The Bechdel Cast - Guardians of the Galaxy

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

This week, we're unlocking an episode from our Patreon (aka Matreon) on Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and promoting out upcoming tour in the Midwest covering the Star Wars prequels! Indianapolis Aug 30, Chicago Aug 31, Madison Sept 4, Minneapolish Sept 7! Tickets at linktr.ee/bechdelcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as the People's Princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on.

and off the court. Listen to Fun Around and Find out, a production of IHeart women's sports in partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Summer's here, and with the kids home and off to camp, it's easy for moms to get lost in the shuffle.

On good mom's bad choices, we're making space to center ourselves with joy, rest, and pleasure. Take the kids to camp. You know what? It was expensive. But I was also thinking, if you have my kid,

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When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked. I'm Maria Inogosa. I spent my career creating journalism that centers voices who have been historically sidelined. From the most pressing news stories to deep. cultural explorations, Latino USA is journalism with heart. Listen to Latino USA, the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States. Hear it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the pecto cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions, just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast Start changing it with the Beckdale cast Hello listeners Guess what we're doing We're doing two things I just panicked First of all

We're unlocking a Matrion episode Which we are wont to do Not very often Because we love to give you Piping Hot content However We are releasing We are unlocking this Matrion episode this week

because it goes a bit on a theme, a theme that is connected to our upcoming tour, perhaps. Yeah. That's so true, Jamie, because... Tell the people, Kailen. So we're unlocking this Matrion, aka Patreon episode, on Guardians of the Galaxy, because we did a themed month. This was two years ago now. It's been a little while.

But the theme was Zoe Saldana in space. where we covered Star Trek 2009 and Guardians of the Galaxy. It's very true. And speaking of space, you know what other movies take place in space? Dada! Famously Star War. Star War and not just any, there's many eras of Star Wars. We chose the, I think, the most complicated era of Star Wars, the prequels.

an era that a lot of people hated when it came out and then I feel like there's a lot of nostalgia for it now for kids that grew up with it. So we will be on our Midwest tour giving the definitive intersectional feminist perspective on the Star Wars prequals. There's been a lot of talk about these things but somehow there hasn't been an intersectional feminist talk.

So please if you are in the area we will let you know where to go. But, you know, a Bechtelcast, live show is a blast. We do some discourse. We're going to be talking, Pat May. We're going to be talking, hmm, anyone else? Jar Jar Bings? Jar.

They have a very, very complicated figure in Star Wars history. And we're also going to be doing silly stuff. We do our own presentations. They'll be fanfic. There'll be exclusive merch. We're going to try to lightsaber battle each other. It's going to be fun. So please do come out for that.

And here's where you can go. We will first be on August 30th. We will be live in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ever heard of it? That's an afternoon show at the Fountain Square Theater. As a part of Let's Fest and also a part of Let's Fest. Jamie, do you have a little something? I do and I really need to sell tickets.

Thank you for bringing that up. I will be doing an hour of stand-up called Jamie Loft. and her pet rock solve the world's problems. And that will be later that very day on August 30th. So if you're already going to the Bechtelcast show, then hang out for the day. There's so many great comics performing at the festival. And I'll be performing towards the end of the night. And it'll be a blast.

Please, please come through. It'll be a blast. It'll be a blaster. Wow. Piu-pew. Yeah, that's right. I've been researching. Wow. Amazing.

So following the Indianapolis show is, a show in Chicago on August 31st at the Den Theater. That's a sexy evening show. Next, we are going to be zooming over in an X-wing, question mark. At hyper speed, or do they do light speed in Star Wars? I can't remember. Look, go. We know what we're talking about.

We get it. We'll figure it out by next week. There will be in Madison, Wisconsin on September 4th. That is going to be at the Burr Oak Theater. Do come out. Wisconsin heads. Bring your curds. Exactly. And finally, we will be in Minneapolis on September 7th at the Dudley Riggs Theater. And this is just a separate thing, but I'm going to go to the Mall of America for the first time. I'm going to go for the second. Look at God. So if you have any recommendations, just, you know, Minneapolis, I'm pissed that your American girl will all store clothes, but I'll still roll. through. We were so excited if you have been thinking about going to a Bechtalcast show and you never have. We've never been to the Midwest before. And the only way that we'll ever come back is if people come to the shows. So not to threaten you. That's just how the business works.

That's just how these things work. So please, please, please come out. You can grab tickets on our link tree to all of these shows. That's Linktree slash Bechtelcast. We'd love to see you there. We always do little meet and greets after the shows and we sell merch so come say hi to us take a picture and if you are a matron of the show we do have exclusive buttons for our matrons so you get a special little treat come and hang we would really love to see you and if you want a little taste of what the buccal cast in space is like well it might sound a little something like this here is our episode on Guardians of the Galaxy from the director that brought you Scooby-Doo. The Beckdale cast.

Anyway, hello, matrons, and welcome to the second installment of Zoe Zaldana in Space September. We are covering Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 1 from 2014, although I did a lot of extra credit. You've done a lot of extra credit this month in general, yeah. It's true. I watched two different trilogies, and for this. episode, I watched, so I watched all three volumes of Guardians of the Galaxy plus parts of Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame, not the whole movie for either movie, because that

would be 100 million hours of work. But I skipped through and just watched all of the parts of those movies that had the Guardians characters in them, just to have more context. Because there's a significant kind of like narrative gap between volume two and three that is filled in by those Avengers movies so I went I was like right as I was watching the trilogy I was like oh there's stuff that happens in the Avengers that I forgot about so I went back and watched those parts I watched the movie we're covering and that was all and that's fine I feel it's interesting I do think that like yeah there's like certain genres where all go above and beyond there's certain genres where you'll go above and beyond. Star Trek, we were evenly matched and had different

areas of expertise. Guardians, I think, I mean, if anyone's listened to our past Marvel episodes, I just, you know, if you love the movies, that is wonderful, I don't want it to be my personality to dislike anything. But I just find them really challenging to keep up with. I feel, yeah, I mean, they're the most popular movies in the history of the world. So clearly, a lot of people feel it differently. But I just, yeah, there was a number of parts in this movie where there are sentences where I'm like, oh, my God, what? Like, and then I have to Google the sentence.

And then I read a sentence in the thing that's supposed to be explaining the sentence to me that is like, well, I don't know what that means. I know enough. And I think that it speaks to the strengths of this movie that, And I think most of the Marvel movies that I enjoy, because there are Marvel movies I enjoy. I'm not a completionist. The Avengers movies in particular, I find to be such a slog. There's too many characters.

There's a lot. There's, orbs, tesseracts, stones. Often one thing is containing the other thing. And at some point, I'm just like, oh, my God, like, we got to pick a term. We got to pick a term. Yeah. Because I can't keep up. and so I apologize in advance for if there are Marvel enthusiasts listening and Caitlin I will I will need your help because I I feel like I'm here for you baby I've watched Guardians of the Galaxy volume one twice I've seen many Marvel movies I recognized terms I recognized character I know who Thanos is nice I made the mistake of watching this with a boyfriend

and they know all the words I feel like there's been three different boyfriends I've watched these movies with throughout the course of this podcast series and they all know all the words no matter how different they are

they all know all the words that are going on Boy love Marvel it was so it was truly shocking because like this my boyfriend is not someone I would think would know all the words but I said like glove

and he was like it's not a glove I was like the infinity what's it called because there's oh what do they call it's not a it's sort of like gauntlet but not is it got me he might have said he might have corrected me to gauntlet and I was like whoa whoa maybe it is I don't remember and then I was like then I was like you need to leave it's it's it's Thanos's little mitten and that's the name of it it's a glove it's a really like bulky glove that he's putting the rocks in and then he kills everyone, but then also not, there's no consequences in this way. That's the other thing about

Marvel that like, why am I bitching at the very beginning? But like, with Marvel movies, I find that like there's no real, and like later Star Wars movies, there's no real consequence. No one ever dies because there's a multiverse. Groot dies and then you're like, wait a second, because I live in the future, I know that there's always Groot. And then it's a baby. And then it's like, oh they're just trying to sell toys that death was for nothing it was like chubaka in star wars nine you know you're just like what does it mean i find the mc u and i generally like it although i'm not i wouldn't call myself an enthusiast because for most of the mccu movies i've seen each of them only one time there's a handful that i've seen multiple times but you do keep up

i do keep up i see all of them usually in theaters so i am a little bit more pro active but I'm not like oh my god I have to watch all of them in the in chronological order yeah theatrical order and blah blah blah like I'm not I'm not like that enthusiastic about I guess just like a warning for because I just I always get nervous going into big franchises where it's like we're not experts on this franchise if you're listed I mean you're your matrons also we're not in the main feed so I can like let my guard down a little you can let your guardian you can let my guardian a little and just say, you know, if you're a matron of this show, you know that we are not experts on the MCU, or we would maybe have mentioned it. I feel like I see one Marvel movie

a year. And there's like seven. So it's like, there's no way to keep up. There's so money now. And and I find that frustrating. And the other thing I was about to say that I find frustrating is that the stakes do feel, I mean, they establish stakes, but I feel like you don't ever, actually feel them because they're like these characters are throwing each other around so violently and it's like that would kill even a superhero that seems like that would kill a superhero and they don't they never die and never feel the actual stakes or rarely do yeah the stakes feel low yeah physically which I didn't even really think about but I feel like yeah the stakes feel low and it feels like there's a lot of and I know that that to some extent this exists within comic

franchises so I don't mean that like but it is frustrating as a moviegoer to be like I don't know like at some point and again I have seen not even half of the Marvel movies but it's like in the movies where a character dies it I feel like actually counts or sticks less than half the time and so you're like why would I emotionally get invested in this series if nothing matters I did but I mean That's, I don't know. I saw, I saw the last, what was the last Avengers? Avengers and the big one. Yep, the big one. I saw that one in theaters. It was a good communal movie theater experience. Because, you know, it's like everyone's really into it. Everyone's really excited. I saw Wanda Vision. I saw, oh, last year, I tried the new Doctor Strange and I just, I couldn't, it was so bad. It sucked. That's a mistake. And that's not even the worst one that's come out recently because Aunt Man's, Three was a piece of poo-poo? That's the one I saw this year. And unfortunately, I really can just see one. So I sat out, Guardian 3 and The Marvels, because I just, I can only sit up for,

and so I blew my wad early in the year. So, and at this point, I don't even know if people are watching them anymore. I don't know. It seems like they're, whatever, there's, getting us back on topic because I feel like I brought in negative energy. Okay. Bring us back. So now in the future, in late 2023, the superhero bubble has effectively burst. They're not grossing the same amount. There's too much coming out to be a casual fan, which I feel like is important to a movie franchise. You have to be able to be a casual fan or you're really limiting your audience. The quality of the movie seems to have dipped. Yes.

