Guardians of the Galaxy is here to tell you that planet Earth is a pile of crap.
The new viral marketing site takes the form of a travel agency called Galaxy Getaways, giving details of various alien locations featured in the movie.
“Hawaii. Tahiti. The Bahamas,” intones the Galaxy Getaways YouTube commercial. “Some of the most beautiful destinations on Earth… look like sh*t compared to the rest of the galaxy.”
Galaxy Getaways flies you from your earthbound home to one of three planets: Morag, Knowhere, or Xandar, where you can explore a few scenes using Street View.
Morag is a desolate wasteland with some ancient alien ruins, Xandar is a luxurious but overly sanitized resort planet (home to the galactic police force Nova Corps, headed up by Glenn Close), and Knowhere is a classic sci-fi mining town full of dive bars.
Is it just us, or have viral marketing sites really upped their game this year? The X-Men: Days of Future Past sites practically had better worldbuilding than the movie itself, and the Hunger Games’ Capitol Couture magazine is knocking it out of the park. It takes a lot to make you ignore the fact that these sites are all just cynical advertising ploys, but somehow, more and more movies are managing it.
Photo via Marvel