Guardians of the Galaxy and Protagonitis
To Start: A Brief(ish) Discussion of Protagonists in Marvel Movies
I haven’t written a blog post in a while and it’s generally because it can be hard to make time for theory, I understand. So today I want to talk about protagonists, but to make it more interesting for everyone (including myself), I’m going to couch this discussion in a review of Guardians of the Galaxy. SPOILERS ABOUND, so if you haven’t yet seen it you may wish to save this post for later.
In most cases it’s always easy to tell who our protagonist is: it’s the person on whom the camera sticks. But this isn’t always true, and if you’re aware of this disparity you can manipulate it for some interesting story-telling. As a quick example, consider Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera. The narrative is about Kahu, the eponymous Whale Rider—but the novel is first-person narrated by her uncle, Rawiri, and the story even follows him for several years while he travels. So who is the main character? The subject of the story, or the subject of most of the sentences?
Trick question! I actually think it’s Kahu’s grandfather Koro Apirana (who is also the antagonist, and thus his own enemy). Note that the movie version of Whale Rider adapts the script so that Kahu (renamed Paikea) really is her own protagonist, and I can’t say I disapprove of the choice, but that only serves to drive home my point: protagonists can be tricky to pin down. When done poorly, they can detract from your story and bore your audience. When done properly, they can take a repetitive story and turn it into something fabulously human.
So what is a protagonist? How is it possible to be confused?
Many might think that the main character is simply the person with the most screen time, and in some of Hollywood’s lazier stories you can understand why they might make that mistake. But narratively speaking, your protagonist should be at least one of the following:
1) The character who changes the most from beginning to end as a result of their actions in the story.
2) The character whose change is most intimately initiated or developed by the events of the main story. (The A Plot)
Because of this, there are many stories out there that—whoops!—forget to really include a main character. The Winter Soldier is actually one such story; if you watch the film you notice that nobody actually changes in any way from beginning to end. Cap doesn’t really trust SHIELD at the beginning, and he still doesn’t really trust them at the end. He’s sad and uncertain at the beginning, and still sad and uncertain at the end. Torn between two worlds in the beginning, torn between two worlds in the … you get the idea.
In fact, if we had to make an argument for who the protagonist of The Winter Soldier was then I guess we could say it was Nick Fury, because his naïve notions about SHIELD and his own potency are challenged and shattered, and he has to resolve to be independent at the end, but I think we can all say that, if so, it was unintentional, because clearly if Nick Fury was going to be the protagonist of a Marvel movie it would be called “Nick Fury Motherf*cker” and would have a lot more scenes that like SUV scene, because that scene was THE BEST.
Character arcs (the path of a character’s personal development) are separate from plot arcs, though they’re usually intimately entwined (see #2 above). What’s silly about The Winter Soldier is that it would have been very simple to insert a character arc: just rework the story a bit so that Cap and everyone else suspects the Winter Soldier could possibly be Bucky from the very beginning, and then Cap must choose between his past and his future: does he potentially endanger Falcon and Widow in order to reconnect with Bucky, or does he let go and move on? He begins by forlornly clinging to things that were, and in the end lets go and embraces his modern existence.
It’s so easy to insert a character arc that it’s really befuddling whenever someone forgets to do it. That’s like sending your story off on its first day of school without remembering to feed it, clothe it, or *sniffle* even tell it you love it. You’re a terrible mother.
I have never read Brubaker’s The Winter Soldier, but I have been told that this character arc is present in the comic. So it was right there and the scriptwriters just chose to cut it. Even more bewildering.
(And on one last note about protagonists before we move on to Guardians of the Galaxy, this actually means that the protagonist of The Avengers was Widow, followed closely by Tony. It was an ensemble cast so they had watered-down character arcs, but nevertheless Widow had the most of one. In this instance, given Joss Whedon’s presence on the project and his penchant for bad-ass women, I actually assume that was intentional, rather than accidental.)
I’m sorry, Guardians of the Galaxy, but you’ve got … Protagonitis.
Now on to the meat. It’s important to note, from all that lead-in to this actual review, that Guardians DOES have a character arc for its protagonist. Peter Quill goes from being a ne’er-do-well ruffian to a do-the-right-thing hero. (By the way, you can plot and communicate these changes simply by developing the character’s goals, but we’ll save that for another blog post).
Rocket also has a character arc, as does Drax. Arguably Drax’s is more interesting than Peter’s, but … that’s not exactly hard. Because Peter’s character arc is lame.
I know Chris Pratt is everyone’s favourite it-boy at the moment and this is going to get me some angry comments from everyone and their grandmother, but forget Chris Pratt. This isn’t about Chris Pratt. Forget his A-wing shaped jaw (Star Wars reference, deal with it) and his ability to make funny facial expressions for a second and imagine that it was Shia LeBeouf in the role. Okay? Picture the Beef. With or without the paper bag on his head—both images will serve. Starlord is no longer Chris Pratt, but rather another (and until recently equally bankable) it-boy. How do you feel about Starlord now? Keep imagining this until the end of the review.
(To save Gamora's life he nobly takes off his paperbag and gives it to her, while the plot slowly thickens around him.)
