The two Guardians of the Galaxy movies that have been released so far have been fan favorites and box office successes. No one really expected one of Marvel’s more obscure properties to become so immediately popular.
Still, the movies’ humor, amazing soundtracks, and some stellar performances from the main cast pretty much cemented the Guardians’ favorable spot in the MCU lineup.
Because so many people loved the movie, whether they were already fans of Marvel or not, it made it easy to overlook some of the bigger flaws. I
t’s easy to have the rose-colored glasses on when it comes to something you’re passionate about.
Let’s be real – as fun and free-wheeling as the movies are, there are some obvious issues. For the most part, fans have been willing to forgive the small things.
As much as we love the movies, though, we also love poking fun at them.
We’re taking a look at some of the bigger problems in the Guardians movies that most fans have given a pass. Think something that secretly annoys you made the list?
Read on for the 15 Things Wrong With Guardians of the Galaxy That Fans Choose To Ignore.
There’s no protection on the orb
When the first Guardians movie opens, we see Peter Quill dancing his way across the planet Morag, on a mission to collect a mysterious orb.
After he dropkicks some lizards and dances his way across rocky terrain, he’s basically able to walk right up to the room containing the orb.
It’s protected by what looks like a force field of some sort, but that doesn’t do much good seeing as Star-Lord is able to just suck it right out.
Given that we learn later that the orb contains an Infinity Stone – one of the most powerful things in the entire universe – you would think that maybe there would be more protection.
You’re just going to leave an Infinity Stone lying around for anyone with the right gadgets to come grab?
Groot’s convenient language development
Groot’s self-sacrifice at the end of Vol. 1 makes for a great moment at the end of the movie.
To make it even more emotional, Groot decides to leave his companions with three last words. Not “I am Groot,” like he’d been saying for the entire movie, but “We are Groot.”
It’s touching and a great moment, but it shouldn’t have been possible.
If you read the comics, you’ll know that Groot can only physically say “I am Groot” because of how stiff his throat muscles are.
He doesn’t just choose to say that one phrase all the time. If you don’t know that, though, that moment in the movie goes from sweet to confusing.
Why can he suddenly say “we are” now?
Can he actually say other words and has just been holding out on Rocket all this time? No one knows.
Peter Quill has AA batteries in space
Part of the charm of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was all that unexpected nostalgia in a space movie.
It’s fun seeing things like a Walkman or an actual cassette tape in settings that we don’t expect, especially since we rarely see them used anymore.
It’s easy to remember the best of something when you get nostalgic, but anyone who used a Walkman should know that there is no way Peter’s would have lasted that long.
That would have been pretty difficult even with advanced space technology.
Even if the cassette player itself was still working, the tape would have been worn out from use a long time ago.
The biggest issue, though, is that either 1) Peter’s batteries have lasted a couple decades or 2) he somehow found a way to get AA batteries in space. Neither seems super plausible.
Gamora loses way too many fights
Maybe Thanos’ deceptively calm role in Vol. 1 has something to do with Gamora’s track record in the same movie.
One of her biggest character traits is that she’s one of the most dangerous women in the universe, trained as a fighter by Thanos himself. Nebula’s entire body is a literal testament to how good Gamora is at fighting.
So… why does she lose so easily? At first, she gets the best of Star-Lord, Rocket, and Groot in her establishing scene, but then she’s overpowered and captured.
In prison, Star-Lord has to come around to play hero and get her out of her initial scrape with Drax and other prisoners.
An easy answer is that it adds more narrative tension when you don’t know if she’s going to win or lose. While that might be good for the script, it’s not so great for her defining character trait.
The Nova Corps are an awful police force
It wouldn’t be an action movie without a police or security force that is really, really bad at their job. Guardians of the Galaxy is no exception.
When we first bring the gang together, they are the most conspicuous people probably on the planet.
Gamora is jumping off bridges trying to attack Star-Lord and chopping off Groot’s arms, Rocket is throwing gadgets from lord knows where, and Star-Lord is throwing punches of his own.
They are really, really hard to miss.
So why on earth does it take the Nova Corps so long to arrest them? Are they all getting coffee?
For a police force that’s supposed to be one of the best in the galaxy, they’re pretty dang slow.
Ronan is a forgettable villain
Thanos is mainly in the background of the first Guardians film. The real antagonist is Ronan, who Thanos sends to do all of his dirty work.
The Guardians focus on stopping Ronan from getting his hands on the Infinity Stone so that he can’t destroy the entire galaxy.
Ronan is a victim of the MCU’s bigger villain problem – he’s just not that memorable.
When people talk about the first movie, no one is discussing how terrifying the villain was, or how they were on the edge of their seat because they thought the characters were done for.
They’re going to talk about Star-Lord’s dance-off or Drax’s one-liners.
He’s not cheesy like Ultron, or a well-rounded character like Killmonger. He’s just kinda there.
They underuse great actors
When you have a humongous ensemble cast like we’ll see in Avengers: Infinity War, it makes sense that people who would usually be top billing might only get a few moments of screen time.
There are just too many characters and actors for everyone to be able to be on screen all the time.
Guardians of the Galaxy, on the other hand, has a much smaller cast. Given all the time spent on Ego’s magical Prezi presentations or other plot fillers, we think the writers could have given actors like Sylvester Stallone and Benicio del Toro something more to do.
They knocked the material they were given out of the park, but that only highlighted how small their roles were.
