Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is stacked with easter eggs, new characters and heart-breaking
emotional moments, but numerous scenes and characters still wound up on the cutting room
floor.
Yippee-ki-yay movie lovers, it's Jan here and in this video, I'm going to be breaking
down a ton of incredible concept art which features alternate designs and characters
we never got to see in Guardians Vol 2, and I'll also be analysing all the scenes and
characters that were deleted from the final cut.
A quick reminder that my Guardians of the Galaxy giveaway is still running, so be sure
to leave a comment about the movie and subscribe for a chance to win and I'll provide more
details at the end of the video.
Obviously, spoilers lie ahead for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2!
If you haven't seen the movie yet, you can tap in the top-right for my spoiler-free review
and come back after you've seen the film.
In Vol. 2, to differentiate Mantis from Gamora, James Gunn decided not to give the new character
green skin, which she often has in the comics.
However, various pieces of concept art for Mantis show a green-skinned Mantis was definitely
considered at one point, with reds, blues, purples and many other shades also considered.
The antennae for Mantis in the concept art are also a bit more bug-like and her costumes
are more detailed than the final smooth costume that Mantis ended up with.
In fact, according to visual effects supervisor Chris Townsend, they adopted a very subtle
approach when it came to using CGI to enhance Mantis's look.
Townsend said that, "[Mantis] is supposed to be bug-like, so we talked about larger
eyes, strange mandibles and various prosthetics.
We played around with lots of different ideas [… but] we eventually ended up realizing
that Pom's performance is so beautiful [and subtle], that all we really needed to do was
put the antennae on her head and give her black irises to give her more of a bug feeling."
Marvel's Visual Development team for Vol.2 also considered many options for the look
of Ego before settling on his final form.
His uniqueness as a character meant that everything from his human appearance, to his ship and
his planet needed to all work together.
Visual Development Supervisor Andy Park says that ideas for Ego's human form ranged from
a "swashbuckling pirate" to a "gunslinging cowboy" to more "organic earthy" looks.
In the end, they went for a "space frontiersmen mixed with a little bit of western", which
seemed to fit well with his final role in the movie.
So for Ego's costume, designer Judianna Makovsky used many layers of different leathers that
were laser-etched and dyed to give them what she called a sort of medieval or renaissance
detail.
As for Ego's planet, that's home to a couple of deleted scenes, and in the first one, just
after the Guardians arrive there, Ego shows Peter a statue he made of Star-Lord and his
friends.
Director James Gunn said it was a really great joke, but he ended up cutting it because it
didn't move the plot along.
And inside Ego's palace there was another cut scene where Ego shifted the appearance
of a whole room.
In the scene, the wall panels reformed into a type of sand mural that showed various touching
moments from Peter's life, such as time he spent with his mother and scenes of him bonding
with Yondu and Groot.
Like the statue scene, this was another way for Ego to show how he admired Peter and had
been taking an interest in his son throughout his life.
Something we didn't get to see in the final movie was the Sovereign's Envoy Robots.
These seem to be a kind of soldier robot which is piloted remotely by the Sovereign people,
in a similar way to how they operated their Golden Drones remotely when they attacked
the Guardians in space.
It's interesting to speculate on what scenes these robots could have been involved in,
perhaps, for example, they were part of some backstory involving the problems the Sovereign
had with the Anulax Batteries.
What we do know for sure about the Envoy Robots, however, is that, according to visual development
artist Rodney Fuentebella, their design mixes the gold colouring of the Sovereign race with
an homage to the look of B-movie alien robots.
Nathan Fillion has been a regular in many of James Gunn's previous films including Slither,
Super, and the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie where he voiced the Monstrous Inmate
at the Kyln prison who threatened Peter Quill until Groot took matters into his own hands.
As for Guardians Vol. 2, there was an extended scene set on Earth that had the Firefly star
appear in what was likely going to be a funny Easter Egg-style cameo.
