Guardians

17 minute social media preview of Guardians of the Galaxy. Clearly Marvel is a little worried about it - and probably with good reason. It looks like a perfectly amusing popcorn flick well suited to the summer. But perhaps not to winter. 

The Guardians are a rag tag bunch of criminals and ne'er-do-wells - the bit of cinema shown had them being sent to prison as a group:

• A living weapon who is universally disliked.   
• A tough-talking raccoon and his helpful, uh, Groot. 
• A guy who is evidently a child of the 70s with some abandonment issues, alleviated with personal totems ("Hooked on a Feeling ... is MINE!!") 
• And there meeting Drax the Destroyer, a charming fellow. 

Nomads, that is -- literal as well as the Strauss and Howe definition.

They have been placed, however, in a Heroic movie in a Crisis. Which will likely be a tough sell.

In this construction - used previously with regards to Captain America and others -  Nomad movies are about Redemption. Nomads are bad people who need to improve themselves, make themselves better, show the world that they don't have to be the bad guys. It's a simple enough arc if you are starting from bad - where else is there to go?  Hero movies are simpler still: Be Heroic. Which means they are already mostly Good, with little or no redemption needed. Heroes do the right thing, they win by working with their friends, and they usually are called upon to sacrifice, at least a little and sometimes a lot.

Here in the Crisis, there are plenty of Nomad movies that do well. Generation X are Nomads, after all, and still buy plenty of tickets. The Hobbit, Iron Man, The Dark Night, Django... The Hero movies, though, seem to be the face of popular culture: The Hunger Games, Twilight, arguably 12 Years a Slave. Where does that leave Guardians? Straddling a difficult line, with characters too bad for straight Heroics, and a narrative too clearly requiring Heroes. 

There's one point where the Guardians are breaking out of prison. They are surrounded by guards who are not especially cruel, much less evil - the first one shown is played by John C. Reilly, so how bad could they be? When Our Heroes take out several of them in ways that clearly aren't going to be just flesh wounds, it can be cringe-inducing: They're just guards, doing their job, don't hurt them! Bad people don't have a problem with that, of course, but that makes it harder for them to be Heroes. And that is likely to make it harder for them to be as appealing as they should be.

There is some room for Redemption, at least - Gamora seems a likely candidate. And Star-lord wants to be a hero. Perhaps a way down that fine line will be found.