Guardians of the Galaxy S:01 E:01

Episode Title: Road to Knowhere
Original Airdate: 9-26-15

In case you didn’t know, while the official premier date of the cartoon version of the Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t until September 26th, there was a sneak preview of the pilot episode along with several mini-sodes that looked at the origins of the main five characters from before they met up with each other in the movie just yesterday on Disney XD. I managed to watch the pilot episode as well as all of the mini-sodes and am here to give you my take on them. For the most part, I thought that they kept up with the movie’s humor while appropriately playing down the more adult elements of the humor. The voicework is quite obviously different from the film version, but they all manage to grasp the correct elements of their characters and while it might take a little getting used to if you’re a fan of the film, it doesn’t detract from the overall enjoyment of the show.

Before I get to the pilot, I’m going to talk a little bit about the mini-sodes. Each of the five main characters got their own little origin story told in a two-part four minute total episode with a cliffhanger moment right in the middle. Star-Lord is shown in his first moments after being captured by Yondu, we also get to see quite a bit more out of his element gun that didn’t get a whole lot of use in the film. Even at a young age, they show his resourcefulness and how he gets an in with Yondu. Groot gets his own backstory with narration from Rocket, the one little surprise is that he had his own history with Ronin. Rocket’s story shows his connection and friendship with Groot, and Gamora gives a bit more insight into why she turned against Ronin and Thanos later on in the film. There’s also a big sympathy card played in Drax’s backstory. They’re all rather simple and fun, out of all of them, I would have to say that I enjoyed Gamora’s the best, and it also connected the most with the film as it ended almost literally right before the film would have started, where both Star-Lord and Korath have the coordinates to the Power Gem.

As far as the pilot goes, it starts out shortly after the end of the events in the live-action movie. They have their name as the Guardians of the Galaxy and they are trying to figure out their role in the Galaxy as something between a hero and an outlaw. Surprisingly, there are quite a few reveals here in this episode that may or may not be reflected in the next film. We get to find out the name of the alien race that Peter Quill was descended from: the Spartax, as he is the key to this episode’s macguffin and his gun. This does tie into what little I know about Star-Lord’s comic book origins, though it is likely to be at least somewhat changed. It’s also fun to see an active role for Cosmo who was mainly a background character in the film come out and play more like his comic book role where he was a Russian astronaut dog who has gained psychic powers and while he doesn’t seem to be fully in charge of Knowhere, he is a major player on the station. Also, like the origin shorts before this, it ends with a cliffhanger that whose resolution won’t be available to watch until October 3rd most likely. I thought it was a fun show and whether or not I continue to watch & write about it depends on you. If you want to hear more about this show, let me know by liking, commenting, and sharing this post and I’ll keep watching.