Five Theories About Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel Studios is steering full speed ahead on the next round of superhero movies, which includes a number of sequels and the debut of a cosmic team known as the Guardians of the Galaxy. While the Guardians movie is currently being rewritten by Chris McCoy, a rumored plot synopsis for the film popped up this week:

"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."

Though that synopsis is only one sentence long, it hints at what direction Marvel is taking these characters. We've decided to explore what the synopsis reveals -- assuming its accurate -- and the various questions it raises.

Who Is the U.S. Pilot?

As we've discussed in past Marvel features, one of the functions of the Avengers was to serve as a litmus test for casual fans, determining whether or not they'd tolerate a few science fiction-based characters and plot elements alongside more traditional superhero fare. Audiences seemed to respond well, given the box office numbers, and that's why Marvel is pushing ahead with a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

GotG will take Marvel's Cinematic Universe more fully into the realm of sci-fi. However, whether you're looking at comics like Guardians of the Galaxy or TV shows like Farscape, one element many space-based stories share is that at least one central protagonist hails from Earth. It helps to have an ordinary hero for fans to latch onto and to help keep the story grounded a bit.

The summary makes it clear that the GotG movie will have such a character. Chances are the “U.S. Pilot” in question is Peter Quill, better known as the hero Star-Lord. In the comics, Quill is a NASA pilot with a troubled childhood who essentially cheats his way into becoming a super-powered space cop. Star-Lord had a largely solo career until he became leader of the modern version of the Guardians after the storyline Annihilation: Conquest.

Marvel's concept painting (seen at the top of this page) clearly shows Star-Lord front and center among the Guardians. However, there's also the possibility that the summary isn't referring to him at all. The original version of the Guardians created in 1969 was a team based in the 31st Century rather than the present. That team had its own Earth-based hero named Vance Astro. Like Quill, Astro is a NASA pilot, only he was frozen in suspended animation for 1000 years as he traveled to Alpha Centauri on an experimental spaceship. Astro eventually joined up with a number of colorful heroes to form the futuristic Guardians of the Galaxy.

Another remote possibility brought up by the folks at Topless Robot is Carol Danvers. Though best known as the heroine Ms. Marvel, Danvers was recently rechristened Captain Marvel in the comics. Danvers is an Air Force pilot who accidentally gained powers when she was abducted by Kree scientists. It's unlikely that Marvel would opt to bring in a separate Avenger character when the GotG franchise already has two separate characters who fit the “U.S. Pilot” bill. Additionally, her origin might be too difficult to pull off in the context of a team movie like this.

On the other hand, Marvel has been placing unusual emphasis on the character in their comics recently. Perhaps they're preparing for her mainstream Hollywood debut? Also, it really wouldn't hurt the Marvel Cinematic Universe to have more central female heroes. There's no need for Black Widow to continue shouldering that burden alone.

It's more likely that the U.S. pilot is Peter Quill rather than Astro or Danvers. However, as we'll discuss later, it seems that Marvel may be combining elements of both versions of the Guardians. It's possible the cinematic Star-Lord will at least share some traits with Vance Astro.

Present or Future?

As mentioned, there are two distinctly different versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the Marvel Universe, one based in the present day and one in the 31st Century. The concept painting Marvel released suggests that the movie will be based on the contemporary Guardians. However, the fact that they're referred to as “futuristic ex-cons” has us wondering if the movie isn't borrowing from both incarnations. Are the Guardians futuristic because their technology and resources are leaps and bounds beyond Earth's, or because they literally come from the future?

Perhaps Marvel Studios are still hoping to keep the movie as contained to Earth as possible. By setting the movie in the future, the various team members could be explained as being products of highly advanced genetic engineering rather than aliens. In the case of some of them (Drax, Rocket Raccoon) this isn't necessarily that off the mark anyway. However, we fear the team would lose some of its color and charm if they were all presented as Earthlings.

Either way, time travel could easily become an element of the conflict. Even in the contemporary GotG series, some of the characters were whisked away to the future in order to see what dark fate was in store for the universe 1000 years down the road. Both timelines could come into play as the Guardians confront a terrible threat in the 31st century and then travel back in order to stop its rise. Time travel could even be used to foreshadow the events of Avengers 2, which we now know won't be hitting theaters too long after this movie.

