MCU least-loved sequels revisit.

AKA: So, Marvel...Part 2.

Part 1.

My observations on these two flicks kind of evolved into a sequel.

This is more on the political/moral philosophy of Marvel rather than the business side of things.

Which makes it a better companion to the DC one.

-Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (2023)

-Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

I felt like re-visiting these to see if they deserved a second chance.

About 50-50.

Heavy spoilers ahead.

You've had a year and 2 years to see these.

First, Guardians 3.

James Gunn has admitted he rushed it, and he was in a dark head-space when he wrote it.

So, defenders of this one already have an uphill battle when the creator admits it's not his best work.

I dunno, if he had been happier, and picked better songs, I don't think it could have been much better, because the politics are all wrong.

James Gunn, so far as I can tell, is a status-quo warrior.

Let's look at the bad guy's scheme.

The High Evolutionary is evolving animals into people to populate his artificial planet, Counter-Earth, which is a total ripoff of Earth.

Right down to suburbs, and cities, and jobs, and money.

You can engineer people all you want, but flinging them into the same soul-dead capitalistic nightmare is never going to make "the perfect world".

You could evolve them into energy cubes, but once you put them into suburbs, and subways, and cubicles, you've totally shit-fucked it.

As Bill Hicks said "there's no extra thumbs coming up the pike. We have to evolve our IDEAS".

But, The High Evolutionary runs a corporation, so of course a corporatist thinks cities, and suburbs, and money, and class are neato.

And High Evolutionary also performs eugenics, and commits genocides.

So, what do we call that?

A fascist.

So! You would think this was intended as liberal subversiveness against corporatism, but nope, Peter Quill's grandpa lives in an identical fucking suburb on Earth, and Peter thinks it's hunky-dory.

This indicates to me that Gunn only thinks the eugenics and genocide are bad.

Not that High Evolutionary's whole fundamental approach to "progress" is wrong.

No, "progress" itself is wrong in the eyes of Gunn here.

Cities, suburbs, money, and class are the apex, and that's it.

You can't push any harder than that.

If you do, you're a literal comic book villain.

You get this bullshit from Joss Whedon in "Serenity" and Matt Stone and Trey Parker in everything they shart forth.

Whedon, Stone, Parker, and Gunn are all rich.

And rich men are never going to tell the little guy to upturn the status quo, no matter how rebellious their younger selves once were.

Okay, not never, there are many exceptions, but for the most part.

People that tell me "be grateful to the point of boot-licking for what little table scraps you can scrounge, and get your head out of the clouds" are never going to be my friends.

We're just not going to get along.

This movie oozes this message out every crack.

Was Gunn gloomy about fulfilling his contractual obligations to Disney?

Does he feel like a corporate whore, and it subliminally trickled into his art?

Like I said in the first pass of reviewing this "is James Gunn okay?".

Seems funny how so many of these artists when they reach a certain level of success take a bazooka to Tinkerbelle.

And let's get to those dismal songs.

Some 70's and 80's sprinkled in, but mostly 90's.

And every single 90's song reminds me of how much the 90's sucked for me.

Friends abandoning me, new people closing me out of even being their friends.

Just rejection, abandonment, being closed out, and cold shouldered everywhere I turned.

And what's the movie about?

The gang drifting apart, and Quill not being able to win his ex back.

Rejection and abandonment.

Guardians 1-2 are joyous nostalgia.

Guardians 3 is a bummer with bummer music from an era I don't want to fucking remember.

If you LIKED the 90's, this movie kind of gives you the finger.

I don't see how it can make you go "yeah!! There's the song I love set to some stuff that's fun!".

How? How is your brain wired?

Well! Maybe that's what 90's fans liked about the 90's.

Selling out, making money, and popping out their kids.

"The American dream" worked for those people.

Didn't for me.

Didn't for millions of people.

When you look at the stats of crushing college, medical, and credit debt, my generation was the start of the roller-coaster dive into apocalypse.

Gunn is tone-deaf as fuck thinking the 90's needed servicing.

