A narcissist.

Also great that he wasn't basically (or literally) a god, like Kang, Gorr, and Zeus. He's a nerd with a god complex. He has some cool looking gravitational powers, but even a literal dog (Cosmo) could wipe the floor with him. He doesn't need to be all-powerful to be menacing. Even The Sovereign bow before him.

You see that scene when Ayesha is arguing with the High Evolutionary and he basically calls her a pretty face nothing else. She doesn’t back down until he’s hurting Adam. It just feels like a mom trying to protect her kid from further abuse.

I disagree

I liked it too. In Vol 1, He shut himself from others then in Vol 2 , We see the wall he built around himself cracking ; culminating with his speech during the Ravager funeral.

I agree. Would have been any other backstory that I don't care if it's revealed in 1st movie

Agreed. I don't know if you remember the discourse when the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was coming out, but while I was excited for a space adventure with a mismatched group of characters, there was sort of the fear that Rocket and Groot would be too much for kind of the older/casual audience to handle. That didn't turn out to to be true and most people love Guardians now and put the series as the pinnacle of Marvel outside of Avengers stuff, but I do think going all in on the Rocket backstory in that first movie might have been a mistake to audiences who were like "lol this is a raccoon tho" before they got attached to the characters.

@@lilmilontiktokyou look like an anime fan

his high evolutionary was terrifying because it was such a believable portrayal of an irredeemable person. we all know that person that wants to impose their beliefs on others and are completely self-righteous about it. what really sold the performace was the glimpses of the insecurity and jealousy that these types of people all share. the subtle moment of him correcting rocket's accent for the word "can't" was just on point for the character. great actor and great job.

@@patricktanna4947 the scene that really sold him for me was when he came in crawling on his hands and knees drunk, furious at Rocket for changing in a way he didn’t design and plan for. Definitely an abusive and narcissistic parent who just found out their kid is their own person. Chills!

A lot of them shouldn't be or have to be.

Facts

That was exactly what I was thinking during The Evolutionaries scenes lol. He's a madman.

That's the thing, a villain is a villain for a reason and often times it's not because of some trauma or bad childhood or whatever. Sometimes ist's just for the sake of being an irredeemable a**hole.

OH MY GOD EXACTLY. He was a good villain BECAUSE he was literally insane and I could NEVER sympathize with a genocidal maniac.

And I like how easily the guardians defeated him. He was just a mad scientist with crazy advanced tech but they made it clear from the start rocket was smarter than him. Rocket nullified the one advantage he had and the guardians just did exactly what I'm sure everyone wanted to happen. Just a bully with a God complex getting the absolute shit kicked out of him by the real badasses.

The closest I have come to just hating a villain would be Black Widow's main bad (not Task Master). That man was absolutely diabolical and just plain evil, but even he was nothing compared to the High Evolutionary.

​@@zacharybartolo5111this guardians movie is exactly what I wanted Black Widow to be. Natasha and others were abused and violated by an insane scientist just like Rocket. But we barely delved into Natasha's backstory outside of the title sequence and I wish we got more. It's so important to her character and as a story to us hating the villain

most Villains have reasonable motives and still have a heart. a moral. even if they are wrong, they still believe it and feel the impact of the things they have to do, even a little bit. but the High Evolutionary... due to his mental state and single minded obsessions creates a truly evil, cold and callous. he cant feel empathy and thus cant comprehend how something created can think of something he didnt think. to know something about his own mechanisms that he didn't know. he doesn't care about the soul. the heart so he doesn't even think twice about getting rid of something once it falls short. even Thanos can understand the heart.

I've been thinking, isn't High Evolutionary just Thanos but more sadistic?

These are also characters trying to fit *together*. There has always been friction between Rocket and Quill, but here we have Pete finally admit how much Rocket matters to him. All these characters keep each other at arm's length as a defense, and that creates further friction. SO much of that is resolved in this film. If it ends here, so be it.

