You may recall that when the first Guardians of the Galaxy came out and was a huge success, and director James Gunn started showing up everywhere to "humbly" accept the praise and to poke his head into the spotlight, I got really annoyed with the guy. I posted about it here. (You can't see the hyperlink? That's because I was sure I posted about this, but apparently never did. Maybe I just complained about it loudly in my Flickcharters Facebook group.)
During the run of the sequel, I hadn't had occasion to notice the same kind of behavior from the director, maybe because the sequel is not as much of a hit with critics (though still a massive hit financially), or maybe just because my head is a bit more in the sand in general these days.
But you can't keep a narcissistic man down, so it figured that Gunn would eventually show up to take credit for something again.
Perhaps the most conversation-worthy element of the sequel, if it's not Kurt Russell, is Baby Groot. You know, the re-growing tree man who was reduced to a bunch of kindling at the end of the first movie. There may be other conversation-worthy elements, but I still haven't seen the movie, so I'm not a part of that conversation.
Anyway, Twitter was James Gunn's favorite outlet of "humble" self-promotion, so it shouldn't surprise me that he took to Twitter to post this video:
https://twitter.com/i/moments/871082570691350529
For those who don't want to follow the link, it's a GIF of Gunn dancing. The exact dance moves were then used to animate Baby Groot dancing.
I can see why he posted this GIF, which is kind of the epitome of the way people use Twitter. And I'm sure there are a lot of Guardians fans who eat this up.
But I am not a Guardians fan, so I can be more critical.
To me this video says "Not only am I the man with the unique combination of instincts and characteristics to make two great Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but I can even choreograph dance moves."
Or even "No one can interpret the potential dance moves of Baby Groot like I can."
Or even "My dance moves are so great that the only possible outlet I could think of that would showcase just how great they are is having this adorable regrowing version of Groot dance them."
Never mind that adult Groot never danced, so there's really no explanation for why Baby Groot would. (Or maybe there is. As I said, I haven't seen the movie.)
When I went on ad nauseum about why James Gunn bothered me three years ago when the first movie came out, my Flickcharters Facebook group -- most of whom loved the movie -- were not a very receptive audience. They thought I was "jealous," or something -- which is a bit ridiculous, as I don't aspire to the same things James Gunn aspires to, and am not operating within the same arena. And if I'm looking at it objectively, I'm sure Gunn's version of social media savvy self-promotion is not very different from that of dozens -- nay, hundreds -- of other Twitter-using celebrities. What's more, the studio surely loves that kind of promotion of its product.
But sometimes a person just strikes you as fatuous, as insufferable, as hogging the spotlight under the guise of some kind of "aw shucks" modesty. For me, James Gunn is that person.
Gunn ends the tweet by telling his followers to go see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 "again," making another arrogant (though probably correct) assumption that they've already seen it once.
People like Gunn make me not want to see their movies the first time.
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