Let's Talk: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Hello, all!

Over the weekend I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and I gotta say, I really enjoyed it.

**Potential spoilers ahead**

I did like how it started off with a flashback to Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord’s, mom and father since the first movie left some lingering questions about just who Peter is exactly. What we find out is that his father isn’t exactly from around the way after we see him showing Peter’s mom an alien plant he’s growing behind a Dairy Queen in Missouri, and her saying that she fell in love with a “space man.”

Right off the bat, it was like all the action and banter of the original was there in full force. Peter being miffed over Gamora using a gun instead of her usual sword as they’re preparing to fight off a horde of tentacled space blob-worm things (“I just thought guns were my thing”), and the best part of the opening scene, little baby Groot dancing around the platform to “Mr. Blue Sky” as the rest of the team defends the fancy batteries they were hired to protect from the aforementioned space blob things.

After the fight, we find out the gang was hired by a race of gold skinned superior beings known as the Sovereign. Their leader, Ayesha, promised a reward in return for helping them and it turns out to be Gamora’s adoptive sister, Nebula. During this exchange, Rocket does what he does best, which is opens his mouth and offends the Sovereign (who are, of course, very stuck up and don’t take kindly to criticisms) and the gang makes a swift exit. If offending them wasn’t enough, on the way out Rocket confides to Drax that he stole some of the super important batteries in order to try and make a profit from them.

No surprise, that turns out to be a huge mistake as a whole fleet of Sovereign chase after the gang once they realize what happened. Side note, I love the fact that all the Sovereign ships are remotely piloted from what looks like old arcade booths and even turn red in a “Game Over” type deal when they “die.” As Peter and Rocket fight over who’s actually going to pilot the Milano, a strange ship comes by and takes out the entire rest of the Sovereign ships single-handedly, allowing for the team to escape and crash land on the planet Berhert.

On this planet, the team meets Ego and Mantis who helped them escape, and whatd’ya know Ego drops the f-bomb. That he’s Peter’s father and he’s been searching the cosmos trying to find him ever since Yondu failed to bring him in when Peter was younger. This leads to the team splitting up; Peter, Gamora and Drax go with Ego and Mantis back to Ego’s world, and Rocket stays behind to repair the ship along with Groot and (still a prisoner, but not for long) Nebula. Soon, the Ravagers arrive on Berhert and with the help of Nebula (at the cost of a ship to hunt down her sister), capture Rocket and Groot and also mutiny against Yondu.

We learn a lot about Peter and Ego while on Ego’s planet, like the fact that the planet is Ego. He’s a planet. Well, technically, he’s a Celestial born millions and millions of years ago, but ehh, semantics. Peter learns that Ego had made countless avatars of himself, going to different planets and worlds in order to, ahem, spread his seed. Ego hired Yondu and the Ravagers to track down all his children and bring them to him because he needed their help to tap into the full potential of Ego’s powers in order for him to absorb all the planets he implanted his seeds. Whenever one of his offspring failed, Ego killed them. Turns out, Peter was the only one of his children who was able to tap into that shared power. After a (you guessed it) big ol’ battle, the reunited Guardians take out Ego, though in doing so, Peter loses whatever Celestial powers he had inside him.

During this time, Yondu also sacrifices himself in order to save Peter. Not only did Peter’s response to this, and losing the only real father figure he ever had, kill me, the fact that the other Ravagers who had shunned Yondu for so many years came and gave him the proper funeral with all the bells and whistles was beautiful.

All in all, I thought the film was really good. The humor was there (“I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!”), the banter was there, the action was there, but it also had a lot of emotion to it. Aside from Yondu’s sacrifice, we get to see a whole different side to Nebula—how all she wanted was a sister and how it felt to never be good enough, and we learn that Ego was the reason Peter’s mother actually died. There were some slow bits, but that’s to be expected. I will say, I wasn’t too blown away by all the post credit scenes. I mean, it was cool to see the original Guardians team, Adam Warlock’s pod, teenager Groot and Stan Lee as a possible Watcher? But, I just kind of expected more ‘OH MY GOD’ moments. Oh, and it goes without saying, but the soundtrack alone makes it a must see.

Has anyone else seen it yet? What’d you think? Lemme know!