Are the Guardians Criminals?

Perhaps the most interesting and unexpected tidbit of information revealed in the plot summary is that the Guardians are “ex-cons.” While individual team members have sometimes had questionable loyalties, the Guardians as a whole have never been portrayed as being on the wrong side of the law. Most are bounty hunters or adventurers, while Groot is royalty on his home planet.

Perhaps their respective origin stories are being altered for the Cinematic Universe. The Guardians may become a team more like DC's Suicide Squad, where prisoners volunteer for dangerous missions in exchange for reduced sentences. Given Peter Quill's somewhat shady past, he may find himself thrust into a similar sort of situation when he commits a galactic faux pas. If this is the function the team serves in the movie, we'll be curious to see what intergalactic power is giving them orders.

We also wonder if this means the Klyn will factor into the conflict of the movie. The Klyn is a maximum security prison built at the edge of the universe and designed to hold the most powerful creatures in the universe (even characters like the Beyonder and some of Galactus' relatives). Star-Lord himself spent time in the prison before his recent resurgence in the comics. Using the Klyn as a locale in the movie ensures that Marvel can toss in pretty much whatever iconic villains and alien races they want, depending on contractual rights.

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Need For Speed: Most Wanted is How Open-World Racing Should Be

Criterion doesn’t make sequels to other people’s games. They’re quite emphatic about that. Hot Pursuit wasn’t a follow-up to any other Need for Speed, but rather Criterion’s personal take on the theme. Need for Speed: Most Wanted shares its name with another game in this genre-spanning racing brand, but the interpretation is all Criterion’s own. It does feel a bit like a sequel, though, in some ways – not to any of EA’s previous NFS games, but to the developer’s 2008 open-world racer Burnout Paradise.

Most Wanted is an open-world racer too, setting the player down in a shiny, good-looking American-style city with luxuriously wide roads, extremely car-friendly urban architecture and absolutely no cyclicsts to get in the way. You can leap over the freeway, drive up stairs, drift crazily around the end of a pier, antagonise the police and (naturally) take part in street races of every imaginable variety. And here’s the best part: every car in the game is open from the start, hidden somewhere in the city. All you have to do is get out there and find them.

No more staring longingly at greyed-out shiny Ferraris in unlock menus. No more accumulating XP or cash or whatever other arbitrary value for 10 or 30 or 35 hours before you’re allowed to drive the cars that everybody actually wants to drive. There’s just you, the cops, and a secret-packed urban playground designed for absurd driving. And, via an updated and improved version of Autolog, the constant presence of all your friends.

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Like Hot Pursuit, Most Wanted is a social racing game, making every tiny challenge into a social leaderboard.

Like Hot Pursuit, Most Wanted is a social racing game, making every tiny challenge into a social leaderboard. Autolog is everywhere, populating the city of Fairhaven with competitive gameplay and turning every speed camera and visible billboard into a competition. Fly through the air for the longest time after smashing through a billboard, and your face will appear on it, adorning that same billboard in your friends’ game until one of them beats your record. The game’s hook, really, is the desire to become the most notorious driver amongst your own group of players.

The city of Fairhaven is full of distractions and incentives, security-gated alleyways and secreted cars and underground shortcuts, all designed to make you want to explore its 100-odd miles of road. Open-world racers can often feel directionless, leaving you to tool around in a city without giving you all that much to actually do – Burnout Paradise suffered from this problem – but here Autolog provides you with a constantly-updated list of new score challenges and people to beat, in addition to the races and events that Criterion constructs for you.

“The city has to be inviting and it has to be interesting, and at any point in the game you’re parked up and going zero miles an hour, there should be something interesting to look at,” says creative director Craig Sullivan, whom you might recognise from Most Wanted’s E3 appearance. “A jump in the distance, a ledge you think you can drive onto, a billboard somewhere high up that makes you think ‘How do I get up there?’, or an interesting drift corner, or some back allyways that have security gates up and make you think, if I smash through them what’s down that alleyway? Is it a car? Is it a hidden route that lets me go faster during a race?”

