After what seemed an eternity the first trailer for the upcoming Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy arrived last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live! If you haven’t watched it yet (or want to watch it again cause let’s face it, it was awesome) here it is below:
Amazing right? Well let’s break it down.
The trailer opens with Peter Quill aka Star Lord (Chris Pratt) is investigating a temple-like structure which contained a mysterious orb (perhaps an infinity gem?) and then is confronted by Korath (Djimon Hounsou) and his men.
There seems to be a bit of the Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe in this opening scene. And in an interview with TotalFilm where he breaks the trailer down, director James Gunn commented how much of an influence Indiana Jones has been for him and Guardians.
“There is probably no film that influenced me more as a child – no film that excited me more or that I loved more – than Raiders Of The Lost Ark,” Gunn told TotalFilm. “It not only influences how I see Guardians, it influences how I live my life (which means the way for a woman to win my heart is to paint “love you” on her eyelids. Yes, I’m still single, why do you ask?).”
From that sequence we go the mugshots of each of the guardians. First up is Drax the Destroyer (Dave Batista).
Next up is the deadly assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) whom Gunn calls one of the movie’s two “Clint Eastwoods”-the other being Nebula. He describes them both as “hardasses.” He also stated that Zoe “got it easy with the makeup – it only took about four hours to put on, whereas it took Dave Bautista and Karen Gillan six hours or more.”
Up next is Rocket Raccoon. He doesn’t speak but he does growl and spit. When asked if Bradley Cooper had finished recording his dialogue for the character, Gunn responded,
“We’ve recorded most of Bradley’s dialogue already. I suppose you would expect me to tell you he’s fantastic and his characterization of Rocket will blow your mind – so don’t believe me and just wait to see (or hear) it for yourself. ”
“In all truth, we hired Bradley because he’s able to do both comedy and drama – it’s the thing I look for most in the actors on all my films – and to truly sell Rocket – for you to believe a Raccoon can talk (and blow up and shoot tons of stuff) we need a well-rounded actor. ”
Gunn also mentions that it took 15 people each to visualize the Groot and Rocket sequences.
Gunn goes on to discuss the “mugshots” so to speak of the protagnists, pointing out it took 15 people each (30 total!) to visualize the Groot and Rocket Raccoon sequences.
Gunn says that with the exception of Groot (Vin Diesel), all of the heroes of Guardians of the Galaxy are “bastards” at the start of the movie. While Groot is Rocket Raccoon’s accomplice, Gunn describes him as “an innocent.” And here he is:
“[Groot is] a hundred percent deadly and a hundred percent sweet,” Gunn revealed. “He’s caught up in Rocket’s life, really.”
After the mugshots, the rest of the trailer moves along to the song “Hooked On a Feeling,” which was playing on Quill’s retro Sony Walkman which one of the guards had picked up and put on his head (and pisses off Quill). Gunn says that the Walkman — and Quill’s retro 80s mixtape — is a major part of Quill’s persona.
“It’s one of the few things he has from Earth,” Gunn says, (Quill was taken from Earth at age 8). “I don’t think of it as a joke, because it’s very dear to him. It’s the umbilical cord that connects him to earth and the home and family he lost.”
We also see Quill’s spaceship the Milano. He didn’t comment much on the craft but he did reveal that Korath’s spaceships are called Necrocraft and he has a fleet of them.
Those of you who attended Comic-Con last year will notice that several of the scenes in the trailer are from the rough-cut trailer that was shown at the con. However Gunn pointed out that there were several new scenes and finalized moments in the new trailer which included the first look of the character Nebula (Karan Gillan).
And then were other shots:
And there were things that were missing which Gunn is saving for a second trailer set to debut “in a couple of months”. The debuts of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Nova Prime (Glenn Close) have yet to arrive. Another thing about the trailer is the humor which is shown throughout. From Star Lord answering Korath and going “Who?”, to Star Lord giving his captors the finger to the “bunch of a-holes” line. Gunn commented on the humor,
“The “bunch of a-holes” line is still in the trailer, which I love. That was an ad-lib I threw to Peter Serafinowicz on the day we were shooting. He wasn’t sure he wanted to say it – it’s not something British people say – but it works perfectly in the trailer. The movie has a lot of edgy humour, unusual for a comic book movie. But we were encouraged by Marvel to take risks, so we did. However, we never wanted the humour to get in the way of the fun or the emotional heart of the film – those things came first.”
Looks like this film will be a fun one to watch. Guardians of the Galaxy will arrive in theaters August 1st.
