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The Fandom Portals Podcast
"Welcome to Fandom Portals—the show that explores how your favourite fandoms can help you learn and grow!" 🎙️✨
Each episode, we explore TV, movies, comics, and games to reveal how these worlds and the characters in them help us learn about resilience, courage, friendship, and more.
The Fandom Portals Podcast is hosted by Aaron Davies and Adam Brasher, two friends who are obsessed with fandoms, storytelling, and building a community where passion and positivity come first. From Marvel to Middle-earth, Star Wars to indie comics, we dive deep into the stories you love — and how they help us learn and grow. ✨
The Fandom Portals Podcast
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) – Rocket's Journey from Trauma to True Hero. Found Family, Healing, and the Heart of the MCU
Episode Summary:
We dive deep into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, exploring how this emotional conclusion to James Gunn's trilogy reveals that Rocket's journey was the heart of the series all along. Beneath the spectacle and space-faring action beats a profound story about healing, found family, and the transformative power of empathy.
Topics:
The secret of this trilogy has always been hiding in plain sight: it was Rocket's story all along. Vol. 3 peels back the layers of this wounded character's trauma, revealing how a creature created to be discarded found purpose through connection. The film doesn't shy away from showing the cruelty that formed him, making his journey toward healing all the more powerful. Through flashbacks that gradually expand our understanding of his origins, we witness how the High Evolutionary's experiments created not just Rocket's cybernetic body, but his defensive emotional walls.
Each Guardian carries their own trauma – Peter's arrested development following his mother's death, Nebula's systematic dismantling by Thanos, Drax's loss of his family, and Mantis's servitude to Ego. What makes this film special is how it demonstrates that healing doesn't happen in isolation. These broken individuals become whole not by "fixing" themselves individually, but by forming connections that allow them to move forward together.
By the time we witness each Guardian finding their purpose – Peter reconnecting with his grandfather, Nebula and Drax caring for orphaned children, Mantis seeking her own identity, and Rocket embracing leadership – we understand that their strength comes not from being flawless, but from embracing each other's flaws.
Key Takeaways:
• How music connects characters emotionally and serves as a storytelling device throughout the trilogy
• Examining the impact of grief, trauma, and emotional loops on each Guardian's healing journey
• Analyzing how empathy drives every major moment in the trilogy, especially in Volume 3
• Breaking down the High Evolutionary as a villain who represents the antithesis of the Guardians' found family values
• Exploring Rocket's transformation from defensive loner to true leader
• Unpacking Peter Quill's arrested development and how he finally processes childhood trauma
• Highlighting Nebula's journey from Thanos's broken "creation" to compassionate leader
• Appreciating how Drax and Mantis embody emotional intelligence in different but complementary ways
Apple Podcast Tags: GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3, MarvelMovies, RocketRaccoon, JamesGunn, MCU, HighEvolutionary, PeterQuill, FoundFamily, NebulaMCU, DraxTheDestroyer, MantisMCU, ComicBookMovies, SuperheroFilms, MarvelCinematicUniverse, FandomPo
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Welcome to the Fandom Portals Podcast, the podcast that explores how fandoms can help us learn and grow. Today, I'm here with Mr Brash Rackham. How are you going today, brash? I am Groot, that was awesome, which is Groot?
Speaker 1:for don't do well yourself. Yeah, not too bad. That's uh, grutees. The reason we're talking like this, everybody, is because we are doing the guardians of the galaxy, a volume three today on the phantom portals podcast. If you've been keeping up with our social media, this would be no surprise to you, because I've been posting lots of things about that trilogy. Now, this is a trilogy that is about some characters that are still reeling from the loss of Gamora. Peter Quill rallies his team to defend the universe and save his best friend, rocket, a mission that could end the Guardians if they're not successful. Now, this is a very awesome movie and I'm going to get into it and tell you everything that's going to happen in this episode, but before we do that, we are going to jump into our gratitudes. Rash, what's your?
Speaker 2:gratitude for the week is actually you. Oh, I'm grateful for you, especially on your birthday. Happy birthday for all those.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man, Recording date on my birthday. What better way to spend my birthday than with a good mate talking about a great movie? Oh man.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm grateful for you, and it's also for a selfish reason though, but I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for you because, in a way, you make me better. So when I had my house made here, I sort of like having people around me more constantly just makes me better and less closed in and shut in. So like if I'm alone by myself for a long period of time, I'll sort of fall into this sort of like a pit where I I just don't have the energy or just can't bother doing things like cleaning the house becomes like a I'll go do that, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow. I'm like that's not too bad, I'll do it tomorrow. And then it ends up being out of control.
Speaker 2:But with um, like you, uh, when we come around to the podcast, I can get me excited and I get amped up and I'm more energized and like I'll zip around and like it'll take me, like it takes me like an hour, half an hour, to vacuum the floors. But if it's just being by myself, I'm like I can't even bother doing that. But like knowing that you'll come around and I'm like, oh, I'll clean up and I'll vacuum up and I'll do those things and it's just. It gives me energy. It gives me like it's like a vampire. I'm like it's like being in the lifeblood of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, purpose than just getting up, going to work, coming home and just repeating that same cycle. Yeah, I don't swear often on this podcast, man, but fuck, yeah, thanks, man. That's awesome, that's a good gratitude, and I appreciate it because I feel the same way about you. I've been grateful for you before. I'm grateful for you all the time because you know my life's up and down, sometimes in terms of flexibility and availability, and you're always, you know, accommodating for that and we always have such good discussions on the podcast. But also, it's just great to hang out in a space that's like safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, honestly, I the time we talked before and like after podcast could almost be its own podcast, just yeah, I think so right if I'm best. I am grateful for you and for um the opportunities that you allow us having that well thanks, man.
Speaker 1:I do appreciate that my gratitude this week comes from, uh, the fact that this is being recorded on my birthday, and I've recently changed roles in my job and when I did that, I returned to an old team that I used to work with and they remembered my birthday From years ago when I used to work with them. They remember my birthday and actually organized a cake and a nice little morning tea and things like that. So it was really nice to go back and actually be remembered in that way. So nice people, good friends. It's been a really good day, actually like that and then coming out and doing this podcast with you and hanging out even more. It's just such a good day. It's awesome times. I hope you guys listening out there have a really good day too, because, yeah, there's lots of things to be grateful for and that's why we love this segment.
Speaker 1:No-transcript, emotionally powerful. We're going to look at how music in Volume 3 helps you to connect more deeply with your characters, and we're also going to look at the impact of grief, trauma and emotional loops on those characters and what that says about their healing. Lastly, we're going to look at empathy and how it's not just a theme in this movie. It's something that you can see driving every major moment in the Guardians of the Galaxy all the way up to Volume 3. So lots of good things to touch on in this episode. Let's get to our call sheet backspash. Who directed this movie? James Gunn, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely James Gunn directed this movie.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, is this going to be a trick question.
Speaker 1:No of questions. James Gunn directed this movie. He wrote this movie as well, with the help of Jim Stalin and, obviously, stan Lee being the creator of Marvel. It is starring Chris Pratt, bradley Cooper as the famous voice of Rocket Raccoon, and it has Chippewa Yuji as the high evolutionary. Do you know what the budget was, brash?
Speaker 2:I'm always wrong with these stories. They're way too low. Oh, you do actually. Yeah, I always go too low, so I'm going say probably so wrong as well. Uh like 300 million, 260 million, 250 million 250 million is correct.
Speaker 1:We'll take your third answer 250 million is absolutely correct. Yeah, no, no, that's not too high. 250 was pretty much what they gave james gunn. They kind of gave him a blank check on this. One is what I. I read whatever he wanted to spend on this one, within reason, they would let him, obviously, because this was the closing arc for the characters and they didn't really need to write any of these characters into any feature movies like the aven Avengers movies that they had to consider when they were doing Guardians of the Galaxy 2. So James Gunn was free to finish this story off how he wanted and he did it to the sound of $250 million, earning $846 million. In opening weekend they got $118 million. Now that kind of says a little bit.
Speaker 1:And you know, everybody looks at box office and they kind of think, oh, you know, it doesn't really suggest how good or bad a movie is. And that's very true, especially for a Marvel movie, because initially, the hype around Marvel, the opening weekend, is always high and to compare it to something, for example, this earned $118 million in its opening weekend and Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania got $106 million in its opening weekend. Now, looking at those two. They're not too far apart. However, if word of mouth occurs and people keep coming to the movies and this one Guardians of the Galaxy 3, ended up earning $846 million, whereas Ant-Man and the Wasp, quantumania basically bottomed out with only $406 million, which is half of what Guardians earned with the same weekend amount. So obviously it is a well-liked movie, had a lot of good word of mouth and it is also pretty highly rated on too. If you want to come and follow us, it is the second highest rated Marvel movie on Letterboxd after Infinity War.
Speaker 2:I like pretty much all the Marvel movies, because I don't go into the Marvel movies going. Alright, this better be exactly how it is in comics, because you're never going to get that and it's the same universe, it's the same thing, so you just have to sort of take the change.
Speaker 1:That's like the new Fantastic Four movie, with everyone half on a basketball, so far being the female iteration of which there is as many iterations of so far so, yeah, yeah, I think that's that's really valid, and I also think that James Gunn does that with his characters too, where he will see them in the comic books and he will use some of them. He uses in name and appearance and abilities only and everything else surrounding how they they go on. He uses that to fit into the story, uh, that he wants to tell. Now, some of them are obviously very reminiscent of the comic books, but I feel like james gunn had a very unique and planned vision across his trilogy of guardians of the galaxy movies, because in this movie, guardians volume 3, we learn that this story was uh rockets all along. And going back and looking and watching guardians 1 and 2 and we'll touch on this as we talk in the podcast today you can actually see like little snippets from those characters where a re-watch really reveals so much more about what that character is saying early on in the film. And it's a really unique and fun way to make a movie, because usually the unique, the, the usual way to make a narrative story is you give all the backstory first in the orientation, you move to the complication and it ends up uh, challenging what that character thought they were, and then they change on the end of it. However, in a lot of this movie, we see a lot of our guardians in an already fractured state, and I don't mean fractured as in they're broken physically or some are in the form of nebula, but a lot of them are fractured emotionally, like trauma-wise yes, and all different kinds of trauma. Yeah, yeah, and we'll look at that a little bit later on in the pod as well, but right now we're going to get into our hot first takes. All right, this is the segment where we discuss our first thoughts on the media and unpack the boldest opinions, from what surprised us to what split the room. We'll also highlight your hot takes from threads, instagram and Reddit. If you want to get involved in that, go and check out our show notes. Our social medias will be down there. You can. Oh my God, first brush.
Speaker 1:I don't give five stars lightly on Letterboxd, but I gave all three of these Guardians movies five stars. Favorite Guardians movie. We had a poll on our threads. What do you think the favorite movie from our community was in terms of Guardians 1, 2, and 3? I want to say 1. It is absolutely 1, with 49% of the vote. Second place is 3 with 35% and then 16%.
