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Guardians of The Galaxy: It’s a Metaphor!

By Jacob Krueger

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Hello, I’m Jacob Krueger and this is my Write Your Screenplay podcast. On this podcast we look at all kinds of movies, not just great movies but also flawed movies. And rather than looking at them in terms of what’s good or what’s bad, two thumbs up or two thumbs down, we look at them in terms of what can you learn from these movies as a screenwriter.

Today, we’re going to be looking at James Gunn’s shockingly successful script for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Most of us go into superhero movies with low expectations.

It’s not that we don’t expect to have a good time. It’s just that we don’t expect to have a lot more than a good time. It’s not that we don’t expect to be shocked and dazzled by incredible action sequences and made to laugh with funny one-liners. It’s that we’re not used to seeing the kind of psychological underpinning, the kind of emotional underpinning, the kind of truthful writing that we see in Guardians of the Galaxy.

And, for this reason, James Gunn’s script actually redefines our expectations for what a superhero movie can be.

The difference between what James Gunn is doing in his script and what a lesser writer would be doing in their script is actually very small. It all comes down to theme.

There’s a very funny line late in the movie when Star Lord (played by Chris Pratt of “Parks & Rec”) is trying to motivate his band of misfit bandits to risk their lives to save the world.  He says, “I look around and I see losers. We’re all losers. Well… I mean, we’ve all lost something.”

And although this line is played for humor, it actually points us directly towards the thematic glue that holds this entire screenplay together.

Because, even though it’s a ridiculous, over-the-top, hilarious, action-paced, completely unrealistic, silly movie, Guardians of the Galaxy is actually about loss.

There’s another scene between Rocket Raccoon and Drax the Destroyer (the Dave Bautista character) in which Drax has pretty much destroyed the entire plan by summoning the great evil character, Ronan, directly to them.  And he’s done it because he wants revenge for his dead wife and his dead kids, who Ronan killed.

Rocket Raccoon (played by Bradley Cooper) confronts Drax about doing stupid things because of loss by saying, “we’ve all got dead people.”

And you can see in these lines that Guardians of the Galaxy is not a movie about capturing some crazy crystal, defeating some evil lord, or saving the galaxy. Guardians of the Galaxy is about coming to grips with the loss of the people you love and somehow holding onto your spirit of adventure, to your ability to connect to people, and to your ability to have family.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy is just a giant metaphor for loss. And it’s fun to watch James Gunn as he plays with this idea through the Dave Bautista character, Drax, who has absolutely no understanding of metaphor.

In a way, Drax is a stand-in for the audience. You see, the audience of your movie also doesn’t think about your metaphor. The audience doesn’t think about your theme. Your audience feels you theme.

So, while very few people are leaving Guardians of the Galaxy saying, “hmmm…what an interesting meditation on loss” (and god forbid if they did leav...