And I say this, I mean, also, I'm just speaking to what I've read and heard overall. But Guardians of the Galaxy, volume one, 2014, I would say this is like pretty close to like the peak Marvel era, right? Which I would say would be like what between 2012 and 2019, right? Like the Avengers movies and all of the stuff that came out in between. And then I think once the pandemic. I don't, something, something. I liked Wanda Vision.

Sure. End of thought. But yeah, this is like peak Marvel movies. And it's a good movie. It's fun, right? Did you, you liked it? Yes. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And you had never seen it before, right? No, my history with guard. Yeah, I guess I just gave my history with Marvel movies, which is all over the place, very, very hit or miss. I feel like what I think is interesting about, or at least was interesting about Marvel movies at one point, was. was that, like, you could kind of go with a, I guess in my mind, like a director to director preference,

where, like, this, you can obviously feel that this is a James Gunn movie that exists within the purview of this larger universe. And I liked James Gunn. And so I liked this movie. I just, I didn't see it when it came out. And then in subsequent installments, I was like, I got to watch the first one. And then I just sort of never did because it's not my, not my vibe generally. but I really, I enjoy James Gunn. We covered Scooby-Doo earlier this year. Yes. And there was multiple times where I wished that Groot was Scooby. Is that anything?

I think that like Groot has Scooby energy where he says one thing. And James Gunn was like, I've done this twice. See, here's... Because of Monsters Unleashed. Here is my brilliant thought. I have two brilliant thoughts. Number one. Let's blow them early.

Yes. Yeah. And then the rest of the episode will. absolutely suck. Drivel. Thought number one. Yeah. Okay.

So we know about I am Groot, but have you ever thought about I am Gru? Oh. And that makes you think. And that's also why you don't need to take us seriously because we love the vidians. I mean, talk about a franchise. My God. I, worth with legs, with lore for the people. pretentious. I believe all of this. I saw the, I, I went to Universal Studios recently.

Brad. And thank you. Season pass holder. And I'm going tomorrow. Thrilling. It was a great, a great time. But I wanted, I wanted to go for Grinchmas because I do love me some Grinchmiss. Grinchmiss still great. But I also was like, how are they going to holiday five the minions. And it didn't disappoint. Even if you don't, I mean, I know that there's not much to do there for adults, maybe, but you got to stop and check out the minion tree. There's a honkin minion tree, stewards on top. I was loving it. Did you get any pictures? I did. I'll send them. I'll send them. Of course I got picked. Thank you for checking. I'll get pictures also and then we will post them to the Instagram. The people demand it.

Um, so yeah, that's the Minions update. Okay. Oh, and then my other brilliant thought is, um, I was thinking it would be very funny if instead of watching Guardians of the Galaxy that one of us accidentally watched the movie Legend of the Guardians, colon, the Ows of Gahoole. Oh, I've, do you remember that? Yeah, I saw it. I saw it because I was a fan of the books. Is that, that. They were like chapter books for sixth graders and I was really invested in their journey. And then like, Zach Snyder was like, I've got this. I had no idea that was a Zach Snyder movie. Oh my God. It's like, I don't know. I'm not a Zach Snyder complationist, which maybe one could assume about me. But I thought his riskiest cinematic choice ever was taken on Gahul. And the movie is like,

it would be a fun April Fool's movie because you're just like, Like, those owls were so self-serious. It was just, it was a bit much. I've never seen it. It's like they don't even know their owls. It's ridiculous. I loved it. I loved it.

Kind of like how Rocket doesn't know he's a raccoon. That, and that is like an S-tier Bradley Cooper before. It's like Jackson, Maine, Rocket Raccoon, whatever else. I think that's about hangover movies. That's not, yeah, that's, yeah, we can. we don't need to talk about those. I really, I was thinking about Jackson Maine recently,

as I'm often want to do. Hey, Jamie. Let me get another look at you. Hey, Caitlin. Hey, Caitlin. He is, that is like one of the greatest, like up there with Mommy Dearest

of like one of the greatest camp performances ever given. The choices he's making, turn my head around 360 gahool style. It's, it's, it's just absurd. I love, I love him. Wow. In that movie, I, you know, have a bone, but, you know, that's not for today.

He plays a raccoon in this movie. Yes. And we're like, and that's interesting. What's your history with Guardians of the Galaxy, the franchise in this movie? I've seen all three volumes in theaters. And I've seen probably this first one most often. I think I've probably seen it like four or five times now. I generally liked it.

just feels like similar to the way Star Trek 2009 feels like a Star Wars movie. This very much feels like a Star Wars movie. It's almost like everyone's trying to make a Star Wars movie. A little bit. Yeah. And so as a Star Wars fan, this was my jam when it came out. And I still enjoy this movie. I find it to be very fun. I like the trilogy in general. I like the characters. I like when they show up in the other MCU movies. So yeah, I would say that I'm a casual fan of

this franchise. So that's about it from me. Hell yeah. I mean, yeah, did you like the all three installments? I also, I'm curious because I didn't, when I knew that you were watching all three to prepare, I did not look into

the subsequent character arcs of these characters afterwards. Oh, I'm ready with Caitlin's context corner. Perfect. Because I all, I know a little bit from cultural osmosis. I know that volume two somehow turns the daddy factor up significantly. By a lot, yes. I find that one to be the most underwhelming of the three. Interesting. The first one is the most fun. But as far as like eliciting an emotional reaction from me, volume three, when I was rewatching it yesterday, I cried, 15 different times because it's so much it's a lot about rocket and his backstory and like all of

the like animal abuse he's suffered and so it's like a lot about like the abuse and mistreatment of animals and it's just like it got me so sad and crying I knew I knew a little about that but I like I yeah I I'm interested to hear more about that because in a way that I mean I seems probably satisfying because I guess it's weird by the time this comes out you've been with these characters for nine years in one capacity or another would not have been what I would guess the third movie would be

about just based on how kind of like broad a character rocket is presented as in the first movie. Yeah, it's interesting. It's a bit surprising. So there's a lot to talk about today and there's also of course because we foreshadowed it in the last episode a lot to talk about

Zoe Saldana and when she's in space. because that's why we've all gathered here today. It sure is. So without much further ado, should I do the recap? Yeah, let's recap it. Okay. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order. criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd.

You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life

as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the core. You'll even get to have some fun with the Fudd family. So if you follow me

on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHart Women's Sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford. And in session 421 of therapy for black girls, I sit down with Dr. Afia and Billy Shaka to explore how our hair connects to our identity, mental health, and the ways we heal. Because I think hair is a complex language system, right? In terms of it can tell how old you are, your marital status, where you're from, you're a spiritual belief. But I think with social media, there's like a hyperfixation and observation of our hair, right? That this is

sometimes the first thing someone sees when we make a post or a reel. It's how our hair is styled. You talk about the important role hairstylists play in our community, the pressure to always look put together, and how breaking up with perfection can actually free us. Plus, if you're someone who gets anxious about flying, don't miss Session 418 with Dr. Angela Neil Barnett, where we dive into managing flight anxiety. Listen to therapy for black girls on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories

I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests

for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we open on Earth, I think specifically Missouri. Yep. In 1988, we meet a young Peter Quill. I think he's probably like nine or so.

He's at a hospital where his mom is on her deathbed. She gives him a wrapped gift and says that his grandpa is going to take care of him, at least until his dad comes back to get him. So we'll put a pin in that. And I'm just like, my goodness, we really need a, it's that classic movie chestnut. A woman has to die before the movie starts. You're like, oh, you know, Starlard is like low-key, a Disney princess. Oh, yeah.

Except just kind of gender swapped. And worse. I'm not a Starler fan. I think also it's interesting that this movie comes. well not completely but I think in a big way in the big movie way was like Chris Pratt's like you know debutante ball for being buff which we could talk about too yeah but also in 2023 not as fun to I think it was like it was still fun to watch Chris Pratt until like 2018 and then you're like I'm sick of this guy I think and then he's like a

Republican and then you're like, I hate this guy, but he's still in everything. He's like a he's a homophobic, ableist, like religious zealot. Yeah. When we hate him for that. Which is interesting, because this movie is against religious zeal. And yet Chris Pratt is the Star. Well, anyways. So anyway, Peter Quill's mother passes away. Peter is distraught. He runs outside and the then a spaceship appears and abducts him because then we cut to 26 years later we are on an abandoned planet and adult Peter Quill played by Chris Pratt. His like superhero name is Star Lord. He's a Ravanger, so it's kind of like a space cowboy, space outlaw.

And he's got all the sickest needle drops in that. I mean, I feel like that's like one of the things this movie or this like trillard. is most famous forest like needle drop needle and they're and they're good needle drops it's true can't take it from them and i like that i like the kind of fake out that it starts with it feels very james gunn where it's like you're presented with all kind of like the tropes of a marvel movie including the swelling music and all this stuff and then you get like a little bit of levity i feel like it sets the stage for like tycho it titi to do something similar but different later on true My only complaint about it is Peter Quill kicking animals as a joke.