Set photos indicate there were scenes filmed of a Simon Williams Film Festival where Nathan
Fillion appeared as the actor Simon Williams on posters at the festival.
The scene would have been filled with easter eggs because Simon Williams is actually a
character from the comics who's been an actor, a supervillain, and superhero, [and who's]
also known as Wonder Man.
On top of that, pictures of the posters from the set suggest that the films showing at
the festival were going to be spoofs of some well-known movies.
For example, there was "Dead Before Arrival", a riff on the poster for Inception; "Oh, Rebecca!",
which looks like a spoof of the rom-com "Definitely, Maybe" which starred Ryan Reynolds; "Haxan
2" that looks like the poster for the Daniel Radcliffe movie "Horns"; and Tony Stark, which
clearly takes its inspiration from Danny Boyle's biopic of Steve Jobs.
And during those missing sequences on Earth, there was also going to be a longer scene
with Grandpa Quill in which, according to an interview with Collider, James Gunn said
there would be even more easter eggs than the scenes in the Collector's museum in the
first Guardians movie.
Grandpa Quill did appear very briefly in a car pushed along by the blob, but Gunn drastically
cut the Earth scenes losing most of Grandpa Quill plus numerous other cameos by friends
of the director.
Another planned cameo which, sadly, didn't happen was by David Bowie.
During Vol. 2's development, both Kevin Feige and James Gunn had reached out to see if they
could get a cameo with the singer and at one point it was looking hopeful.
Gunn had also secured the rights to use another of Bowie's songs in Vol. 2 after having already
used "Moonage Daydream" in the first film.
However, the news suddenly broke that Bowie had died which gutted Gunn as he was a huge
fan of the musical legend.
Unfortunately, the scene in which Gunn planned to use the Bowie track was also cut so we
never got to hear it in the final film.
There was also a major character Gunn initially planned to use in Vol 2, but who was removed
from the final script.
That character was Adam Warlock, who Gunn told Slashfilm is one of his favourite characters
and was going to be a big part of Vol. 2.
However, the director felt there were too many characters in the screenplay, so he decided
to lose Warlock instead of deleting Mantis, who he felt was "more organically part of
the movie".
At least, we still got that lovely tease for Adam Warlock in the end-credits scene with
Ayesha, and if you want to find out about the importance of Adam Warlock's role in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward, tap the top-right of the screen to watch a video
I made all about that.
There were also a few jokes teased in trailers and promo material that didn't make it into
the final movie.
There was a great "I Am Groot" moment from the trailer in the "Death Button" scene with
Rocket which I was sorry not to see in the final cut.
"You have an atomic bomb in your bag, if anybody's gonna have tape it's you!"
"I have to do everything!"
"You are wasting a lot of time!"
"I am Groooooooot!"
"That's a really bad sign."
And James Gunn also shared a funny deleted scene of the team eating around a campfire
with Drax slurping noisily to everyone else's disgust.
"Dude!"
"What?"
"Dude!"
"What?"
Many consider Baby Groot to be a real scene-stealer and there's some concept art of the little
tree that's very likely to make you love him even further.
Concept artist Josh Herman has released some very cute artwork including a Baby Groot crying
with a milk bottle, Groot with a toy Rocket Racoon and another with the toddler unravelling
Peter Quill's Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1.
There's some great concept art of Contraxia, the icy planet where the Ravagers go to party,
which shows us parts of the planet we didn't get to see in the film.
In the artwork by Craig Sellars, you can see a kind of giant love bot submerged in a frozen
lake with a railway running through, and there's also what look like various industrial installations
in the background.
And there were also some interesting alternative designs considered for the look of the love
bots on Contraxia, until the final design was settled on, which was inspired by Fritz
Lang's film Metropolis.
The many-tentacled Abilisk was a new monster introduced to the MCU in Vol. 2, however some
early designs for the creature show the beast with feet and multiple tails rather than tentacles.
By the way, inspiration for the Abilisk seems to come from the comic book Cancerverse, and
if you're interested in finding out more about that, you can tap in the top right where I
talk about it in my Vol. 2 easter egg video.
