I said trailer.  Because nerds get excited for movie previews.  The very nature of nerdom has it built into our DNA that we cannot get enough of something even prior to its release.  Nerds crave information- plot details, casting announcements, and even though many feign disgust towards their ease of availability in the digital age…SPOLIERS.  Any tidbit nerds can devour satiates, at least temporarily, that which only the final product can fully satisfy (and even then it’s usually through multiple viewings or experience of said item).

One of the greatest examples of the trailer reigning supreme came before the Internet exploded.  It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…the 1990’s.  Attached to prints of the movie Meet Joe Black starring Brad Pitt was the first trailer for Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.  It was a big deal.  This was going to be the first Star Wars movie since the Original Trilogy decades before.  This was going to be a Star Wars movie made with today’s technology, much the same way the Original Trilogy was made “special” with “enhancements.”

And before it was released to be ridiculed by disappointed fanboys and girls around the globe for all its faults, including deesa Jar Jar ace-hole, the first trailer rocketed the movie Meet Joe Black to the number one movie the weekend it came out.  Star Wars fans paid to get into the theatre to watch the trailer, and then got the hell out of there before having their senses destroyed by the movie it preceded.  I don’t remember the estimates that have been done, but I believe ticket sales attributed to the Phantom Menace trailer were in the millions.  See kids, what we used to have to go through before Apple and Flash and You Tube?

Nowadays, we have trailer releases that are events unto themselves, online and on television (where I saw the Phantom Menace trailer, thanks Entertainment Tonight for saving me from Meet Joe Black).  There are even teaser trailers for trailers.  How ridiculous is that getting?  No matter how insane it seems, and how much it is badmouthed, nerds eat it up.  And eaten it was this week.  As mentioned earlier, Marvel Studios released the first trailer for one of their two movies coming out this year- The Guardians of the Galaxy.

Full disclosure, I know (or should say knew) nothing about GOTG except for having heard the name.  I was unfamiliar with them and the story of this apparent band of criminal misfits.  But since learning about the movie, who is involved in its making, and what it could mean for all Marvel movies, I’ve soaked up as much as I could come across and have been looking forward to this for some time.  The excitement level really is only second to that I felt before the release of The Avengers.

I’ve been jazzed about GOTG for the pure idea behind it.  I like the concept; I like the promo stuff that’s been released such as the concept art and first line-up image of the “heroes.”  The overall idea just sounded fun and exciting, and a great way to open up a new chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It’s like the Marvel version of Star Wars, a comparison only strengthened by the new trailer.  If Star Lord (Chris Pratt, who is going to be cast in every movie soon, I think) isn’t what would happen if you combine the genes of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, I don’t know what else he is.

The guy oozed Han’s charm and smarm, and there was that hint of a character rising to a higher calling and being the hero like Luke.  I see a good arc for Star Lord in the movie.  Aside from him, the other characters looked great.  Drax the Destroyer seemed like an alien Hulk, Groot appeared to have a sense of humor and some action chops not normally seen in walking, talking trees, Gamora is the hottest green alien since the original Orion slave girl, and Rocket…well, he’s an effing raccoon shooting machine guns.  How does that not appeal to the broadest base?

Bringing these and other characters to life in the movie is a cast that even from the trailer is amazing.  The aforementioned Chris Pratt (recently voicing Emmett in The Lego Movie), pro wrestler Dave Batista as Drax, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper voicing Groot and Rocket respectively, and new Uhura Zoe Saldana as Gamora.  Lee Pace, Benecio Del Toro (seen during the end credits of Thor: The Dark World), Karen Gillan of Doctor Who fame, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, and Djimon Hounsou all help to round out the cast.

Helming this orgy of fun and space adventure is James Gunn.  Aside from involvement in the appalling live-action Scooby Doo movies, Gunn did have a hand in writing the underrated 2004 Dawn of the Dead, had a gritty, realistic superhero dark comedy in 2010’s Super (which I still haven’t seen- BAD Adam!), wrote the Buffy meets zombies type game Lollipop Chainsaw, and wrote and directed one of the quirkiest, funniest movies I could ever recommend- Slither.  Seriously, if you haven’t seen Slither, see it. [He’s also BFF’s with Nathan Fillion, what does that tell you – B.]

