Guardians of the
Galaxy released at the beginning of this month to booming success. Thus far
the summer blockbusters hadn’t been raking in as much as expected, and
predictions were placing the box office numbers for Guardians at tragic lows. After a few weeks in theaters Guardians of the Galaxy was just
recently usurped from the number one box office spot by the new TMNT movie. The worldwide box office
number for Guardians so far is at
$334 million and continuing to climb. The soundtrack for the movie featuring
Peter Quill’s Awesome Mix is at number one and the movie has more than made
back what it invested.
So what caused the movie to meet all of this unpredicted
success? At its heart, Guardians of the
Galaxy followed a pattern of popular trends over the years in cinema and
television. It is a unique blend of many things that make it seem out of the
box, but its core elements were time-tested ideas. For as long as film has been
around, people have been making films about space. Even Georges Méliès, one of the early pioneers into film and special effects,
made a silent film called A Trip to the
Moon in 1902. Perhaps it’s because we have only scratched the surface of
what is out there that we have become so enamored with stories of space. Or
perhaps it is our human nature to explore and seek out new adventure that draws
us to these stories. Whatever the cause, stories of aliens and space are often
released to great applause from audiences everywhere. Just look at Star Trek, Star Wars, and even Doctor
Who. Doctor Who stands as the
longest running science fiction television show and has over 800 episodes to
its name.
So from its start Guardians had a strong premise. However,
its similarities to our favorite science fiction movies don’t stop there. The
main character of the movie, Star Lord, is eerily similar to everyone’s
favorite sort of bad, sort of good character, Han Solo. He has the same swagger
and confidence of Solo, and starts his character arc as a good guy mixed up
with bad jobs and bad people. And just like Solo has Jabba the Hut after him
for what Han owes Jabba, Peter Quill has Yondu chasing him down for the
infinity stone that Peter owes him.
Guardians of the Galaxy takes what we love from Star Wars and other space sagas, and combines them with Marvel’s
infamous superhero team formula. Marvel has brought back the superhero movies
in a way that no one else has and made them into a product that reaches a much
wider audience than before. Guardians expands
this target audience even more now by reaching more into the science fiction
genre. Looking at all of the pieces, it’s no surprise that Guardians is meeting the success that it is. Everyone is talking
about how Marvel took a big risk with Guardians
being outside of the box. But the truth of the matter is, while it is outside
of Marvel’s normal box and safe genre, they ventured into the well-established
and well-loved territory of space sagas.
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