Guardians of the Galaxy – 2014
Every now and then, I describe a movie’s visual effects as not being flashy. But that certainly wasn’t the case with this movie. They were bright and colorful, a real spectacle for the eyes! I loved the way they looked. The designers of the film, and consequently, the VFX artists, really made the images on the screen pop! And what’s more, because they were pretty much building their own worlds and environments, they were able to let their imaginations run free.
In this first installment of movies for this group of superheroes, there are five members, two of whom were completely CGI. Of course, I have to talk about them a little. The first was Rocket. He is a genetically and cybernetically enhanced racoon. He could have so easily been turned into a silly, goofy character, but though he had plenty of comedic moments, the animators really took him seriously. He looked as photo-realistic as any of the live actors. They had to alter some of his proportions to make him walk and move more like a human, but that’s perfectly plausible for a scientifically engineered creature. The animators studied real racoons and paid attention to very specific details, like the fact that they have different kinds of fur that behave in different ways, which greatly added to the realism. I loved the shot of Rocket waking up after he had been sleeping. The racoon fur on the side of his face was crushed. Great detail!
Then there was Groot, the walking tree. The animators constructed his body, his skeletal and muscular structure out of wood. His arms were like branches. His skin was like bark. And yet his movements were flexible, like branches that can bend. He needed to be able to sprout twigs, leaves, and vines, all of which moved and behaved like you would expect of a sentient and mobile tree. Amazingly enough, he was a fully realized and believable character, despite his entirely alien nature.
A lot of the film’s other visual effects, while perfectly executed, seemed to be standard fair for this kind of science fiction movie. There were great space ships, epic arial battles, explosions, fighting, stunts, lots of gunfire, and even a few CGI alien creatures. I loved the wide array of interestingly designed gadgets and weapons that must have taken a lot of imagination for the filmmakers to come up with. I especially loved how the fleet of Nova Corps one-man fighters were able to link together to construct a massive net, as they attempted to prevent the giant behemoth space ship, the Dark Aster, from landing on the planet’s surface.
And then there were two scenes in which the purple infinity stone, the power stone, was really invoked. This is sci-fi at its best. There are massive explosions of purple fire and raging purple tempests! Talk about eye-catching and flashy! These scenes were pretty darn cool! The articles I read said that the shots in this movie were about 90% CGI shots. But they all looked so real, and the story was so engaging, that you tend to forget that so much of the film was made in a computer. How else would we be able to accept a talking racoon and a walking tree? I love it!