HTTYD2 and GOTG
29 Aug 2014 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiThe title is an example of abbreviations gone wild, but also of my increasingly short memory span. I completely forgot I watched How to Train Your Dragon 2, so I thought I'd bring it up while discussing Guardians of the Galaxy.
HTTYD 2 was nice, in the same way that Iron Man 3 was nice. A sense of a job well-done but not really as amazing as you'd prefer your fond memory of it to be, and altogether 30 minutes too long.
It's been a while ago now, but the main thing that bothered me at the time was Hiccup's development - or lack thereof. He's hit a wall in his development and hasn't really learned to be anything better than he was. In the first movie it was about him and Toothless overcoming their flaws (a softie in the midst of Vikings, a dragon without a tail fin) and making the best of their assets. The second movie was...well, I have no idea. Hiccup is still the same awkward kind soul, but the struggle isn't there. He's like Thor in Thor 2, or Po in Kung Fu Panda 2, or Kira in Gundam Seed Destiny. He's had his character arc and the writers have no idea what to do with him again.
Guardians of the Galaxy, on the other hand, is the dark horse of the northern summer season. To pull the words from another site, Marvel has successfully bookended the summer with two critically acclaimed and commercially proven movies, the first being Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Everything about GotG, from the concept to the concept art to the eventual trailers, was an unknown and a possible disaster in the making. Fans were excited and anxious in equal measures. Sure, the comic crowd who knew Rocket Racoon and Groot loved them before they started speaking, but how will the mainstream audience perceive them? And how are they going to be portrayed?
One of the film's greatest successes happen to be these two characters, and possibly the greater success arising out of that is you don't actually consciously think of them as two animated avatars. You don't watch Rocket and think, "Gee, that's a cute fluffy puppet". They're ridiculous concepts, but so rich in their characterisation that you forget their comical sources.
I've seen one negative review of GotG so far and it was in Chinese. I guess a lot of its humour translates quite poorly across languages (and cultures). For the English-speaking audience, though, the humour is well-timed and perfect-pitched, weaving through a story that was surprising in its tenderness, owing in no small part to its five main characters. I was going to say Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana did a really good job, but I think every one of the five has been amazing. A motley crew of marginalised antiheroes, each with a chip on their shoulder, thrown together. They protect the galaxy not because they're heroes, or that they have to, but because they want to. There's something raw and intuitive about their motivation, compared to the Avengers' more lofty moral grounds.
All rallying speeches are the same to some extent, but they're also excellent reflections on the characters who speak them. Rogers is always going to be the straight-up perfect American soldier, who would live and die for freedom. Quill has the heart of gold wrapped in a weasly exterior and steeped in Tony Stark's sarcasm-sauce.
The appeal of GotG is not the conceit of them being antiheroes, but that they are all fundamentally good people ruined by misfortune, now finally given the chance to be the person they want to be. This certainly gives them a layer of complexity that is not afforded by the likes of Thor or Steve Rogers.
HTTYD 2 was nice, in the same way that Iron Man 3 was nice. A sense of a job well-done but not really as amazing as you'd prefer your fond memory of it to be, and altogether 30 minutes too long.
It's been a while ago now, but the main thing that bothered me at the time was Hiccup's development - or lack thereof. He's hit a wall in his development and hasn't really learned to be anything better than he was. In the first movie it was about him and Toothless overcoming their flaws (a softie in the midst of Vikings, a dragon without a tail fin) and making the best of their assets. The second movie was...well, I have no idea. Hiccup is still the same awkward kind soul, but the struggle isn't there. He's like Thor in Thor 2, or Po in Kung Fu Panda 2, or Kira in Gundam Seed Destiny. He's had his character arc and the writers have no idea what to do with him again.
Guardians of the Galaxy, on the other hand, is the dark horse of the northern summer season. To pull the words from another site, Marvel has successfully bookended the summer with two critically acclaimed and commercially proven movies, the first being Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Everything about GotG, from the concept to the concept art to the eventual trailers, was an unknown and a possible disaster in the making. Fans were excited and anxious in equal measures. Sure, the comic crowd who knew Rocket Racoon and Groot loved them before they started speaking, but how will the mainstream audience perceive them? And how are they going to be portrayed?
One of the film's greatest successes happen to be these two characters, and possibly the greater success arising out of that is you don't actually consciously think of them as two animated avatars. You don't watch Rocket and think, "Gee, that's a cute fluffy puppet". They're ridiculous concepts, but so rich in their characterisation that you forget their comical sources.
I've seen one negative review of GotG so far and it was in Chinese. I guess a lot of its humour translates quite poorly across languages (and cultures). For the English-speaking audience, though, the humour is well-timed and perfect-pitched, weaving through a story that was surprising in its tenderness, owing in no small part to its five main characters. I was going to say Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana did a really good job, but I think every one of the five has been amazing. A motley crew of marginalised antiheroes, each with a chip on their shoulder, thrown together. They protect the galaxy not because they're heroes, or that they have to, but because they want to. There's something raw and intuitive about their motivation, compared to the Avengers' more lofty moral grounds.
I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, always has been. But it's a price I'm willing to pay! If I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not. -- Steve Rogers
When I look around, you know what I see? Losers. I mean people who lost stuff. And man, we all have, a lot. But now life's given us a chance. To give a shit. And I am not gonna stand by and watch as billions of lives are being wiped out. -- Peter Quill
All rallying speeches are the same to some extent, but they're also excellent reflections on the characters who speak them. Rogers is always going to be the straight-up perfect American soldier, who would live and die for freedom. Quill has the heart of gold wrapped in a weasly exterior and steeped in Tony Stark's sarcasm-sauce.
The appeal of GotG is not the conceit of them being antiheroes, but that they are all fundamentally good people ruined by misfortune, now finally given the chance to be the person they want to be. This certainly gives them a layer of complexity that is not afforded by the likes of Thor or Steve Rogers.
