Star-Lord’s Dad Will Play Into Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, But Not How You Think

By Brent McKnight | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

guardians-galaxy-movie-trailer-humorJames Gunn, director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, has been everywhere recently. He’s been stumping for the upcoming home video release, dropping all kinds of bonus features for the space opera. And with the big Phase 3 reveal a while back, which moved up the release date for Guardians of the Galaxy 2, among other things, there’s been a great deal of talk about the next step for the misfit crew of space ne’er-do-wells. One of the big threads left dangling is the identity of Star-Lord’s (Christ Pratt) father. Many expect that to play a big part, and Gunn has some things to say about that, along with even more potential details from the sequel.

Talking to IGN, Gunn shed some light on how they are going to approach this piece of the puzzle. It’s been a topic of some discussion, and reportedly Star-Lord’s dear old dad won’t necessarily be who it is in the comics. But while Gunn says it will be important, especially to the arc of the character, he doesn’t want it to become the center of the film. He says:

It’s funny, I don’t want to blackbox it too much. You know what I mean? Yeah, it’s like, we’ll find out who is dad is, and it’s going to serve the story. It’s not going to be something like in the Crying Game, though, where the big thing was, ‘He has a penis!’ [or The Sixth Sense’s big twist]. I don’t want to do that. It’s not about the revelation of who it is; it’s about what his relationship is to that character.

He does, however, go on to say that it will have a big effect on the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Given the expansive nature of both the MCU and the Guardians of the Galaxy catalog, there is a lot of material to comb through and choose from while constructing these movies. While you can include a number of things, some are inevitably going to be left out simply for space concerns. And Gunn, of course has a couple in mind he’d like to explore further. First up are the Celestials, and he says:

Maybe at some point, yeah. I mean, I love that guy that we see in the Collector’s lab. I love that character. I think he’s really cool. The visual effects artists did a great job with him, and they were given a pretty big task, to create this character in a short amount of time and put him in there. Yeah, I like that stuff, the Celestials. I like the whole idea that the Guardians are a bunch of mortals playing in the field of gods. It’s really about their mortality in the face of all that stuff that makes it both dramatic and fun.

Someone else that is in the movie, but that fans are clamoring to see more of is Karen Gillan’s bald, blue badass Nebula. Gunn says, “Yeah, I love Nebula a lot—like, a lot.”

Guardians of the GalaxyThere was originally more with her early in the film, which explored her relationship with her adopted sister Gamora (Zoe Saldana), though it was trimmed for space reasons (there’s a deleted scene between the two floating around). Gunn says, “The truth is we had tons of stuff in the first act on The Dark Aster for too long,” Gunn reflected during the Q&A. “And it does provide information, but it made the movie move slower and so we cut it.”

Nebula plays a huge part in many of the storylines that Phase 3 of the MCU looks to be drawing ideas from, and given the end of the film, namely that she’s still alive, it makes sense that we’ll see her again in the future. She could actually pop up in a number of films, including Avengers: The Infinity War, hopefully in a beefed up role.

Guardians of the Galaxy is available this week, November 18, on digital download, and hits Blu-ray and DVD on December 9. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 hits theaters May 5, 2017.