That status-quo-ism needed the banner waved.

The one 00's song that the big victory dance is set to is bland audio wallpaper that would fit right into a fucking Zales commercial.

Fitting.

If it's subconscious, I pity Gunn.

If it's conscious, this is his Joker 2, and he's giving me the finger, and I give it right back.

The happy message I took from it all, is what I'm writing is better than this.

Characters, philosophy, tone, all of it.

I'm topping James Gunn.

That's a pretty cool feeling.

But no, I don't think I'll watch this one anymore.

Some really smart person would have to talk me into seeing this in a brighter light with a truly scintillating argument.

This lives next to Morbius and Madame Web for me.

Maybe even the bad Punishers.

Christ, the Ghostrider movies are more fun than Guardians 3.

What a downgrade from me loving the first one so much, that I saw it at the theater 3 times.

I struggle to think of a trilogy that plunged so precipitously.

X-Men 3 gets trashed, but there's parts I love.

Spider-Man 3 gets trashed, but there's parts I love.

Superman 3 gets trashed, but there's parts I love.

Iron Man 3 gets trashed, but I think it's better than 2, and almost as good as 1.

Haters of "The Dark Knight Rises" can flat out eat my ass.

"Dark Phoenix" is part 4 of its series.

"New Mutants" is part 1, and killed its trilogy in the crib.

Yeah, it's hard to find a parallel.

Now!! "Wakanda Forever"!

I actually loved "Wakanda Forever" on the second go. I've warmed up to it.

So, it's really messed up that this occupies the same universe as Guardians 3, because while that one flips the bird at the idea of progress and utopia, Wakanda is a utopia.

A weird utopia to be sure, but within its little world, it works somehow.

It's a society run by benevolent technocratic royalists.

Exactly the sort of society Elon Musk pretends is coming from his ass, but isn't.

So, it's one of those "the right people have to do it" deals.

We saw right in Black Panther 1, all it took was one little Killmonger to throw it into total chaos.

Wakanda's people have to pray REAAALLY hard they never pull another Killmonger from the leader lottery hat.

This is why western nations had to adopt democracy.

Royalism is like getting a surprise Jekyll/Hyde spouse in a world without divorce.

But! The Wakandan royal family are Christlike in their generosity, and everyone seemingly gets free everything to the point of luxury there, and everyone's always literally dancing in the streets.

Shuri has a molecular 3-D printer that can create living plants.

One assumes that either every Wakandan has one of these in their kitchen, OR, Shuri made fruit trees and veggie vines that make everything the size of hams, and hunger is solved.

One also assumes they have giant 3-D printers that make houses, clothing, and medicine.

Even the "poor" have beautiful perfectly laundered un-faded outfits.

Wakanda is basically planet Earth in Star Trek; total post-scarcity.

...but then why do they need royalty?

And what do people do for jobs?

There are lots of skyscrapers, so apparently, they require a lot of administrative work.

Neither Black Panther movie sweats these details.

And, it's just as well.

Regardless of the details, Wakanda exists, it works, and it shares a universe with Guardians 3 in defiance of James Gunn's cynicism.

Oh, Disney, you so crazy.

ANYHOO!

The moral message of this one is peace vs vengeance.

Peace finally wins.

Another sharp contrast with Guardians 3, which comes right out and says "the guy who shot your girlfriend? Rip his fucking face off! Yeeeaaahhh".

These two films could not be more diametrically opposed if they were "Old Fashioned" vs "On The Basis Of Sex".

And we wonder why Americans are so morally confused.

Bad enough there's a tug-of-war for our souls from competing media franchises from the time we're all kids, but you get it from within the same damned franchise!!

And I'll say it, and it shouldn't be controversial; Ryan Coogler is just better than James Gunn.

This is the lesser of the two Panther flicks, and he still makes it beautiful.

My heart was uplifted. Exact opposite effect Guardians 3 had on me.

Glad I had this as my antidote movie.

Aaaand, that's those!