Oh. Bad way to introduce a character. Yeah, well, but you could also argue that he sucks. I mean, and this is proof kicking CGI rats. Yeah. Is proof that he sucks. He's cruel. Yeah.

Anyway, he's there on this planet to steal this valuable orb. He doesn't know what it is. He's just been hired to steal it. But he's intercepted by some. bad guys led by someone named Korath, played by Jaman Hunsu, they also want the orb. But Quill escapes. And you're like, what's the orb? Well, there's an infinity stone in the orb.

Yeah. Can't they, I know the stones are powerful, but can't they just be looking for the stone? And be like, oh, by the way, the stone's in a box. Like the orb, the tesser, I'm like, oh, gosh, anyways, it's done. It sounds like you get it, though, Jamie. I can, I'm embarrassed at how many people I needed to consult to be completely clear on that. It's confusing. Well, we'll find out later that an infinity stone is inside, but for now it's just an orb that has value.

Quill escapes and flies away on his spaceship. And then he gets a call from his ravager boss, Yandu, who is the person who abducted quill as a kid and yandu's pissed at quill for like messing up this whole thing and then he puts a bounty on on him so then we cut to the big bad a guy named ronin played by lee pace and you're like whoa lee pace is so versatile hot i would never have known this was yeah the range on that man it's true you got to love lee pace i love lee pace yeah this role you know not much to do do but what can you do shout out to my um wait was it pushing daisies that he was in yeah oh boy yeah halted catch fire um he was in what was he in last year um the the movie the murder movie the murder movie

pete davids it was in it you know the movie maria bacalofa bodies bodies bodies that's the one he was in that one too we love him i forgot about that queer icon lee pay we love him yeah but yeah not much to do here i feel like this interest in a movie where like characters that you wouldn't expect in a marvel movie to have a personality i was kind of disappointed that the villain was not given in a personality you got to give the villain a personality yeah he's pretty boring he can't just be saying mean stuff and i want to talk about the mean stuff he's saying in a little bit but like not yeah kind of flat anyway he is a kree person who wants to destroy this planet called Zandar.

We learned that Korath is one of his minions. Okay. Corath, more like Kevin Le Mignon. Exactly. Other minions of Ronin's are Gomorra, our girl, Zoe Aldana, and her sister, Nebula, played by Karen Gillen, who are both Thanos's daughters. So Ronan wants this orb, and he is trying to deliver it to Thanos. And Gomorrah is like, okay, well, I'll get the orb for you.

So she sets off to steal the orb back from Quill, who is on this planet in question, Zandar that Ronan wants to destroy. So we cut to Zandar where we meet Rocket, a talking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, and Groot, a sentient tree voiced by Vin Diesel, who famously only ever says, I am Groot. I have some very fun quotes from him about this. later. From Van Diesel? Yeah. He gave a weird amount of interviews to talk about having done this movie. And also like he will talk about it. It's very funny to me. Okay. Nice. Okay. So Rocket and Groot

are bounty hunters who see the bounty that's out for Quill. So they go after him. Meanwhile, Gomorrah finds Quill and tries to steal the orb from him. Rocket and Groot get involved. There's this big fight, and ultimately they're arrested by John C. Riley. Sure. And thrown in space jail together, where Gomorrah reveals that she wasn't retrieving the orb for the bad guy, Ronan. She was betraying him because, like, her allegiances are actually not with Ronan or her father, Thanos. She's trying to get away from them. But all of the prisoners recognize Gomorra.

and hate her because of her affiliation with Thanos and Ronan. So they tried to kill her. This is where we meet Drax, played by Dave Batista. He has a big vendetta against Ronan because Ronan murdered his wife and his daughter. Yeah. Classics. Classics. But Quill swoops in and saves Gomorrah and convinces Drax not to kill her because she is his only chance to get to Ronan so that

Drax can kill Ronan. Then Quill, Gomorrah, Rocket, and Groot make a deal to sell the orb and then split the hefty profit among the four of them. So they make a plan to escape the prison so they can do this. Meanwhile, we cut back to Ronan, who is talking to Thanos, who I believe is uncredited in this movie, but it's obviously Josh Brolin. Yeah. He is pissed that he still doesn't have the orb.

and it's clear that Thanos knows what it is or at least what's inside of it but at this point the audience and Peter Quill alike don't know what it is anyway Quill and his friends

escape from the prison including Drax because like he kind of helps them fight off the bad guys and they all fly away on Quill's ship but tension is high among them because Quill and Gomorra

don't really trust each other Drax hates Gomorrah still he calls her a bunch of nasty names throughout the movie and we'll continue to and that's part of his arc for some reason yay he learned to respect one woman sort of but did he you know fun fun fun yeah um they head to a mining colony called nowhere to meet the collector played by Benicio del Toro, who Gomorra had made this deal with to buy the orb. And then this is when we learn what it actually is, or rather what's inside of it. It's the purple infinity stone.

I forget which one it is. I don't know if that's the power stone. I forget, whatever. Anyway, it can only be wielded by beings with great power, and it can be used as a weapon to cause mass destruction. So Gomorra is like, well, we have to take it to Novo. core so that they can like contain it and keep it safe nova core is like i couldn't it's like some intergalactic government maybe i'm not really sure i might be getting this wrong but anyway

it's run by glen close it's run by glen close she's got a fun hair do yes the whole nova core thing it just feels very good guy coated but then the stuff you see them doing you're like Is this what a good guy would do? You know, I don't know. Sci-fi politics are so pernicious and weird. And I don't trust Marvel in particular with having anything to say politically because they're so designed to please governments so that they can be broadcast everywhere that, like, I feel like it's inherent.

Even when they're fun to watch, they like, by their nature, have to say vaguely, like, if it's anything, it's extremely vague. In the same way that like if you're, you know, top gun maverick, you have to have a faceless enemy because, you know, assigning an enemy would, yeah, make it less marketable. So like, I don't know. It's not even an expectation for a Marvel movie for it to have to say anything other than like, be nice to your friends.

And found family is important, which it is. But also there's all the, I just, speaking. to the political stuff you're just like um it's i i don't i'm the good guy versus bad guy is it's weird and i feel like the more and maybe there's stuff i'm missing and there's stuff that comes up in future installments which i'll ask you about but i don't know like thinking about how this movie plays out politically was really confusing to me particularly with the character of nebula but we'll i guess talk about that yeah no in general it's just a lot of upholding of the status quo as far as like a lot of like industrial complexes it's like right because of all it's like these things aren't so bad because

ronin's whole thing is that like you destroyed generations of my people and they're like but we called a peace treaty recently and he's like fuck you and you're like yeah yeah fair enough, Roan, you know, and whatever. I don't know. Yeah. Well, anyway, before Peter and company can get to Novakor, Ronan shows up. So there's this whole fight and chase. And Nebula, Gomorrah's sister, manages to steal the orb for Ronan. Gomorrah, meanwhile, has like gotten out into space without any kind of like space suit or anything. So she's about to die. So Quill goes and saves her and sacrifices himself and gives up his location to the head Ravager guy, Yandu. Meanwhile, Drax, Rocket, and Groot are still on nowhere. And they decide that they need to go

and save Quill and Gomorrah because they're all kind of like becoming friends, question Mark. Meanwhile, Ronan has the orb now, and now that he knows that there's an infinity stone inside, he's like, oh, I don't need Thanos to destroy Zandar for me. I can do it myself. So he puts the stone in his like hammer thing, and he's like, okay, Thanos, bye bitch. I don't need you. We cut back to Quill. He convinces Yandu to let him go and that they should should all go after Ronan together because Gomorah knows about Ronan's weakness. So they have like a chance at defeating him. Then Rocket Groot and Drax show up and they team back up with Quill and Gomorrah.

And they really bond over being people who have all lost things. You know, their homes, their loved ones. And they're like, okay, we're like, we're like a freaking team now. and together they come up with a plan to take down Ronan and so they set off with Yandu's Ravager army to destroy Ronan. Then Quill calls John C. Riley on Zandar to warn them. John C. Riley relays this information to Nova Prime.

That's Glenn closest character. And so everyone on Zandar either evacuates or they prepare for Ronan's attack. meanwhile quill and his friends make their way onto ronan's ship they fight ronin's minions and then they reach him but he's so powerful especially with his infinity stone hammer so they can't defeat him yet and then this is when grout sacrifices himself for the other guardians and to like save the people of zandar so he dies or so we think but oh no Ronan is still undefeated. So then Quill distracts him with a dance. Wild. This all feels like so, I mean, this isn't a criticism of the movie necessarily, just of my

experience watching it, where it's just like so much of the humor in a way that I feel like Scoopy Dude doesn't for some reason. But the humor of this movie already feels so dated. It's like cringy. We're like, what if I did it? What if I, Chris, a homophobic Republican, did a random dance? And you're like, I hate that. Hating it.

Hating it, Chris, hating it. Yeah. You know, Liv Lafleur and whatever. Right. So Quill is distracting him with this dance. While that's happening, Drax and Rocket destroy the infinity stone hammer of Ronans. And then Quill grabs the stone, but oh, it's killing him. so then his friends like all hold his hand and it saves him and then they use the power from

the stone to destroy Ronan because guess what bitch they're the guardians of the galaxy now yay but but really it's star lord is the guardian of the galaxy and this is his band based on Gamora's last line which is basically like I'll do whatever you say And it's annoying, yeah. The movie ends with a couple little, like, you know, day new ma' type things. Glenn Close is like, by the way, Quill, we analyzed your DNA or something, and we learned that you're half human and half something else. Your father was this ancient being.

