The original Guardians of the Galaxy film saw the team fight the power of an Infinity Stone, while the second saw the team go up against the Celestial Ego, so it makes sense that the third chapter goes a bit more personal, by fighting the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a mad scientist who wants to create the perfect race. Oh, he’s also the one who created Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper).
Yes, after years of denying that he is a racoon, the third movie reveals that Rocket started out as a science experiment on a baby racoon from Earth, and the gun-toting thief turned leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy is now embracing his heritage.
But as always, the movie raises more questions about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so here they are.
1) Why is it so hard to save Rocket Racoon’s life?
After getting hit by a weapon, Rocket is near death but there are medical packs that can easily save his life, except that they don’t work on Rocket. Why? It seems that the circuitry built into his body as part of the experiments from the High Revolutionary is proprietary, and a code has to be entered, to bypass the security that prevents the medical packs from working.
Which only makes sense if Rocket has never been injured before, and has never had to use one of the medical packs before, ever. We find it highly unbelievable and improbable that Rocket, who loves shooting at and stealing things, has never been injured before and has never come across this code, and would never have thought about getting his hands on the code that would basically mean life and death for him.
2) Why was Gamora’s whereabouts such a secret, when it didn’t have to be?
So we find out that after the events of Avengers: Endgame, the Gamora (Zoe Saldana) from another timeline found a ship that took her from Earth, to link up with the Ravagers, a group that this current version of the character had no previous affinity for.
The same Ravagers who are almost like family to Quill. Ok, maybe not all Ravagers, but folks like Kraglin (Sean Gunn) would still have ties to the other Ravagers, and given that green-skinned female members don’t seem to be common among the Ravagers, wouldn’t it make sense for word of Gamora’s presence within the group flow back to Quill, or to Kraglin, to eventually reach Quill?
Unless Nebula (Karen Gillan), Kraglin and everyone just decided to hide the information from Quill.
3) How does space work in well, space?
Hear us out. In Avengers: Infinity War, the air gets sucked out of a ship if a big enough hole is made in the vacuum of space. That’s science.
In the final battle here, Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) flies through ships and crashes through cockpits, while Rocket sees his cockpit get smashed, but everyone acts and behaves as if there is no vacuum in space and everyone and everything behaves as if the battle is fought within an atmosphere. Come on – Rocket continues flying his spacecraft which has a smashed cockpit. This is science fiction, until 15 minutes later when Quill is trapped in and almost dies in the vacuum of space, and science takes over again.
What gives?
4) Where was Star-Lord’s helmet and jet boots in the entire movie?
This ties into our third question above. The movie was inconsistent with the effects of a space vacuum and the consequences of not having the right equipment or dressing for space. We saw the team get mad at Mantis for accidentally disposing their space suits, but we can’t help but wonder where Star-Lord’s helmet and jet boots were all this while?
After all, the helmet is essential to helping him breathe in space and to not have it with him is not only strange because it’s just as important to him as his guns, but it almost cost his life in the third act of the film.
Yes, we know that the helmet was semi-destroyed in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 but he dons a new one in Endgame, and if Rocket could fix up Nebula’s arm within a span of five years, we’re more than confident that he can build a new, improved helmet for Star-Lord too.
5) Will Phyla-Vell be the new Captain Marvel?
In the first post-credits, it was revealed that Phyla (the kid that was saved by the Guardians) has joined as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Regular viewers will not think too much about this new child created by the High Evolutionary, but comic book fans know better.
Phyla is the daughter of superhero Mar-Vell, aka the OG Captain Marvel. In the comics, Phyla has taken on the mantle of Quasar and Captain Marvel. Is Marvel hinting that we’re bound for a new Captain Marvel in the MCU once Carol Danvers retires and Phyla is all grown up? We don’t know yet but it is quite likely, especially since the recent MCU movies and TV series are slowly introducing or teasing the arrival of new, younger heroes like Kamala Khan, Love, Speed, Wiccan and America Chavez among many others.
6) How did Drax know the language of an entirely new race when Mantis, who is highly proficient in most if not all languages, didn’t?
Mantis, Drax and Nebula found children in the High Evolutionary’s ship and communicating with them and saving their lives were not entirely easy. The kids speak a different language – one that even the language-proficient Mantis can’t speak but somehow Drax could?