Speaker 1:Guardians of the Galaxy 2. My favorite Guardians of the Galaxy of Galaxy 2. I know it does suffer a little bit in the writing in terms of them having the pigeonhole characters to fit into the Avengers roster and things like that, but I really just love the themes throughout.
Speaker 1:Guardians 2, in terms of you know, guardians has always been stories about really bad dads.
Speaker 1:If you look at Guardians 1, there's obviously Yondu, who is an extremely how we say this abrasive dad, although he he does have good intentions and fix it in number two. And then you've got Ego, who is just the narcissistic, egocentric dad, and then Thanos, throughout as well, obviously being the dad of Nebula and Gamora. And then in this one we've got the High Evolutionary, who is a creator slash father figure of Rocket, who is also extremely toxic, but in number two. I just feel like one of those bad dads gets a good closing arc in the form of Yondu, where he tried to do his best a lot of the time and he says it in that line that he says you know well, he may have been your father, but he wasn't your daddy. And then after that he says I'm sorry, I didn't do a lot of it right and I cry every time. I watch that, every single time. I've probably watched it five times and I've watched and cried five times because that's such a relatable feeling and that's why number two is my favorite.
Speaker 2:What's where they all get together? But I have to say when I watched 3, 3 became my favourite in 1. Like it introduced you to. Like you had the Kree. It introduced you to sort of like the Kree with Ronan the Accuser and the Nova Corps as well. We saw a lot of the Nova Corps and the Nova Corps, which I was actually hoping we might actually get a sort of Nova. But no, no, sneaky mentions of Richard Rider.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I love one. I really like two, but for me it was a bit. I just couldn't as much as like how I said before, I try and take anything from the comics out of it. When I watch them it's all different. I just couldn't get past Ego being Bill's dad Yep, yeah, and like, and Mantis being an alien that E ego stole instead of being born on like human just changed and everything like that.
Speaker 2:And I love Mantis as well. I reckon she's a fabulous character. Actually in the comics it's meant to be a swordsman who's been in both Hawkeye and Daredevil 3i became my favourite. I think it's because of all the trauma healing that everyone goes through. I absolutely love that. And there's like there's things for everyone, like there's heartbreak healing a heartbreak there's. There's like Rocket stopping running from his past and accepting what's happened and moving forward. And then there's um Drax realizing what his future could be, which we'll go into later. Yeah, finding like a purpose other than being Drax the Destroyer, which is mentioned in the movie by Mantis. And then Nebula finding her place with her family and finding something that she can build herself. That's not her reconstruction, and like they all have their moments.
Speaker 1:And they get closure. Yeah, it's a fun group. It doesn't really get much. Yeah, well, for Guardians 2 and 3, which is obviously the same group throughout, and in Guardians 1 that's the different group, or that Groot's father, or Groot spawn, you might say. But for the second Groot, his growth kind of occurs.
Speaker 1:He's used as a plot device in number two, as baby Groot basically, so the rest of the Guardians can galvanize around him and there are so many moments and that's another reason why I like Guardians 2 is because they're all going through lots of different father issues and historically, through the guardians, we know that they all have these farther issues. But there's that scene in guardians 2 where peter and rocket are trying to coach baby groot on how to detonate a bomb, and it's just such a supportive environment for this little thing that's obviously made mistakes before about going trying to get yondu's fin and coming back with various different things, including a seven human thumb. But he's just made all these mistakes before, and then they're still trying to coach him and teaching on how to operate this device. They're trusting him, they're giving him the time to learn it, they're giving him multiple attempts, which is what good teachers do as well. They offer lots of opportunities for them to grow and experience things on their own. And even though these two individuals of Rocket and Quill didn't grow up with any kind of father that they could call a role model, they're still fathering this young little plant boy in the best me. That's why I love it.
Speaker 1:But I think that, like for Groot's growth, his happens mostly through the Infinity War and Endgame, where he's that teenager and learns to take a bit more responsibility. So, and then always sticking by Rocket in the third Guardians movie as well. But our other poll that we had up was about who your favorite original Guardians member was. Now I know your favorite's, mantis, but she's off the table for this one, bro. So we're going to go with Star-Lord, gamora, rocket or Drax, who you got, because our community has a very popular favorite. I'll say I'm sort of stuck between Rocket and Drax.
Speaker 2:I have to say, with three it'd probably be Rocket, but Drax would be a close second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think my favorite is also Rocket, with a very close second being Peter Quill, star-lord, and our community has 42% of the vote for Rocket, 38% to Star-Lord, peter Quill and then 11% for Gamora, 9% for Drax. We had a lot of people in the comments saying Groot was a favourite as well, but I didn't include Groot in that poll because there's obviously two different versions of Groot, so I made a poll for Groot. We had the original Groot, which is Baby.
Speaker 2:Groot Teenager, groot and Skyward Kaiser City, groot yeah. Guardian 3, which I called Swole.
Speaker 1:Groot because he's just yeah, because he's jacked. He's jacked Especially in that stinger. At the end he's just even more gigantic. And just what do they call him? Kaju mode? Yes, I, in terms of him growing very quickly. He's almost like a bunch of really coiled up vines that have these plates on the outside of them. I thought that was a really great character design.
Speaker 1:But our community, and a lot of people, I think, thought that the original Groot from Guardians 1, the one that sacrificed himself for the team and taught Rocket that the team that he is with is worth giving a crap over. Basically, the original Groot was the favorite with. My favorite is the baby Groot, second to the original Groot, but I like that people like the original Groot because he has the same physique that I do. Yeah, he's tall and long and has massive arms. I love that. So I think he was definitely the most emotionally resonant version of Groot and the line we are. Groot is like it's synonymous with connection and family says that and also is famous for quoting Family and Fast and the Furious. It's like he's the guy. I'm surprised they didn't think of family as a man in Gritsalons. He could have done that in the end of this movie in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, when the audience ends up understanding him because they're now part of the Guardians family, they could have said I love this.
Speaker 1:Took a little bit away from that moment because I know that Vin Diesel is highly memed for saying things like yeah, this is like family family, family references, things, yeah, yeah it was a very emotional moment but for me there was just a little bit in the back of my brain that said that really sounds like Dominic Toretto yeah, and I do love how, like in the end, like you're able to understand, like the not been able to understand what Chris has been saying until the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like that as well because it gives her that distance. Yeah, exactly which is what we needed from this. Gamora watching Guardians 3 after the Avengers the two Avengers movies, because you can watch Guardians 1 and 2 back to back and there's not really much that you're not really understanding. But at the end of Guardians 2, when they're all standing there at Yondu's ravager funeral, peter and Gamora are holding each other in their arms and then at the start of number three, peter's a drunkard in nowhere and Gamora has gone off to be a ravager and he believes that she's dead. So if you don't have that context in the middle, it's a little bit hard to watch these three back to back to back. Reason, and I think that they will, but I do agree. I think that that was a really nice touch. And the elevator scene in the movie in Guardians 3, just giving everybody a speed recap of what happened. Yeah, yeah, I'll go. I'll go into it a bit later, but one of my favorite moments from Peter Quill happens in that scene. So, yeah, stick around for that in the podcast because it's it's a. Yeah, it was one of the moments that really solidified him as one of my favorite characters.
Speaker 1:All right, our community thought Guardians of the Galaxy 3, I put up a post that says what did this movie teach you and the Infinity Bros? Isaac from the Infinity Bros said that family comes in all shapes and sizes and attitudes as well. We had Matthew Files that said animal abuse is bad, where you come from doesn't matter, and to treat each other with respect All very big themes in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. And we have Yo Hans Marble says a movie where it does teach a good value of family, even if you're not blood related. So that was our threads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all good texts, all good texts, all good texts. I love those Really great texts from our Reddit, our threads community, our Reddit. We have Robert19 that says this film was one of Marvel's last gasps in cinema. And you know what? I think everybody goes to a Marvel movie because they do have that, that grasp on society at the moment and everybody loves to go to the movies to see the latest in the pop culture element of Marvel. I still enjoy Marvel movies. I don't think the like. I would say that the quality between Iron man and Endgame, like that was a really solid run, but it's hard to keep that up over 10 years.
Speaker 2:That's a decade worth of yeah and in that time there were other misses, like Thor 2 wasn't overly great, like people didn't really like Thor 2. Even I think Iron man 2 wasn't probably one of the stronger ones of the Iron man series of movies and yeah. So I think everyone's got their own opinions and like there are a few things and people kept hanging on Disney for being too woke. Which look, which look, I'm fine with it. Like some parts we leaned into the wokeness a little bit too much, but I thought it's all worth like fun, like me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same with me. I think they're entertaining movies and you don't go in expecting like a Schindler's List, or you don't go in expecting a Godfather Part 1 or 2. You know, you go into a Marvel movie expecting to be entertained, and every a Marvel movie because I love the characters. I think that they still have some pretty good things that we can learn from those movies and you know it's good to see the community rally around things, especially when there are other not so nice things that they could be rallying around. So I think that this as a form of entertainment is okay, and also for kids there.
Speaker 1:There is a lot that people can learn from superhero movies, especially kids, who love these kinds of movies as well. Probably not a kids movie Guardians of the Galaxy 3, though I would say. I think a lot of the people that went to the cinema with their kids this one in particular probably got a little bit of a shock because, yes, there is some adult themes, scary scenes that probably wouldn't go down very well with anyone younger than I'd say, like 12 or 13,. Even that's probably young. I think about the time that I would show this to my son and, yeah, 12, 13, I think it'd be the youngest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I reckon. They'd be able to understand it a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:All right, we have Matt's tutor and cook says the female characters can be interesting and formidable if written and acted that way. Ne, Gamora and Mantis stood out in this movie to me as being the most interesting evolutions of characters. Mantis went from a glass cannon to an actual threat to whole security teams and I think that's a very poignant point because all three of these female characters in terms of Nebula, Gamora and Mantis they have really strong character arcs. They are leaders in their own right as well and not only do they show physical strength but emotional strength as well in terms of the growth that they go through through their traumas. But Mantis especially her emotional strength and her ability to empathically link with the entire team is the best part of her character. But she's also shown in Guardians 3 to be an actual powerhouse as well.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and, like in the comic, she's also a massive powerhouse and a very, just, a very strong character overall, being as though she's I don't know what she's meant to be called. What was she called? I don't know if she's meant to be human, but she was picked as a priestess and if ever there's a player playing the game, you meet her in the game and she's already done her or become the priestess of the game. Seeing her doing more in Guardian 3 was absolutely fantastic, because Hermes is one of the ones who makes 2 better for me. Yep, with her, just her interactions with the other Guardians.