Hmm, wonder what that's all about. Which I know is setting up to, but also feels very like Star Wars 2010s, and maybe into now I kind of have given up but like 2010's sci-fi logic which is like basically like supremacy minded where like you can't just be a regular person doing extraordinary things anymore it actually you have to be tied to some exceptional bloodline and find that out you there's no there's far less precedent for just being someone who rises to the occasion and through their you know there's no nurture it's all nature yeah it's like like what's your bloodline, what's its legacy, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Which is the whole thing with Ray in the last Star Wars. And I don't know. I think that that is also just connected to this like huge insecurity to like have to connect not just every movie that gets greenlit, but like every plot point to recognizable IP in a way that creates freaky fictional bloodlines that you're like, I don't know. Or just like trust your writer. It's like soap opera shit. yeah yeah where it's like and it's actually your sister i mean and i would love to see a marvel style

like full-on soap opera but it's all taking itself so seriously that you're it just is like i don't know it's a bit goofy i don't i have very little patience for it yeah yeah but let nevertheless the movie's almost over right and then so the movie ends with quill finally opening the wrapped gift from his mom and then the Guardians of the Galaxy flying off together because they're best friends and also Groot isn't dead. He's a little sapling in a pot. That was the end.

That was unfortunate. I mean, that was cute. Yeah. December 29th, 1975. LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their needs.

Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice. system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop.

Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. most outstanding player. You may even know me as the People's Princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all,

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fud around and find out. Listen to fud around and find out. A production of IHeart women's sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Brandford, and in session 421 of therapy for black girls, I sit down with Dr. Afea and Billy Shaka to explore how our hair connects to our identity, mental health, and the ways we heal. Because I think hair is a complex language system, right, in terms of it can tell how old you are, your marital status, where you're from, you're a spiritual belief. But I think with social media, there's like a hyperfixation and observation of our hair, right?

That this is sometimes the first thing someone sees when we make a post or a reel is how our hair is styled. You talk about the important role hairstylists play in our community, the pressure to always look put together, and how breaking up with perfection can actually free us. Plus, if you're someone who gets anxious about flying, don't miss Session 418 with Dr. Angela Neil Barnett, where we dive into managing flight anxiety.

Listen to therapy for black girls on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro.

And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told.

I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. okay where shall we begin um well okay something i was surprised at is that this movie was co-written by a woman yes by a writer named Nicole Perlman um i found her journey pretty interesting um she started in marvel screenwriting program which i was not aware of it was a thing

me either and started by sort of i don't know i guess in the screenwriting program and this kind of sounds like fun like they'll lay out a bunch of ancient comic books and you you know read through them and see what kind of resonates for you because they were reviving so many like stagnant or kind of forgotten properties and so she chose Guardians of the galaxy and that was you know eventually her her script for it was read by james gun and they ended up i think getting dual screenwriting credits on this movie i mean because it's marvel I want to like shout out her screenwriting credit, but like who knows what that even means because they're so heavily workshopped and exist in this larger framework.

Who knows? But I want, and she went on to get story credits for Captain Marvel and write Detective Pikachu, pretty fun. So, Mew 2. She got to write the line that Bill Nye, he says, I am you too. I don't even know if he says that. He says Mew, too. I don't think he does.

He says it's so weird. The ancient Mew. Anyways. But, but in future installments, James Gunn is the only credited writer. So it seems that Nicole Perlman was not extended the opportunity or did uncredited writing, which I know happens on Marvel movies a lot in future installments, which while I like James Gunn, bummer. bummer. That is a bummer. Yeah. So I guess I just want to just start

there. I don't know. Where makes sense to start for you? There's a fair amount to talk about. Well, since this is Zoe in Space, I want to spend ample time on Gamora and her participation and presence in the story, among the other

female characters, because there are a few. Obviously, this is a superhero movie. pretty standard one which means that most of the characters are men yeah and there can be one woman but i feel like there well okay yeah i feel like the two women that you have who actually meaningfully affect the plot if we're taking out the glenclose government figurehead character is gamora and nebula and i know that that is a very important relationship moving forward but i do feel like again just like speaking to the already dated feeling elements of this movie it feels very the

McSweeney's article we've been talking about for years of like I am a woman so I kick but if you look at well how does the kicking advance the narrative infrequently I would say that the kicking and the quipping advances the plot not as much as you would be led to believe by its frequency because Because, yeah, there's just a lot of, I mean, yeah, and it's a 2014 movie, again, not trying to hold it to today's standards, but it was noticed then as well, where it's like in the, in the 2010s. And again, we were on this journey ourselves because we existed through the 2010s, not quite this early, but whatever. Just the whole, like being, I think that there was like an element of being so thrilled that women were included on.

screen as much that it maybe took a beat, at least for general audiences, and definitely for me to be like, wait a second, but what is, what are they doing? Right. They're doing stuff. And it was so exciting to be like, oh my God, women are doing stuff. There's like parody in fight scenes. Right. She's participating in the action in this action movie. And that's something that we hadn't seen very much prior to this right and she's a weapon and let's not worry about the circumstances under which she became a weapon but like she's an extremely like capable fighter it's very exciting it's not you know i think that there's a huge fixation on the mary sue trope in the mid-2010s she's not a mary sue we know why she's a good fighter we like it and and her motivations

plot wise do extend beyond the male love interest so we're getting more than we're used to in 2014. But I think, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, you look at, well, what does her fighting accomplish to advance the plot? Where does she end up versus where she started? And there's still a lot of tropeiness and damseling and just stuff that, you know, it's not a seismic shift. Right. So, yeah. I was noticing this about just like plot points where when she's introduced, it's in the context of, you know, she seems like a villain. She seems like she's going to be an obstacle for Quill, especially because she, like, goes after him and steals the orb.

Not clear to me why, if she intends to betray, you know, Ronan and Thanos, why wouldn't she go to Quill and be like, hey, like, let's make a deal or like, let's have a bargain here. Not why does, I don't know, maybe there's some, like, comic book context where she always chooses the fight or something like that. But anyway, she steals the... Well, it's like, maybe you can justify that by her being, like, a trained weapon. Like programmed to violence, but that there's a lot of stuff to talk about there, too. Yeah.

Right, right, right. So anyway, she steals the orb from him, they fight, and that's sort of like the catalyst that gets the whole group to even come together at all because that leads... Rocket and Groot to be involved in this fight. They all get arrested together. So, like, her actions sort of instigate this group even being formed, you could argue. But beyond that, her participation in the plot is way more minimal than I wanted it to be.

She is there in action scenes fighting alongside and with men. But there are moments where, like, okay, Rocket gets the – it's his – plan who gets them busted out of prison. So like, yay for Rocket for doing that. Obviously, Peter Quill is the protagonist, so a lot of his actions and motivations are driving the story. You know, Groot gets this big moment at the end where he sacrifices himself for the greater good. Drax, uh, maybe, I don't know, I need to ponder him a little bit more. But there's a very frustrating moment to me as it relates to Gomorra. Yeah. Where you think she's going to have this big thing to contribute toward the end because

Yes, I know what you're talking about. Yes. Quill is like, he's talking to his space daddy, um, what's his name, Yandu? And he's like, you need our help. We can go after these bad guys together and we have a ringer because Gomorrah knows Ronan and knows his vulnerabilities. So you think that you're going to see that information that Gamora has pay off in some way and does it? No, no. No, it does not. It becomes a moment that is extended to basically every character

except for Gomorrah for some reason. Like I feel like every, I mean, again, it's like just speaking to the kind of emptiness of some of the scenes we see that she's active in, of everyone gets a big moment towards the end and Gomorres is that she's fighting with her sister. But in terms of plot impact, it's not, like, it's at least right after that, like, again, kind of catalytic moment toward the beginning, she's not really doing much to contribute to like the group, the group dynamic of like, okay, this person did this thing, this person did this thing.

Now it's Gomorra's turn to like do something significant and that never really happens. Right. So that's frustrating. I felt like, and I think that like in terms of, at least. with blockbusters there was an increased pressure to give women in movies things to do and acknowledge patriarchy this was very vague and I feel like that comes through in the ways that it's done here because it's really just like quips it's and I think that it's stuff we've talked about before where it's quips and then doing it anyways like there's a point where like

I think Rocket suggests that Gomorrah act as like sexy bait to get something done while they're still in prison. And she says, you've got to be freaking kidding me. And that was the feminism of the scene. And you're like, oh my God, but they still all want her to do it, right? Or other times, like, I'm with the biggest idiots in the galaxy. And that's a feminism. Just acknowledging that the men around her are not treating.

her well is enough to continue to allow it to happen in the plot right or like when drax is like oh why are we still hanging out with this whore he calls her a whore he calls her a green whore which also has another element and that's another thing we have to talk about but yes and then she like scoffs and drax is absolved of having done that inside of two minutes because in that same scene this was i think the thing that drove me most out of my brain in terms of Gomorrah because I think I understand yours

makes total sense with the information with Ronan what felt to me I was like the gall to do this where Drax has just called Gamora a green whore as a joke clearly meant as a joke for the audience and she goes ugh then

her sister appears also begins berating her and for some reason Drax wins that scene and you know knocks nebula down and then it's like you are my friend and so somehow Drax comes out of that scene the good guy because he says something like don't talk about my friend that way and it's like you just called her a whore two seconds ago two seconds ago and also one of the only characters that it is like and I know that Gomorra does end up fighting her but even in that scene the fact that Gamora doesn't do anything she doesn't that's a great opportunity for

to advance that character relationship is Nebula showing up and berating her because there is a very like I feel like their relationship is so I mean with layers added on but like very succession coded where like who's going to get the kiss from daddy right and like Nebula really wants the kiss from daddy and she will do she will murder whoever she has to to get the kiss from daddy including her sister right and okay is that that, you know, rife with tropes. Yes, I liked it on Succession, but this isn't Succession. It's simply not as good. But, yeah, to have those two characters in an emotionally charged confrontation and then have the purpose of that scene to be to advance Drax's character versus Gomorres. I was just like, ugh. No, it was very annoying.

