 The Guardians of the Galaxy are back, kind of, on the small screen with a Disney Plus exclusive called Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Has Christmas come early in this 35 minute Marvel special presentation, or is this just another lump of coal to add to the already overflowing stocking of Disney Plus exclusives? Let's talk. The Guardians of the Galaxy Much like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, James Gunn both wrote and directed this one, and I am pleased as punch to say it works. It works well. This is gonna be a spoiler-free video. The Holiday Special just landed on Disney Plus a couple days ago, so it's still pretty fresh. I'm just gonna lay out a little bit of the plot, what you can expect from this thing, and if it's worth your time. Well, I already established that I really enjoy it, so what's there to like here? Well, for starters, we got the whole gang. For a little while. Mostly it's a Mantis and Drax storyline. They're setting out to give Peter Quill something that's been missing in his life for many years, and that's a Christmas. These two idiots, along with most of the other aliens we come into contact with, know very little about the holiday outside of what they've learned from others in passing. They've determined the best way to bring Christmas cheer to Peter Quill is to go out and steal it, and that's exactly what they do as they head to Earth, find the number one gift they can, Kevin Bacon, of course, and bring him back to Peter, and that's the plot. It's fun, it's serviceable, it's magical in a Guardians of the Galaxy way, and it's got some heart. That trademark James Gunn heart that kinda just comes out of nowhere and hits you in the feels. I watched this with my whole family. My wife and daughter were brought to tears by the time this was done. The pros for me are simple in this. I love the Guardians of the Galaxy characters. I love those movies, and I'm a big fan of James Gunn, so all of this just really culminates into another special little outing. Mantis and Drax were great together in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Here they get even more chances to shine, more opportunity to flesh out a little bit more, especially Mantis, who before this was just kind of more background. Here she gets center stage. She really gets to have fun like the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy did. The rest of the characters are all on point. Rocket gets a couple great one-liners. For some reason, Groot is now a gym bro, and Nebula always provides great heavy size and eye rolls. This thing starts with a pretty crude animation, a flashback with Peter Quill and Yandu interacting, talking about Christmas and how it was ruined for him. This is the only part of the special that I found kind of head scratching. I get that James Gunn wanted to have some fun with this, do a musical number, do some animation, switch it up, kind of like the Star Wars special, but you know, good. And it sucks because I wanted to see Michael Roker again as Yandu. He's voicing the character, so why not just shoot the thing? Maybe there were scheduling conflicts. I don't know what the case was, but it was a bit of a bummer we didn't get to see Yandu in all his former glory. And since this isn't a full-blown movie production, there's definitely a cheaper feel to this. I don't like the digital look a lot of these shows are getting lately. This definitely has some of that, especially in some of the earlier scenes where the camera's kind of floating around the environment. It doesn't look very good. It looks almost like a play. Negatives aside though, this movie had me smiling from beginning to end. The joke's all really landed, nothing overstays its welcome. Kevin Bacon's great, he's always great. And again, it's great to see the entire cast, even if Peter Quill isn't quite himself. I gave you my thoughts now I want to hear from you in the comments below. Let me know what you thought of this holiday special. Did you enjoy it? Were you underwhelmed? Was it not worth the hype going in? Let me know. Also feel free to like the video if you had a good time. Please think about subscribing if you haven't as I post tons of movie content each and every week. Would love to see you stick around. Take care and happy early holidays. Oh wow, what a gift, you're still here. Since I still have you, maybe think about joining me on Patreon at patreon.com slash adamdoesmovies becoming a YouTube join member right here on YouTube view that join button. And I'm also on Twitch, live streaming a podcast with my buddy Bless every single week going forward. It's a fun time, I'd love to have you there.