Guardians of the Galaxy Update

Greetings fair travelers of the perilous realm!  Today we bring you yet another superhero movie update courtesy of announcements made at this year’s ComicCon.  Guardians of the Galaxy will be our subject for this piece and there is actually a fair amount to talk about.  Unlike the larger and more attention getting announcements concerning Batman/Superman and Age of Ultron, the Guardians presentation actually gave us some confirmations and hints about the story.
Lets start with casting confirmations.

Christopher Pratt as Star-Lord/Peter Quill

Zoe Saldana as Gamora

Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer

Benicio Del Toro as The Collector

Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser

Karen Gillan as Nebula

Michael Rooker as Yondu

John C. Reilly as Rhomman Dey

Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer

Glen Close as Nova Prime

That’s a lot of confirmations there.  Some of them we already new and others were rumored and at least one was a bit of a surprise.  However, we still don’t know who’s playing Rocket Raccoon and Groot.
In addition to all of these casting confirmations they also showed a brief teaser of the movie and showed off some props.  And there is at least one rumor floating around that could be big not just for Guardians but for the future of the entire Marvel Movieverse.
Before getting into rumors and speculation though, let’s look at some reports from that footage and glance at the props.
The footage opens with Quill being captured by Korath in the act of stealing something from a temple and then shifts to a prison with Reilly’s Rhomman Dey introducing the primary characters, each kept in individual cells.  We meet Drax, Gamora, Rocket, and Quill again.  Apparently through the character’s body language and Reilly’s dialogue the tone of the movie is largely comedic.  One place where this is shown is when Dey comments that the group actually calls themselves Guardians of the Galaxy to which his partner replies “what a bunch of a-holes.”
There another scene where Quill goes off on some guards for listening to his Walkman, specifically “Hooked on a Feeling,” and the obligatory sizzle reel.

Those props we mentioned give us a look at Star-Lord’s helmet, guns and walkman along Drax’s blades, a pair of boots, a small ball thingy.
So, what does all of this tell us about the story?  One of the first clues is Peter Quill’s Walkman, an actual cassette-playing Walkman.  To me, this indicates that at least part of his origin, having been abducted by aliens is true.  How long ago is perhaps in question since the synopsis mentions that Quill is a fighter pilot.  That seems to suggest that he was abducted as an adult or that the aliens either kept him in a state of suspended animation for a while, the movie takes place 10 or more years in the past or Quill had a nostalgic attachment to the thing long before his presumed abduction.
We also have him being captured by Korath, who along with Ronan in the comics is a member of the Kree race.  Why do the Kree bring Star-Lord to a Nova Corps prison?  Well, the Nova Corps are very similar to the Green Lantern Corps in that their members can belong to any alien race.  It is very likely that Korath and Ronan will actually be retooled as Kree who are also members of the Corps, or that the Kree Empire has good relations with them.  Either way, without having seen images of Korath or Ronan myself, I’m confident that the Kree are in fact showing up in the story as initially speculated.  The only question is whether or not they are wearing Nova Corp or Kree uniforms.
Also, Reilly’s character is a Nova and not a SHIELD agent as some had speculated.  Now, unless he is the Nova ambassador to SHIELD in some way, I don’t expect to see any part of this story (except possible flashbacks from Quill) to take place on Earth.  Meaning there is lots of time to build on the galactic conflict mentioned in the original synopsis of the film.  Who is this conflict between?  If you had read my previous Guardians articles you know I think that the robotic, Phalanx race could be the Kree’s opponents and possibly even the main bad guys of the film.  However, given a possible ending for Age of Ultron and the inclusion of Nebula, I’m not so sure.
For my Ultron based speculations, you can check out this article.  Nebula though, she’s interesting.  She’s billed as a space pirate but that sells her rather short. As it turns out, she’s almost become ruler of the entire universe a couple of times and one of those times involved her getting hold of the Infinity Gauntlet.

Speaking of the Infinity Gauntlet, what’s going on with Thanos? There are no confirmations yet but Vin Diesel has had a rather secret meeting with Marvel and he has teased that his role involves “a different kind of love story.”  Speculation has it that this is a reference to Thanos’s courtship of the personified Death.  Right now we don’t know for certain that Thanos will be showing up in Guardians at all but it is a fair bet that he will be lurking in the background and I for one agree with the speculation here.
So, how might all of this weave together?  Right now, if there is a galactic war going on, it will be between the Kree and Chitauri or between the Kree and Nebula’s forces.  As for the Kree and Phalanx, I suspect that particular war will happen in the sequel, if at all.  That said, there may not be a galactic war at all.  There are two main reasons for this.  The first is that “galactic conflict” line has been dropped from the synopsis on IMDB.  Second, we need to set up the expected show down with Thanos in Avengers 3.  That means the Infinity Gauntlet has to be a focus, which in turn means were are going to see possibly The Collector, Nebula, the Guardians and even Thanos himself vying for it at some point in the movie.  What I expect is that Nebula might try to wrest it from Odin’s vault for her own ends, while The Collector uses the Guardians to get it from her, or perhaps to make a preemptive strike on the vault to get it for himself and protect it from others.  Of course, that’s assuming Odin’s Vault is still standing at the end of the next Thor.  I for one expect some sort of Guardians-related teaser in the credits at the end of The Dark World.
What about the role of the Nova Corps?  They’ve got some good actors playing important roles so I don’t think they will simply be cannon fodder.  Rather, I think we will see them being extremely effective in battling either the Chitauri or Nebula’s forces but then being utterly defeated by the arrival of Nebula herself, or even Thanos as a way of setting up the threat and establishing the Guardians as a force to reckon with.
Beyond this, it is difficult to say more until we see a trailer and more of Marvel Phase 2.
Stay tuned!