And speaking of, and we'll talk more about Gomorrah and, you'll talk more about Gomorra and Nebula's relationship when I get into the kind of overview of the sequels because there is an interesting arc there. What I wanted to say for this movie, for this first volume, and we've talked about this quite a bit on the podcast where if women are allowed to participate in the action, in an action movie, oftentimes they're only allowed to fight other women. That's not entirely true for this movie because we do see. Gomorrah fighting a bunch of men.

Especially towards the beginning. Right, right. Yeah. There is a pretty big battle between her and Nebula toward the end, but it didn't really ping for me as that because we've already seen Gomorah fight a bunch of men. And this is more like narratively charged because it's a fight between sisters who are diametrically opposed and they have all of this history and again, the movies go on to explore their relationship quite a bit in later installments so but I for a split second I was like

women fighting women but it I feel like that discussion we've had before doesn't fully apply here yeah I agree I was I think because it's already been well established that Gomorra can fight anyone and that in fact she is like built to be able to fight anyone her climactic battle being with her sister didn't bump me too much but but yeah I mean I think that that and and just like knowing the extent of what I do about like James Gunn who I think like of the and again it's like you could always fall into a Jawsweed and trap there you never know when that trap door is going to open but of the male blockbuster directors of that time it seemed like he I would guess that that was a conscious choice to not just limit her to fighting other women.

Right, yeah. But that doesn't mean he gets off the freaking hook because there's... Well, because you know what else happens? Tell me, Caitlin. Gamora has to be saved by men twice. Twice. First, in the prison when some of the prisoners slash draks are trying to kill her and then Quill swoops in and says,

don't do it and then later about halfway through the movie when she's floating out in space about to die killed or almost killed by her own sister which i think again i'm excited to hear how that resolves because a i don't know and b like it's a very powerful setup and so i mean you got to hand it to her i feel like nebula at points is more active in the plot than gomora in spite of being barely there because she does actively choose to be like, I'll kill my sister. That, I won't, I don't have to feel great about it, but I'll do it and I'm doing it. Nebula being more active than Gamora in the story is something that happens, I would say quite a bit in the later moments. Wow. Oh. Yeah. Wow. Well, we'll get there, but to quote Zoe Zaldana herself. Um,

Gamora is kind of the mom of the group, so it makes sense. She wouldn't have time to be active because she has to parent all these adult men that she's hanging out with. And unfortunately, that is a familiar dynamic for a lot of women and femmes. Yeah. So Gamora has to be saved twice. She does kind of save Peter Quill at the end because she's like the first one to hold his hand when he's like grabbing onto the infinity stone

but then like everyone holds his but even that it just doesn't feel the same to me I and feel free to you know like run me over with a truck ideologically but that moment also pinged me a little

weird because there's multiple moments in the back half of this movie that connect Gamora to Peter's dead mom it happens twice the most significant time is what you're just describing where Peter is like in infinity stone world like wherever Marga Robbie Barbie was when she was with Rea Pearlman like whatever that places that people go at the end of the movie Peter was there and his mom was reaching out to him

like she did at the beginning of the movie when she was dying and said Peter take my hand and he reaches out for her hand and then it switches to Gamora's hand and that is I think a very intentional choice that feels, and I would guess, like, not intentionally, but just like inherently connecting any woman that's important to him is going to be a mothering figure. Like connecting mommy to my girlfriend, in fiction or in life, I don't like it. And don't do that. That's some edible shit right there. And I mean, it's edible, but, But, like, also, I think that it just conditions young men to view women the same. Like, like, every woman that means something to me has to mean the same thing that the first woman who meant something to me did, which means that my girlfriend is my mommy.

And you're like, no, no. And, like, establishes expectations for men that, like, oh, my girlfriend or my wife. like is going to take care of me and be responsible for all of my emotional nurturing and like just and like household domestic things and like all this stuff. And that said, do I expect every single one of the boyfriends I've had to report on the Boston Bruins? Yes. I do. I do. And so, you know, I, it affects us all. I do. I do expect. I do expect. I do expect. I expect girlfriends to be my mommy and boyfriends to report on the Boston Bruins. But that's about it.

That's all I ask. Yeah. Well, that's reasonable. I'll, you know, I'll do everything else. But please report in the Boston Bruins. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's fair.

Well, that kind of brings us into the romantic tension between Peter Quill and Gomorrah. Yeah. So this will be explored more when I. go through the sequels, but in this first movie, it's very clearly being set up that there's romantic tension between them. There's a moment where they're kind of vibing. He is sharing his music with her. They're like kind of holding on to each other, dancing a little bit. They're about to kiss. But for some reason, she doesn't notice how close they are and how much they're about to kiss and as soon as she does when they're like an inch apart she pushes him off of her and says

something like i'm not some starry-eyed waif here to succumb to your pelvic sorcery which is the most 2014 line ever written oh my god okay yeah like she's like a breath away from being like this is so random epic bacon like it's just like hashtag awesome sauce it's a little exhausting. Yeah, pelvic sorcery. I'm just like, oh, oh. Also, that feels like a line that Drax would say, not her. Right, because she doesn't, like, that's not, yeah, I didn't even think of that. Like, I just wrote down 2014, boo. Real bummer. Yeah, I feel like it's like what everyone makes fun of millennial speak being, which is a separate tangent. I feel like what everyone makes fun of a generation for is actually a sin of

the previous generation because Gen X, you know, like James Gunn is a Gen X guy and wrote movies that resonated with millennials. It is technically a crime of Gen X. And so, in the future, you know, everything Gen Z likes was majority

written by millennials. Whatever. Yeah. Whatever. We'll get there. It doesn't matter. We maybe won't get there. It doesn't matter. Who can say? But I feel like there was this very of the time tendency to, again, in the same way that like that you could just perpetuate all of the same tropes that have appeared in these

genres for years and years and years but in the mid 2010s if you acknowledged it with a joke you could just proceed with the trope right and that feels true on a number of levels and like that romantic relationship was one of them where she like there's a there's two significant joky moments that does not undercut the sexual tension between them in any way, shape, or form, including when after Peter saves Gomorrah for the second time when she's dying in space, he brings her back and he's, you know, starting to do the kind of like end of speed speech, I think of it as like, hey, I love you, blah, blah, blah. And like, and then she, you know, in the middle, they're like, wait a second, is this random?

Should we stop? Meanwhile, he's like lying on top of her in missionary position. It's all the same. It's all the same. And it's just like intercutting it with like, I don't mean to, again, I feel like I'm being overly hard on it. But it is just like the same trope and interrupting it with a very dated one liner and a needle drop and then doing the same thing.

Right. Well, my big problem with their relationship dynamic, which again, gets started here and then it culminates in, you know, different ways as we see these characters in later installments. But you never really understand, aside from the attractive people being near each other trope. Yeah. I don't really ever get why they're into each other. But it's also like pretty one-sided for a while where like Peter Quill is obviously interested in and attracted to Gamora and for a long time she keeps rejecting him which is also exhausting to watch because the movie still frames it as a like will they or won't they stay tuned to see the inevitable yes they will

do I have to care like of course they will and it's going to be so boring do we want to get into that now or what is a good I'm trying to think if I have any because I have like Zoe sell don't know that I have very oh actually I did want to speak about the and maybe this will be a transition how I think that like the tension between nebula and gamora is genuinely really interesting and really cool and it is so unfortunate that it ostensibly boils down to a daddy problem however i do think that i've seen writing and like no disrespect anyway i have seen writing that like indicates like gamora and nebula have daddy problems how trite i think that their their problems actually are really complicated and interesting and yeah i wish that again that's why i'm so frustrated

when like potentially cool scenes between them in the first installment at least are cut by like a random moment of emotional progression for Drax, which I don't really care about. And like, I think that like where they're coming from, where they're, first of all, like, there's so many issues that they're dealing with in a way that it like totally, they have like sibling tension, which siblings that grew up completely well adjusted have anyways. They are both from, they're adopted from different planets. And I think that the word adopted is being really stretched there. Oh, for sure. It's more abducted than adopted. Right. I mean, and there's a whole, you know, this is for another episode, but, you know, there's a whole sort of area of thought within the

adopted community that feels the same way. And like, there's so, whatever, we'll come back to another time. But, but they're dealing with an extremely complicated set of circumstances where they grew up as sisters. They were conditioned to compete for, who they were told was their parents' love was actually an abductor who had demolished their homeworlds and their biological parents, right, and then just, and also were physically altered to serve their adoptive parents' purposes. Like, I think while I have a million criticisms for this movie, there being tension between Gomorra and Nebula, like, is very well established as.

to why that might be it doesn't feel like because I mean I think in a lot of movies what we've talked about in the past is that like well there's two women so of course they're in conflict there are two women they are in conflict but I understand why it makes a lot of sense yes and I was like genuinely interested to find out where that went because it feels like they're like going in two separate directions theoretically right and this is why Komora is such a tricky character because like theoretically you think you're given two sisters same parent and one is going the revolutionary route and one is going through the you know traditional fascistic evil government route yeah but gamora doesn't even really get to go through the revolutionary route so for in the first

installment at least it fell flat for me I would say it doesn't improve very much as things go on bummer Yeah Should I get into the sequels Just since I think we're kind of nearing there And then we'll go back to the first movie Because there's other things to talk about there But so I'll give a little prelude here

But I found it interesting That Guardians of the Galaxy At least Volume 1 Unlike basically every other movie to ever exist this movie is not about fathers and sons it's about mothers and sons or well i feel like there's a lot because there's mothers and sons there's fathers and daughters right and and i mean i guess there's like sons and if you're what what is that guy's name oh my god kately what was this name there's so many guys uh yandu i feel like yondu is the closest you get to like a father's son

tension dynamic as like peter and yandu but but it does just feel like, yeah, mothers and sons and fathers and daughters, which is unusual. Yes, it's unusual. It's interesting. And so, you know, for Quill, he's very attached to the memory of his mom. He's very attached to anything his mom ever gave him. In this case, it's a walkman. It's his most cherished possession. He risks his life to go back to the prison to get it. It's tasered. Yeah, it's, so again, it's not a story about fathers and sons until volume two because then well and i think that that's because i know that volume two involves an alive father and i think like we can say that volume one's about mothers and sons but we the mother gets one line we don't know anything about her other than she

die for sure so it's not so much about the character herself it's about the idea or memory of her I just feel like we could have done better. We could have known more about her. Did she have a job? Did she have a job? No. We don't know. We don't know.