A true space opera

Yes yes yes I agree on both! I was fascinated and disgusted to my core watching the High Evolutionary and got really scared because he played it so well. And the fight scene! Also my favorite ever! They filmed it in one peace I think, that's why it's so special. And oh my starlord, the song fit so well! 😝 No! Sleep! Till Brooklyn!!!

I don't even love Beastie Boys but that was some of the best action I've ever seen put on screen, all time. Great spectacle, excellent characterisation, creative cinematography, perfect clarity, perfect physicality, great choreography, excellent integration between practical and CGI and better use of Slow Mo than a Snyder movie. It's something that is straight out of Kingsman but arguably better.

they're all kinda consistently abusive father figures too; ronan less so, as he's more like a jerk boss to everyone, but ego and HE are both abusive fathers who see their children as means to an end, extensions of their goals, and nothing else. quill had yondu as well, who was more phyisically and emotionally rough on him, but still wanted to guide peter down the right...ish, path. meanwhile, rocket didn't have anyone else, and he kinda ended up playing the role of groot's dad in volume 2/infinity war.

@@kerricaine Which isn't the say that abusive, or at least complicated, fathers are a new thing to the MCU - you could count the definitively solid/excellent fathers on maybe two hands, many other heroes have issues going far back as the Starks and the Asgardian royals, and the flawed or toxic maternal figures are much rarer and usually that side is portrayed more positively (Eleanor Bishop being the most prominent example I can think of, and she's got pretty nuanced reasons for not living up to her child's expectations...) It's not for nothing that the meme of daddy issues being the source of all ills in the MCU is still a thing. But yeah, James Gunn has his finger on the pulse of it, and it's probably down to his scathing critiques of the patriarchal, white-Evangelical-dominant world he grew up in and which he's been lambasting with increasingly-sophisticated ways since "Slither". He's talked a lot about this stuff, how while his own relationship with his parents is actually pretty good (his father actually made efforts to understand his son's interests when James was a child, and couldn't get into his dad's love of sports and traditionally manly stuff), he's seen a lot growing up that's made him aware of how broken the world is. And as someone who knows he couldn't make it in politics or whatever, he uses storytelling to connect with people and inspire them to see the flaws in society so they can strive to be better and to improve themselves, and also maybe a little of the world around them while they're at it. It's not for nothing that he's got a passionate following, nor that certain kinds of people despise him (they feel threatened that someone like him, who sees through their crap, can have such a reaching effect on the public just through his sincerity). Yeah... that got more real than I expected or intended, but you know what? I felt good talking about and praising Gunn for his work; the fact people like him can do what they do, even in the systems they have to work with, gives me hope for humanity that we might better ourselves and stop doing harm to all around us.

The GotG films are above all sincere; and, to be sincere you need to be vulnerable. No matter the outlandish setting (space), or premise (sentient planet), or how comedic it gets, the characters are always struggling with vulnerability. Gunn takes the characters and themes seriously.

Gotta keep the grim part part of grim-dark in mind

there's also grimdark which is when everything in a story is so bleak it's almost comical

Grim is the Chainsaw massacre: The beginning. Dark is a vampire movie where the vampire loses.

​@@RaymondJonesrejlive how the fuck did you came with that

A good example of the difference is Se7en and The Batman. Se7en is grim. It's gonna end badly, and you know it. The Batman starts rather grimly and dark but ends up discarding that grimness for a hopeful ending.

If you love the characters, you aren’t biased. This is just a great sequel and a masterful conclusion to, in my opinion, one of the greatest and most memorable movie trilogies of all time, ESPECIALLY for superhero movies.

I loved it too and plan to see it at least one more time in theater - IMAX next time. It's a masterpiece!!!

i've seen the movie twice now, and even knowing what was coming, i still cried.

Vol. 2 is my favorite MCU movie. I didn’t like this one as much as that one but I thought it was still a great movie. The second one was also initially a bit mixed in terms of reception as well but I think people have largely come around on it (not that it was ever hated to an extreme extent but some did view it as a slight decline from the first). I think people will like this one more as time goes on and the initial shock kinda wears off. Especially with all the bad Marvel products coming down the pipeline.