Speaker 1:Celestial Madonna she becomes a Celestial Madonna and, yeah, and like her powers end up transforming that, she can even like see the future yeah, she gets a bit of precognition yeah, yeah, I believe I'm glad that they made her stand out more in three, because I love, I love it okay yeah, we'll go through her arc a little bit later on as well in the podcast, but I I think that yeah, she's, she's handled very, very well. So I think maths tutor and cook on our reddit has got an insightful comment that the female characters in this movie are written and created very, very well. We have david dude guy says it took cruelty to animals to a whole new level and ruins the entire movie for me and they went on to say that there was an overemphasis of showing procedures done to Rocket in the movie. We saw the same thing done to Logan and to Deadpool, but these movies made their point and moved on. In Guardians they showed a scene of it and it went on and on, and on, and on.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know if I agree with David Dugan on this one, because I think that obviously animal cruelty is a throughout this movie. James Gunn has gone on record to say that he loves animals across his Twitter and he wanted to make that prominent through this movie. And also I think it was pertinent to Rocket's arc to show exactly why he ended up being as cold and closed off as we meet him in Guardians 1. I think it's. It's not cruelty. I think it's showing depth to the character, but also I think the issue of is something that you know. You can foreground it and see what is happening to these creatures and that is a good way to get people to advocate for it. And I think burying your head in a sand about an issue like that is how it happens for so long, but enough.
Speaker 2:I agree with David Dugan on that one, yeah, and the cruelty that Rocket goes through is, I believe, necessary to both the Guardians themselves, especially when later on, when they actually are able to get past the end or when they're able to look into Rocket and see what he's been through, and even to Nebula's point where she says this is worse than what Thanos put me through, just emphasizes how much because the past three movies you've seen bits of the Rocket slip out and he sort of hides his trauma behind his sarcasm and his yeah hard exterior and them all seeing what he went through as a baby raccoon just horrified all of them. And James Gunn really wanted his villain in the Five Evolutionary to not be not have the audience sympathize with. Yep, they didn't want any sympathize like hey, sympathize with Thanos, like some people were like well, he's kind of correct they didn't want that.
Speaker 2:They wanted someone. They wanted the height of evolutionary character to be this cruel and just absolutely detestable villain that no one can sympathize with. Mission accomplished, oh, 100 and I. That's why I believe, like I just said, like the cruelty was a necessity to show off just how evil this villain was and the lengths he would go through go to to create what his vision was, when his vision in the first place is just flawed yeah, I 100% agree.
Speaker 1:I think that he is a truly detestable villain and it juxtaposes well with the themes that the high evolutionary is trying to portray through this movie in creating the perfect society, along with the portrayal of nowhere, which I think that putting those two things together is perfect. And then coupling it with Rocket's arc and seeing how absolutely cruel this individual can be really made us as an audience sympathize with Rocket, but then made the characters empathize with Rocket, which is the whole point of the movie. And that brings me to our next Redditor's comment, arclight50, who says they learned that it was possible to have Gunn's sensibility and still have a film rooted deeply in empathy, to be able to explore really complex topics like guilt, grief and trauma, while still delivering a rollicking and fun movie. And that was probably the comment from the community that I agreed with the most.
Speaker 1:I think that Gunn really has this ability to tell a good story. He's a phenomenal storyteller and when he's given the chance to write it across three movies and doing it within the sandbox of the MCU, I give him even more props for, because sometimes they can dictate a lot of what you can and cannot do with a character, but he stuck to his vision. He stuck to his guns. He appealed to their better nature as Star-Lord says in the movie as well to talk to the corporate shills and he told the story that he wanted to tell and in doing so he did tackle those really complex topics through characters that everybody has fallen in love with. I think the Guardians trilogy is highly rated from one, two and three. I think the worst Guardians movie is definitely way better than some of the best other movies in a trilogy. So I think this stands above, and we might talk about it as we end our podcast, but I'm pretty excited in complete creative control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, that's going to be pretty good Fantastic.
Speaker 1:I think so too. All right, with our community's voice being shared in our hot takes, let's move on to our Fandom Fact Face-Off. All right, this is our Fandom Fact Face-Off, where hosts go head-to-head with trivia about the focus media. We learn new facts along the way. The host with the least points at the end of the month loses and has to take the winner on an all-expenses-paid trip to the movies. However, this month we're doing something different, having a marvel team up where us, as hosts, need to collect 15 points to send a lucky listener to the movies into this giveaway. All you have to do is go to our website, which is wwwfandomportalspodcastcom. You have to sign on to our email list and, as we said before, we won't spam your inbox. We only send you one email a month with some updates, and you'll be the first one to find out about all of our giveaways. So head on over and sign on to this month's giveaway at wwwphantomportalspodcastcom. Brash together as a team. We've got 11 points across two weeks, so we could actually hit 15 today.
Speaker 1:I will start our questions off. Are you ready? Okay, this movie almost didn't happen because in 2018, something happened to a very important person related to this movie that almost had it looking completely different. Do you know what that was?
Speaker 2:Bradley Cooper wasn't going to be the voice of Rocket Wrecking. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. Would this be the James Gunn incident? It would be. He would have dredged up bullshit from many, many years ago and use that to try and make him out to be a really bad villain because he said something dumb at some point yes, who hasn't said something dumb at some point in their lives?
Speaker 1:unfortunately, james gunn said it on the internet whether people can dig it up, and they did so in the era that cancelling people was popular. So in july of 2018 that james gunn was actually removed from directing guardians of the galaxy 3, and it was indeed due to those controversial tweets that resurfaced. However, there was so much backlash over 400 000 signatures on a petition from the public and also Chris Pratt, zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista publicly supporting Gunn Dave Bautista actually threatening not to be in the movie unless Gunn was a part of it they decided to reinstate him, which is a bit of a backslide that's uncommon in Hollywood. Usually, if they make a choice like that, they stick to the Gunns. Yeah, I love how much we said that they stick to the Gunns and, yeah, I think that they were all the better for it because in the meantime actually, when Gunn was let go from his Guardians of the Galaxy 3 movie, he picked up a DC movie which was the Suicide Squad to go and direct and, as a result of that, they actually made him the director of DC after that.
Speaker 1:So it was almost like Marvel did the absolute worst thing, or Disney-Marvel did the worst thing possible, because they opened the door for him to explore other options and avenues, which ended up with him helming the DCU now. So it's crazy how those silly little PR decisions can have such big ramifications, and that's why I picked this one as a trivia question, because I thought that was just so interesting. But it's really also probably one of the most unusual director comebacks in MCU history or any director history at all. As well. Glad he came back as a third installment. Really ticked off all the boxes for the trilogy. Batista is Bane, batista is he's Bane Team.
Speaker 2:I'd take it, not Spanish, but yeah yeah, absolutely, he's not Luchador, but it's fine All right your question, my question, which actually comes off the back of your question yes, so when James Gunn was let go of his position, they were still going to use something of his for the movie? What was? Were they still going to use his script?
Speaker 1:Sort of script? Yeah, sort of. I would like my clue. It's something before the script is screen.
Speaker 2:Test his screen, his computer generated effects, his screen play, his screenplay. So the little drawings that they do up to try and test that out like to make sort of like the it's the blueprint of how the movie is going to shape. Um, they were going to use that still as the basis of the movie. Really, they'll get jakey idea, just run with it and just write their own scripts and back it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what, though I don't think it would have landed, because it's almost like following a famous chef's recipe you can have the instructions written down for you, you follow them perfectly. But the thing that makes the best souffle is love when cooking that souffle, and I think James's poured a lot of his own griefs and traumas into little bits of these characters, and because they're little bits of him he cares so much. But he also can fully retell them and fully create them in the most visceral way possible.
Speaker 2:So I don't think, even with the same screenplay, it would have ended up as being successful as it was no, because they had to write the script, so everything that was written probably would have been different.
Speaker 1:So interactions between saying and then moving different, how the actors probably moving different, like yeah, I think he has such a really good way of of writing dialogue as well, because not only were a lot of the scenes in the Guardians of the Galaxy both either really funny, like they make, after years of not watching Guardians 1 and going back and watching, I actually laughed again at a movie I'd seen many, many times, so the dialogue is actually funny and not such a comic book or campy thing to say. I think it's really grounded dialogue for the space opera setting that it's in, and that is a really hard thing to do. A lot of screenwriters and scriptwriters say that it is so hard to write authentic dialogue, and James Gunn is able to do that as well, so I think that also comes back to knowing the character so well. All right, so I don't know if I get that because I had so many guesses.
Speaker 2:I mean, look, I just needed some help. You didn't get to the right like you knew what. You knew what I meant.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right, so we have 13 points, which means we need two more before our audience member gets a family pass to the movies. Okay, I am going to talk this time about so for this question, james Gunn used a technique in cinema which is called diegetic something, and basically what it means is that a technique that is usually used for only the audience. In a diegetic film, it is used for the characters in the movie to experience as well as the audience to experience. Do you know what James Gunn did with this diegetic?
Speaker 2:blank. Yeah, probably should have paid more attention when I did, when I went to film school, do you?
Speaker 1:want to clear. Yes, please, okay. So this element of James Gunn's movies is prominent through Guardians 1, 2, and 3. It is a very famous element of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and I think that not only did a lot of people buy the movie or the DVD or the Blu-ray or go to the movies to see it, but they also bought this other item which is part of the diegetic element that I'm talking about the soundtrack. It is the soundtrack. Yes, so diegetic soundtrack means that not only the audience can hear the music but the characters in the movie. Yeah, that's diegetic soundtracks. So basically the Zune gifted to Quill at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2.
Speaker 1:James Gunn personally selected those tracks, spending multiple decades, that the audience could hear but the characters could also hear as well. And the best part about Ingard is the Galaxy Volume 3. I mean the Awesome Mix. Volume 1 is probably the most popular Awesome Mix, but to me I think the Awesome Mix Volume 3 is the best in terms of the way that it functions as a storytelling device, because in the first instance of this movie you hear that song Creep by. That just purely sets the scene for Rocket Raccoon. So when we're talking about creep.
Speaker 1:You know there are a couple of lines that I've picked out here that I want to tell you about. So the first lines in that song, creep, is when you were here before couldn't look you in the eye, and immediately we're given a shot of Rocket Raccoon's eyes. But also we get that sense of his unworthiness, his struggles with vulnerability and that fact that he really resists want to feel close to anybody in the instance that they might be taken away. So he feels out of place, even amongst lots of people on Nowhere. You see him walking alone and then you see him casually singing some of the lines you know I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here. These are all lines of Rocket's internal monologue and it's put to the forefront for us to see. And also here James Gunn is basically telling us this is the tale that is being told, and to be able to perfectly pick a song to relate to a character and put it into a movie is just talent. I love that.
Speaker 1:And then later on in the movie, at the very end of Rocket's arc, when he goes through all his drama and he feels better, he plays the Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine, and that is a song that is about a person who goes through a lot of bad things and is faced with unfathomable happiness and then can't help but be happy because of it are over, the dog days are done, but the suffering and the sorrow is over. And in that incident you see Rocket and Groot dancing with one another because they just can't help to be happy. They're around everybody. They're around everybody that they love. They've gone through various different traumas and they've healed from them or they've moved forward together. And just that way that he layers this soundtrack and the songs that he picks into this diegetic soundtrack is masterful. Always great to hear James Gunn Music soundtrack compilation. But that means we've got 14 points, which means one more.
Speaker 2:I have a question. Guardians of the Galaxy broke a record.
Speaker 1:What was it, or any more information? They set a record. Is this in terms of, like a movie record, or did it influence people to do something kind of record?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it was a movie record, not only one that they won an award for an award show, award for an award show, but it's like, it's like a game sport.