Anyway, so that brings us to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. Quill finally meets his dad. He is a god, played by Kurt Russell. Sure. Quill is so happy to finally meet his daddy. He has apparently, as of this movie, because we don't really get a sense of this in the first movie. But he talks in volume two about how he's always longed to meet his father, his whole life.

Oh, all he ever wanted to do is play catch with him, which is like the tropies thing I've ever heard. They say play catch. And then they play catch together. No. With a ball of like celestial light. Oh, so it's a little joke. Okay. Yeah.

I hate that. Hate it. I hate it. But Quill's father, whose name is Ego. Oh, I wonder. he turns out is wait is that supposed to mean something never mind never mind never mind no no no you're thinking too hard jamie i have to rest i have to lay it down okay so ego turns out to be the big bad oh brother turns out to be the big bad who's taking over the universe and he wants quill to help him

he also reveals that he's responsible for peter quill's mom's death because because he gave her a brain tumor. So then when Peter learns this, he's like, well, fuck you, I hate you. And then they all try to kill and then successfully kill ego. But he kills his dad? He kills his daddy. Sleigh. Okay, that's kind of fun.

Also, Oedipus, complex shit. I mean, slay. I wasn't expecting. I thought he was going to forgive his father because that's also like such a, you know, 2010's trend for villains. And I'm like, no, you can kill him. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, no.

Well, at least he kills him. They kill him dead. But then that father-son dynamic that you were picking up on between Peter Quill and Yandu becomes way more prominent. And then that is a component of the movie. But then also Yon-Du dies because he sacrifices himself for Peter Quill. And you know what's interesting because I saw Avengers the big one is that Peter gets to kill his evil dad. Whereas Gomorrah's evil dad kills her. And that's interesting, isn't it?

It sure is. Yes, it is. Anyway, what else happens in volume two? There is still a, you know, will they or won't they dynamic between Quill and Gomorrah. He continues to pursue her. His feelings about her are made known. She keeps rejecting him saying, oh, there's nothing. That was a quippy little one-liners.

And then at the end, she's like, oh, Peter, I guess you are the best at being in space. Ugh, whatever. I hate the 2010. I know we were recently there. And it's worse here, but like, if they're, oh, so on the way. Every time is bad. All times are bad. Peter, what?

No. What? Anyway, he keeps pursuing her. She keeps rejecting him. this movie never really culminates into anything there's no kiss there's no they do put their arms around each other at the end i mean but they're still not like together and is that just because there's three movies planned i wonder i guess i'm i'm not sure what happens in the third one with them well okay we have to we have to switch over to the avengers now at least in terms of their

I hate this. Before I even get there, I'll say a couple more things about volume two as they relate to our discussion. There is another major female character who is introduced who like pretty much becomes a member of the Guardians. Her name is Mantis played by Palm Clementefe. Is that how you say it? I remember JPEGs of this character, yes. Yes. She, I like that character a lot.

She's another female character that Drax is unnecessarily. cruel too. Seems to be his thing. Seems to be his thing. Her like super power is that she's an empath. She has like a very heightened ability, like magical superhero ability. And we talk, well, we talked about this a little bit in Star Trek, but that's, that's also a Star Trek thing in a way that I think has been heavily criticized. It's like coding women and femme characters as highly empathic in ways that men are inherently not. Interesting. Okay. Yes. And, And then as far as the relationship between Gomorra and her sister, Nebula, in volume two, Nebula, over the course of this movie, slowly becomes their ally rather than their

enemy. And it happens basically because Gomorra is like, don't you see that our father who stole us is a really bad guy and we actually have to destroy him? and then and I'm like probably oversimplifying this and I should have written more down about this than I did so I'm like my memory's a little foggy but okay I mean I do I like that idea at its core of like we have to destroy who kidnapped us and destroyed and killed our family yeah yeah I like it too and then so nebula starts to like see reason and like come over to the guardians side And then toward the end of this movie,

Gomorra does have to be saved again, but this time it's by Nebula and not Peter. Interesting. Okay. Now we're switching over to Avengers. Infinity War is not the big one. That's the small one. Oh, the middle one.

That's the middle one. It's three of four. The three of four. So this is the one where Thanos is going around the universe collecting all the infinity stones. So the guardians go to nowhere to try to kill Thanos. They're unsuccessful. And Thanos kidnaps Gomorrah because he knows that she knows where one of the stones is, the soul stone.

And he has to make a sacrifice to get it. That sacrifice is to kill someone he loves. So he kills Gomorra by throwing her off a cliff. Before this happens, though, because this happens toward the end, Before this happens, we see more of Quill and Gomorra's relationship. They kiss on screen for the first time, I think. In an Avengers movie? Yes.

Yes. They say, I love you to each other for the first time also in this movie. I feel like the Avengers movies are also like the most middle of the road leaning on conservative of them all, too. Because I feel like that that was a criticism I remember seeing that obviously I cannot speak too personally, but that like characters that we would see in their individual movies acting with some sort of nuance would appear with far less nuance in Avengers movies. I mean, that doesn't surprise me because the Avengers movies I feel like are designed to

appeal to the massest audience. It's a global product. Yeah. And so I feel like any sort of like quirk unique to a performance choice or a writer or a director is kind of like squashed over in the in the ensemble movies yeah right yes so in infinity war the romantic relationship between quill and gomor or that romantic tension has apparently developed off screen and now it seems like they're together they love each other they kiss now and sure and i don't know exactly how to feel that because on one hand i don't want there to be too much of their relationship taking up too much like narrative real estate on screen especially because I'm not rooting for their relationship but also if it is there I at least want to

understand why they like each other and right now I don't understand that because the movie doesn't pay enough attention to their relationship so I don't like I think it's I think it sucks and it like I like with so many characters is done because it's the easy thing to do with Gamora when in fact, based on what we know about Gamora, there's a million more interesting things she could be doing. For sure. And that doesn't preclude a love interest. I don't mean to say that any woman character can, you know, like not be in love.

Doi. It's loud. But I think like, and I think that this also falls into the clear pattern of how Zoe Saldana has been typecast over and over where even though she's. presented as hyper-competent and authority on something and important narrative connections to the plot, she is always falling in love with the white male lead. And in Guardians, I feel like her character, at least in the world of the movie, because I know O'Hura has lore, but it doesn't really appear in the movie. True. Out of the three's always held on to space movies,

Guardians, Avatar, and Star Trek, Gamora has the most to pull from. And I feel like the falling back on the relationship is like the least necessary or called for by a country mile in the world of how much information we're given about her. But it just feels, I mean, and I'm sure that this is tied back to the comics, but it's just like, or don't, you know, or don't. Or you don't have to have the one woman in your main cast. be tied romantically to the lead man you don't have to do that right and that's what frustrates me about adaptation evangelism too where it's like well if if it's adapted exactly as it was in the 60s or 70s

then there will be no narrative progress and is that just the goal is they're just like you know we have to be trapped within that the same exact values that this franchise like came out underneath that doesn't make any sense yeah whatever though sure they're in love they're in love and then also bizarrely in this Avengers movie you get more backstory on Gomorra than you do in any of the Guardians movies because you see a flashback where Santos like goes to her home planet you see her with her mother her family he destroys them but he has taken like young Gomorrah aside gives her a little weapon to play with to distract her as he's murdering her entire people

and then takes her with him. So we see that and it's, I'm sure, very traumatizing and triggering for a lot of people to watch. But we get that backstory in an Avengers movie and not a Guardian's movie. Now, moving on to Avengers Endgame, parentheses, the big one. so at the end of infinity war Thanos does the snap that kills half the population of the universe so the remaining

MCU characters band together and they do a time heist where they go back to the past and collect the infinity stones before Thanos gets them in the snap I believe and now I'm not even sure so matrons sound off in the comments I don't even know if we see this or not again

because I was like skipping around and probably missed some stuff here and there I think Gomorra must have, like, you know, vanquished in the, in the snap. She must have, like, you know, dissipated into dust, as do most of the Guardian's characters, with the exception being Nebula. So most of the Guardian's characters are not even in the first half of end game, and it's not until the other characters start time traveling and going back to the past. Yeah, because nothing matters.

Because there are no stakes and you can just do whatever the fuck you want. Chris Pratt can get paid. for anything. Yeah. But because the past is interfered with, it changes the course of history, which, again, from what I understand, I think this means that the version of Gomorrah,

or that like this version of Gomorrah that we see toward the end of Infinity War, never joined the Guardians and never met Quill. So toward the end of this movie, when all of the MCU characters are battling Thanos and his minions, his Kevin Le Mignon's Bello. Bello. Okay. We see Quill and Gomorrah

kind of reuniting but it's the Gomorra who never met Quill so she's like, who are you? Don't touch me and she kicks him or she like knees him in the balls. And that's the dynamic that gets brought into Guardians Volume 3 where Gamora does not remember Peter

or any of her time with the Guardians so she and Peter are not together in this movie that doesn't stop him from trying to get with or he's he's trying to get her to be open to them getting together but she's like no thank you yeah she's like no thank you the person who you were in love with that's not me that was someone else that was a different version of me so pass no thank you good for her and that's like pretty much where that dynamic ends like there's no like he still he still loves her but they don't get together that that does not culminate and her like changing her mind or realizing she does actually love him like that is not that's

not how that movie ends it's just like they go their separate ways she she's like a ravager now so she just goes back with the ravagers and there's no like romantic situation between them anymore that's really interesting i mean i and i i i'm sure that there's a whole like thesis paper on what changed between 2014 and 2014 and 20s. in terms of how we view women in movies and in like the Marvel superhero genre specifically that might have led to making choices that would have made that possible because I feel like if if you know if the movie start in 2003 and end in 2012 it I don't know I don't know if we would say that that's really interesting yeah growth question mark possibly yeah

hard hard to say but and then so in volume three i would say there is more of a focus on nebula and mantis than there is on gomora which is like you know i like gomorra so i do want to see her but they do tend to focus more on these other two female characters and they are more you know active and narratively significant in volume three and then the final thing i'll say about volume three is that will polter is in it so oh that is interesting to you, I think. It's so wild. Even Will Poulter being in it was not enough to get my ass out of my house.

