Unanswered questions. That’s what serialized storytelling is all about. The promise of something more and the curiosity that drives us to wonder makes a film franchise like Marvel’s Cinematic Universe possible. So the ending of this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy was always bound to be a little open-ended. Still, James Gunn did plan to include a little more in the big final montage, following up on characters who otherwise disappeared before the movie’s final song.
Slash Film spoke to director James Gunn about the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy, and learned that audiences were originally going to have additional scenes with both Nebula (Karen Gillain) and Peter Quill’s grandfather (Gregg Henry). None of these scenes, apparently, have made it onto the Guardians of the Galaxy Blu-ray, so you can only hear about them from James Gunn… for now.
Related: The Top 7 Movie Raccoons
Minor spoiler warning…
“There are three characters that got cut out [of the “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” montage]: Nebula, the Collector and Grandpa Quill. Nebula and Collector we decided, at a certain point, they’re kind of bad guys in the first movie. It was a real joyous experience with that finale so we thought we’d keep it to the characters that were part of ‘the good team.’ Which includes Yondu. He did fight on the good guys side. So we thought we would keep it to them.”
“Grandpa Quill we cut because he was in old age make up and we were a little afraid people wouldn’t recognize that it was him from the beginning of the movie. And also, it was a pretty sad moment. It was Grandpa Quill and he has this photograph of Meredith and Peter as a little boy and he looks up at the stars and we go up to the stars and it was really sweet. It means that he must have seen Quill getting abducted at the end of that day and is still waiting for him to return but it was freaking sad so we took it out.”
“Nebula’s was actually my favorite. Nebula’s I really liked a lot because she’s lost her arm and she’s just pissed off and she’s walking through this field all pissed off with a busted Ravager vehicle behind her. And she’s just pissed off and I loved it.”
James Gunn also told Slash Film that The Collector’s final moments were also changed in post-production. To find out what happened, head on over there!
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