Bringing in such heavyweight actors and then only giving them a few lines is sacrilegious.
Literal Deus Ex Machina
Lots of superhero or action movies suffer from the deus ex machina plot device. We use the term now to talk about someone or something that swoops in from nowhere to conveniently save our protagonists when everything seems helpless.
If you remember what your high school English teacher taught you, though, you’ll know that the phrase comes from Greek tragedies where there would be a machine that lowered an actor playing a god on stage.
Most of the time in today’s movies, there’s no actual god.
However, thanks to Peter Quill’s celestial heritage, the plot of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is saved by a literal deus ex machina.
Peter suddenly being able to perfectly control his powers saves the day. Satisfying? Yes. Believable? Ehh…
The Ego’s planet storyline drags
Before we get to this exciting, super convenient plot resolution, we have to spend some time with (on?) Ego learning about the planet himself.
The audience is meant to trust Ego at first, but then Mantis starts dropping hints that everything isn’t as it seems. She tells the Guardians that there’s something very, very important that she has to tell them.
So, of course, it takes thirty minutes or so of screen time for her to actually say anything.
While Rocket and Baby Groot are orchestrating an exciting escape with Yondu, the rest of the characters are stuck pretty much twiddling their thumbs while Peter bonds with his newfound father.
By the time Nebula shows up to add some drama, it’s almost a relief.
Issues with consistent tone
One of the best things about both Guardians movies is their humor. The actors’ comedic timing, the script, and the soundtrack all combine to make hilarious movies that leave everyone feeling good by the time the credits roll.
However, one of the series’ weaknesses is also its humor.
Almost every moment that has even the potential to be serious is undercut by a joke or a gag. When Yondu kills all of the Ravagers, all of the movie’s visual/audio cues are telling us we should think this is hilarious.
It’s an exciting moment until you stop to think about the fact that he’s basically murdering people who were his crew two days ago.
When Star-Lord finds out that Ego kills his mom, that’s a moment that should be emotional. And it is… until Ego transforms into David Hasselhoff.
You can make a funny movie that still has serious moments.
The characters should have passed away multiple times
Look, we know there’s an element of suspension of disbelief when it comes to any superhero movie.
They’re all asking us to believe the impossible – that a normal looking man can transform into a giant green monster, or that a billionaire would spend his time fighting crime and straining his vocal cords instead of buying up stocks.
However, within these new worlds, there are still rules that have to be followed for everything to make sense.
In Guardians Vol. 2, we expect each main character to survive until the end of the movie.
However, expecting us to believe that they survive crash landings, literal explosions, and Ego actively attacking them is kind of pushing it.
Being missed by bullets? Every action movie ever. Being attacked by a planet without even a spot of blood? Come on.
Drax is rude to Gamora
There’s a moment in Vol. 1 when Drax is declaring all of the Guardians are now his friends. He says that Quill is his friend, the “dumb tree” is his friend, and the “green w***e,” before Gamora cuts him off.
This left a lot of people pretty confused.
Why would he call Gamora such an offensive name if he hasn’t seen anything that would mark her as promiscuous?
Fans got so upset about this that it eventually made its way all the way to director James Gunn, who explained that it’s supposed to be a callback to the prison scene earlier in the movie.
Other people in the Kyln were calling Gamora that name, and Drax thought that was her title.
However, it’s a throwaway line in the Kyln, and there’s so much going on that it’s easy to miss. It doesn’t really work as a running gag.
Thanos isn’t scary
Since the Guardians movies take place in space, they were pretty disconnected from the rest of the MCU.
In a way, this was great – it added a breath of fresh air to the cinematic universe and gave the audiences something different. However, it meant that the only link the writers had was Thanos as the villain.
There’s just one issue… Thanos isn’t very threatening.
Even though he’s meant to be the terrifying antagonist of the climax of the MCU’s last decade of movies, Thanos just chills out for most of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1.
When we do see him, he’s hanging out on his throne ordering people around and being vaguely threatening. Being told how awful he is in dialogue didn’t have the same effect.
Drax only takes everything literally when it’s convenient
One of the ways Drax’s character is developed is the way he interprets language. His schtick is that he takes everything literally.
This leads to a lot of comedic moments where someone like Peter Quill makes a joke and Drax takes it literally, not understanding the metaphor or wordplay.
The only issue with this is that his literal interpretations aren’t consistent.
There are moments where someone says something that’s a figure of speech or clearly a joke, like Quill saying that the group has a chance to actually “give a s**t.”
Drax doesn’t seem confused by this at all and doesn’t remark on it like he would usually, despite the fact that to his ears, it sounds like one of his friends just asked him to hand over some feces.
Peter Quill makes pop culture references he shouldn’t know
One of Quill’s defining character traits is of course that he was born on Earth. Even though he was only there as a kid, he still makes a lot of references to eighties pop culture.
This allows the writers to write a lot of jokes that wouldn’t make any sense otherwise.
Some of Quill’s references do make sense, like talking about Skeletor and He-Man. Others, though, he probably wouldn’t have known.
In the first movie, for example, Peter says that his ship would look like a Jackson Pollock painting if you went over it with a blacklight.
Given that he was eight years old when he was abducted, it’s a little hard to believe that he knew 1) who Jackson Pollock was and 2) what his style of painting was.
It’s a good joke, though, so we’ll give it a pass.
So what do you think? Are there other issues with theGuardians of the Galaxy movies that we’ve all collectively decided to ignore? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