Speaker 1:Oh, I do know this one. They had the most uses of prosthetics in any movie whatsoever yeah, maybe made it too easy.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, that was it damn, maybe made it too easy no, I just read a lot.
Speaker 1:That was a good one. It almost slipped my mind too. But yeah, especially those scenes on counter earth where you see the people meshed with animals, yeah, those are all prosthetically made and you know, looking at them, that's probably I hate to say it, but it's probably the least strong element of the movie for me is looking at those prospects, because some of them look a little bit dinky. But I think it fits because obviously the high evolutionary seeking perfection and he hasn't got it yet yeah, he's looking at all these individuals and thinking that they're not quite where he wants them to be and that's why he rinses and repeats and redoes and incinerates everything as he goes. But but yeah, I thought what a brilliant effort by a production crew to make that many costumes and prosthetics and a cast of extras as well, to undergo that amount of makeup and hair on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be a grueling task to have to sit there and get that kind of prosthetics for you 100%.
Speaker 1:Alright, so that means our Emily gets to go to the movies because we've got 15 points, but we're still going to play the end of our Fandom Facts face-off, even though we've got our prize.
Speaker 2:I really wanted to draw that and make it last the next week, but oh well, no, that's all good.
Speaker 1:I think that's great. It means that people can definitely go on and sign on to the giveaway now. If you go to wwwfandompodcastcom, sign on to our emailing list. The Guardians of the Galaxy movie Guardians of the Galaxy 3, really emphasized a particular aspect of this movie, and by that I mean that all the trailers and the promotional material really emphasized the fact that something was happening, and to the point where even cast members were confirming multiple times through multiple interviews that this would be happening in terms of this Guardians movie in the MCU. Do you know what they emphasised as part of their marketing campaign? That'll be the last one. Yes, I thought that was hard.
Speaker 2:But yes, exactly Because that was my. If that wasn't the right answer, then I would have no idea what it was, because I honestly barely saw any of the trailers because I was trying not to spoil myself, so I barely watched all the marketing. But I assume that they're pushing to something. The only thing they can really push would be the fact that it's the last one. Even though they said Star-Lord will return, the Guardians will return, at the end of the second one or the end of the first one, they said that and then this one is just the Star-Lord.
Speaker 1:The legendary Star-Lord will return, even to the point where the main movie poster said once Throughout all of the press interviews they had a confirmation from James Gunn that he said this would be his last Marvel project and given what he had to go through to get it done, I don't blame him. Dave Bautista said he wouldn't return for any more future MCU installments and he wouldn't return as Drax. He says in quotes. I'm completely closed to it. Unless James Gunn asked him directly, he thinks that Drax's arc is fully closed. Zoe Saldana said that she's also leaving the Marvel franchise and won't be back, and Chris Pratt has also said that he would continue as Star-Lord if Marvel respects Gunn's vision for the character, which is, I hope, he's very particular about that.
Speaker 1:And the thing that I thought was interesting was it said the legendary Star-Lord would return, and this Star-Lord only really referred to himself as Star-Lord. But in the comics the legendary Star-Lord is actually in reference to some other characters as well. It's the mantle of Star-Lord, in which Kitty Pryde also takes the mantle of Star-Lord for a while, and we know the mutants are coming in the MCU, so perhaps Star-Lord could come to us in a different way. So Star-Lord will return in some manner. Whether it's Chris Pratt's Star-Lord, we're not too sure.
Speaker 1:But I think that if we don't see the Guardians in any form ever again in the MCU, I'll be quite happy because I think that the arcs are closed in a satisfactory way for me. I think that all the characters there's none that I'm questioning, nothing that's really left open for me to think. I want to see more of what's going to happen to that person. But yeah, the final chapter of this version as a team was definitely foregrounded in the marketing. That finality was foregrounded because they emphasized that perhaps there'd be character deaths in a lot of the trailers. It had Rocket Raccoon saying his famous line of I don't have a big lifespan anyway and it also, you know, foregrounded those goodbyes and the legacies and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So I don't know people like die when they're 50 why would you even be born? Yeah, there's like people who die not 50.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was just like layer upon layer of personal cuts. But, yeah, I think it created that atmosphere of closure and that resonated with the fans and as a result of that, they were like, okay, we've got to see this through to the end. So they came to the last part. But yeah, we got it. So that is 16 points. We're just going above and beyond here. Your last question, Brash.
Speaker 2:My last question Okay, technology, and one of the biggest parts of that was actually built for this movie. Do you know what was actually built for this movie?
Speaker 1:They were using CGI or the big green screen effects. Was it Nowhere, like the set of Nowhere was a closed set. No, no, this thing was four stories high. Was it the high evolutionary ship?
Speaker 2:No, was it, though? Was it the Bowie? It was the Bowie, bro. The Bowie was. They built the Bowie, and it was a four-story physical set.
Speaker 1:Physical set. I think. If we're ranking the Guardians ships, I think the Bowie is definitely my favourite and then the OG Milano.
Speaker 2:Yeah, og.
Speaker 1:Milano. Yeah, the Benatar in the Avengers movies. That was to those two, but I love the way that it spun and, yeah, and the way that it dislodged the three different compartments. Yeah, what a ship, what a banger man. That's such a good ship. But I also know that the set of Nowhere was built as a closed set because in the first movie, if you see Guardians 1, it seemed really expansive. There were lots of mining carts coming through, lots of spinal fluid everywhere.
Speaker 2:Now set. But yes, it was. No, it wasn't quite the big four-story set that their ship was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I kind of like that they. They narrowed it down to just a few city streets of nowhere because it felt kind of cozy, which is what we wanted for the guardians home base, and we wanted to feel kind of cozy. All right, let's get to our mvt. Our most valuable takeaway is the heart and soul of this podcast, where we break down the one thing that hit the hardest, stuck on us or taught us something new from what we just watched. It is our moment to spotlight the takeaway that made us think, feel or see things differently. This is what we learned from Guardians of the Galaxy, volume 3. Rash, we had a little bit of a chat about this one, because we do our MVTs together now and we both agreed that from this one we learned that empathy and found family is used through this movie to overcome trauma, loss and grief. That what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:So for me, should we talk about go straight into our characters, or do you want to talk about the movie first?
Speaker 1:I think we'll talk a bit generally now and then we will dive into our characters in terms of this MVT a little bit later, like in big detail.
Speaker 2:Well, the whole premise of this movie, I think, is about overcoming different traumas and loss and fears and helping each other out, because in a way how in the first movie at the end really brings them together. In the second one you want to sacrifice and pete's almost death, sort of, and mantis coming into it and being that sort of empath herself, sort of brings them all together to fight. Uh, help peter overcome his uh daddy issues and sort of, and that sort of solidified everyone even more. Then with infinity war, that sort of gotified everyone even more. Then with Infinity War, that sort of got a bit shattered, oh yeah, with people disappearing because of the snap, and then with Gamora's death with Peter, it sort of took everything that they'd built and just shattered it, with even the ones that are still trying to be trying to solidify the team having a hard time doing so. And I think what this film? But for being the main character, he's sort of not in it yeah as himself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the secret main character.
Speaker 2:He's the main character, because everyone is as much as they're broken. They're sort of using his, or they're using the fact that they have to try and save him as the catalyst to try and solidify their group again yeah, and save themselves from their own stuff too.
Speaker 1:Exactly, save the rocket, save the world, that kind of thing exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, save the rocket, save the guardians and um and then, but then you also um, which I think rocket was such a perfect choice for this, because then you also had flashbacks of rockets, able to get the flashbacks of rockets past and what he went through. But in a way, you're getting the teams try and work together because rocket I, I believe, out of all of them was still the most stuck, yeah, in his loop, in his trauma loop because he already, um, he already he, he was still, he didn't get snapped away.
Speaker 2:He was there through that whole time and sort of everyone, and then when they got everyone back, like that, realistically for him would have like been good thing. That's why I think him and nebula sort of, were the, the, the sort of ones trying to hold everything together on nowhere at the start. And so if, say, rocket wasn't the one who was injured, I don't think it'd have the same impact than trying to save someone else, yes, especially for Nebula's arc, which we will go into a little bit later.
Speaker 1:But I think that the empathy side of it as well is right throughout the whole trilogy. But in this movie especially, empathy serves as the main difference between between the Guardians and the High Evolutionary. They're all like. The Guardians are all trying to be better people. They're all trying to perfect themselves, so to speak, in the best manner that they can see them doing that, and so is the High Evolutionary. He is also trying to perfect humanity.
Speaker 1:However, the missing ingredient is the fact that the Guardians are doing it through empathy and understanding of one another's strengths and weaknesses, whereas the High Evolutionary is void of empathy completely.
Speaker 1:He doesn't care if his subjects live or die. He's happy to incinerate them at a, at a glance he will move from one planet to the other and leave his creations to dust. He has no care whatsoever about the feelings of anybody, to the point where we see him emotionally manipulating rocket, really, because he has these moments of of tenderness, you might say, where they conversing about music or science or reaching for the stars and having that really sort of close talk. But the high evolutionary is doing it to achieve a goal or a purpose from Rocket. It's more like a test. Yeah, and Rocket's looking at that and seeing it as an empathetic connection because he's such a kind and caring and open being at that point and I think that that value of empathy and the found family within the Guardians is absolutely central to them. Overcoming trauma that they came with because they were all broken when they arrived at the Guardians. Loss when they are within the Guardians because they lose members as well Gamora Yondu original group as well and then the grief of going through that as well.
Speaker 2:So I think with that mvt did you have anything more to add or do you want to go into characters now? Um, yeah, just on the part of um rockets being manipulated, I did like how I've noticed that um, you know, stress movie when you get kind of keep coming back to the flashbacks, like the first sort of thing you see, like you see the high which you grab out rocket, but you don't actually see the actual face of him. Yeah, well, you don't see the um, the painful procedure at first, and then you see him. You see him up with you. It does look a bit messed up because it's so dark. It's hard to really show. It doesn't really show like just how extensive his implants that work.
Speaker 2:And then the next thing you have is that nice one where him and I have high evolution. He's going on his lap, well, he's doing the math and they puzzles, talking about how blue the sky is and it seems like a really happy moment. But then as you go along and every time you go back to a flashback you can actually see it break down like the illusionary wall of this being like a great place. So when they go in and Rocket tells them about the subject and what went wrong, why it's so angry. You see him use not proper pronunciation and grammar and the high version. He snaps at him and corrects him Yep. And so that's your sort of first glimpse of him being a perfectionist. And then, after the second time, you see him being aggressive when he tries to discern how Rocket knew what was going on like what the problem was Of aggression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and every time you see him getting taken back to his cage with the other you see that one wearing the plain tag, which I feel bad for Tiefs because realistically he kind of flipped through those cabanas. The cage actually slowly expanded. He actually started to see where it was more sort of dark. On the outside you couldn't see anything. You start actually seeing other cages in the background and realize that they're just these test subjects stuck in these dreary cages and there's more like animals, other test subjects around them, and as it progresses along it's sort of like the fog of war. Yeah, good point. It starts to expand out and he rocket, starts to see more and more and more until he's like, until he sees who the high evolutionary really is and it's like, oh shit, this is not a good place.