One other thing that’s got me excited, as I already mentioned, is how this is going to quite possibly UNLEASH the MCU into awesomeness we didn’t know could be achieved after the awesomeness that has come before it.  Looking at all the Marvel Studios movies as a puzzle, this seems as though it could be a pretty ginormous piece, reaping seeds sown long before it.  When Thanos made his appearance at the end of The Avengers, nerds assumed he would be the big bad in the sequel.  So when Ultron was announced for Avengers 2, it had some people scratching their heads.

It might be safe to assume after what we’ve seen since, that Thanos is going to require more buildup than Phase 2 of the MCU is going to deliver.  We’ve since had the introduction of the Infinity Stones (the Infinity Gauntlet having been glimpsed in Thor), two of which have been “collected.”  Judging from the GOTG trailer, it looks as though the orb Star Lord is seen trying to abscond with may perhaps be another of the stones.  If it’s not, I’m going to go ahead and guess something else in the movie is.  If it sounds awesome, and complicated, and intertwined, that’s because it is.  It’s the kind of storytelling I live for.

Who do we have to thank for all this?  You’ll never guess.  Ready for it? THOR.  Yup, the god of thunder is responsible for this cosmic goodness.  Iron Man and one sentence from Samuel L. Jackson might have jumpstarted Marvel Studios and the interconnecting adventures to follow, but Thor and the intro to Asgard made this outer spacey googly moogly possible.  In what is quickly becoming one of the gems of the MCU, the Thor movies brought in the cosmic element, making the character and everything that goes with him a plausible possibility in the realm of Tony, Cap, and the Hulk.

Gone are the superstitions and mythology about the character, explaining his otherworldliness as an alien race with technology that seems mystical to those unacquainted with anything outside of Earth.  Beyond the introduction, it was Thor’s mischievous brother Loki who was lost to the realms and allied himself with forces following Thanos.  It was Thor’s foe in The Dark World who meant to use an Infinity Stone (the Aether), which was later delivered to The Collector (same as the information that the Tesseract from Avengers was on Asgard), a would be agent of Thanos.

After the most certain turmoil in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (on a reportedly personal, intimate level), the character and situational strides that will undoubtedly occur in the next Captain America, Thor, and Phase 3 movies, we are more than likely going to see a major smack down between heroes, villains, and everyone in between.

So what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything at all, is based on the trailer and all other promotional material thus far, in addition to what it could mean for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I am looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy like I can’t even believe.  Lets just hope it’s more A New Hope than Phantom Menace.

**P.S.- I promise I’ll lay off on the Marvel love fest for a few weeks, until they do something else really cool.**

However, if you are like most Americans, nerds, or humans, your face has been buried in some kind of electronic media, and chances are you’ve heard the gravelly voice of Will Arnett coming out of an animated Lego mouth.  That’s because, and brace yourself for a compliment to Warner Bros. Pictures, there was the good idea to make a Lego movie!  It’s called…The Lego Movie.

I could go all geek love-fest on the fact that there is a Lego movie, and talk about the fact that they can use all the DC Comics characters they want because Warner and DC are owned by the same people (good for Lego movie, bad for Superman movie).  Or how at least one commercial I saw touted at least a small part of the creative team behind the new Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum Jump Street movies worked on it (explaining jokes like Lego Superman telling Lego Green Lantern that he “super-hates” him- which had me rolling by the way).

Instead, I think it behooves me to tackle why in the hell, and what in the frak, makes a Lego movie so appealing to make as well as be seen.  It boils down to the toys are universal.  Everybody loves Lego.  Have you ever, ever, in your life heard someone say, “You know, I don’t care much for them.”  NO.  Because that is how you would weed out communists and aliens.

Nerds love Lego.  Kids love Lego.  Girlfriends tolerate Lego, sometimes.  I won’t bore you with facts and figures, because frankly I’m too lazy to even do a Google search on Lego right now.  The toy has been around forever.  Let’s leave it at that.  We are at the point where the last person to not have grown up with Lego toys is about to die off in a nursing home with a World War II veteran who did grow up with them.  And that’s why the Allies won.

If there was one thing I would postulate has contributed to the overall success of the brand, it’s that it has not changed much if at all.  They’re little colored blocks you use to make stuff.  And who doesn’t like to make stuff?  It allows kids, and adults, to vent creatively and be the master/caretaker of a small world populated by little yellow people.  Whether it’s a house made of Duplos, or a statue of a man pulling apart his torso to let the Lego inside spew out- it belongs to the creator…the Lego Creator*.

