itsmehiimtheproblemitsme1's review against another edition
5.0
One of my favourite marvel movies, a book with insightful concept art.
The ships, the different ideas they came up with for the character designs and some of the creatures are of the most interest to me.
The ships, the different ideas they came up with for the character designs and some of the creatures are of the most interest to me.
trike's review against another edition
4.0
If you liked the other installments of Marvel's art books, you'll like this one.
In movie productions of this size, it never ceases to amaze me how many iterations costumes, sets and props go through before they settle on the design they like. Coming from no-budget indie projects, it's pretty much stuff we can buy at the hardware store and spray paint to disguise, so I'm always agog at the sheer amount of money and time they have to throw at these projects.
I thought the movie was decent fun, but I did have some quibbles with it, such as the fact that the chase sequences were far too long. We know none of the Guardians are going to die (or even get seriously injured), so the fights are pretty boring. I'd much rather they spent the time just having them sitting around the table bantering.
The book is much the same way. There's a relatively useless 17-page section of storyboards detailing the escape from the prison called the Kyln. I think five pages would have been enough to get the point across. I would much rather see the numerous iterations of spaceships they came up with for the Ravagers before settling on the final design. You can get a glimpse of the variety of designs in the featurettes on the disc. Shame they aren't here.
There are also a few odd typos that should have been caught. "Compliment" instead of "complement", "anti-chambers" instead of "antechambers." I don't even know what an "anti-chamber" would be. Outdoors? A nega-room?
I also dislike spreads, because you always, always, ALWAYS lose information in the valley. WHY DO YOU DO THIS, DESIGNERS? Stop it. Seriously, what we see looks nothing like the layout on your Mac. Just stop it FFS. We want to see the pretty pictures.
See this? Stop doing this:
Other than that, it's a nice book.
In movie productions of this size, it never ceases to amaze me how many iterations costumes, sets and props go through before they settle on the design they like. Coming from no-budget indie projects, it's pretty much stuff we can buy at the hardware store and spray paint to disguise, so I'm always agog at the sheer amount of money and time they have to throw at these projects.
I thought the movie was decent fun, but I did have some quibbles with it, such as the fact that the chase sequences were far too long. We know none of the Guardians are going to die (or even get seriously injured), so the fights are pretty boring. I'd much rather they spent the time just having them sitting around the table bantering.
The book is much the same way. There's a relatively useless 17-page section of storyboards detailing the escape from the prison called the Kyln. I think five pages would have been enough to get the point across. I would much rather see the numerous iterations of spaceships they came up with for the Ravagers before settling on the final design. You can get a glimpse of the variety of designs in the featurettes on the disc. Shame they aren't here.
There are also a few odd typos that should have been caught. "Compliment" instead of "complement", "anti-chambers" instead of "antechambers." I don't even know what an "anti-chamber" would be. Outdoors? A nega-room?
I also dislike spreads, because you always, always, ALWAYS lose information in the valley. WHY DO YOU DO THIS, DESIGNERS? Stop it. Seriously, what we see looks nothing like the layout on your Mac. Just stop it FFS. We want to see the pretty pictures.
See this? Stop doing this:
Other than that, it's a nice book.
bookwormjimmy's review
5.0
I'm a big fan of Marvel overall (after all, I did read [b:Marvel Encyclopedia|21014224|Marvel Encyclopedia (updated edition)|DK Publishing|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394368466s/21014224.jpg|40387147] over the summer. Compared to that, this one was really fun walk in the park.
The majority of this book is concept art from the making of the movie Guardians of the Galaxy in plot chronological order. It' interesting to see the ideas for many of the characters and places before they arrived at the final image for many of these. The book comes in a beautiful hard slip cover for the book itself. The pages are crisp and clean…I should have worn gloves to keep skin oils from getting onto the pages. Oops?
From a technical perspective, I did have one tiny gripe with the book. The font could have been better. I'm not such a big fan of the blocky letters, especially when it was so tiny and so condensed on only one-third of a page. Other than this one little thing, the book is totally awesome for any die-hard fan of Guardians of the Galaxy.
The majority of this book is concept art from the making of the movie Guardians of the Galaxy in plot chronological order. It' interesting to see the ideas for many of the characters and places before they arrived at the final image for many of these. The book comes in a beautiful hard slip cover for the book itself. The pages are crisp and clean…I should have worn gloves to keep skin oils from getting onto the pages. Oops?
From a technical perspective, I did have one tiny gripe with the book. The font could have been better. I'm not such a big fan of the blocky letters, especially when it was so tiny and so condensed on only one-third of a page. Other than this one little thing, the book is totally awesome for any die-hard fan of Guardians of the Galaxy.
alexauthorshay's review
4.0
This is one of the few Marvel artbooks I would love to own even after I've read it the first time. It's one of the longest, simply because the amount of concept design and character design that went into it is more involved than something Earth-based and without aliens, like Iron Man. Lots of character concept art in this one, some environment art as well but for once I was more interested in the descriptions included, explanations about why environments were picked and why they looked the way they did.
As an MCU fan far more than a Marvel comics fan, there are a lot of Easter eggs in the movies I've never caught before, and the artbooks do a very good job of identifying those elements. It had been long enough since I'd watched GotG that I'd forgotten some key plot points, and reading these books at the same time I'm re-watching the movies has actually allowed me to clue in to so many little plot points that link the movies together that I never caught before.
Ironically, it's also pointing out a lot of things I had assumed were live action that are actually entirely CGI or heavily visually enhanced. Now when I'm watching the movies I can kind of tell when things look a bit too smooth or they move just a little awkwardly... the experience isn't quite as magical anymore, kind of like learning how a magic trick is done I suppose. Still entertaining and not at all "ruined" by any means, but not as mind blowing as the first time you experience it.
As an MCU fan far more than a Marvel comics fan, there are a lot of Easter eggs in the movies I've never caught before, and the artbooks do a very good job of identifying those elements. It had been long enough since I'd watched GotG that I'd forgotten some key plot points, and reading these books at the same time I'm re-watching the movies has actually allowed me to clue in to so many little plot points that link the movies together that I never caught before.
Ironically, it's also pointing out a lot of things I had assumed were live action that are actually entirely CGI or heavily visually enhanced. Now when I'm watching the movies I can kind of tell when things look a bit too smooth or they move just a little awkwardly... the experience isn't quite as magical anymore, kind of like learning how a magic trick is done I suppose. Still entertaining and not at all "ruined" by any means, but not as mind blowing as the first time you experience it.
librarimans's review
4.0
A neat behind the scenes look at the concepts and designs that went into making Guardians of the Galaxy.
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