Sure, Drax is the “dumb” one but it was incredibly shocking that he could understand and converse in a language of what is likely an entirely new race created as an experiment by the High Evolutionary. Drax played it off that no one asked if he could understand them, but what other talents does Drax have that we don’t know about?
7) Is the High Evolutionary really dead?
Watching Rocket go rage mode at the arrogant, vile and abusive High Evolutionary was cathartic and uncomfortable. Cathartic because he definitely deserved it after all the trauma he has put Rocket through, but uncomfortable because the man was severely maimed by the end of it (looks like they took the term face-off quite literally here). That said, Rocket didn’t kill the villain so we’re left thinking if he’s just faceless and floating about in space somewhere?
8) No, Groot didn’t expand his vocabulary.
As much as we love Groot, the walking tree isn’t much of a communicator, as he can only express himself in three words, “I am Groot.”. This language conveys different meanings across the same three words, and audiences know what Groot is trying to say because the Guardians are always present to help fill in the context of the message.
In this movie, alternate timeline Gamora is the only one who doesn’t understand him as she has not spent sufficient time with Groot, though she begins to understand him somewhat. Gunn has said before that understanding Groot is not about learning a language but connecting with him.
So when we get to the end of the movie, when we hear Groot utter, “I love you guys”, right before the credits roll, does this mean that Groot has finally learned new words?
Nope. As audiences pointed out and Gunn verifies, Gunn made the movie such that by the end of the movie, audiences connect enough with the Guardians such that at that point, they become part of the family enough to comprehend what Groot says.
You can read more about it here.
9) What’s the deal with Adam Warlock abandoning the Sovereign?
The Sovereign are a highly advanced genetically engineered galactic race, created by the High Evolutionary. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Adam Warlock and his mother Ayesha, who is also the Golden High Priestess of the Sovereign, were tasked to retrieve Rocket, and they decided to do so to please their creator.
Until the High Evolutionary decided to bomb Counter-Earth, with Ayesha a casualty in the resulting destruction. Her death completely changed Adam’s path and instead of returning home to help the Sovereign navigate this new universe without their creator, he leaned towards the Guardians (awkward hug included) at the end of the movie, making us wonder what is going to happen to the rest of his kind in the galaxy?
10) How will Star-Lord return?
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the official send-off for this team of misfit superheroes. Gamora has found a home with the Ravagers, Drax and Nebula are staying behind in Knowhere to raise the kids they saved, Mantis is finally striking out on her own, Rocket and Groot continue their space adventures with a new team and Star-Lord returns to Earth to face his demons – so how exactly will Star-Lord return?
We can’t quite imagine that he’ll make a comeback to the Guardians and with stars Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista retiring from the MCU, a Guardians’ reunion is highly unlikely too. Our best bet is that Star-Lord will return for the upcoming Avengers: The Kang Dynasty movie or in a solo Disney+ series – hopefully re-entering Thor’s life again so that they can continue their hilarious banter. This time, with Love by Thor’s side too.
Bonus: Why didn’t the racoon specimens on the High Evolutionary ever grow up?
The High Evolutionary says that he’s been to Earth, and that’s where he took that late 70’s, and early 80’s culture and technology to re-create on Counter-Earth. The movie also reveals that the creatures that he worked on to create Rocket were in fact racoons from Earth, and at the start, we see the baby racoons in a cage.
Except that at the end of the film, we see Rocket rescue baby racoons. Are these clones of the original baby racoons? And if not, won’t the racoons have aged? And if these are clones, well, that’s why the High Evolutionary’s work kept failing, because he wasn’t using original material.
And given that he gestated a full species of creatures to populate and grow on Counter-Earth, years if not decades would have passed so the baby racoons shouldn’t still be babies.
And if he visited Earth again to steal more baby racoons, then why didn’t he update the culture of Counter-Earth to recreate modern-day Earth culture? Unless he took all those racoons just to recreate the experiment with Rocket, to see if he can create another Rocket? But in the film, his focus wasn’t on experimenting on more racoons.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, for behind all this makeup, is a geek just like you. To simply put it, superheroes, Star Wars, Harry Potter and all things gore and creepy makes this girly girl swoon.
Natalie
Kevin Low
