SDCC: Guardians of the Galaxy

Right before Joss Whedon took the stage and blew everyone’s mind with Avengers 2, Marvel had a pretty solid panel on its hand with the James Gunn and his cast for Guardians of the Galaxy. They brought the majority of the main cast on stage including Chris Pratt (“Zero Dark Thirty”, “Moneyball”) as Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana (“Star Trek Into Darkness”, “Avatar”) as Gamora, Dave Bautista (“Riddick”) as Drax the Destroyer, Lee Pace (“The Hobbit,” “Lincoln”) as Ronan the Accuser, Michael Rooker (AMC’s “The Walking Dead”) as Yondu, Karen Gillan (BBC TV’s “Doctor Who”) as Nebula, surprise cast addition two-time Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou (“Amistad”, “Gladiator”) as Korath, and Academy Award® winner Benicio del Toro (“Traffic”) as The Collector. Not appearing on at SDCC were Academy Award nominee John C. Reilly (“Chicago”) as Rhomann Dey, and six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close (“Albert Nobbs,” “Fatal Attraction”) as Nova Prime.

That is quite a bit of star power to bring to the newest characters to grace the Marvel Universe. I honestly don’t believe there is a bad one in that bunch. What we don’t know includes the voices of Rocket Raccoon and Groot, staple characters in the Guardian’s roster. What we did get though was a new title card and brand new concept art, which I found to be way sexier than the older art, and some of the movie props, including Starlord’s mask and Drax’s daggers. On top of all this goodness, Marvel was kind enough to bring along some footage of the movie, even though they’re only 2 weeks into filming! I don’t have a link to any footage yet, but there have been lots of descriptions posted online (including here). Take a look at the images below and read the new synopsis of the footage shown by Marvel this weekend, which seems to be quite humorous and narrated by John C. Reilly himself.[

alert variation=”alert-success”]We see a desolate alien world, where Peter Quill, aka Starlord, is going inside an ancient temple. He uses a light globe to illuminate the interior, and then goes to steal an old alien orb.

Some alien cops come in with big guns to stop him. “Drop it now,” orders their leader, Borath (Djimon Hounsou). And he asks Quill who he is. “Starlord,” he replies. “Who?” Borath asks. “Starlord, man. Legendary outlaw.” Starlord is wounded. “Forget it.”

Then we see someone activate a wrist transceiver, and we’re in an alien prison, where five creatures have been arrested on Zandar. We see holographic “rapsheets” for all five of them — Drax the Destoryer, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a personal death machine, Rocket Raccoon, who has over 50 charges of vehicular theft and escape from lockup, Groot, a houseplant/muscle, and then Starlord himself.

Rhomann Dey (John C. Reilly) narrates the whole thing with intense snark, especially when he gets to the part about how Peter Quill calls himself Starlord. Listening to this, Quill cranks up his middle finger as if he’s working a creaky machine. Later, Quill is in prison and Drax is listening to his personal stereo, which is playing a bouncy “gamba gamba” tune. Quill is offended — and then he gets tased.

And then we saw a montage of tons of action footage, including a two-headed alien shooting a gun, a prison riot, tons of Gamora putting the smackdown on people, Rocket Raccoon shooting a big gun with a vicious look on his face.

The footage ends with John C. Reilly saying, “They call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. What a bunch of A-holes.” And we see the five of them lined up, like the Usual Suspects.[/alert]