Thursday 25 June 2015

Guardians of the Galaxy Script Breakdown

Dir- James Gunn
Year – 2014
Running Time – 116 Minutes
Screen Writing Genre – Golden Fleece (Epic)

The Film

Picking one of Marvel’s more obscure franchises may have seemed strange but it allowed the studio to venture into a relatively empty area of the market at the time. Guardians of the Galaxy remains one of the most critically acclaimed marvel movies and uses some clever music and a great script to keep things fun and fast moving.

What’s in a name?

It’s not rocket science here. It’s a film about the Guardians of the Galaxy. It does imply the ideas of sci-fi, space and super heroes so job done.

What makes it great?

The core of why the film works so well is a light hearted and consistent script backed up by some excellent performances from the cast. Any time things begin to get too serious there is always a moment of humour around the next corner. It helps the audience to think they are having a great space adventure and it works incredibly well.

Guardians of the Galaxy as an (Epic) Golden Fleece Movie

Though it might seem strange, Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t really fit into the ‘Super Hero’ movie genre as you need ingredients such as the power being a ‘curse’.
The film is about a rag tag band of rejects crossing the galaxy in search of treasure (either the stone, or the money from selling it).

Of course, along the way they discover there are more important things and after some bumps in the road that stop them from progressing they learn some life lessons. If that’s not an epic Golden Fleece story then I don’t know what is.

Time Line

Opening Image – Earth 1988, a young boy is in a hospital corridor. He looks isolated and alone.

Theme Stated – Our theme is that of finding companionship and not being afraid to believe in people (the right people), and commit. We soon see that Star Lord has been looking for ‘companionship’ with many different alien females throughout the galaxy.

Set-Up – The set up mainly gives us the back story for Star Lord. We also see the infinity stone, Ronan and Thanos. All the future guardians are introduced except for Drax.

Catalyst – Star Lord tries to sell the infinity stone but is rejected when the buyer finds out Ronan is involved and is soon arrested after a scuffle with the other guardians. Now he is locked into the fate of the stone.

Break into Two – The guardians are taken to the Kiln. Once the doors shut there is now no way back.

Debate – It hits outside of traditional structure but once in the Kiln there are So many questions for the group to consider. What is the stone? How can they sell it and to whom? How do they break out of the prison? Should they trust Gamora?

B Story – The B story concerns the characters beginning to trust one another. We see Drax gradually accept Gamora and Star Lord and Gamora’s friendship develop here.

Fun and Games – What’s more fun that a prison break? We get to see all the guardians doing their thing as they break out of the Kiln.

Midpoint – The guardians arrive at Knowhere. The stone explodes and now the team realise just exactly what they are dealing with. The fun and game are over.

Bad Guys Close In – Ronan arrives, shortly followed by the Ravagers. Nebula gets hold of the stone, Drax is left for dead and Gamora drifts into space. It is a crushing defeat for the team.

All is Lost – Star Lord goes through just how much the team has lost.

Dark Night of the Soul – After realising the need for the suicide mission the team recover and decide to fight together to try and save the galaxy.

Break into Three – Now recovered and with a plan, the guardians unite with the Ravagers and Nova Core to try and take down Ronan.

Finale – The battle for Nova begins. The bad guys begin to get knocked off and Nebula is despatched. The guardians unite to channel the power of the stone and Ronan is defeated. Star Lord is finally ready to open the last gift from his mother.

Final image – The guardians are united in friendship. There is a bond of trust between them and Star Lord has now grown up and accepted his role in the universe. The group who were once outcasts and loners are now surrounded by friends. Mirrored with the opening image we’ve gone from Star Lord as an isolated child in a dark corridor to a man surrounded by friends with whole galaxy available to explore.

No comments:

Post a Comment