Speaker 1:No, it's not a good place, and they're also not going to the good place.
Speaker 2:They're not going to the good place, they're going to be exterminated. But his brain is like, ah, we need to leave, and I did love that With each flashback, the visage of this nice high evolutionary sort of is unmasked to who he really is. Unmasked do who he really is and the um, the place that they're in slowly start to see and it expands out to be oh, this is a storage container full of just test subjects yeah, I think that's really good because it also mirrors the audience's awareness.
Speaker 1:So the character's awareness mirrors the audience's awareness through that technique of using the darkness. That's a really good like observation on that as well, because he definitely does. And I think that, in terms of your observation that the High Evolutionary starts to snap at Rocket, I feel like he's okay with Rocket until he realizes that Rocket learns the solution to the equation of the aggressive mutants before he does and he's always saying how did you know that I created you and how did you know that? And then the High Evolutionary goes through this point where he becomes so nasty about it, where he eventually tells Rocket that he's not going to the good place, and then he's vindictive and nasty and cruel and spiteful comment to Rocket is oh, you couldn't figure that out, but you could figure out the fact that all these creatures that is such a like a Just to make himself feel like the smarter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, superior in the room.
Speaker 2:Superior being, yeah, yeah and I think Because everyone has to be below him. He has to be the it's in his name the high evolutionary, like he himself thinks of himself as the highest form of evolution, trying to create the highest form of evolution yeah, when realistically he was just a forward person doing cool things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, as Rocket said, you know he was just never happy with the world the way that it was. And in that same vein, if we're talking about how high he actually thinks he is, you know there was that moment where they say there is like for goodness or for God's sake, and he says there is no.
Speaker 2:God, that's why I stepped in.
Speaker 1:So he's even posturing himself as above the high and mighty. And I think that that's really well coupled in this movie where his slow breakdown is occurring movie. Where his slow breakdown is occurring but also Rocket and the audience think of him as this higher, godly figure. And you'll notice at the start where the hand comes in the cage and it's just an ominous hand. It's like the hand of God or the hand of fate coming in to choose Rocket's fate and it's just a faceless hand that comes in and picks him and that's almost like that element of the higher power coming in. And it also couples well with Lila's comment when Rocket says you know, what purpose do we have? We weren't even meant to be here. The guy that created us was just going to throw us away. We've got no purpose at all. And then Lila says that line where she says there are the hands that made us and there are the hands that guide the hands. So it's insinuating the fact that this guy postures himself as a creator but in actual fact, your destiny and your path is beyond him. Exactly, fact, your destiny and your path is like on him. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that, like we were going to talk about high evolutionary later, but I think that that's really well covered it there, because I think he also has this element of of growth in terms of counter earth and nowhere and the difference between those two societies.
Speaker 1:Because if we're talking about the high evolutionary and the way that he perceives the perfect world, it's in his.
Speaker 1:He's creating what he perceives to be perfect and that's not out of any kind of concern for humanity to make it perfect. It comes out of a concern for control, or him. So he, as Rocket said, is unhappy with the world the way that it is, so he needs to be in control of how it looks. And because he has no control, he does everything he can to all the creatures that he can to try and exact that amount of control. So he feels secure, which is why, when you're looking at the difference between his society of counter-earth that he perceives as perfect and nowhere, where all of the individuals there are literally a ragtag group of nobodies pitched together from all different species across the galaxy however, they're allowed their self-expression, they're allowed their freedoms to do what they choose and they feel welcomed and comforted in their space. And that's where we went back to that MVT of empathy, and that's the difference in terms of the society as well, with nowhere everybody's welcome, whereas in Counter-Earth you must fit the perfect mold.
Speaker 2:I also love the fact that sort of ironic that he wants Rocket Raccoon because Rocket's brain like Rocket's his first creation that was able to think or have new ideas, where all of his wants blindly follow him and don't have any new ideas, and that's why he wants Rocket's brain, so his new creations have new ideas. So in reality he's just creating normal life, so he's not actually going to be creating anything that's not already created.
Speaker 1:Or nothing that will sustain beyond himself. It'll only be as intelligent as he is.
Speaker 2:It will only be as emotionally capable as he is that's what he has created, and he wants rocket so they can create, because the rocket was one who was able to fix all that problem. So he wants to create life that will have a think of new ideas and learn new things and do new things. But that's what sort of people already do who really, really, really. He just and I think that's, and I think that's what would happen if he was was to get rocket and get that brain and create these beings who were able to think for themselves and think, oh, new things and do new things and create new things. He'd absolutely hate that, because it's basically just doing a full circle to what, what we already have?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think. I think he's definitely, as we said before, one of the most detestable villains in the MCU, because he was written with no redeeming qualities and I think that that was important for Rocket's growth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he sacrifices everything just for Rocket. And then when they're like, hey, we need to back out, we need to regroup, we need to go to the new planet, it's like, no, I'm not leaving without Rocket and ends up losing everything because of it. All of that singular obsession, everything because of that, all of that singular obsession.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get to our character spotlight. We dive into our standout characters from the movie. We pick our favorite characters and take a closer look at how they evolve through the story. We break down the character's journey and give a personal take on why this character deserves your attention. Crash off the characters in the Guides of the Galaxy, volumes 1, 2, and 3. We're going to start off with Rocket Raccoon.
Speaker 1:Obviously, his arc with Rocket Raccoon obviously His arc is titular for the whole trilogy. He evolves from this defensive, angry loner and goes into this true leader and hero. And when people are going through spaces like that, when they're going through trauma, when we're looking at that at schools and things like that, they usually sit in four categories. So there's the victim, the survivor, the advocate and then the hero. And when we are introduced to Rocket in Volume 1 of Guardians of the Galaxy, he's sitting in that survivor mentality there. So he sits in that survivor mentality because he's got these defense mechanisms where he pushes people away when he's hurt. He's got this resentment and this guilt. So resentment of himself but also resentment for what happened to him. But he's also got that resentment and that guilt of not being able to save and leaving behind his first found family of Lila, tiefs and Floor, and because of that he basically froze in that moment and you can almost see it as well because it's animated so well because you know, bradley Cooper does such a great job of voice acting. When his found family is killed, when Lila is shot by the High Evolutionary and then Tiefs and Floor is shot behind him as a result of him trying to escape, the scream that he lets out in that moment is obviously the impact of that trauma occurring. As he runs away and gets in the ship and he has that moment of safety and he has that minute to actually process what happens, you can see a shift that happens in that raccoon's eyes like you'll see him be immediately fearful and then, as he's turning the ship to sort of escape and go into the atmosphere, you see his eyes almost like hardened and his expression harden and that was the moment he completely closed off. And we get that through scenes in volume one.
Speaker 1:But we also get little hints about what happened to him in volume one. So there's that scene where he says I didn't ask to be made, I didn't ask to be pulled apart and put back together all these times and he says that in a moment of drunkenness and he hates being called vermin and he hates being called a pet and he hates being called a raccoon, because he hasn't fully consolidated his own trauma and his own origin. It's like he remembers how the high evolutionary used to talk to him when people talk to him like that. So he's still in that sort of survival sense where this triggers are still really, really sharp and the trauma is still so raw. So he's sort of sitting in that space of you know um victim but also in that survivor too.
Speaker 1:I think that it's also present and we get a little bit of information as well when he goes to break out of prisons. And that's like a weird caveat for me for prisons, because you know he says I've broken out of 22 prisons before. But in your head you're thinking maybe he got so good at that because he couldn't break his friends out of the first prison in the first place. But that's a skill that's fed by guilt that he's developed over time as well. And he hides things with humor and sarcasm. And I love the scene in Guardians Volume 2 where Yondu calls him out because he says I know who you are boy, because you're me, you know you push everybody away at the first sign of love because it reminds you of the hole you have in your heart that's just empty.
Speaker 1:And I think for Rocket, seeing that in somebody else really made him A bond with Yondu. But B through that whole second movie he's been an absolute grump. Like Rocket is stealing batteries that he doesn't need because he's trying to get into these adversarial situations with the Guardians because he's starting to feel really connected to them after Guardians 1, he's trying to find a reason for them to push him away. Yeah, and Qu to him as well. He's like do you want everybody to hate you here because you're doing a good job? And Rocket just sort of sulks about that because he doesn't want that. He wants to be loved, he wants to be connected, he wants to have that found family again. But he's afraid to. He's afraid of what happens when he loses them. Yeah, and you can see that he's still fighting for it because those different sort of space jumps in order to go and get them. I think he also has that reaffirmed.
Speaker 1:When Yondu falls, I think Rocket sees that okay, another one is gone. And then again, as we discussed before, during Infinity War and Endgame, where he starts to sort of take on that responsibility role, but almost moving toward that advocate role as well, because he doesn't really hide from his pain so much. He confronts it and tries to help everybody to get his friends back. Yeah, he confronts it and tries to help everybody to get his friends back. Yeah, so instead of holding people at bay or avoiding the situation or thinking to himself, okay, they're gone, I'll go find myself some new guardians, he actually sticks around with the Avengers to try and help them fix the problem, take some responsibility and some leadership, and goes through and actually, you know, gets them back with Nebula. I think he also falls into that advocate role in the third movie as well, when he's rescued, but then he insists that his team also rescues the animals as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna bring that part up. I think that's a really significant part. But even at the start of the movie, when Quill's drunk and he, he has the what do they call it? The zoom, the zoom, yeah, the zoom, and he's playing music. He's playing creep and he walks into the bar. Quill wakes up, teasing with it and Juggly comes up and he's like what do you do? I told you not to touch that because Rocket I think this is how Rocket and Quill really bonded in the first place was with through music. I love that too, yeah, and Quill, being the way he was, was sort of just lashing out, sort of how Rocket was lashing out when he was going through his issues, and that ensued. But I think Rocket in a way was stuck, as we said earlier, in sort of this, because he got everyone back. But then, even though everyone was back and they were sort of building something in nowhere, it didn't quite feel right yeah, because, yeah, some of the people in his little found family were still broken and holding onto their stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Kimura was gone. Nebula was trying to hold things together but was really still in. Wow, she was.
Speaker 1:Along her journey as well. It just goes to show as well, like these trauma cycles, they're not linear. People go through them and you can backslide and regress, which is what we saw Rocket do at the end of Volume volume one, and into volume two and then, you know, into this volume, volume three. He really kind of falls into that advocate role and he moves into that leadership role as well, because towards the end of the movie he takes command of the Guardians which we see in that ending stinger. But I loved what you said about the music too, because it goes to show that his relationships with the other Guardians is really important. But through him healing he is also trying to help the others heal. Because I think it's so subtly done too, because throughout all the movies you see Rocket slowly starting to like the music, like he says I think we should put the music on at the start of number two and Quill goes no, the Aboleth's almost here, we need to fight, and he starts that winking joke. So he's really into the music. And then he becomes the DJ of nowhere through the zoom. And in the end of number three, pierre actually goes back to get theune 4 rocket, because he knows that healing power of music. He knows how much that nostalgia and that musical bond helped him get through a lot of his traumas and I think that that is the crux of their relationship.
