Now it's time for my favorite show: scrolling Netflix for an hour until I finally decide to rewatch my favorite 15 minutes from GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2 rather than burning down my impossibly big watch-list.
"In a little cafe, just the other side of the borderrrrr...."
God, I love Nebula so much.
This movie is so good if you take out Peter from all of it, and really all the parts that aren't Mantis or Nebula or Gamora. I have a fan-script for 3 that's basically Michelle Yeoh teaching Mantis, Nebula, and Gamora to be badass girl pirates.
Nebula's FACE when she hot-rigs herself to generate the ship, I would DIE for her. Someone needs to recut this movie into a version which recognizes that Nebula and Mantis are the most important emotional arcs, and the Peter/Yondu/Raccoon/Dad stuff... isn't. (I like Yondu, it's just that I have a whole world of Dad Issue Movies to choose from and far sparser pickings in the field of Murderous Sisters. Like, it's not that the Peter/Dad/Yondu/Raccoon stuff is *bad*, it's not, it's just EXTREMELY WELL-TROD GROUND and over there you have Mantis and Nebula being unique and interesting.)
Ugh, and this movie does the trope I hate MOST: knocking out a girl so she can't have a Big Damn Hero moment. Rocket shooting Gamora so she can't save Peter is just so fucking annoying to me, and sooooo maaaaaaany movies pull that shit. If you can't figure out a way to have a female character not sacrifice herself for her loved one EXCEPT by having a man knock her out for her own good, you don't deserve to write female characters.
I really wish Peter was less toxic because I feel like he *could* be my favorite MCU dude if he were just...............a little different? He's softer-bodied, he's family-oriented, he (sorta) focuses on group dynamics and mother-henning his team, he's got the capacity to avoid toxic masculinity and laugh at himself......and then the writers fling him at Gamora in toxic ways and I want to do a murder. He could be an excellent mother hen / cat herder!!! He doesn't NEED to always be badgering Gamora about the "unspoken thing" until I want her to jam a knife in his tongue. Siiiiiiiiiiigh. So close, so far.
The scene where they crash and Ego lands.
The scene where she stops them from killing Rocket.
The scene where she shares her plans.
The scene where she generates power for the ship.
Ironically, Thor--the embodiment of godly masculinity--comes off as softer and less toxic (to me) than Peter Quill most of the time. He really does look like he should be emotionally potty-trained by now into basic things like "don't badger the girl into a relationship" and "it's okay to admit being wrong." Whereas... Thor...shows emotions? We see him smile and grin goofily when he sees the Hulk, we see him show fear when facing a haircut, he... has emotional RANGE besides "Dudey McDude".
I also love those little "Whoa." moments Thor has, like when Valkyrie drinks faster than he ever imagined and he just has to stop and admire the spectacle. You just KNOW he and Loki played as valkyries as kids.
I'll be honest that a MAJOR reason I haven't and probably won't watch Infinity War was because I didn't believe they'd do right by Nebula. After her emotional arc in GOTG2, she deserves to be the one who takes down Thanos. It is the most emotionally satisfying conclusion and if she were a boy, the people involved in these stories would *get* that. Sigh.
How does Peter know Thanos again? He's the abusive father of the girl Peter badgered into being his sorta-girlfriend? That's... I don't... *beats head quietly against desk*
If Nebula is the star of Infinity War 2 or whatever, I will happily go see it.
It is SO CLEARLY what GOTG2 is *BUILDING TOWARDS*, even! Nebula and Gamora resolve their differences and team up to take on THEIR universe-ending dad, after Peter takes care of HIS universe-ending dad! This is why I would never be allowed to work on the MCU because I would keep being a bitch about things like "why are we setting this girl up to be Thanos' nemesis if nothing will ever come of it" and "lol, are you joking".
Like, if you KNOW that Nebula isn't going to be allowed to face down Thanos in the epic one-on-one she deserves, GIVE HER SOMETHING ELSE as her driving motivation OR commit to the job and let him kill her. Those are basically your narrative options? Either let her force a confrontation she's not competent to win (and thus loses and dies) or give her literally any other motivation in the world so she can do that instead.
But it's danged annoying because "son faces down evil father" is entrenched as a goddamn movie right of passage but make the son a daughter and all the sudden it's whoa nelly.
Make Luke Skywalker a girl you cowards, etc.
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