And that really speaks to how exhausting I can find a Marvel movie is that my number one crush, who I would implode my life over to be with, even in a theater, I did not go. And I kind of forgot that that happened. That's fascinating. Yes. Okay, so yeah, that's like the context for the other movies that these characters appear in and like how those arcs manifest. That's really interesting.

I mean, there's a lot of unexpected. And I would wonder, because I know that Marvel, at least for some structure of time, was like very planned out. But I guess I just spitballing. I'd be surprised to hear that, like, that couple not ending up ultimately together was the plan. That's really interesting. Yeah, I'm not sure. I wonder almost if, like, and this is pure speculation here, so don't quote me on this at all.

But I wonder if Zoe Saldana was like, I'm tired of my characters in these huge franchises getting stuck with the, like, you know, boring white guy lead. So can you write something else for me? Or a more pragmatic version of that is, like, very possible that she had a lot of shooting conflicts because she was in New Zealand shooting Avatar all the time. Could be that as well. So, I mean, anything's possible. And, again, I can't speak to the character. Mantis haven't met it, don't know. But I think it's interesting.

And in the first, I don't know. I mean, it's interesting that the three movies came out over such a long period of time. Because it sounds like... Yeah, almost 10 years. Yeah, it sounds like there is like a noted change. in how these characters are treated, which is nice. It's, you know, probably confusing to watch this trilogy of the future, but it's nice. I wanted to, I guess, just continuing on Zoe Saldana and space.

And I have a few things, I have things to say about the other characters, but I want to make sure we touch on this. Yes. We referenced this in the Star Trek episode. However, Zoe Saldana is her natural skin tone. known in Star Trek and was playing a historically black character. So there wasn't quite as much to say. However, and we've also talked about this. You can go and listen to our episode that is, I think, almost exactly a year old now on Avatar with Ali Nadi, where we talked about the same

thing about how Zoe Saldana has starred in three major sci-fi franchises. And in two out of three of them, she is playing a character that is either blue or green. and in all three of them ends up being the love interest of the white male protagonist named either Chris or Sam and two out of three of them they're named Chris

so really sit and think about that for a second but I mean we've talked about this you know to different extent I think Zoe Saldon is an interesting case study for this because her career is so dominated by these roles but I mean obviously worth mentioning, I found a piece published in 2019 in Latinx spaces by Danielle Alexis Orozco

that spoke to this war called Race and Alien Face, the other worldly roles of Zoe Saldana that explore these three franchises. Now we have covered all three of them. So let me just pull the quote that I wanted to do. So Zoe Saldana, she is Afro-Latina. She is Afro-Latina. She has Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Haitian ancestry, and has spoken at length, especially over time. Like, I think her career is fascinating, and she as a person is fascinating because there's been a clear, noted evolution on how outspoken she has been or has felt comfortable being about the ways in which she's typecast.

So there's one gigantic hiccup that we will discuss. in this. But as far as an Afro-Latina actor being frequently coded as an alien, this is what this piece had to say. Quote, caught in what queer Chicano feminist Gloria Anseldua calls Los Intercitos, Saldana seems to occupy a tense position of in-betweenness. While she can play strong female characters, individuals that are respected and revered by fans, she is also subject to typecast roles that threatened to fetishize her capitalizing on her ethnic difference via her performances of alien face roles in which she represents the alien other. This is not to critique Saldana or strip her of agency with regard to the roles she plays, but rather to critically reflect

upon the presence of Latinas in mainstream media. And I mean, I think that that puts it pretty succinctly. The piece argues that alien face specifically with Latinas has an echo of minstrelsy within it. We can link the full piece. I found it really instructive. And it also quotes an interview that Zoe Saldana did in, I believe, 2018, with Porter Magazine in which she sort of talks about this directly. And also mentions that she began a production company called Bese, which the whole purpose of it is to empower and uplift the representation of Latinx people. So I just wanted to also touch on really quickly what Zoe Saldana has had to say about not specifically. As far as I can tell, she is not addressed the alien faceness of it all, which I would guess has to do with

the fact that she is still actively in the Avatar franchise for the next 1,000 years. So I don't know if we'll ever hear, you know, until that franchise has concluded how her feelings about it have changed over time, which I think is really interesting because, you know, Avatar began in 2009. You have to imagine. And there's a lot of evidence that Zoe Saldon has outspokenness and views of this have changed over time. Sure. In 2018, this is how she, what she has to say about typecasting in general, speaking about her early career specifically. Quote, every time I read a script, even if it was a period, piece. I read it thinking that I was going to go after the lead role. It wasn't until I would come across the introduction of a supporting ethnic role that I realized, oh, I wasn't even allowed to try to get that main role because, quote, they want to go traditional on the part, unquote. I would hang up on that conversation from my agents thinking, what about me as non-traditional? It was a very hard pill to swallow. In my country where I pledged allegiance every day since I was five to be told when I'm out there trying to pursue my American dream that I was not a traditional American

was very hurtful. I will never accept that I am not a traditional anything. I come from where I come from. I can't change that and you come from where you come from. But if you tell me that where you come from is the only right place and therefore I don't fit that traditional mold, let's just establish very clearly that you are the one who's wrong because everything about me and where I come from is just as right, unquote. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Now, I want to acknowledge because I think that this was referenced in the Star Trek episode that Zoe Saldana also got into a lot of hot water over a 2016 biopic in which she played Nina Simone, who is a dark-skinned black woman and Zoe Saldana is a light-skinned black

woman. And so we've discussed this on the show as well, but around the dominant, the still dominant colorist casting tendencies of Hollywood. I just wanted to also, because it is something that she, it first defended doing and then later apologized for where she was cast as Nina Simone. I think more importantly than anything else, Nina Simone's estate and her

family objected to this. So at that point, I don't see a world in which don't step out. Her casting was announced in 2012. And Nina Simone's daughter, Simone Kelly, said, I love Zoe Saldana. We all love Zoe from Avatar to Columbiana. I've seen those movies a few times, but not every project is for everybody. And I know what my mother would think. I just don't get it. And the clear implication there being that their skin tones were not the same and that it was speculated if not confirmed that Zoe Saldon's skin was darkened in order to play Nina Simone

which was heavily criticized Zoe Saldana was very publicly defensive of this choice originally and then in 2020 redacted this choice and said I should never have played Nina I should have done everything in my power

with the leverage that I had 10 years ago which was a different leverage fridge but it was leverage nonetheless I should have done everything in my power to cast a black woman to play an exceptionally perfect black woman goes on to say, I thought back then that I had the permission to play her because I was a black woman and I am, but it was Nina Simone. And Nina had a life and she had a journey and that should have been and should be honored to the most specific detail because she was a specifically detailed individual. With that said, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know better today

and I'm never going to do that again. She's one of our giants and someone else should step up. Someone should tell her story, unquote. Okay, well, growth. Sure. And I also think it is completely reasonable that Nina Simone's family and a number of fans were like it's outraged, yeah. Absurd.

And while that movie was happening, Zoe Saldana is also dealing with being typecast as the other, as the alien. And this is all happening at the same time. I just, I don't know, I'm interested. I hope someday that she feels empowered or interested in speaking on that because it's, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, and I think as far as a lot of people are concerned, it's a clear pattern intended to other black women and, and just people of color in general. I mean, non-white.

Yeah. Yeah. Because Glenn Close is simply a white woman. And what is that all about? Well, to speak a little more to that. So like, you know, as we've discussed, as we're currently discussing, you know, actors of color often being cast to play aliens in sci-fi movies or orcs or goblins or anything like that. any like non-human being in sci-fi and fantasy obviously has, you know, very harmful connotations when their skin is covered in makeup that, you know, makes them green or blue or purple.

Any like out of this world skin color, not only does that erase their darker skin and like denormalize darker skin, it also means that those actors have to sit in makeup chairs. is way longer than their white counterparts and not get paid as much right because i i read and again it's like hard to confirm salaries i cannot 100% say this is but from what i read zoe saldana who had already starred in star trek and avatar amongst other beloved movies was paid a hundred thousand dollars for guardians one where chris pratt oh i really hope that is a true that was what i was able to find again it's very hard to confirm salaries whereas the speculative paycheck for Chris Pratt, who to this point had not been in a huge movie in a leading role,

was paid $1.5 million when it's like, who is the proven talent here who has to sit in a makeup chair three hours before you even show up? Come on. Yeah. I hope she got money on the back end because this movie made three quarters of a billion dollars. And hopefully her contract let her make extra money. Um, now this might be. be controversial, but I, at least in the context of this specific movie of Guardians of the Galaxy, I am going to stand in its defense a little bit because even though yes, you do have Zoe Saldana in green makeup, Dave Batista, who is mixed, he's Greek and Filipino. He's also in makeup to make his skin gray, question mark. You know, so you have

actors of color in these alien roles in makeup that covers up their natural skin tone. And you, like you mentioned, you have Glenn Close just being able to present as a white woman. You have, you know, Chris Pratt being able to present as a white human man. That said, there are a lot of white actors, such as Michael Rooker, who plays Yondo. You've got Karen Gillen who plays Nebula. You've got Lee Pace, who plays Ronan. These are all blue characters. There are a number of white actors who play people who are magenta.