Speaker 1:I think that him facing the high evolutionary in this is the ultimate form of him confronting his initial traumas, because he says I'm done running. And the poignant moment about it is when he's actually fighting the high evolutionary, who's taken down quite quickly, but he does it with his team. Everybody gets a hit in on that high evolutionary and in the end of it or at the start of it, he says his name for the first time. He calls himself rocket all the time. It's the power of names.
Speaker 1:He initially names himself and that's the first time they all start to rebel. You know, when they all start to get their name of, they get their names and they start to actually form a unit and bond. And then in this moment, after he's faced his trauma and he actually finds who he is on Rocket Raccoon bang and then he shoots the High Evolutionary. That's that moment of acceptance to him and I think that that is where he really owns his own identity and he's able to move through and face what the High Evolutionary did and the face what the high evolutionary did, and the thing that I'm I'm up in the air about it, I'm questioning about it is, you know, through this whole big hack and slack movie of Guardians of the Galaxy, where they just literally killed 30 people to get to the high evolutionary rocket makes the choice not to end this man's life, and I'm on two ways of thinking about that. Well, what are your?
Speaker 2:thoughts on that. It wouldn't make him like the High Evolutionary or anything like that, but it would him sort of not so much forgiving him but saying you're a terrible person, you've been beaten by us, you have no power, you are pretty much nothing. You have to live with that. I'm going to move on with my family and be happy. That's your punishment. That's what I sort of gleaned from it. So he's sort of punishing the High Evolutionary because for the High Evolutionary, Rocket was just a stepping stone, just another test subject, worthless trash that could just easily be thrown away. And he's showing him hey, look how important I am now and look how important my life is to me now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that I've done without you. Yeah, and look at you on the ground with nothing and that element of empathy and compassion that he's obviously developed, apart from the high evolutionary, because he definitely didn't teach in that in his creationary father figure role. So him saying that I have learnt to value things beyond you is probably the correct reading from that scene the like life too, like the importance of life.
Speaker 2:So, instead of him taking another life, he's like no, I'm not going to take another life just to be able to take another life. That's not who I'm going to be.
Speaker 1:I think it's symbolic to think about the manner in which he is looking at him too, because, if you see, he's standing over him, but the high evolutionary has just had his mask ripped off and, symbolically, you can see that, as you know, everything that you're hiding behind has been completely revealed to me. As Rocket, I know that you're not actually this nice person who sat me on your lap and taught me about music. You're actually a really horrible and disgusting and detestable person, and that's symbolically represented through the fact that his face looks like absolute goop. Yeah, and he's not perfect himself yeah, but evolutionary.
Speaker 1:He's hiding behind a mask of perfect. That is his complete arc in Rocket, but we touched on it earlier. But I kind of want to talk about Rocket's relationship with Nebula as well, because that developed so beautifully across Endgame and Infinity War. They're the only two left from the Guardians and that's also where Nebula started to change and shift as well, because initially she's obviously this hardened and she's very similar to Rocket. She has an abusive parent, she has Banos, who basically villainized siblings against each other, with Gamora and Nebula and Nebula always losing. And she says that poignant line in number two where she says I didn't want to win all the time, I just wanted a sister. And that was. That was so heavy and so powerful and Karen Gillian executed so well. And it just really speaks to Nebula's character because in Infinity War and Endgame Rocket and her get really close and they they go on missions together and they attempt to get the, the Guardians back.
Speaker 1:And there's this awesome scene in the avengers movies where nebula faces nebula and old nebula is talking to new nebula, nebula and you know she's saying you can be something else. And then nebula that's still attached to thanos says he won't let me. And that was really powerful because it shows that our nebula has just gone through so much growth through the connections that she's made, through her relationship with rocket, that she's able to see the fact that the relationship that you're in or that situation you're in with your abusive parent is just not healthy. And I'm going to grow beyond that, which is what she did. She ended up in the end creating a society, or wanting to create a society for these children so they would grow up with something that she never had. So she's gone from a destroyer of worlds to a creator of worlds and she's realized the impact of her trauma on herself and wanting that it doesn't impact others through that loss and grief of her own. And I think that was really powerful and I loved in the movie where it was probably the most emotional. I'm not seeing nebula where they're on communications and nebula's in the high evolutionary pyramid and quill tells them you know, we're on the, we got out, and then Rocket speaks and Nebula says, is that you Rocket? And he says, yeah, I'm okay, and then she's visibly like moved, she's so happy and I think that's just amazing.
Speaker 1:And my other favorite scene with Nebula is when Peter and Gamora get into an argument because Peter's trying to impress or oppress his feelings upon Gamora. And Gamora says to him him, how much of a pathetic person are you that I need to be everything for you. And then she says I don't want to go. And Gamora says I don't want to go and rescue this raccoon, to which Nebula says we're going after him because he's family. And Gamora previously said you know, we're blood. And Nebula said yeah, he is too. He's family too. So to Rocket as a similar being in terms of their journey, but I just love how both of them came out of it together and as leaders in the end too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, neville is probably one of the most. When she first came on board in the Guardians of the Galaxy as the villain trying to hunt them down and she was like the right-hand man, the assassin for Thanos I didn't think she'd end up having such an impact in the movies at first. And then as soon as that second movie came out Thanos I didn't think she'd end up having such an impact in the movies at first and then as soon as that second movie came out and you see that that turn, all that that sort of shift that she starts taking and then in the Avengers and that when she fully turns Karen Gillian, I think, like for me, I underestimated her. I do a lot and now going through and seeing the whole combination of Nebula's journey has to be probably one of the most drastic and most impactful changes out of nearly all of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so too. I think she fights for vengeance or she doesn't fight for vengeance anymore. She fights for the people that she loves, she fights for the things that are right and she's kind of it's almost like she took that time to go and find out what her values were. And that time alone from the Guardians although it was an involuntary separation she starts to think about what she wants. She spends all that time with Tony Stark in Infinity War and Endgame through the snap, because they're the only two that survived that moment. So she's able to really see how others work in a team environment and she sees firsthand just the love and connection that other people share. And she wants a part of that too, because she's always yearned for it from her, her sister, who she never got it from.
Speaker 1:But I also think that in the end her relationship with gamora also develops. So they have that communication where they see each other, where they're grunting to each other. There's the grunt of hello and the grunt of hello back and that's almost like they understand each other on a non-verbal level for one to have that sibling connection. But in the end there's that respect for one another too, where Gamora goes off with the Ravagers and she stays behind, who govern nowhere. But they're still together. But they, they know that they don't define each other's relationship to each other, if you know what I mean by that. So, but they don't.
Speaker 2:Nebula's happiness, for example, isn't relying on Gamora's approval and vice versa, because on their own, the first grunt is very aggressive and then the second grunt at the end is very playful. Yeah, and so it shows their shift, throughout this movie alone, of them realizing that, even though they were also a fan family and how they grew up was atrocious, but they share, that's something that they share together and it's something that, even though they're going to be separated, they're going to be separated they can still call each other sister and have that relationship, even though they are going to be apart.
Speaker 1:I also like how Gamora's death, as sad as it was, also created a bond and a relationship between Peter and Nebula. Because when Peter's drunk on Nowhere at the start of Volume 3, nebula's the one that goes and picks him up and takes him to his sleeping place and tucks him in and he says and he says I love you, gamora. And there's this look on her face where it's like I understand, because I also love her and she's gone. I'm not sure if I took that as her yearning for that kind of love and connection from Peter, but I took it as her wanting and yearning that love just full stop. She's somebody who just wants somebody to care for her.
Speaker 1:That where the Orgo Corp, where Gamora says you know, that doesn't sound like me, that sounds like her and points to Nebula. And then they have just a weird moment where Peter says I've never noticed how black your eyes are. I'm just saying big, beautiful set. Yeah, I think I really like how those two connected over that. So she respects how much Peter loves her sister. But also she understands what Peter brings to the Guardians and that is, if you notice, he's drunk and he's not present at the start of Guardians 3 and they get completely wiped out by Adam Warlock when he comes in. There's no unity, there's no leadership, there's no grounded sort of force to instruct the battle. But she understands that he brings that role, but he's also the one that believes in things when later.
Speaker 2:But if you have anything more on on nebula, nebula, slash gomorrah, slash rocket I wasn't talking about this earlier, but you brought up with nebula, about her carrying him when he was drunk, and that sort of gives you that first look, because if you see that part, all of them come together and start walking and it's nebula carrying a drunk peter quill and all of them like I don't know, actually like in dull and shadowed. And then it's not until the end of the movie when you see them all turning, when they always get shipped, and then, like now they're supposed to get kids and they all make. They all just instantly make the decision yep, we're gonna go rescue these kids where the more sort of like, why are we doing this?
Speaker 2:because she's sort of out of the group because of what happened with the snap of her dying and her start walking together and you see them, they're all like, heads held high, like they've all sort of. That's the point, sort of where they haven't quite, because it's not till the very end, when they all sort of like go over their grief, but they've all reached that point where they're like it's like how they were in the first and second movie when they're candy, it's like the whole movie.
Speaker 2:They've sort of been a broken shell. You have to rescue these kids and they all make that position and argue about it. They just all say yep, they're all in agreeance, they all turn, they all start walking to go into the ship. I believe that's like a really important part for their growth and their culmination of the growth throughout the movie in that point right there where they are all on the same wave, yeah, and I think it's like just the direction that they all did a 180.
Speaker 1:And you can, you can reflect that on the fact that they're they're looking at their problems individually and their traumas individually, but then they all turned together to face them together and that's how they healed through it. But you can also I also noticed in that scene the two members of the guardians that turned first with Rocket was Groot, he was immediate and then Ne they'd gotten, and how much she loves that raccoon. Um, and everybody turned shortly after, but it was those two that turned first. So I think their relationship over time had just gotten so strong and so, um, disconnected and amazing. But yeah, let's talk about peter, this man, this man.
Speaker 1:A couple of things about peter. He's one of my favorite characters of guardians, for one, uh, two. He suffers from what we generally see and call somebody who has been arrested, and not in the way that he's going to jail. But he suffered a trauma at a very young age and his age stopped and maturity development stopped at that point. So he witnessed his mother's death at a very young age, at the age of eight or nine, and he was unable to face her, which he has lived with forever and ever and ever. He ran away from his grandfather and then he was shortly then taken by the ravages. So he was never, ever, ever able to deal with that grief in any particular way, because he went straight into spacefaring and that can be almost seen as a metaphor for escaping reality, which a lot of people do when they suffer a trauma escaping reality and adopting the fantasy, and it's really fun. It's done really well because when we do that time skip and we see Peter for the first time looking for the Power Stone, we see this really like ominous space-faring adventurer that stands tall and looks strong and has all these gadgets and gears. But then he starts dancing like an eight-year-old or a nine-year-old would, and he's got this affinity for nostalgia items, things that remind him of his past, the music, the Walkman, all of those sorts of things tell us sort of trapped where he first suffered that initial trauma.