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Some back allyways that have security gates up and make you think, if I smash through them what’s down that alleyway? Is it a car? Is it a hidden route that lets me go faster during a race?

When Need For Speed: Most Wanted’s emergent gameplay isn’t throwing up anything that grabs your interest, the Easy Drive menu is where the single-player races and challenges are hiding. Lifted straight from Burnout Paradise, it’s a real-time d-pad operated menu that you can use to switch between different cars, find events and tinker with your car’s mods without leaving the driving seat (although it’s a bit difficult to read and operate a menu at the same time as driving at 100mph down a freeway without smashing into other traffic). You can jump around the map straight to specific races from the menu, so you don’t have to drive around looking for events unless you want to. There are bespoke races and challenges for each individual car, and completing them unlocks mods (nitrous, different tyres that make life easier in off-road  races, all sorts), giving you an incentive to stick with each car for a while rather than switching between them every five minutes.

This being Criterion, of course, the cars aren’t treated with po-faced reverence. They’re there to be crashed, shunted and generally abused. “These are the best-looking cars Need for Speed has ever had. That’s just a fact,” says producer Matt Webster. “But it’s in our nature to take something beautiful and want to smash it up.” This is best exemplified by Most Wanted’s totally chaotic multiplayer, which drops you and a big group of other racers into the city and just throws races at you, sending you careening all over the map to meet-up points.

Before the races even start, there’s a melee at these meet-ups, with everyone ramming into everyone else and screeching around the vicinity. A familiar slow-motion takedown cam rewards you for nudging opponents into pillars or oncoming traffic. Most of the time you don’t even know when the race is going to start, or what direction you should be facing in when it does, resulting in absolute carnage when the 3,2,1 countdown appears on the screen. So far we’ve played drift and jump distance challenges as well as straight races, the latter of which resulted in an awesome mid-air crash.

If Forza is car-worship, Burnout is crashing and Hot Pursuit is cops and robbers, Most Wanted is chaos. It’s about doing the most outrageous things possible in a city designed for vehicular mayhem, motivated by social competition as much as the game’s own challenges. It feels like open-world Burnout that Paradise could have been, with extra structure and motivation provided by Autolog and a smarter, more fluid and intuitive single-player system. Play that uproarious multiplayer for more than five minutes, and you can’t wait to see more. Most Wanted takes many of Criterion’s best ideas and runs with them, and if it works it will play like a career best-of.

Keza MacDonald is in charge of IGN’s games team in the UK and still thinks Burnout 3 might be the best racing game ever made. You can follow here on IGN and Twitter.

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Director Talks Hawken, Need for Speed Movies

Act of Valor helmer Scott Waugh has not one but two video game movies on the table: Need for Speed and Hawken. And in a new interview, he's revealed some of his plans for the adaptations, including the notion of using the Unreal game engine to help make the latter film.

"One of the things I’ve been talking to the game developers about that I think is going to be so unique to [Hawken] is that I really want to use the [Unreal Engine 3] game engine in the movie," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I want the film to feel exactly like the game. So we’re going to definitely really cross-pollinate what they’re doing in the game for the film. For me, I’m pretty excited about that, because that world we’re creating in Hawken is going to be exactly like the game."

Waugh also thinks that the future of game-to-film adaptations can be found in that word that makes media conglomerates so happy: synergy. In the case of Hawken, for example, game publisher Meteor Entertainment and developer Adhesive Games have the movie, game, comics and a live-action web series in the works.

"Now it’s not, 'Here’s the movie. Here’s the game,'" says the director. "It’s almost become one. That’s the experience we want to create in the film, for people to really feel like, 'Holy smokes!' … that you’re in the game."

As for Need for Speed, Waugh says the film will be a "mesh" of all the games in that series, while focusing on a specific title (which he's not revealing yet).

"I personally have always wanted to do a car racing movie," he says. "I’m a motocross racer, myself. We still quote Bullitt and French Connection. Those movies were made in the '70s. We should be able to outdo that nowadays, and I just feel like, 'I want to be the guy that makes the next authentic racing film,' and that’s my goal. It’s so great to be part of that Need for Speed franchise, because I think they do a great job on authentic racing."

Talk to Movies Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottIGN, on IGN and on Facebook.

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