In order to present us with a protagonist, we’re left with one of the most stagnant, boring people in the history of swashbucklers. At no point does Peter’s backstory actually connect to or inform who he is in the present. We’re told that he’s hung up on his dead mom in the present because dying moms are sad, but as Rocket says to Drax: cry us a river. You’re a protagonist. Of COURSE you’ve lost someone you love. What matters to a protagonist is not that you have feelings but that you do something with those feelings. What does Peter do with that grief? (Spoilers: nothing)
At no point does the story explore the things he should be really hung up on: that he failed his mother when she needed him emotionally; that he doesn't know who his father is but, after being abducted and applying some retroactive reasoning to everything his mother said, could quickly figure out that his dad's from space and now he's in a prime position to look for him; or even that he’s been kidnapped from his home and seems to have no intention of ever going back and reconnecting with that large family present at his mother’s side. No, instead he seems entirely sad that his mom died. This is sad—it’s also the least interesting character detail delivered in that original scene. But fine, all right--his mom died and that is sad. But then his mother’s death needs to motivate almost everything (or at least some of the things) he does, and instead he doesn’t really seem to give much of a crap.
For example, we find out, at the very end, that he was christened “Starlord” by his mother, so retroactively that ascribes a kind of purpose even to his misdeeds. But how does the loving nickname from his mother transform into the bad-ass title he wants to enforce upon his enemies and admirers while he’s ransacking gravesites and boldly going where no panties-spelunker has gone before? If he’s so desperate to continue to ignore his mother’s death (as evidenced that he hasn’t opened her present, which she implored him to do after she’d “gone”), why is he taking her nickname for him and turning it into his Jolly Roger? Would that not upset her? Does that not upset him?
Note that I’m not saying he has to want to carry on his mother’s memory, but by calling himself “Starlord” that’s exactly what he’s doing. So why is he doing it in a weird, messed up way that would make his mother disapprove?
Remember that his mother was proud of him for defending people and being good—and at no point is he punished for wanting to do so (in contrast to, say, the terrible Green Hornet movie, where the protagonist is at least “turned off” being a do-gooder by his father’s cruel admonitions). So does he really have a character arc at all? “At first I liked to help people. Then I liked to rob people. Now I like to help people again.” Hrrm. In the end we get a protagonist who isn't informed or motivated by his backstory at all, but rather the backstory is slapped on at the last minute, as if someone suddenly remembered he ought to have one.
It doesn’t help that, even character arc aside, Peter Quill is just boring. Stop! Put that down. Remember the Beef! Starlord is the Beef! Imagine the Beef. Breathe the Beef. Now let's continue.
He serves no purpose in the actual story: the wisecracking Han Solo type could be well satisfied by Rocket; the entry-point character is unnecessary, and he can't be one anyway because the story starts decades after he’s been abducted and he’s well-versed in the ways of space; the heroic Luke Skywalker-type could be doable … except that we already have that, as well. In Gamora. And with her, it would have been way more interesting.
In contrast to Peter, Rocket, and Drax, Gamora doesn’t have a character arc. She’s the exact same person at the beginning as she is at the end—unless, of course, her character arc is to learn to be charmed by Peter Quill’s bland brand of dashing renegadery. But this is a total waste of time and story, as Gamora is intimately tied to every single step of the plot.
She is a character who, after decades of oppression, has finally decided to betray her overlord/father. She is a character who is being hunted by the main villain specifically for a personal vendetta, and her own sister is along for the ride. Gamora is the character who wants to sell the orb so she can start over and escape the life she once knew. Every single facet of who she is and what she wants is propelled forward by the main events of the story. She could also be an entry-point character, if we needed one (even though we don’t), because she’d be joining the messy, sloppy, civilian galaxy and a rag-tag group of criminals, when all she’d known before was the deathmatch-driven, oppressive, screwed-up Thanos family.
“What made Gamora escape now?” I wonder. “What makes her and Nebula care for each other—in their interesting way—when their relationship is clearly adversarial?” “Why is Gamora ultimately a good person when Nebula is not?” These are the questions I was interested in, the questions I wanted answered. Not “BUT WHAT’S INSIDE PETER’S PRESENT” because if you didn’t know it was a mixtape from the very first scene of the movie then you need to go back to story school.
Guardians of the Galaxy suffers from Protagonitis not because it doesn’t understand that protagonists need character arcs, but because it picked the wrong protagonist. I get that Peter is the main character of the comics, but as Whale Rider demonstrated (and The Winter Soldier abused), you don’t have to stick to the original source material. The power of collaboration, of adaptation, is to make things better.
Okay, so let’s say we rewrite the script: Gamora is the main character, with her own character arc and cool high-collared jacket and everything. Starlord--still played by The Beef—is left naked and shivering in the pilot's seat, equipped only with clever one-liners and a mixtape you can use for interesting music-scene pairings. Where does that leave Peter?
Well, to be honest, nowhere. We have no need of Peter. He serves no purpose, unless you want to make the argument that we’re incapable of relating to any of the alien characters unless there’s a human present—and you really don’t want to try and make that argument to me. But I guess, if we wanted to throw Peter a bone, he could be the beefcake love interest awarded to Gamora as a prize for her hard work and nobility. (I think Peter would like that)
You can stop picturing The Beef now; I release you from that curse.
But remember that I was using Guardians to make a post about protagonists, so I’m being especially cruel to it. In reality: Guardians was actually quite good. The world was interesting, the characters (other than Peter) were interesting, and there were actively parts where I laughed out loud.
I’m a fan of James Gunn’s because how can you not be but I do wish the cinematography had been a bit more Guy Ritchie-esque—too many wide angle, by-the-book establishing shots detracted from what would have been more interesting, revealing quick cuts about the flavour of this interstellar society. But from an art direction perspective the movie looked fantastic. Rocket looked great. Groot looked great.
Lee Pace was a lame villain, but comic book movie villains almost always are, and until Marvel learns to bottle Loki (by making a villain who pairs superhuman omnipotency with all-too-human flaws and motivations), most comic book movie villains will continue to be just so. But one step at a time, right? Because if we can’t even figure out the main freaking character then our antagonists are probably going to have to wait.