Speaker 1:It was basically him trying to hide from his trauma and just hide in his playful pirating, yeah, and the persona that he's made up too, because he goes by Star-Lord and he wants everybody to call him Star-Lord and that's kind of like a nuanced connection to his mom because she called him Star-Lord. But he's turned that into a, like a comforting and cherished childhood nickname. He turned into a, an outlaw name, so he was almost making a mockery of it to the point where he wanted to be known by it, probably for affectionate means, but also because he has that deep rooted fear and this cocky sort of flippant attitude that presents through his exterior. But internally he's just like a gooey mess and that's presented through his efforts romantically and also through his. One thing about his arrested development that I like is the fact that he has this unfathomable belief in the unlikely to occur and it's his biggest piece of charm. And it's amazing to see that come back in volume three when they're in the Orgo Corp and you see him looking at Gamora and saying I'm so glad you get to see this for the first time again, when he's talking about charming the woman, like he's being quite arrogant there. But then he's also in that moment where he says, um, I can convince them if I speak from my heart and and just doing the unbelievable thing like grasping for the infinity stone, knowing it's going to kill him, and he says it as well. He says I always have an uncanny ability to get myself out of really bad situations. You should know that. That's his superpower, if you will.
Speaker 1:But I love the fact that Peter's an ordinary guy. He's literally. He's got no superpowers and he's sprung into just a situation. That is everything he's learned, everything that he is, all of his gadgets are all learned, and he's also one to cling to a found family as well. He's always the one to look for the other guardians and to connect each other and call themselves the guardians of the galaxy, and he wants everybody to be together so much because he's got that clingy sort of mentality of someone who's experienced loss before. And when he meets his father, ego, he bonds with him quickly because he's susceptible to that conditional emotional manipulation that Ego knows will work on him. But what I do like about that with Peter is he's given all of this power in the world and the eight-year-old comes out of him again because he's like I'm going to make so much weird shit. Yeah, like he's not going to take over the world. He doesn't want to like those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:And I think he's very much underestimated by Ego, because Ego thought that he had him. Ego thought that he had him in number two when he said you know, the world can be ours, we can shape it how we want. All of these other people are insignificant because you're grander than them. And he basically kind of refuses that. And then when Ego says, you know, I really hated to put that tumor in your mother, he literally, he literally just shot him like snapped completely out of it. And he uses his power to overcome this tyrannical figure saying one of my favorite lines that Peter ever says you shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my walk man. He activates his power and he's and he's just, he uses it for such a good purpose. But in terms of his, his, he was so easily manipulated because he's got that connection wound, he, he leads through this. And he does make a silly choice in Infinity War as well, because when they're instigating the plan and he learns that Gamora is dead, he does punch Thanos mid-plan.
Speaker 1:But what I love about Peter in Volume 3 is that he takes accountability for that in the elevator scene. He sits there and he says we used to be in love, but then her father got in her head and threw her off a magical cliff and when I learned about her death I lost my temper and got really angry and almost destroyed half the universe. And that's him taking that accountability which is so only like, which probably wasn't a good idea, yeah, yeah, which probably wasn't a good idea, but, yeah, I think that his, his trauma in response to that was when he backslides again. Uh, because he has a trauma response where he's trying to force a connection upon her which isn't fair and he's not. He's not being abusive in that way towards gamora, but he's also he's being emotionally desperate. You know, gamora calls him out on it, and that's when he realizes that he's chasing a ghost, but she's gone. This isn't the Gamora that he wanted, this isn't the Gamora that he loved, and she never loved him. They're two different people, which kind of begs the question.
Speaker 1:For me, it's interesting to note, like meeting a significant other at the perfect time, the perfect place in both of your lives. Peter was a. When new Gamora met Peter, they were both in two different places and they weren't compatible anymore. So it's that realistic storytelling that Dunn uses to present that love and I love the fact that he didn't bring them back together in the end as a couple. I thought that that was really a strong and bold choice because so many audience members would have wanted it. I wanted it. When I first watched it I thought that that was what I wanted to see. But I think final scene Gamora actually, you know, not sympathizes but entertains the idea for a second where she says I bet we would have been fun, but she, she's helping him on his journey of acceptance. And then he does accept it because he says you wouldn't believe it. But that's the audience, the moment. The moment the audience knows that Peter has come to terms with the fact that she's gone yeah, like he says that, like you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he says it almost reminiscently like he's letting go.
Speaker 2:And the thing that's sort of only just come to me now is the actual moment that Gamora starts having feelings for Pete was when he shared his music with her. When they're at the gambling house and they're on the balcony and he gives her the earbud and they're both listening to music, and so they have that moment. The dancing the dancing's the best one it's been a while Pulled around and fell in love.
Speaker 1:I think it's that one, yeah.
Speaker 2:Pulled around and fell in love and then that's sort of way Rocket goes on, his change of junk Things sort of breaks up that moment. But that's sort of the moment. Again, the music is what brings and brought them and they haven't. And Quill was never able to recreate that moment with that music. Because the time when you start to see Gamora not so much go back to her old self but sort of she softens, softens up and sees what they're trying to do as a group, is when she's in the like in the ship by herself. Because she doesn't want to go and help, she's happy to stay on the ship until her varying pick up accepted. But she starts listening to music. Ghost repeater stuff starts listening to music. Oh, she does too.
Speaker 2:And then that's the, and she starts listening to music and she starts going through his bag too, and goes through his bag and like, seeing, like, like the key tapes he has and like later on gives him back the photos as a value bag as when she starts to understand who he is beyond, yeah, who he's trying to impress upon her exactly because he's trying to impress on her by being his quote-unquote charming self, which is more of like a boyish charm rather than really forced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost his true self is what attracted her, and also his manner of wanting to save the day all the time, but doing it in a heroic fashion, unintentionally and without bravado. Because there's that scene where they go to crash the ship onto the High Evolutionaries and he literally it's such a good scene, scene like an action sequence, where he sets the ship into self-destruct and then tackles Gamora out the window, slides across the deck bay floor and they have that moment where there's one on top of the other and the ship goes and she says what did you do? He says I set the self-destruct. It explodes and there's almost a moment there where you're like, ah, will they how my other self might have fallen for.
Speaker 2:So far, all he's been doing is been pushing his feelings onto her, and that's really unattractive.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And you know it comes to the point where they're all in their Skittle suits about to go into the Orgo Corp where he says we were in love, we were perfect together. You know, you and I were together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we Like. This is really the longest interaction we've had.
Speaker 1:And she also said she said it flatly too. It was like I don't think so. You know, in terms of that I doubt it, or I highly doubt it, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Because you seem like a clingy, like a really clingy, emotionally clingy person, and I don't think I would have thought of that. But realistically, they fell in love over time, first through the music and then of how Peter acting and his heroism and his just in the time that he has, naturally, rather than this forced charm that he's trying to push upon her. And this, these moments that they had, that he had with gamora, that gamora never had, and just try and push all that onto her is just would be a lot for anyone to take. Yeah, exactly, exactly, not fair at all for her, because he may have had those moments, she's had those moments. So how is she supposed to replicate that when she never experienced it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would have been tricky for Peter to go through as well, because seeing the one that you love dying and then seeing her in flesh and blood in front of you but then coming to terms with the fact that it's not the same person. But through his arc he does learn this emotional maturity to love someone without forcing them to love him back. So he will still love that Gamora because she looks like his Gamora, but he does not expect her love in return or back in the same way, in that manner, and I think that's the emotional arc he goes through, there, where he heals from the fact that he's a drunken mess at the start. But I think the bigger healing comes for Peter at the end of his traumat arc where he left his mother at the start, where he faces Gamora and says you know, this is real life, I'm not running away from a fantasy. And then Mantis calls him out on it in volume three as well. You know. She says you lost your mum and then you ran away, but your grandfather was on earth and he lost his daughter and his grandson in the same day. And then that's when they get into the talk about people dying at 50.
Speaker 1:But it comes full circle in the moment where his trauma began Earth, and he meets his family, member of his grandfather, and the most beautiful thing is he gets to go back and be an eight slash nine-year-old. He gets to sit there, talk family with his granddad, eat some cereal, watch him read the newspaper talk about the fact that the neighbor's mowing the lawn in the wrong manner, like that's all things that a kid would do. So Peter actually gets to go back and be that kid that he never got to be because he was arrested at eight as well in that manner. And you know, when they look at the legendary Star-Lord will return. That's a really slippery slope for me. I'm like what are you going to do with that character now? Are you going to present him as a more mature person who's gone through this healing journey which is what I think Chris Pratt means when he says he wants them to respect Gunn's vision or are they going to still making that character?
Speaker 2:I think he's always going to be that, though he's going to have that cockiness to him and that bravado, but I think he's just going to be not so much taking things seriously but be a bit more like how he was self-aware, yeah, and how he was when he was telling that the alien woman in Orgo Court and she's like I want to speak from the heart and and he's like what that's stupid. And he like sets off all the jets on all the all the flesh men.
Speaker 1:Can I also say, just like finally, on that point about Peter saying that he's going to talk to these corporate shills from the heart, I think that that was a bit of tongue in cheek from James Gunn, because that's literally what he did to Disney Marvel to try and get his job back. Incorporated that into the story as well Just goes to show how good of a storyteller that James Gunn is.
Speaker 2:I think he'll be more like that for Star Wars. So he'll still have all that empathy because of all the stuff he's gone through and all the stuff that he's overcome and published, but he'll still have that sort of boyish charm, that provider of being Star Wars. But, yeah, instead of him just being Star Wars, he's now going to be like the sort of combination of everything he healed Star Wars. Yeah, and I think that will be all the better. That will hopefully be better, will be like the best outcome. The worst outcome is they completely change.
Speaker 1:Satirize his character yeah.
Speaker 2:Alright, do you want to talk about Drax and Mantis? Yes, we'll just start on quickly. There's not heaps for Drax, and you learn about Drax's backstory in the first movie, but you don't see anything of it, and you don't really. All you know is that Thanos did what he's done to a lot of planets wiped it out, killed his family, killed half the population, including what was his daughter, and he becomes Drax the Destroyer to get revenge on Thanos for killing his daughter and realistically, thor gets it but never really gets that revenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he gets it on Ronan, but he does not get it on Thanos, does he? But he's a man that's ready to die Like he he's got really nothing. And in the end of the first yeah, in the end of the first movie, he actually does have people. He walks through those hall, friends, and he goes. You know, peter Quill, you're my friend. Rocket, you're my friend. Walking Tree man, you're my friend, green Whore, you are my friend yeah about like.
Speaker 2:To me I think that's because they all have a sort of a reason to not like Thanos, because Thanos is, after all, because of the power stand was the power stand that they had or was the tower? And because Thanos is chasing after that and he sends Ronan after him, after them for it. That sort of brings them all together and for him he says they're friends, but it's more of a we're a friend in the same fight. Yeah, not so much. I don't believe for him, because everything for him he believes, everything he says, so literally they're his friends because they're all fighting for the same cause, he just stops Thanos.