Ole Kirk Christiansen, Inventor of the Lego

Have you walked down the aisles of your local store, toy or otherwise, that carry Lego?  Peruse the action figures (like nerds have to be told that), and tell me it doesn’t make you sad.  Tell me you don’t look at those toys and stop wondering what the hell is wrong with kids these days.  Then you weep for them, because you know what they’re playing with as you remember what you were playing with at their age.  When I was a young guy, I had Superfriends and Marvel figures made by ToyBiz.  I had He-Man and She-Ra.  I had the mother-lovin’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  And not the ones of today, or the other reboot from five years ago, or the few years before that.  I had the original gangstas.

You know what all the toys had, among others I played with, that today’s don’t?  Well, twice the size, half the price, and more quality and articulation than you could shake a stick at.  Sure G.I. Joe’s waist snapped faster than a towel in a locker room, but dammit that was war!  And Joe made up for the size of their figures with the size of their massive vehicles and play sets.  He kicked ass in the compensation department.

Shit was made out of metal!  And even the plastic toys were a better plastic than they are today.  Those Ninja Turtles I mentioned weighed like ten pounds each.  Today, they’re practically feathers.  Transformers were difficult for adults to solve, and now they barely transform.  But what are they going to do?  Change the name to Toy Robot Action Figure That Also Resembles Either a Vehicle or Other Creation That We Sell Separately?  Hell no, that won’t fit on a box.

But as toys in the aisle have been reduced to barely passable Happy Meal trinkets, one thing has remained constant- Lego.  Lego is the same damn thing today that I played with 20 years ago.  Okay…10 years ago.  Fine…5 years ago!  Alright, I would have played with Lego yesterday if I could have.  I’d take a vacation day from work for that.

The only thing that might be different about Lego is the licensed toys they produce.  For a long time, it was random space ship, underwater submarine, alien craft, or fire truck.  They did have the Technic line as well, which I would assume spawned a whole group of architects and engineers.  But as it did elsewhere, here with Lego it all started with Star Wars.

Like a decade ago or more, Lego got the license to make a line of Star Wars building sets.  It is debatable which phenomenon has more avid fans, but it was the perfect cross-section.  Star Wars freaks went nuts for the toys, and Lego builders wouldn’t turn down the chance to build Boba Fett’s Slave 1.  It was hysteria, even to the point where the Lego aisle of the Target I worked at was empty for weeks at a time.  Though, not just for the Star Wars sets.

Since then, Lego has gone on to acquire many more licenses of popular characters and brands.  Spongebob Squarepants, Spider-Man (and later Marvel), Batman (and later DC), Harry Potter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Indiana Jones, and even The Lord of the Rings.  I’m pretty sure Tolkien had such a thing in mind when writing The Hobbit.  They’re also just now releasing the home of The Simpsons, and I believe have an Ecto 1 coming out for the 30^th anniversary of Ghostbusters.  And as the normal toys for these properties have gone to Mordor in a hand basket, these Lego sets have thrived.

You can create and recreate things you’ve watched on TV or at the cinema.  You can carry them with you in the form of pens, t-shirts, and key chains (of which I am unashamed to admit I have more than I will ever need…).  The Lego line has expanded with their brands, and then with their products.  There are even Lego sets geared strictly for girls (sure to appease little letter writers around the globe), and ones that are based on Disney Princesses.

And therein lies why The Lego Movie will do HUGE box office business.  The appeal for an unchanging toy that spans generations looks to have been made into a pretty fun movie.  It could be just okay even, and people will flock to it.  I plan on taking a little tyke myself, and not because I feel I need a kid to justify my going to see.  I’d see that flick at a midnight showing by myself if they had one.

What I’m saying, if I’m saying anything at all, is I’m taking that kid because this is one instance where a 32-year-old and a 3-year-old have something in common and I’m not sure too many people will look poorly upon my fanaticism.  It might not be able to exactly reproduce the Lego world in either my or his heads, but it’ll be fun to see them try.  And if they happen to not succeed, that’s okay, because that’s what Lego sets are there for.

*The Lego corporation was founded by Ole Kirk Christiansen, pictured above. – B