Josh Brolin is Thanos. He's purple. Meanwhile, you've got Jemann Hun Su, who is a black actor, is seen in his actual skin color. So I would argue that even though there is this pervasive problem of actors of color being cast to play aliens or in often villains, I feel like Guardians does just an equal opportunity because obviously, you know, you see a bunch of different people from a bunch of different planets. You see all these races, all these skin colors.

And it's just sort of like, regardless of the race of the actor, you'll see them maybe in like purple skin. Totally. Or you'll see them in. So I feel like Guardians is a good example of the way to do sci-fi like that. And also like Nebula, played by a white, woman and you know like I don't even know what's going on on her face there's a it's a lot happen it's like a wallpaper it's multi-colored yeah point well taken I think that like it's just

tricky I mean I guess that it is like not the sort of thing that one movie can resolve is like removing years of coding but I agree that like this movie does clearly attempt to equalize the way that that is deployed and I think that that happens a lot in in Star Trek as well where it is like an attempt to sort of dial back or at least equal opportunity those situations. I just wish, I mean, it would have been, and this is like maybe nitpicky, but it would have been nice to see a black woman

playing a black woman in this movie, which we don't see. Or really any woman of color being allowed to be a woman of color. And I feel like because women of color are so, so marginalized and like, I think in this franchise, most frequently in main roles subjected to that,

it would have been cool but yeah no i i i totally see what you're saying and you're right you're right and they also it's like i would i would expect no less of james gunn and i will continue to expect no less of james gunn brave of you to defend and i just like want this zoie zeldana interview someday in any case also not for nothing i don't know if zoe saldana's um besse initiative is still active because it was mentioned significantly in 2018 and now the link to the website is dead so i'm not totally sure if it worked out but either way i just wanted to mention that that she was mentioning it about five years ago and i don't really know what became of it interesting uh if you know i would love to know i hope that it was successful but yeah couldn't find info um the last thing i

would like to discuss. Yes. Is neurodivergence coding in sci-fi? Yes. So it seems as though Drax, I would say is probably the maybe most apparent example, but the Drax is coded intentionally or not, but is coded as being neurodivergent, specifically as being on the autism spectrum. Right. He is described as that his people from his planet, which I forget the name of it, but his people take things completely literally. They don't

understand metaphors. They don't comprehend sarcasm, things like that. These are characteristics that some people on the autism spectrum might experience to some degree or relate to in some capacity. Also, Spock from

Star Trek is coded in a similar way. And I know a lot of Vulcans I very often come up in that conversation. Yeah. Yes. So it got me thinking about neurodivergent coding in sci-fi, especially because both of those characters of Drax and Spock come from a, like, quote-unquote, alien race, which I think could potentially conflate being neurodivergent with being, you know, alien or other.

This also happens with, like, cyborg, robot-type character. basically many non-human characters being coded this way also obviously has like harmful implications now if people on the autism spectrum or another type of neurodivergence if they see a character like spock or like dracks and they feel seen and represented like i don't i don't want to take that away from them right and i know that there's a large number of people who have and i i don't know It feels like all these conversations we've been having for years to be, from what I could gather, a stepping stone kind of character, right? Because ideally, we could have a leading character who is on the spectrum, a leading human character even. A human from Earth.

Right. Who is on the autism spectrum and is just as loved and respected and on their own journey as whoever else is with them from whatever alien planet. But yeah, it seems, from what I could gather, like, Drax resonated with a lot of people, but again, like speaking to your point, and it's like a different version of the issue we have with Gomorra's racial coding, where it's, like, it's nice that there is a character

and that the character resonated with people, but also we are ideally working towards a world where the representation doesn't need to be, you know, hidden under a million layers of coding in order to be resonant. Right. And it would also be way bigger of a problem if there was exactly one alien or non-human character, and that was the character that was coded as being neurodivergent. Obviously, that's not the case for Guardians or for Star Trek.

You see many different types of like just characters from other planets who aren't coded that way. Yeah. So, but it just, I thought it was worth mentioning. Totally. It is like, this whole movie just feels like an interesting, like cultural, like, we're getting somewhere, but there's still a lot of the old shit around. On a similar topic, we see ableism in the form of a character, a physically disabled character, their prosthetic leg being taken from them because Rocket says he needs it for a prison

break. But then when Quill brings it to him, Rocket's like, oh, ha ha, I was just kidding about that. I thought it would be funny. What did he look like hopping around? So at first it seems like this character's disability, again, a character we don't even know, we don't know their name, we'd never hear them talk, seems like their disability is going to be used to further the plot. in a pretty nefarious way and that their limb, their prosthetic limb will be used as a prop. But then it turns out the whole situation is just a joke, like it's played for a joke. Rocket tries to do this later with another character's prosthetic eye. And then this joke gets called back to either in another installment of a Guardians movie or

in an Avengers movie where Rockets always like stealing characters' prosthetic limb. or eyeballs. Yeah. So I hated that. Yeah. It just, yeah, felt like a very, again, a very cheap, dated joke that was like, for sure. Garbage. The last thing, so the last thing that I wanted to touch on was the way that the character

of Ronan is characterized. I found weird and there's a lot of charged language in the way that he's described. He's described as a terrorist. he's described as I mean he's just described as like in every way and I think in the western world and and we can get more specific and get just like the U.S. specifically of the way that we describe other people defending themselves right because we find out from Ronan at the beginning that he is a bad he is the bad guy right like he has destroyed planets there's no defense of his actions but he's characterized by saying to the Zandarians like you

wiped out my bloodline and that is never called into question by the Zandarians as something that there was that there was any sort of reparations owed to Ronan's people other than like well we recently made a peace pact and you're like well good but like that I think that that's presented very it just felt very US coded of like well we don't do that anymore so stop yelling at us And, like, we need to vanquish you along with all of our country's original sins. And because the Kree are characterized as an indigenous population within the world of Marvel, I think that it's just presented in this very unchallenging way of indigenous people as inherently violent and coded as inherently violent.

And I think it's easy to miss because the character of Ronan is so boring and so vaguely, like I'm bad blah blah blah but I mean I it's weird and I am a Leipay's lover but he did say his inspiration for the character of Ronan was Osama bin Laden and there's just so much coded into that statement that I don't even really know where to start it just feels like there is a degree of just like clearly washed over like I don't know oversimplified which is what comic books are for right but and and i don't have the knowledge nor the time to do a doctoral thesis on it but just the character of rodent and just him being presented as an evil terrorist but also giving us the information that he was a member of an indigenous population who had been wiped out by

the zendarians and then our sympathies are very much with the zandarians for the entire movie i just it it it rubbed me the wrong way yeah i didn't i didn't like it same do you have anything else you'd like to discuss no uh i think does this movie pass the bectal test technically it does yeah between gomorah and nebula a little bit little bit yeah it i think passes a bit more in later installments as you see more of the relationship between those two sisters but um yes it does pass yes wow onto our perfect metric of the nipple scale um i'm actually in inclined to give this like two nipples, which is high for, for us rating a, you know, blockbuster superhero action franchise, especially from 2014, because while it still

doesn't do a lot of things well, I feel is though it's, I think it's more respectful of Zoe Seldana's character than Star Trek 2009 is. It allows her to participate more. Sure. I would say it generally, like, camera-wise, cinematography-wise, respects Gomorra and does not sexualize her. There is one shot. I think it does a little bit.

Yeah. I think it does a little bit. There's a couple, there's a few moments. Like, there's a shot where she, like, puts a gun in her holster. And for some reason, it's, like, shot from a low angle and, like, giving a pretty gazey shot of her butt. Like, there's a few fleeting moments like that. But generally, I think the camera respects her.

I think this romantic tension between her and Peter Quill is unnecessary. It's frustrating that she has to be saved by him multiple times. But it feels more kind of like stepping stony as far as, like, her allowed to participate in the action, certainly more. Not quite so much of the plot, but, and there is that moment that could have paid off of like, she knows how to exploit Ronan's weakness, but we just never see that on screen. Yeah, there's some other things that feel very dated about this movie, feel very tropey about this movie, but I feel like it's doing a little bit better. It does break the rule of baldest women in charge because Nebula is the baldest, but she's not in charge.

It's true. So that's kind of fucked up. but I don't know, I, I, I'm going to give this two nipples, which is still a failing grade. I will give one to Zoe Saldana and I will give one to, I'll give it to Karen Gillen. Why not? Yeah, I, I'm going to give it one and a half. I think maybe, I don't know, I think that this movie is doing some things differently. I think that your point about the equalizing of actors of all.

races being alien coded it is very well taken and I was just generally disappointed in this installment and also I'm sure that if I had seen all three I may have like changed I felt a little bit to know that women have increasing importance as the franchise goes on but for this one I I'm going to go one and a half I just feel like Gomorra is presented as a really dynamic and cool character she gets a decent amount of screen time but doesn't have equal screen impact and the and just all the Zohyceldina stuff on top of, you know, three hours of makeup a day. If her paycheck really was that small in comparison to Chris Pratt's, you know, we riot, we take to the streets. So I'm going to go one and a half and I'm going to give one to the screenwriter of this movie who was not

allowed to continue to participate, Nicole Perlman, or participated in other stuff, who knows, maybe she was working on Captain Marvel by then. And I will give my other. half nipple to Zoe Saldana slash Gomorah. Nice. And with that, folks, that's Zoe Saldana in space. And that's our unlocked Guardians of the Galaxy episode for your pleasure, question mark. Ribbed for your pleasure. Yeah.

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