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Until this year Marvel Studios had played it relatively safe, choosing relatively well-known superheroes to bring to the multiplex. Guardians of the Galaxy is different. It leaves Earth far behind and jets off into the far reaches of the Marvel Universe for a space opera based on an obscure team of misfit heroes. A far bigger risk for the studio than Iron Man et al, but one that pays off handsomely.

Created in 1985 by Nintendo, it was inevitable that the success of the platform videogame Super Mario Bros. would lead to a movie tie-in. Yet, as producer Roland Joffe explains in the documentary that’s accompanies this recently released Blu-ray version of the movie, it was a film franchise that was curiously overlooked by most of the major Hollywood Studios.

Not only have science fiction writers and filmmakers adopted the word ‘robot’ from Czech playwright Karel Capek’s 1920s play R.U.R, they’ve also ‘borrowed’ on numerous occasions’ science fiction writer Issac Asimov’s ingenious ‘Three Laws of Robotics’. First appearing in his 1942 story Runaround, the laws are as follows: (1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, and (3), A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Road movies have always been a popular genre in American cinema. Probably because the country is so damn big and there are plenty of desert roads that seem to stretch to infinity. Motoring for 500 miles between San Diego and Phoenix seems pretty awesome compared to the UK equivalent of driving from London to Bristol!