The Ravager clans were united by the end of the movie under Stakar in a nice end-credits
teaser for Vol. 3.
Initially, Stakar's design was going to be more alien-like, as you can see from this
concept art by Rodney Fuentebella; however, once Sylvester Stallone was cast in the role,
the filmmakers didn't want to hide his presence under a lot of prosthetics or CGI.
So, focus turned, instead, to modifying the character's costume rather than his face.
For example, Stakar's energy wings that come from his comic book character were also initially
placed on his head until it was thought this looked too strange, so they were re-located
on his shoulders.
Other members of Stakar's team include Mainframe, who, in the movie, is basically a metal head
that talks and is voiced by none other than Miley Cyrus.
The challenge for Mainframe's design was to come up with a head that could then plug into
other robots or objects for her character to control.
Various alternative designs were considered for Mainframe's head before settling on the
final one we see in the Vol. 2 end-credits scene.
The design of Martinex, the crystal-faced alien played by Michael Rosenbaum, was particularly
difficult as the reflections and refractions of the light from the crystals caused various
issues.
So, some smoother and differently shaped heads were tried before settling on his final look.
For the appearance of the wormlike Krugarr, Gunn wanted to ensure a comic book-style look
and the designers kept his connection to Doctor Strange with his hand gestures and use of
glyphs.
An alternate design of the character has him looking more blinged-up and kinda creepier,
although clearly this design didn't make it to the final version.
And not content with just five post-credit scenes, Gunn nearly included a sixth scene
which would have featured the Ravager Gef, one of Taserface's mutineers.
In the final movie, Gef died when Yondu's arrow killed him while he was drinking a glass
of beer.
However, in a deleted end-credits scene, Gef was going to pop up again when Gamora and
Mantis suddenly hear screaming on the ship.
They discover that Gef has been on the ship all along and is mortally wounded.
Gunn said the scene felt confusing in the end and didn't make a lot of sense, and that's
why it was cut.
During one of the jump scenes, there was a nice tease for the Kronan character Korg who
will be appearing in Thor Ragnarok, but concept art for the scene shows that originally the
design for the planet they were fighting on was somewhat more detailed and included huge
stone heads, hands and feet in the background.
I guess the planet's look was simplified in the end so we could focus on the two fighting
Kronans in the super-brief scene.
Now, we've got to talk about that ending in Vol. 2 and how sad Yondu's heroic death was.
In fact, that wasn't how the movie was going to end orignally and in an interview with
Uproxx, James Gunn said that "he didn't want that to be the ending, and […] refused to
put [it] in […] for a long time."
And actually if you think back to the first Guardians movie, Peter was rescued after he
went into space to save Gamora from a similar fate.
So could there have been a way for Rocket to rescue both Peter and Yondu in Vol. 2?
Although I was very sad to lose Yondu, it felt like it was a strong move for the film
and the MCU in general.
Indeed, Gunn has defended his decision saying that "we need to have real stakes in these
movies.
We need to lose characters.
And not everyone who sees Marvel movies loves that."
By the way, now that we've seen the film, did you notice how in the very first teaser
trailer Gunn foreshadowed Yondu's tragic death with that shot of "spacesuits for emergency
or for fun"?
So do you think it was a good decision for Yondu to die at the end of Vol. 2 and were
there any deleted scenes or characters you wish had been left in the movie?
And what would you like to see in Vol. 3?
Be sure to comment about the movie and subscribe for a chance to win these prizes in my giveaway.
They include two awesome hardback books from DK, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate
Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws, which takes an in-depth look at iconic characters, issues
and storylines from the comics.
And I've also got a selection of three cool Guardians Funko Pop vinyl figures.
Turn on your notifications to get all my new videos where I'll be announcing the winners.
And if you enjoyed this video, do hit that thumbs-up button and check out more of my
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Marvel videos right here!
Thanks for watching and see you next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!