FBTB - From Bricks To Bothans

I’m starting this review a few days before the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie comes out; I’m excited, I have tickets to a double-header with the first in IMAX on Thursday. The first GotG movie represents something very unique in the Super Hero genre; a genre I really enjoy, but is starting to show a few problems. The Marvel movies, which are all entertaining, are very formulaic. The look and appearance of the movies themselves has become somewhat bland. Marvel tends to stick to flat colors and taking off brightness… giving Cap a dull blue suit, making Spider-Man less shiny looking, darker colors for Doctor Strange, etc. DC goes sepia and covers everything in grit; suicide squad made Harley colorful, but everything else was gray and brown with an extra helping of grit and dust.

Guardians of the Galaxy has been bucking all of those trends; it’s absurdly colorful. It mixes humor and action more effectively than any other comic book movie not named Deadpool. More than that, it proved that you can tell a comic book story with an ensemble cast, without diving deeply into origin stories, and make us care about them in a two hour runtime. I’m just saying, it’s perfectly okay to choke up a bit when you hear “We Are Groot.” Guardians of the Galaxy was supposed to be the first “failure” in the MCU, back when it was first released, but it ended up being one of the best, if not the best, we’ve gotten.

The verdict on LEGO sets is a bit more mixed. The first line only consisted of a few sets and a polybag… but it gave us one of the best spaceship/jets in the first Milano set (I still maintain it’s named after Alyssa Milano and not the cookies). It also gave us a good set with a Nova, and a… not good prison break set. Still, it was great to get the major players from the first movie, even if we still need an official Glenn Close minifigure, and that Milano was fantastic. For the sequel, LEGO seems to be sticking to their most recent trend of “let’s just rehash the old stuff, but make it worse and raise the price a bit.” Thus far, I’ve only picked up one set for review, 76079 Ravager Attack, and that is mostly because I wanted a Mantis minifigure. Here’s hoping that this little $19.99 and 197 piece manages to impress a bit more when built than it does in the first impression.

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