Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Yeah, as a proud member of #Mantis Gang, between this and the Holiday Special I've been very happy with the focus she's gotten.

And as someone whose favourite MCU character is Nebula, ahahaha I'm so happy she's as central and well-rounded as she is in this movie. The team's grouchy yet responsible mom.

I'd argue Nebula might make the better mom character than original Gamora.

She's had a good five extra years of life experience to help her reach that point.

Same for Rocket. When you think about it, the two of them were basically keeping an eye on the post snap pre-blip universe. That must have meant a lot of responsibility.

Nebula works because she gets to be the flawed character that Gamora should have been.

Which is also what makes Variant Gamora such a fantastic character as well. Both of these characters are an improvement on how the previous films handled Gamora. Nebula fills her role while still being a dynamic and flawed character, while Variant Gamora takes another crack at adapting the Gamora character from the comics.

alt!Gamora is SO GOOD. And while I may be reading into it, I feel like Saldana's having more fun with the role than she did previously. The resolution of her and Star-Lord's arc is one of the more emotionally mature bits of writing I've seen in the whole MCU and I let out a sigh of relief to see it conclude the way it did.

Yeah but it doesn't make sense in-universe. In Endgame they ambushed Quill just before he got the Power Stone which means we get the 2014 Gamora as she was hours/days before she went rogue and was the moral force behind the Guardians. All I can think is she was like that and 2 years or whatever with the Ravagers sent her in a really different direction.

As to Mantis, her calling people out is another example of really unsubtle characterisation where you just have her rant character descriptions and problems to people. Like Yondu doing the same to Rocket.

I did like that she's only half right about Nebula and she realises that when she sees Nebula break down into speechless tears of Joy at Rocket's recovery and speaks for her, which is a relatively subtle moment of bonding.

Saw Vol 3. So good!

I think this overstates Gamora's moral status at the time. Her plan was to steal the Power Stone and sell it to the Collector and then...I don't think we know? Nebula's plan was to kill Thanos, but I think we don't hear Gamora's? My assumption was she was planning to go find somewhere to live the good life on the Collector's dime.

She became far more moral over the course of the movies, but her original plan, as best I recall it was just to get paid and ditch.

I think Gamora was always against Thanos.

Everyone else was for the money.

That's a good candidate for Marvel What If?

I mean, it's been a while since I saw the first movie, but she'd arranged the deal with the Collector, which is expressly cash for the artifact, I don't think we know what she intended to do with the cash (maybe hire an army to try to fight Thanos, maybe retire to her own private world).

Went back and looked it up, here's what she says: "That Orb is my opportunity to get away from Thanos and Ronan. If you free us, I'll lead you to the buyer directly and I'll split the profit between the three of us."

Sounds to me like the plan was to run. Also, the only one who wasn't in it for the money was Drax.

Now, she does, once she knows what the stone is, take the view they need to turn it over to the Nova Corps, but that's because she, like the rest of, well, basically every character but Ronan and Nebula in the movie, is moral enough to oppose genocide and she's smart enough to recognize the risk, unlike Quill/Rocket.

Edited by ECD on May 21st 2023 at 8:40:12 AM

Gamora is against thanos but she belive he cant be beaten so she probably wanted to give the stone, hope he hide far away from him and....well, maybe hide for a while and let thanos wither himself

Adding to that, maybe she deduced that after a few stones, Thanos would encounter more direct opposition, which would escalate into a full on war (like it did), after (or during) which she could come out of hiding and take down the victor with their own mercenary forces, leaving the spoils to her (which she kinda tried in one of the comics, as far as I remember).

Edited by Shadow-Whisperer on May 22nd 2023 at 8:54:52 AM

I noticed that the film's end credits, as usual, included a "No animals were harmed" disclaimer, which, given the film's themes, felt a bit extra ironic.

they have to include that as a standard exclaimer

The last two movies were snarkier about it though, so this one playing it straight is pretty impactful considering what it's about.

I know. Even in films where no animals appear on screen all.

But in the context of this movie it hit differently.

Edited by Snicka on May 22nd 2023 at 10:20:19 AM

On Gamora: She did have a line in Guardians 2. (speaking to Peter about whether to go with Ego to his planet) "If he ends up being evil; We'll just kill him." So original Gamora wasn't INCAPABLE of jumping to violence as the answer...

Watching Cinema Wins' video on that movie again, and Rocket jumping up on a Ravager and attacking him bare-handed is a bit harsher in hindsight knowing how much more violent he could've been.

Edited by diddyknux on May 22nd 2023 at 7:35:11 AM

...PETA is happy about something for once and has praised Guardians 3 as the best animal rights film of the year.

Anyone check Hell for snow lately?

But seriously, is it something to be happy about? Or worried?

Both.

On the one hand, it means you don't have to worry about PETA giving you shit.

On the other hand, it might still be shameful approval.

I mean, “So good even PETA enjoyed it” is a solid tagline.

Well, the horror of animal experiments is a central theme of the movie, almost to an anvilicious level, just like in those PETA "eye-opener" films, but since all the animals depicted were created by CGI, this means no actual animals were abused.

Guardians 3's third weekend drop has been fairly stable, falling by 47.74% compared to last weekend's 47.63%.

I think the movie has a strong chance of landing somewhere around $800m. However, the chance of it outperforming Guardians 2 in the long run seems less plausible this week than it did last.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 23rd 2023 at 6:16:58 AM

I don't really have a frame of reference here. Is that common, box office sales dropping by around 50% each weekend? Or is it a better performance then movies usually have, and films usually drop off more rapidly then that?

The average is about a 60% drop, so a 100 million opening weekend will earn 40 million the second weekend. Due to diminishing returns and counting all days (not just weekends), the opening weekend is usually 50% of total domestic gross over its time in theaters. When a movie tightens closer to 50% or lower weekend drops that indicates both word of mouth and repeat viewings, and opening weekend shrinks closer to 30% total domestic gross. Conversely, 65-70% drops are seen as either negative audience response or a crowded release schedule.

As a frame of reference, Wonder Woman opened to about 100 million opening weekend but maintained a sub 50% drop every week for about two months, closing at around 400 million domestic or 25%.

So Vol 3 is doing quite well, but it didn't open above Vol 2 so the number crunching is complicated. Some people try to use Friday to Saturday ratios as a gauge, but it's never that easy.

Edited by EmeraldSource on May 23rd 2023 at 6:51:48 AM