Note – this is a spoiler-free advance review of the first episode of Guardians of the Galaxy. This episode will debut on Disney XD on Saturday, September 5. A full one-hour premiere of the first two episodes will follow on Saturday, September 26.
A few short years ago it would have been impossible to imagine Marvel building an animated series around the Guardians of the Galaxy. But with the massive popularity of last year’s live-action movie and the fact that Marvel is positioning this ragtag team as one of the core pillars of their superhero universe, it makes sense that Guardians of the Galaxy would take its place alongside the likes of Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble. Sadly, Marvel Television has yet to deliver a home run when it comes to animation, and Guardians of the Galaxy is no exception. The best that can be said for this premiere episode is that there’s obvious potential.
The animated series isn’t a direct continuation of the film or even tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all. However, the fact that you could easily be fooled into thinking the show is bridging the gap between movies is probably its most damning quality. The similarities run far deeper than the fact that the core roster – Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon, Groot – is the same as the film. Everything, from the character designs to the voice-over work to the soundtrack to the locales, is designed to evoke the film as much as possible.
The slavish devotion to the MCU has its draws, certainly. The show replicates one of the film’s simpler but more enjoyable elements by featuring a soundtrack built around ’70s pop songs (including the eponymous “Hooked on a Feeling”). That alone gives it a certain worldly charm you won’t find in Marvel’s other animated series. On a deeper level, the film built a strong dynamic among these five dysfunctional, lonely heroes, molding them into an unlikely family that stuck together not out of necessity, but because they genuinely wanted to. Regardless of whether the show is set in that same continuity, there’s plenty room to expand on that core team dynamic. As much as I’d love a show that included a few non-movie characters like Quasar or Adam Warlock, the core quintet is theoretically enough for now.
Unfortunately, this first episode isn’t ambitious enough on that front. It’s mostly content to rehash a lot of familiar beats (the prison break, the Cosmic MacGuffin everyone craves, the extended trip to Knowhere) and deliver a steady stream of amusing but simplistic humor. Yes, it’s fun to watch the team squabble with each other or complain about not understanding what Groot is saying. But a lot of the film’s edge has been dulled to suit this more family-friendly format. This episode makes every effort to remind viewers just how much like the film it is. In the process, it only draws attention to the elements that don’t work as well.
Take Drax and Gamora, for instance. Neither character displays any of the depth of their live-action counterparts. Gamora mainly just seems annoyed to be a part of the team. As for Drax, he rarely utters a line that doesn’t revolve around his desire to exact vengeance on Thanos. The movie got a tremendous amount of mileage out of Drax’s aggressively literal personality and his inability to understand humor. That element is barely apparent here. As for Thanos himself, he comes across as a straightforward, generic villain in his limited screen time. He seems present more because it’s expected of him than because he’s the logical character to build a conflict upon right now. As much as this show tones down the violence and humor of the MCU, it remains to be seen whether it can actually do justice to Thanos in the first place. He’s not a villain who minces words or pulls his punches.
It’s telling that the most successful element of this premiere involves a character only barely glimpsed in the film. The Guardians gain a new ally in the form of Cosmo, the canine cosmonaut whose psychic abilities allow him to serve as security chief of Knowhere. Cosmo was one of the highlights of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s Guardians of the Galaxy comic (which was the primary inspiration for the movie), and it’s clear that same appeal made the transition to television. Cosmo is the sort of endearing and inherently ridiculous character this show needs a lot more of if it’s going to thrive.
Visually, Guardians easily ranks as the best of Marvel Television’s animated projects. There’s a more consistent level of shading and sense of detail to the characters than on a show like Avengers Assemble, while the computer animated elements (the ships, the Knowhere station) provide a welcome sense of scale. It’s really a question of what the animators can do when they venture outside of the familiar handful environments
In terms of voice work, the quality is a little more haphazard. Trevor Devall and Kevin Michael Richardson are pitch-perfect as Rocket and Groot, respectively. On the flip side, Vanessa Marshall’s flat performance as Gamora is as much responsible for the character’s bland portrayal as the writing. Will Friedle’s Star-Lord is a mixed bag, at best. Friedle brings plenty of energy to his role, but Star-Lord comes across as too young and immature in the process. There’s a nasally quality to the character’s voice that doesn’t sit right. James Arnold Taylor pulls double duty as both Cosmo and Yondu. The former sounds exactly like you’d expect, but the latter is downright odd at times. As much as Taylor tries to replicate Michael Rooker’s rugged hillbilly take on Yondu, there’s an almost foppish lilt that creeps into voice. It’s as if Taylor can’t quite shake off those years of voicing Obi-Wan Kenobi on Clone Wars.
