, Drax, I would like a hug.
Uh, was that supposed to be space, or something?
Hey, MikeD is here with a pointless comment. Everybody take a shot!
OKAY!
I think it’s a shame they killed off Ronan so quickly. I actually really liked his serious, implacable, nature, and would have LOVED to see more of Pace just being generally menacing and lethal.My prediction for the GotG entry was the opening dance intro though, so I was already wildly off-base with this one.
Same, I was hoping “Come and Get Your Love” would be GOTG’s Marvel Moment. It set the tone for what the movie – and the next Guardian sequel – would be like and why they became so surprisingly successful despite their relative anonymity to the general public.
This series seems to be descending rapidly into “why the MCU kinda sucks” which seems to be a) counter to its purpose, and b) the AV Club’s bread and butter these days.No doubt this scene’s a bit clunky, but it’s not “the” scene worth celebrating in this film, ya big turdblossom.
at the top of literally every entry, they say “To mark the occasion, The A.V. Club is revisiting all 21 movies in this mega-franchise through a single, significant scene in each: not the best or most memorable scene, necessarily, but the one that says something about the MCU as an ongoing blockbuster phenomenon.”
Agreed, I dont really see the purpose of this feature especially since we have the far superior Age of Heroes column
I know the scene I’d pick.They’ve saved the day, they got their ship back, they’ve discovered they’re heroes. Damaged people who found each other and together won a second chance.Peter is alone and finally opens his mom’s gift. Reads her letter. Looks lost and longing while hearing the first song from Awesome Mix 2. Gamora finds him and they have a moment of unspoken honest connection.James Gunn pulled off something far more amazing than a talking tree.
Runner up, the aftermath of I Have A Plan. Peak moment of having it both ways, it’s moving and emotional and completely ridiculous.“I have lived most my life surrounded by my enemies. I will be grateful to die among my friends.”(music swells)“You are an honorable man Quill. I will fight beside you. And in the end, see my wife and daughter again.”(music swells)“I am Groot.”
“Now I’m standing too, are you happy? Bunch of Jack assess standing in a circle”
I love how in one of the recent Endgame trailers they show the Avengers and Rocket standing around in a circle.
This. This moment sums up what makes this film something truly special.
If you are truly surprised Ronan sucks all the fun out of the room, then it seems you haven’t spent any time in the company of religious fanatics.
I don’t agree that this scene is “the Marvel moment” but in terms of building up to Infinity Endgame War, I get it. But I do agree that building Thanos up was incredibly lackluster.
His smirk in Avengers was cool, but this scene he seemed very… average? And not very animated. He was comfortable in that chair and wasn’t going to budge for anything.
Then the Ultron post-credits scene where Thanos utters his pissy “fine I’ll do it myself” line, just makes him seem annoyed, like a teenager who failed to convince their younger sibling to take out the trash.∞-War redeemed him of course and made him three-dimensional, scary and sweet. But Guardians 1 was a waste of Josh Brolin.
Also: Ronan killed Wesley in this scene! 🙁 The Other wasn’t a great character…. but… it was Wesley!
I kind of hope they can bring Alexis Denisof back as another MCU character at some point. It’s not like anyone recognized it was him in this role anyway.
This scene really does highlight how much Brolin was allowed to bring to the role in Infinity War. The amount of character he puts across with his line readings is amazing – compare the melodramatic “I will bathe the stairways with your blood” here with the more simple but fury-and-menace filled “Come on!!” to Iron Man during their fight. My favourite example though is his reply to Stark’s “You know me?” of “I do”. Brolin imbues it with so much – it’s confident to show his intelligence and advantage over Stark but its also weirdly sympathetic, calming, curious and kind.
THIS is your scene for Guardians? Seriously? Not the scene where the team comes together and commits to taking down Ronan? Not the dance-off? Not “WE are Groot”? Not the prison break? Any one of which does a far better job at characterizing what the Guardians brought to the MCU? No, you had to just take a shot at the lame villain instead of focusing on what makes the movie actually GOOD.
For a pop culture website, you guys sure suck at covering the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the past decade.
It probably would have been better if he meet Manos instead.
Just listening to Brolin’s delivery there, you can see how he hasn’t zeroed in on the character yet (probably because it’s so underwritten at this point). It’s all very sonorous and heavy but with no real feeling. Compare it to how he speaks his lines in ‘Infinity War’, where he can go from a softer, more understanding tone to sudden rage to snarky to mournful, and you see an actor who’s got a much better handle on what he should be doing.
And sometimes it takes a few reps. I feel like they didn’t crystalize Widow’s character fully until Winter Soldier
yes, the MCU has reduced many great actors to utter shit as villains. Christopher Eccleston, Lee Pace, and, worse of all, Cate Blanchett, who seemed strangely much more concerned with looking hot than giving the worst performance in a good movie…and she did look hot. At least Brolin found his footing, specifically in the Red Skull sequence in Infinity War. Too bad even in Captain Marvel, Lee Pace still couldn’t do anything with Ronan. At least he got paid, and I still love him…but he needs to do something weird plus ambisexual again pls
You had me at Eccleston and Pace … and then lost me at Blanchett. I think she delivers some of the most menacing energy in an MCU film since her brother Loki was tearing shit up.