I straight up was holding back sobs when they woke up Rocket. One of the best moments in a movie I've ever seen.

A big part of why these versions of Guardians worked in the first place is because they're all pieces of him - his flaws, fears, etc... Even with all the chaos and Sci-fi shenanigans these movies felt the most personal in the MCU because of it

@@rickygforce4217that’s also a good way to work with an ensemble cast as being parts of a whole unit but distinctive parts

@@creed8712 indeed

I mean, he's talked about why he is the way he is before and it ain't got anything to do with being cancelled online. But yeah, he does put a bit of himself into every character.

I don't think the tweets had anything to do with it. Disney knew about them before hand. Gunn had worked for Lloyd Kauffman who encourages that sort of humor. He's been around long enough that I think he knows himself and didn't need some keyboard warriors holding a mirror up to him over his politics (which is what it really was about).

That’s also a incredibly subjective thing because ultimately it’s on the humor to work and the humor might just not have worked for the critics. Of the MCU projects Gunn seems to really nail the balance more than somebody like Taika who basically turned cancer into a joke

@@creed8712 nobody who understands those scenes actually thinks he was making light of cancer.

what is past gamora like in this film

@@Ncholasbloom she’s with Stallone’s Ravengers and gets paired with the GOTG on a job Nebula hires them to help with.

@@johnnymizanin4835 Thor 4 had the depth of a coloring book. People didn't misunderstand the movie, it was simply mediocre. I loved Ragnarok, and love Waititi's other work, but it was clear that he just didn't take the assignment seriously.

FLOORRR!!! NOOO!!!

i love floor so much

Just... that team. I'm tearing up just thinking about them... 🥺

His animal friends were all adorable in their own way. So sad when they got killed.

​@@hunterprice3320 bro spoilers

It was a nice change after having the recent villains be more sympathetic. Don't get me wrong I enjoy a sympathetic villain alot but sometimes you need someone who is just evil for the sake of evil.

I'll never understand that. Half the reason we like the guardians is the character work 2 did. Everyone is going through something and it's why we like them

@@blurryperson2685 well explained

Vol 2 is my favorite guardians project to date and if people who claim they dislike that movie actually liked Vol 3 then I'll probably in for a hell of a ride

I trust this review

Vol 2 is awesome i never understood the hate. Some people say it have too much shitty jokes but ragnarok also have crap jokes but these hypocrites like it

Wow absolutely!

100% agree with gotg2 I too thought it was just okay in first watching but second time watching it made me have way more emotions than the first with just as if not more heart. Vol2 is a top 5 marvel movie for sure

Exactly! Vol 2 is my most rewatched MCU movie!

Vol. 2 is definitely my favorite of all of them. Plus it has an absolutely stacked soundtrack, just hit after nostalgic hit with perfectly timed needle drops. I like it more than Iron Man because on some level I still associate the first Iron Man with all the cultural and political baggage of the war on terror, which to my mind was one of the most deeply and enduringly damaging turning points in American history.

i love vol 2 so much it’s only a tiny bit better then the first one for me

GOTG2 isn't as funny as the first one, but it feels more impactful/meaningful, at least in my opinion.

Cap trilogy might be superior, but it’s definitely close.

I agree. It has the best begin to end story. It's very clear how all of the characters develop and how the group dynamic evolves is very clear. Loved it.

@@Luke_SkywaIker cap trilogy starts off with a meh movie, guardians has no meh movies

@@greghawkins59 first avenger is hardly a “meh” movie, maybe I’m biased bc I love WW2 period films. But that movie did an excellent job setting up Steve’s arc, solidifying him as the character we all know and love, and has arguably the saddest ending of Phase 1. Plus the themes of that movie are consistent through the trilogy, even if it’s arguably the “weakest” compared to Winter Solider and Civil War, it’s still a great movie and definitely worth the watch.

