James Gunn Reveals Alternate Ending to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
The ending of Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty perfect and left audiences feeling good. Star-Lord throws in his new “Awesome Mix Tape," and it cuts to a montage of shots featuring the heroes of the story.
Director James Gunn revealed at a press event for the Blu-ray/DVD of the film that the final montage was originally going to include three other characters. Those characters are Nebula (Karen Gillan), The Collector (Benicio Del Toro), and Grandpa Quill (Gregg Henry). All of the scenes were shot, but they weren’t used in the final cut of the film.
/Film got an update from Gunn on what those cut scenes entailed, and he describes them in the quote below:
“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 just walking through this field all pissed off with a busted Ravager vehicle behind her. And she’s just pissed off and I loved it.”
As for The Collector, his scene actually did make it in the movie, it just wasn’t a part of the montage as originally planned. It was the Howard the Duck post-credits scene.
Now I just want to point out a couple things that Gunn said in his description. If you were reading closely then I’m sure you caught them. He says that Nebula and the Collector are “bad guys” in the first movie, which suggests that maybe they won’t be bad in the sequel. The other part was with Grandpa Quill. They would have taken the movie back to earth for a brief moment, which could mean something. It seems like it would be pretty significant to the continuing story of this team of heroic misfits.
In case you’re wondering, none of those scenes are going to be included on the Blu-ray that hits stores December 9th, which is a bummer. I would have loved to see them.