Full spoilers follow for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Now that James Gunn’s second installment in the saga of the Guardians of the Galaxy has arrived, it’s time for our look at the biggest questions, surprises, and WTF moments that went down as Star-Lord and the rest dealt with Ayesha and the Sovereign, Taserface and the Ravagers, and Kurt Russell’s Ego. A lot happens in this movie, but we do have a few unanswered items to discuss.
Of course, as noted we’re talking full spoilers here, so click away if you haven’t seen the movie yet. Otherwise, let’s make the ill-advised jump all the way to Ego and take a look at our five biggest WTF questions we have coming out of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2…
As the film begins, we see that Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Baby Groot have taken a contract with Ayesha, the leader of the Sovereign race, to protect a group of precious batteries from a creature known as the Abilisk. Now, these batteries are pretty important to the Sovereign, so much so that later in the film when they find that Rocket stole some of them, they hire Yondu and the Ravagers to track down the Guardians. The Sovereign even wind up following our heroes all the way to Ego’s planet by the end of the film.
But why exactly does Ayesha even need to hire the Guardians in the first place? She is the ruler of a whole planet, right? The Sovereign have space fighter craft and tons of resources, like those aforementioned batteries, in fact. Certainly they would be just as capable, or even more capable, of protecting the batteries. As a matter of fact, we know that they prevented Nebula from stealing the batteries previously and imprisoned her for the act. So why did they need an Earthman, a talking raccoon, a baby tree, a crazy green guy and Thanos’ daughter again? Maybe they just don’t like to get their golden hands dirty?
With the first Guardians film it seemed pretty clear that Yondu and the Ravagers were basically galactic pirates, kind-of-bad guys who preferred profit over most anything else, though ultimately they could be called upon when truly needed as they did against Ronan’s forces at the end of that film. But here in Vol. 2, the Ravagers’ status gets more murky, particularly as we learn about the bigger group that exists out there beyond Yondu (and later Taserface’s) team.
When we meet Sylvester Stallone’s Stakar Ogord in the new film, we come to realize that the Ravagers have a code of honor that Yondu broke when he was discovered to be transporting Ego’s children to the Celestial. And by the end of Vol. 2, Yondu is given an honorable “Ravagers farewell” space funeral by the many different factions of the organization due to his redeeming himself during the final battle with Ego. So there’s a lot of honor among these particular thieves. But also it’s here, in these final moments of the film, that we come to realize that Ogord and Yondu and several other Ravagers used to be a team themselves -- one modelled on the original Guardians of the Galaxy from the Marvel comics. So again, are they space pirates or heroes? Or, as Peter Quill might say, are they something good, something bad, or a bit of both? But speaking of that team…
So yeah, old-school fans of the comics will know that before Peter Quill and company were the Guardians of the Galaxy, there was actually an entirely different team. From the 31st century! Of an alternate reality! And now we’re getting a version of that team with Stallone’s Stakar Ogord and the rest of the original Ravagers group that Yondu once hung out with.
These “original Guardians of the Galaxy” in the MCU, as we see in one of Vol. 2’s end-credits scenes, included Stakar Ogord/Starhawk (Stallone), Martinex (Michael Rosenbaum), Charlie-27 (Ving Rhames), Aleta (Michelle Yeoh) and Yondu himself (Michael Rooker). Mainframe is voiced by Miley Cyrus in the film and Krugarr is a CG character as far as we can tell.
In the comics, a version of this original team debuted in 1969 and also included the Earthman Vance Astro and Nikki, who hailed from Mercury. Those two characters don’t seem to be a part of the MCU team at the moment, but how cool is it that Marvel Studios has found a way to acknowledge the original group? And with James Gunn said to be charting a “Cosmic MCU” over at Marvel, who knows where these guys might wind up next?
It’s a shame that Star-Lord’s dad Ego (a.k.a. Ego the Living Planet) turns out to be such an SOB. Not only does he have a Big Bad plan in place to take over the rest of the galaxy by basically turning the galaxy into himself, but Ego also is seemingly revealed to have killed the many other children he had spawned across the many planets he’s visited while trying to find an offspring who could share his Celestial power. That’s pretty bad, to say the least! And yet, the reveal that hits closest to home comes when Ego admits to Peter that he placed the tumor in Peter’s mom’s head which killed her.
The implication of this heinous act seems to be that he kept being drawn back to Earth because he actually did love Meredith Quill. And certainly mere mortals such as us cannot truly fathom what a mighty Living Planet and Celestial is truly thinking, but for him to kill that which he loves? Because it’s distracting him from his big evil plan? That’s harsh.
But more to the point, why would he tell the half-human Peter about this? Surely he must’ve known that Peter might at the very least take some issue with the knowledge that his father had killed his mother, which would then jeopardize Ego’s plan. And in the end, that’s exactly what happens. We expect more from a planet-sized Kurt Russell!
Adam Warlock, of course! In another of the post-credits scenes, we see a defeated Ayesha (even her hair is a mess!) licking her wounds back on the Sovereign homeworld. She is down but not out, however, and she has a plan: A golden, mechanical cocoon that contains something, or someone, called… Adam!
James Gunn had previously planted an Adam Warlock Easter egg in the first Guardians film (and actually in Thor: The Dark World) with a similar, albeit organic cocoon popping up in the Collector’s trophy room. But since then the writer-director has decided to rethink his approach to the cosmic character and has said that the cocoon in the first film was a mistake. In fact, Gunn had planned on including Adam Warlock in Vol. 2 but wound up dropping him because he already had too many characters to deal with. But clearly Adam will be showing up in the future, likely in Guardians Vol. 3.
As for who he is, you can head over to our Adam Warlock Explained feature for a full rundown, but the gist of it is that in the comics he’s a genetic twin to Ayesha and a hugely powerful cosmic player who had a key role in the battle with Thanos in the Infinity Gauntlet story in the comics. He’s hung with the Guardians and the Avengers over the years, has sported an Infinity Stone in his forehead, and also has an evil twin from the future. Cool!
What were the biggest questions you had about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2? Let’s discuss in the comments.
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura.
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