Yeah, Hela was terrific“Whoever I am? Did you not listen to a word I said?”
“*I* am the Goddess of Death! What are *you* the god of again?”
I suppose we can thank this film for formerly introducing the Kree to the MCU while AOS was kind of hinting at them with that X-Files-esque corpse of one. I myself didn’t really see the film proper until sometime halfway through SHIELD S2 so it was a bit jarring to see some of them be more casual.I suppose in hindsight Guardians 1 kind of showcases many of the flaws with them in that they’re kind of generic warrior evil. They’re kind of like the Klingons in Star Trek Discovery (especially in SHIELD Season 5).Like they’re kind of cool as a background element and the stuff with the Inhumans is interesting but you spend too much time with them and you realize just how lame these guys actually are. I just hope we don’t have to deal with them too much more in the future (like I know they’ll be back just don’t over do it) or at the very least make them actually interesting.
First glance I thought it said Ronin.I was wrong.
Yeah i guess that could be weirdly boring to someone who doesn’t really know or care about these characters. My friends and I were on the edge of our seats finally getting to hear Thanos speak finally. Also this scene is big since its the first time we learn how Thanos feels about Gamora
Lee Pace would be an awesome Batman. He deserves a role like that. Or just bring him back into the MCU in some other non-blue skin role.
I will continue to argue that, as his first appearance beyond the Avengers tease, GotG really kind of fucked Thanos over as a character.
We have a whole bunch of people talking about how fearsome powerful he is and how to cross him as death sentence…
Then, to paraphrase Tommy Wiseau, EVERYBODY BETRAY HIM.
For the first official outing of what is supposed to be sold as the biggest, baddest shit in the MCU, it’s a bad look when his first time out ends in everyone he’s working with basically deciding to just fuck right off without much concern for consequences, save for Nebula.
LOL. That’s all I can do at your choice. Ronin was all power and no BS, and the Guardians were all BS and no power. It was the perfect ying yang situation. A giant what we lack in power, we make up for in personality movie. Thanos was a cameo. You want a Leprican riding your unicorn. There are so many better examples of the villian not working.
let me get this…you had to pick a scene from Guardians Of The Galaxy and you choose….this?
Speaking of Ronan, time has not been nearly as kind to him: When he popped up as a younger Accuser in Captain Marvel, he was somehow even less interesting.Everyone went nuts when they heard Ronan was going to appear in Captain Marvel, with all sorts of folks like “now we get to really see them flesh out the character!” and in the end we actually get less than we did before, which I don’t think anybody knew was possible. Same with Horvath, really.
Yeah, even as someone who really liked the movie, another waste of Pace (and Djimon) was aggravating; I really hope the seeds planted in the final act of CM means third time will be the charm for them.
This scene wasn’t boring. I thought it was pretty cool.
I’ve said this before but in terms of motivation there really isn’t much to differentiate “boring” villain Ronan the Accuser from “sympathetic and nuanced” villain Killmonger. It’s just that the latter’s violent, racist militancy is taken from a real world POV that many modern identitarians support, so he gets a pass. (And, to be fair, because the incredibly charismatic Michael B Jordan gets a lot more screen time with him.)
Marvel has certainly had its share of underwhelming villains, but this take about them having a “villain problem” is just so basic and superficial.
Great movie, terrible problem with the villain. Mostly Thanos, who’s supposed to be this big bad that we’re building to, and gets mostly spoken about in hushed tones or how he did these terrible things, and is immediately betrayed by Ronan. Still one of the best Marvel movies (and a great movie in general)
Now that it’s pointed out.. yeah, this is kind of a nothing scene. For me, as a longtime Marvel reader, it made sense and was even kind of fun, but as a way to establish… anything, about Ronan or Thanos, it doesn’t really go anywhere. I would vote the Marvel Moment for GotG to be the scene of Peter Quill singing along to “Come and Get Your Love”. It establishes, early on, that this is going to a funnier movie than we expected, especially with the opening cancer-dying bit. It introduces a goofy, charming character (who’s not aware of how goofy he is, but come on, he’s kind of still a teenager) and a looser, less apparently world-threatening, scenario. The guy’s stealing stuff and having fun doing it, that’s what’s going on.I just saw Shazam, which I assumed would be more kid-friendly than Guardians, and it illustrates yet another DC vs. MCU problem. In Shazam/Billy Batson, they have a great character and a formula, Big meets superhero movie, and that’s how much of the movie plays. But there’s a pretty realistic, horrific car crash, there’s an injured father blaming his son for it, there’s a woman pretty much abandoning her 3 year old at a carnival… It’s a decent movie, I enjoyed it, but I don’t quite get what they thought their key demographic was. I mean – tone it the hell down, DC. There were families in the theater and I could hear some little ones were upset; at least one dad took his crying kid out to the lobby.Anyway – I know Guardians isn’t especially a kid’s movie, but it, and Ant-Man, and Homecoming, all show that the MCU understands that they can appeal to different audiences, since they have all these different heroes. I’m pretty sure DC owns even more heroes, but it seems like they can’t shake this whole dark-and-scary vibe.
Why would you pick this?