Though we’ve known about Marvel Studios’ upcoming film based on the Guardians Of The Galaxy comic book series for a while now, that was pretty much everything we knew of the film. Today however, a logline has appeared on a number of industry sites that offers a tantalizing glimpse at how this film might turn out.
Have a look:
About a U.S. pilot who ends up in space in the middle of a universal conflict and goes on the run with futuristic ex-cons who have something everyone wants.
Not much to go on, is it? Then again, this is a logline, so it’s not like it was going to include a multi-paragraph plot synopsis.
So what do you all think of this storyline? Yes, it is the exact same plot as Farscape, but that’s actually not a bad of way of describing the Guardians Of The Galaxy. In Marvel’s comic universe — and, as far as we can tell, its film universe — the main Guardians saga centers on American astronaut Vance Astrovik (best astronaut name ever) who is blasted 1,000 years into the future to discover chaos and war all around him. Being over a millennia old he doesn’t exactly have a great support system in his new era, so he takes up with a ragtag band of misfits of varying species and legal status. There’s the bloodthirsty, sarcastic, heavily-armed anthropomorphic raccoon, appropriately named Rocket Raccoon. Groot, the giant, ambulatory tree man who is more or less, an Ent straight out of Tolkien. Mantis, the green-skinned “Celestial Madonna” whose spirituality is only matched by her amazing martial arts skills. Cosmo, a psychic, hyper-intelligent dog that was shot into space by the USSR back in the 60s. And the list goes on and on. So yes, we are happy about the logline’s synopsis.
The bit that puzzles us though comes right at the end of the logline. We’re racking our brains to come up with any item the Guardians have ever possessed or might, one day, realistically possess, and as far as the comic book continuity is concerned, we’re coming up with nothing. However, if we’re building on the idea that Marvel wants its film universe to be as interconnected as its comic book universe then there are two items that might fit the bill.
First is the Cosmic Cube. You may recall it as the glowing, swirling, bluish-green cube that the Red Skull used to power his weapons in 2011’s Captain America. Though it was that film’s MacGuffin, the movie didn’t do a great job of exploring everything the Cube can do. In comic book continuity the Cube is so powerful that anyone who uses it can completely alter reality to suit their slightest whim, and we’ve long been convinced that Captain America’s use of the Cube was specifically designed to introduce the object to audiences who might see later Marvel Studios movies that employ it more fully.
Based on that, doesn’t “something everyone wants” seem like an apt description for the Cosmic Cube?
The other item we suspect/hope it might be is the Infinity Gauntlet. Like the Cosmic Cube, the Infinity Gauntlet is powerful enough to reshape reality, and thus would very well be “something everyone wants.” We think this one might be even more likely than the Cosmic Cube, as not only did the Gauntlet appear in 2011’s Thor (albeit in a very, very brief cameo), but it’s also indelibly linked to Thanos — a character who will almost certainly appear as the major villain in an upcoming Avengers sequel.
What if Marvel Studios uses this Guardians Of The Galaxy movie to inform audiences of who Thanos is and why they should be excited to see him as the villan in an Avengers film that should be hitting theaters a relatively short time after Guardians Of The Galaxy? That makes a lot of sense to us, and given how powerful the Guardians Of The Galaxy are, we think Thanos would make a perfectly suitable villain for the team.