Speaker 2:But then when Thanos sort of doesn't become well in the second one, when they meet Mantis and Mantis sort of Jax is making fun of Mantis because she's ugly and everything like that, and she's like, but then he's like but you remind me of my daughter, and Mantis is like what ugly? And he's like ah, innocent, that's right, yeah, innocent. And for me, and in that moment, and then she touches him to feel what he's feeling, because every other time she's touched him he's been this jovial, happy, like, because all his emotions are like he always, he always, emotions always serve his level. That or I just think he's able to because of like, how his people are and how they're very like on the nose, only sort of one emotion can be there at one time. But deep down I think he always has this deep sadness and that really comes out when he says, remind me of my daughter for your innocence.
Speaker 2:And Metis touches him and like, and I think it was done very well how Pom the actress plays Metis, she just like fully, just breaks down into this. Just like for me, like watching it, I have to watch it again and it's just like this unimaginable sadness that she just washes over her. And that's sort of what drax has been carrying ever since his daughter was taken away. So he's carried that all through the first. So that joking, sort of bellowing laughter of a man that drax is in the first movie, that even when he's like saying oh, they killed my daughter, but he through the whole thing he's like, he's like one of the comic relief characters in the movie. And in the second one you finally see that he's not just this comic relief character. He has this deep sadness within him. And then the third one again the whole time he's played off as this sort of character who continuously messes up and is the cause of a lot of issues liability, liability calls him out on that too.
Speaker 1:There's that moment in the high evolutionary ship where they're talking about it and she says you know he's a liability. You always mess up. Um, all you do is laugh at everything and you're an imbecile all that kind of things.
Speaker 2:And but then mantis is one that backs, backs him up and says, uh, um, he's no liability, he's an idiot. He's no liability, um, because she has firsthand seen what is really inside drax I love.
Speaker 1:I love when she says he's the only one out of all of you who doesn't hate himself. That was the beautiful part that I because that was us seeing Mantis value people for true strengths. You know he's a person who makes them laugh is what she said. You know he makes them laugh and he makes us happy. How is that a liability? I think that was just so beautiful. And I also like how Drax got really sad when Mantis called him an idiot, but he didn't really give a shit when Nebula called him all those things and I think it was because obviously he respects and loves the point of view that Mantis has of him and then she always made him forget.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and I think it's also the fact that Mantis does remind him of his daughter For Mantis to call an idiot, and that's sort of like sort of probably get a nerve a little bit and sort of stab him in the heart a bit and that's why and then I think that's all. That was like oh shit. But it then comes out even further when they find the kids and they're trying to communicate with the kids and Nebula is yelling at the kids and to try and like yelling at the kids, trying to say, and then they start fighting and then Drax is able to like say huh, call some little idiots. And then, but he's able to connect him and make him laugh by making them the monkey noises that actually sounds like a duck chicken or something, and and because that's like something he's doing, to like when he was with his daughter, and he's able to connect all these children and I think that's the first moment when Nebula sees just how Drax is. And then Drax talks to him and communicates them in their language and she's like, why do you tell us you can speak a language like, why do you not?
Speaker 2:Because, like, instead of you just always assuming that I'm just on a big oath you could have been like can anyone understand what these guys are saying? You're like no, you're an idiot, you wouldn't know. It just dismisses it, and I think that's that's a big turning point for nebula with drax, and that he's not just this big oath, he's, and I think that's why, at the end, when um, nebula's like no, I need you with me because I need someone to look, ah, I need you to help me look after these kids, because these kids need a father and, um, it's like she's not good with kids, obviously, so she's like I need you because I need someone who's. We have all these kids now. I need someone who can look after these kids and who, better than and because she's like, you're not Drax the Destroyer, you're Drax the father.
Speaker 1:Yeah, drax the dad. And you know what I think? That's also the first time that Nebula would have seen a good dad. An abusive figure, yeah, and she sees that in Drax and really admires it. And the fact that she went from calling him an imbecile and a liability to then requiring him and needing him for the job as almost like a second in command is really big growth for not only Drax but also Nebula as well but yeah, but Mantis, who I believe was really an underrated character even in the third movie.
Speaker 2:She is pretty much the heart of the team. Now she is the one when Bill's status is lowest. They're like you're retarded, so why are you torturing me? She's like he doesn't listen to me, no one takes me seriously. And then so she tries to get the help of, like say, drax because Drax and become fairly close, even though, like they play pranks on each other, the bond that they grew in the second movie together and they play tricks like making everyone fall in love with Drax and making Drax fall in love with his sock, like just all this dumb stuff.
Speaker 2:And it's like all these like sort of childish pranks that like a daughter might play on a father or something like that. It's sort of like that surrogate's relationship. And whereas Mantis is sort of like filling in for Drax's daughter in a way, and that's how they grow really close. So like filling in for Drax's daughter in a way, and that's how they grow really close. So she sends Drax over with words that she told him to say to Peter to like sort of help game out of that funk, and at first it's like sort of works, but then Bill is so confused, the fact that he's actually saying something that makes sense in a metaphor that's not something that his race is known for.
Speaker 2:And then when peter questions it, that's when he sort of messes up and falls back on the same thing and just makes these terrible, terrible walls. But, um, and then bill sees that, uh, mantis is there in the background pulling the strings. So she's always there in the background, she always sees the issues but has never taken seriously enough for anyone to listen to her, and I think. But by the end of it she's sort of and she's very patient with everyone, especially drax. And by the end of it, when they're faced with the analysts and she's like they eat batteries why would they want to eat us?
Speaker 2:And she's the one that sort of looks at them and says they're just scared, like, and she doesn't have to touch them to feel like she can sense it, which I think is a like growth for her, and she basically says no, trust, we're not in any danger, we just need to show them that we don't mean any harm for them, because they're not. We shouldn't be scared of them, they're scared of us and what we're going to do to them. And finally, like reaches out and gives the powers to connect to the Abolus and befriends the Abolus, and I think that's a very poignant part in her development because, again, because Nebula is always like that sort of always calculated and sort of like logical, but like Spock. So she's like Spock where she thinks that she's like everything has to be calculated, everything has to be. She's correct. These guys are idiots. All their ideas are dumb because they make no sense and they would never work because there's no calculations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's really critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, critical and calculated and like, instead of being emotional and I think that's like Empathetic.
Speaker 1:Empathetic.
Speaker 2:Well, she's not empathetic, she's more calculated and I think both seeing Drax and his approach to the kids, seeing Mantis and her approach to the Abolists, sort of, and seeing those things work, when her just yelling at them and thinking that they should understand her because she's yelling at them and she's telling them that you need to do this to be safe and her just demanding that they do that is the only course of action that she has because she can't think outside the box.
Speaker 2:Maybe because, mostly, but seeing the Atrax come in and make and the trust of the kids and able to speak their language and communicate with them. And then Mantis is what also helps Nebula take that shift and be more open to everyone else's sensitive approach yeah, sensitivities, and that's why I think both Drax and Mantis are really detrimental in this movie, purely because of that. They show us that emotion like using emotion, using empathy and using these out of the box thinkings is always another approach you can take at problems that come your way, instead of just bashing into them and thinking of cold, hard decision yeah, I think that's really powerful because it shows that there is some power in empathy, which we know that Mantis is known for and Drax is also as well.
Speaker 1:but yeah, I think that growth in Nebula was the realization Without Drax and Mantis.
Speaker 2:I don't think Nebula would have that full growth because that whole time that they're on that ship she's pretty much my way or the highway. You guys are both idiots.
Speaker 1:I'm stuck with you to try and solve all these yeah and try to solve all these problems herself when really she should have tried to trust it in the to her head, with Mantis being the absolute embodiment of empathy across the two movies that she's in, which is a central theme for all three Guardians movies.
Speaker 1:And she's empathy in spades. She gives it to everybody at the detriment of herself. And that's where her arc comes to a close, at the end of number three, where she says you know, first I served Ego and taught him how to be empathetic, and then I served the Guardians and I don't know who I am. And I think that's the best ending for her character ever was that she goes out on her own. But it was so beautiful when, as soon as she said that, drax said well, I'll go with you because you need protection from your incredible flaws, and it was just so lovely to see that he values that protective role of her. But then she went and said this is something that I needed to do for my own growth, which is moving and becoming empathy of yourself. I needed to do for my own growth, which is moving and becoming empathy of yourself.
Speaker 2:And helping with his growth. I believe too, because she was taking that sort of role of like Jax's daughter, how he was really protective of her and they had all their playful banter and he sort of grown that attachment and she knew that she was under your standing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or even like that's the role of a father. Sometimes, when the daughter or the child gets to a particular age, you do have to watch them go and try and make their own journey, and that was him realizing that and letting go of that moment. With Mantis it's like I don't, I'm not the one that's protecting you anymore. I'll always be here to protect you, but you're going out on your own now and you're very capable of protecting yourself.
Speaker 2:I think that's when the Exinibio's like no, drax, I need you here because there's a whole bunch of other kids now that need a father, and so that's when he's like oh, so, then he lets Mantis go on her journey so he can then retake on that role as the father to all these other kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. All right, this is our Fandom Portals On A Board. It's time to rate and rank. Each host gives the movie a score out of five. We then take the average and add it to our official letterboxd on a board. If you want to follow that along, you can join us on our letterboxd, which is at Fandom Portals.
Speaker 1:Brash, I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one. I gave it five stars. What? 4.5 is very fair for the Guardians 3. Okay. So, with an average of 4.75, with Brash's vote being 4.5 and mine being 5, that means that this movie tops the New Mutants, which had an average of 4.5, as our new leader of the fandom portals on board. Congratulations, guardians of the Galaxy 3.
Speaker 1:Let's go into our sign-up. All right, everybody, this has been the Fandom Portals podcast with Aaron and Brash and Brash, and you have been listening to our review slash talk on the Guardians of the Galaxy 3. If you wanted to get involved on the community, shout out parts, you can definitely do so on our social medias, which is in our show notes below, mainly threads, and Reddit and Instagram. That is at fandomportals, and we have achieved our goal of getting 15 points in our fandom facts based off. So if you join our news mailing list which you can do so at wwwfandomportalspodcastcom If you join that mailing list, which you can do so at wwwfandomportalspodcastcom, if you join that mailing list easy to do from that website then you'll be the first one to know about our giveaways and you'll also go into the draw to win a family pass to the movies for this April, which we're happy to give out as well Next time.
Speaker 1:Brash, brash, do you want to tell us what we're doing? We are doing Iron man Uno, hmm, iron, iron man 1, where it all began, with Robert Downey Jr for the MCU. Just in time, for it'll be the last entry of our Marvel month, which means it'll be just in time for you to go to the cinema in May and watch the Thunderbolts, and obviously we're going to review how Robert Downey Jr started his journey and then ended his journey, now becoming Dr Doom a little bit later on. Alright, thank you for coming along with the journey with us. Keep learning, keep growing, keep loving fandoms. Brash, I love you guys.
Speaker 2:I did, yeah, I did. At the start I was Iron Groot and at the end I was I Love you, guys. Yeah, the audience is part.
