Review... Guardians of the Galaxy

I FINALLY got to see this movie.  Normally, I aim to go to the midnight showings of the Marvel films, but this time money was tight and seeing anything at a normal theater wasn't gonna happen.  [We have one locally owned, independent theater in town.  Used to be known the 'The Dollar theater.  They show movies for $5, and on Wednesday its only $2.50.  Either way, sometimes its worth the wait for the price.]

Anywho, adding to my annoyance was that most of the times I see the movie and all my friends haven't.  This time, everyone else saw it last month and I was still waiting around.  So they're making jokes, laughing and talking about how awesome it is, and I'm left pouting.  Talked about that a bit ago.

On to the review!!

LOVED IT!!  Now, I've loved all the Marvel movies.  Ok, not the first Hulk one, but after that I have actually liked all of these films.  The stories, the characters, the actors... All of it came together for me in a great way.  They opened my eyes to this world, and as such I've been more active in my weird research vibe of Marvel, along with watching cute cartoons of them.

Guardians is a group I didn't know a lot about.  Saw them once or twice in an Avengers cartoon, and perhaps once in Ultimate Spiderman, but otherwise.... Nothing.

Mostly, I knew who Groot was and thought he kicked ass.  'I am Groot!'

To some, I'm sure the story starts a little slow, but as a writer I get why.  Just as with Thor, we're not picking up an origin story on earth where we know what's going on.  The movie has to give background information to those of us who know nothing about the Marvel world, outside earth!

So the movie shows us a bit of information about each one of the characters, broadening our world.  Most of the story, and the group, is centered around Star-Lord [Peter Quinn].  He's the heart of the group and its leader.

He's flawed, not the smartest, strongest or the 'best', but he's got what all leaders need to have.  The ability to take command, do what's needed and realize when someone else might be better at doing something.

Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Sheridan, Reynolds, Rogers, O'Neill, Janway... And others come to mind as being the same type of character.  They have something inside them that makes you want to follow and trust, even when it looks like you're most likely gonna die.

Best example of this is in Star Trek 6.  Kirk asks Sulu to help him.  As they fly to the aide of his former captain, one of the crewmembers says that they'll fly the ship apart if they keep it up.  Sulu's response?  'Then fly her apart!'

His faith and trust in Kirk was so strong, that he was willing to defy anything to get to the mans side in a moment of need.

If you watch any of these shows, you'll see just how often a good leader knows how to bring out the best in everything they do.

Sorry for the detract, but I think its important to see that they had an important role for Chris Pratt, and he did what was needed.  A little more like Malcolm Reynolds, but then the others tended to be working for a government with strict guidelines to follow, while Mal and Quinn are working outside the government with a motley band of misfits at their side.

Honestly, there's so much I could say about the movie, but I don't want to give things away.  Sure, its been out for almost 2 months now and I'm more than sure you've seen all the posts, memes and reviews out there, but I don't want to be the one to spoils it for anyone.

5 out of 5 stars for me.

Kristy C

Who Am I... A Geek

So, today we'll look at 'Who I Am as a geek'.

It came to me finally, as I've been watching Doctor Who a bit more.

Honestly, I can't remember a time when Science Fiction and Fantasy wasn't apart of my life.  Growing up, we watched Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Star Trek movies.  On VHS Tape I have the old Hobbit Cartoon, and the amazing Lord of the Rings one that's got live action and animation.  The Last Unicorn, The Flight of Dragons and so many others.

I can't remember how old I was, I think about 13 or 14, when I found one of my favorite authors... David Eddings.

The Diamond Throne... It fascinated me and inspired me, I had to read more by him.

From Eddings, I picked up Terry Brooks and a few others, even Robert Jordan.  Never finished the Shannara Series.  Stopped when they went to the Air Ships.  Nothing against Brooks, but the series seemed to repeat.  I also enjoyed the Magic Landover stories.  I also stopped the Wheel of Time books at book 9.  It wasn't bad, just got tired of it after a little bit.

Later on I got into some scifi books, mostly Star Wars.  Young Jedi Academy books and the X-Wing ones are the best, to me.

I've written Fan Fiction for a few Anime's and Video Games, before I abandoned that for more 'serious' writing.

After a few years, I lost interest in anime and manga's.  Oddly, I'd like to still read them, but I don't have a lot of desire to actually sit down and read them.

I also got into comics, but they're damn expensive and keep changing storylines all the time.  So now, I just go about reading what's happened in comics and acting like I know lots more than I do.  ^^  Rather fun.

Over the years I've watched plenty of great SciFi shows, Babylon 5, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica [the original one], and others.  I've also watched some ok things, Buffy, Angel and Charmed.

Almost 3 years ago I started to play a game called Pathfinder.  Loved it really.  Its opened a new door to my geekiness.

There are plenty of books out there I've not read that I've been told I should read, and more than I wish I could read.

Took me all day to write this post.  Not sure why, except that Doctor Who was distracting me.

There's a lot more to write about me as a geek, more than can be contained in one blog.

Kristy C