Guardian fatigue

And speaking of Rise of the Guardians (as I was yesterday), one of my first experiences with it, a few years back, was thinking the title sounded awfully similar to Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. The fact that both were animated movies aimed at children made the possibility of mixing them up even greater.

Thank goodness for Legend's hilarious subtitle, which helped keep things straight.

But it makes me wonder if they won't want to change the title Guardians of the Galaxy by the time James Gunn's movie comes out in August of 2014.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest in-production Marvel movie whipping geeks into orgasmic levels of excitement. It was announced at Comic-Con this summer, an adaptation of the interstellar comic books that Marvel first started publishing in 1969. It gives off an instant and probably not coincidental Avengers vibe.

But depending on how kind two years and four years of existence, respectively, are to Rise of and Legend of the Guardians, fans may be getting unfortunate vibes from those two films when Guardians of the Galaxy tries to stake its claim to tentpole status two summers from now.

And even if history is kind to them, who wants to be the third in any trend?

The problem with each of these properties is that they were all based on previously existing material, all of which used the word "Guardians" in the title. The owl books were called Guardians of Ga'Hoole, but I guess they wanted the movie's title to introduce the concept of owls to the consciousness of selective viewers. Rise of the Guardians was based on books called The Guardians of Childhood, and I guess having the word "childhood" in the title would have made that one sound too wimpy. But even if either movie had kept the series' original title, that title would have including the word "Guardians" regardless.

I can see why Guardians of the Galaxy would be loath to change its title, considering that this is the entirety of the title, and it existed as a brand nearly 35 years before Guardians of Ga'Hoole (which came into existence in 2003) and over 40 before The Guardians of Childhood (a newbie, having debuted in novel form only last year). Besides, how many adaptations of well-loved comic books have had to back off from using their original titles?

So I guess they're probably stuck with it, for better or worse.

Something that's kind of funny about this word "guardian" popping up so frequently: Isn't a "guardian" someone who's kind of lame? In fact, to a child, isn't it often seen as a synonym for "parent"? As in "No one under 13 permitted without parent or guardian." To kids, a guardian isn't necessarily someone who keeps you safe. It's someone who rules strictly and arbitrarily, and prevents you from having any fun.

I mean, the galaxy would probably have a blast with all those black holes and supernovas if it weren't for those pesky guardians.

(And I'll thank you not to debate me on scale and scope when it comes to my astronomy-related claims in the previous sentence.)