A Major STAR WARS Character Almost Showed Up in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Guardians of the Galaxy is full of 1980's nostalgia and references. Writer/director James Gunn used them as a device for Chris Pratt's character, Peter Quill, to identify himself as a human kidnapped against his will at the peak of the 1980's pop culture. Star Wars mania was also at its height during that time, so Peter Quill would have surely had a personal connection with characters from the saga far, far away.

At the Spider-Man: Homecoming junket, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told Mashable that the original plan in GOTG was to include a certain Star Wars toy as a plot point. 

"Always, we wanted to reveal at a certain point in the movie that Peter Quill was a human from Earth. And for a long time, I really thought it was going to be the greatest thing in the world that you're in a spaceship and he's talking to one of the alien characters and he knocks over his bag and one of the alien characters bends down and picks up and it was a Darth Vader action figure, goes, 'What's this?'"

Feige said this idea came to them long before Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas. Instead, Feige said Gunn had a better idea: 

"To make a long story short, James Gunn was basically like, 'I got a better idea. What if he had a Walkman and listened to music?'  And it was like, 'Oh, that's a million times better.' Because the Star Wars thing was just a nerdy reference in a single moment, and obviously, the conceit of the music redefined the entire movie."

I'm sure we all would have loved seeing Darth Vader in GOTG, but the truth of the matter is, we probably wouldn't have gotten the movies we have today that are so defined by the soundtracks.