How Guardians of the Galaxy Changes Everything

Written by John Edward Betancourt

It's been quite the interesting year for Marvel movies.  We have seen some controversy regarding the future of Ant-Man. We've been teased at San Diego Comic Con with Age of Ultron with Captain America's broken shield and oddly enough, we witnessed as Cap's second feature film outing in the new Marvel regime changed the landscape of the Marvel universe forever with its incredibly dark and powerful themes. 

Yet, Marvel wasn't quite done shocking all of us just yet, they not only felt it was time for the Marvelverse to grow up with incredibly mature themes, but to even change the landscape of how its characters were presented in film, and for that matter...the landscape of how you tell a comic book tale on the silver screen with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy.  

I say all that and mean it, because having the opportunity to see this amazing film over the weekend, this is a motion picture that has reinvented the comic book movie.  Up until now, we have had certain expectations, set forth by Marvel and DC as well.  We expect a certain level of realism in our comic book films, some grit and some fun, combined with incredible characters and amazing sights and sounds.  

The good news is Guardians features all that we know and love, but it adds two new elements that took me off guard. For one, it looks like a comic book. Every frame of this film seems to work as though it was on paper, in my hands at the comic book store and that's something I've yet to see in this resurgence of comic book motion pictures.  Visually this is a motion picture I've never seen anything like before, and I have to say that's refreshing and the beauty on screen will undoubtedly set the tone for other films in the future.  

But what matters most, is that Marvel went ahead and stepped it up by way of characterization as well.  Despite the grit we enjoy in our films, what matters most in any motion picture is that we relate to the characters on a deep level.  To a certain extent you can with comic book characters. They either inspire in us ideals that we want to engender in our lives, or we find an element about their psyche that we can latch on to.  But often times they remain detached to us, after all, they're heroes and we are just us.  

That is until Guardians of the Galaxy.  This is a beautiful story through and through about loss and redemption and for the first time I felt as though I could fully relate to these characters.  We have all suffered loss in our time, we have all felt like outsiders or felt the anger and rage of having as Peter put it, and I paraphrase, that life takes more often than it gives.  It was a masterful stroke on Marvel's part, and it makes sense.  There's no suit of armor here for anyone, these guys and gal are all mortal and fragile...just like the rest of us.  

This is Marvel's most personal comic book film to date and quite frankly, revolutionary.  See it if you haven't, and then see it again like I'm planning on.  This is the first film of its kind out of the gate and I fully expect to see more like it as time goes on.  

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