​@@Luke_SkywaIker it wasn't meh but it didn't really have style, at least not a style consistent with the films that follow. It seemed more like old marvel, a bit cartoonier, a bit less tense. Still good, but winter soldier and civil war were incredible tonally. Whereas gaurdians never missed a beat I think, each one was a fresh move from beginning to end especially in context of the mcu, with 1 breaking new ground on the comedic and musical style that would inhabit every mcu film after, 2 being a more isolated yet tonally consistent film, and 3 being a badass wrap on that same tone. That's the difference for me.

Heath's Joker was successful because he was a well written character. Thanos (MCUs best villain) was sympathetic in a way his ends were noble just not his means. The difference is good vs bad writing, not just that unsympathetic villain = good while sympathetic villain = bad.

Ego is actually one of my favorite villains in the MCU because he's just so...alien. He's cruel and spiteful yet he seemed to genuinely love Peter's mom. And instead of that inspiring any change in him, his response was to KILL HER TO KEEP HIM FROM GIVING UP ON HIS PLAN. "It broke my heart when I put that tumor in her head" has had one of the most visceral reactions in any theater I've seen for a reason

Like Jack Horner lol

Are you saying quill doesn’t cradle High Evolutionaries dead body while telling the Nova Corp to “do better” Is this even a marvel movie?

@@johnfelix503 that's exactly another recent example that came to mind but I just didn't put him in bcs I was focusing on examples from comicbook movies lol

And that makes him a perfect threat to face the Guardians; a team entirely composed of weirdos, outcasts, and freaks (all said lovingly). His twisted drive for perfection and dispassion towards life make him the antithesis of everything the Guardians of the Galaxy stand for. They all wear their flaws on their sleeves, but together they make something beautiful; and that's something that the High Evolutionary will never be able to understand.

That would've been really interesting. I like this take.

Hes thousands of years old though

That's his comic origin, more or less. He's a protégé of Mr. Sinister.

I just assume that every movie review is a cynical one unless proven otherwise.

Oh boye, you'll get nuked

In my opinion, in the entire MCU, Nebula's character arc is only second to Tony's in term of complexity and sheer payoff. She's grown so much over the course of these movies, and I'm happy to see where her story landed in the end.

Bless your heart! ❤

Man up

@@Yourubeei I'm morbidly curious what made you think that was a warranted response.

@@Yourubeei you give off “no job” vibes

Same, it was so hard to watch for me, I cried a lot and in the end I was more sad than happy when I left the theater… I think I can’t even rewatch this movie :(

Bless your heart! ❤ It was the same with me, I immediately was reminded of animal testing for medicine and fur farms in real life and it shook me to the core. This was something I couldn't shake off because it's real in our world.

Nope. The percentage is based on what number of critics would recommend or give it a fresh rating compared to those who would not or give it a rotten score.

@@doug176 Thanks! I appreciate the correction. I had made the wrong assumption. No wonder the metric doesn’t seem consistent with other rating systems.

What things?

Its good but make sure to bring a box of tissues

Side note, I love how the first f-bomb was just Peter Quill getting exasperated that Nebula couldn't open a door. That's...just really funny.

More James Gunn, less MCU... If anything, I'd argue GOTG Vol. 3 will be more beneficial to the DCU's reputation rather than the MCU.

​@@ryanprice2699 secret invasion and the marvels will probably both be good as well

​@@ryanprice2699 Well most movie goers don't know about Gunn going to DC so it'll still benefit the MCU.

​@@ryanprice2699 why

It really depends on what's next. I think they've already filmed things back when they hadn't taken the feedback into account so I think it'll really be the next avengers movies and onwards when marvel will be back.

The fans wanted darker stories, the critics complaining about it being dark are not part of that group necessarily

No. They wanted serious. That doesn’t mean dark. Just not jokes every other breath. But I, personally, am fine with dark. When facing evil, things tend to get dark.. it’s to be expected stories about Heroes in my opinion.

Different groups want different things. Hardcore longterm fans probably want serious and dark. Casual moviegoers just want lighthearted jokes and a fun time etc.