Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is stuffed to the brim with emotional moments, but one of the most painful is one that personally affected director James Gunn.
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.]
Toward the end of the movie, when Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and the rest of the Guardians are engaged in a climactic battle with Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), Yondu (Michael Rooker), the ravager that kidnapped Star-Lord and kept him as an employee on his ship for years, comes to the leader’s rescue. Strapping the last spacesuit exoskeleton to Star-Lord’s body and using the remaining jetpack fuel to rocket them off the exploding planet, Yondu sacrifices himself for the man who he had come to love like a son.
Yondu is one of Gunn’s favorite characters and, more than that, Rooker is one of his best friends. When Gunn decided to kill off Yondu, he didn’t know if he was going to return for the third installment. In a Facebook Live Q&A on Sunday, Gunn said he tried to come up with various ways to save Yondu but nothing made sense.
“It was the hardest choice I've ever had to make from a storytelling perspective to have Yondu die," Gunn said. "I wrote a bunch of treatments where Yondu did not die. There were other endings. He was saved at the last minute after taking the sacrificial stance … and I realized I was being dishonest. That was not what this story was."
When asked by a fan if there was a chance that Yondu could come back, which isn’t ridiculous considering the genre Guardians of the Galaxy exists in, Gunn was adamant he wouldn’t.
“Yondu is dead. It's sad,” Gunn said. “There could be a prequel Yondu film or a flashback or something like that. Yondu could exist in the past, but he's not going to come back to life, so long as I am involved with Marvel. It's just not going to happen.”
Gunn is returning for the third movie, which he announced earlier this month, but it’ll be the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie without Yondu. When asked what it was like filming the funeral scene, Gunn admitted that Pratt and Rooker spent the majority of their time together trying to make the other laugh. They ended up having to shoot the scene multiple times to get Pratt’s character looking ravaged enough for the moment, pardon the pun.
“I have some very funny video of Chris giving his speech and crying and in the middle of that, Rooker falling asleep,” Gunn said. “He didn't fall asleep once. He feel asleep ten times.”
The rest of the Q&A, which includes Gunn’s reasoning on why Gamora and Star-Lord aren’t together and an explanation of what version of Groot appeared in the post-credits, can be seen in the video above.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is currently playing in theaters.
Comments
SPOILERS for GotG Vol. 2
Obviously I don’t know what James has planned for Vol. 3, or what Marvel plans to do with Starhawk and the OG Guardians/Ravagers, but I have to imagine we’ll see Rooker back as Yondu in flashback scenes with those characters from when they ran together. It would even cooler if those OG Guardians flashbacks were structured to somewhat mirror the current day narrative with the modern Guardians.
By GeneJacket on 05.15.17 6:10pm
Comic book universe, scenes of untold deaths and resurrections. Absurd stories and last minute twists that make little sense at times and are usually undone later. However "James Gunn" says it makes no sense, so dead forever. "James Gunn" is a bad person. He’s wrong, and wrong for comics as well. Vote against this "James Gunn" character at your local polling place!
By SilentKnightX9 on 05.15.17 9:24pm
sidenote: Was the young Kurt Russel cg or a body double? cuz he looked real af
By acme64 on 05.15.17 10:31pm
It was like 95% a practical effect. That was Kurt on-set in the scenes, with a lot of practical makeup and some minor cgi enhancements, but it’s mostly all him.
By GeneJacket on 05.15.17 11:20pm
More importantly it was all utterly incongruous with the concept of a billion year old deity. So he looks like a young man in the 1980s but by the year 2017 he looks like an old man….. despite being alive for an eternity.
Don’t get me wrong it was a cool effect and they absolutely nailed it but it makes no sense
By Tapslisch on 05.16.17 9:53am
Ego could make himself look like anything he wanted. When he wanted to make a baby with a cute Human, he made himself look like 70’s Kurt Russell. When he wanted to convince Peter he was his dad, he looked like 70-year-old Kurt Russell.
In his real form, he just looks like a Planet.
By ny41 on 05.16.17 10:14am
Good point.
By Tapslisch on 05.16.17 10:43am
One minor counterpoint: I can’t find an image, but in the scene where he’s describing searching for a mate on many planets before finally finding Peter’s Earth mother, he is shown in a hologram-like projection romancing many different species, and he’s always the same big-hair, leather-jacket-wearing young white guy.
By Ikthog on 05.16.17 12:15pm
the director explained that in a Q&A. basically he kept it the same just to keep the story telling simple. in universe he would of taken the proper forms, but because he’s showing peter these things, he maintained his form for clarity.
By acme64 on 05.16.17 1:13pm
when did young Kurt Russels become more attractive than Planets?
#impossiblestandards #planetshavefeelingstoo
By acme64 on 05.16.17 1:12pm
Kidnapped and employee are mutually exclusive concepts.
Quill was either a slave or a hostage.
By Marty Philips on 05.16.17 2:13am
Considering certain reveals in the film, he really wasn’t either.
By Tenthyr on 05.16.17 8:32am
Hang on, what is the relevance of the headline? ‘The future of TGOTG lies in one character’s hand’. Which character? The whole article talks about Yondu’s (admittedly tragic) death and quotes Gunn as saying he won’t return so who exactly is the character that might decide the future of the Guardians of the Galaxy or is that just some intentionally misleading headline in order to cynically garner clicks?
I’m not one to pick on articles and I don’t look for this stuff but come on, when you read that headline you expect something about a new character being brought in or a character arc being hinted out for Infinity Wars or something. It’s not even relevant!
Am I missing something?
ny41?
By Tapslisch on 05.16.17 10:44am
I had the same question. Is this headline for a different article?
By Knoxious on 05.16.17 11:27am