'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' Deep Dive
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I think that's right.

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estimated savings with one plus cancellation, paid membership with connected payment accounts required. See Experian.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Alien Romulus, the scariest movie of the summer. Alien Romulus is now playing in theaters everywhere, including IMAX. This movie looks terrifying.

And I cannot wait to see it. Alien Romulus comes from Fede Alvarez, the director of intense horror movies like Evil Dead and Don't Breathe. And it is produced by the legendary Ridley Scott, the mastermind behind iconic films like Blade Runner and the original Alien. Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, now playing only in theaters. Get your tickets now. What about you, friend? Someday, I'm going to make great machines that fly.

And me and my friends are going to go flying together into the forever and beautiful sky. Lila and Teeps and Floor and me. Rock it. Rock it. It really is good to have friends. Yeah. Greetings and welcome. It's the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to counter Earth, but also to join us on The Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished telling me to own pod, it's my house of our working title.

Co-host Joanna Robinson. Hey, Mal. Are we just a bunch of assholes standing in a circle podcasting together? A callback. I love a callback. OG. Oh, boy. So we are here today to dive deep into the newest Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. I'm yawning a lot. But before we...

explain the extremely... What do you think people who did not listen to the Rings of Power podcast think that line is about? Listen, great news folks. My favorite...

We've got hours of pods waiting for you so that you can discover what that means whenever you'd like. My favorite thing across the house of our fandom is how often I now see, in Mallory's voice, I mean, I don't know if I'm lying, it's just like, Waldrick's legacy is completely erased. All right, sorry, go ahead. You were saying. It's a tough one for Waldrick, but it always is. It always is. It's true. Before we explain, Joe, everything that happened in this movie...

how we felt about it, the extremely intuitive color-coded communication system for our House of R spacesuits that Steve set up for us before this mission. Some programming reminders. The Midnight Boys! Pew pew! We'll be back on Wednesday.

with a doozy. It is time for the Midnight Meter 12 induction ceremony. This is sure to be an instant classic. I can't miss episode. And if you're wondering, what are the Midnight Boys?

Think of Guardians Volume 3. Great news. Their instant reaction pod went up on Friday. It's there for you in the feed right now. And it was a loaded week on the ringerverse in general last week. Lots of great stuff to catch up on. There is a Star Wars Jedi Survivor video game pod from Lindbergh and Charles. The Mint Boys, Steve and Jomie, broke down Vision Season 2. And then on House of R, we had the time of our lives. Really? The time of our lives. Genuinely.

Thrill of my lifetime. Such a joy. The second House of Our Tropes course on magical blades and magical weapons. If you have a few hours to spare at any point, you get to spend them with us for that. What a journey it was. We loved it. Lucky you.

We will not have a House of R this Friday because we are here with you today on a Monday, but we will have another pod together on Friday. We'll be over on the Prestige TV pod with our Yellow Jackets breakdowns, and then we'll be back on the Ringerverse next week for a House of R seasonal tradition. It's hype meter time. Get ready.

Jo, that was a lot. How can the people follow it? So much. Well, I'm pleased beyond belief that you asked me this question because I have an answer for you. First of all, why not just follow the pod, this pod and Prestige TV, so you can just catch us coming and going. Why not? Secondly, why not follow us on social at Ringerverse wherever you get your social interactions online. Jomie is just

keeping it alive, awake, and enthusiastic on the social feeds. So I recommend you follow us in all places. And then if you're so inclined, you could email us at hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Apple thoughts, as always. Someone just sent me some Swedish phrases, helpful Swedish phrases to use when we're all in Sweden a couple of weeks from now, et cetera. So, you know, Guardian's thoughts, Goop thoughts, Yellowjacket thoughts, Succession thoughts, the email inbox is open.

Goop, the Gwyneth Paltrow lifestyle universe or the Goop that is present in abundance in the Guardians films? This is like one of the Goopiest films I've ever seen in my entire life. Guardians of the Goopixy, you know, more like. Wow. You're ready to play today. I love it. Last program reminder as always.

please bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Today's podcast will, of course, feature plot details from Guardians Volume 3, the entire Guardians franchise, all of the MCU to date, might sprinkle in a little Marvel Comics canon. It's all on the table. So if you don't yet know why we're blasting Florence and the Machine in the yard with our pals, please proceed with caution. All right, Joe. Volume 3.

written and directed by James Gunn. This is a two and a half hour movie. It is the third standalone film in the Guardians franchise. The fourth, if you want to include the holiday special in that count. It is the second film of phase five, the ninth film of the multiverse saga, and the second film to date in the MCU, which is a truly amazing

Holy shit count to write down in an outline and think about for a minute there. We have a lot to get to today, but we're going to start as we always do with a little table setter in a moose boosh of thoughts and feelings. It's the opening snapshot. Today we're calling it in honor of this film. You left out some important information, but that's the gist of it.

Let's start with the opening weekend performance of the movie so far, Jo. Take us through the box office and the initial response. So, $114 million domestically. Not too shabby, right? That's less than Guardians 2, but more than Guardians 1. Less than Doctor Strange on the same weekend last year, $187 million. Um...

168 million internationally, so 282 million globally. That's a lot of numbers I just threw at you, but here's the gist, right? First of all, box office post-pandemic, dicey as hell in general. Though, of course, Doctor Strange came out post-mid, whatever you want to call it, pandemic. But, you know, as Sean, Fantasy, and I discussed at length over on the Big Pig podcast last week, like the Marvel brand is having a moment.

So, you know, I've heard, I've seen people clutching their pearls over this number and I've seen people praising this. I mean, box office numbers is just sort of like, how do you want to spin this narrative? And like, I think this sounds like a cop-out, but I think it's kind of too early to tell. Like, because a solid MCU hit will have long legs. Ant-Man dropped off a cliff, right? But if word of mouth is good, which I think it,

pretty much is on Guardians 3, then at the end of the day, the box office will look quite comfortable. I think they're going to get probably, they won't crack a bill, but, you know, they'll get in the 700s, 800s territory, probably, I would guess. You know.

Critical and fan response. Oh, it also was like the number one film in Korea this year or something like that. Somewhere statistic. But like the international box office has been like a real interesting problem. Anyway, we'll talk about that some other day. Critical and fan response.

Rotten Tomatoes and Perfect Metric, as we always say, but 95% among audience members, 81% among critics. It's like a little lower than I thought it would hit with critics. I thought that was a little interesting. But, you know, the audience score is quite high. What do you make of that 81%, Mel? It's higher than...

Other recent Marvel films, which speaks to the quality of the movie. And I think the fact that it's lower than we would have anticipated speaks to the still very present Marvel fatigue in certain sectors of the industry.

critical community, which is fine and valid. I'm still chuckling of your use of off a cliff for Quantumania because inside of a Guardians conversation, it just makes me think of Vormir. And so now I'm imagining Thanos throwing Quantumania off of Vormir. You love to think of Vormir. Your favorite spot to go. Yeah. I'm always thinking about Red Skull. I was thinking about Red Skull watching Volume 3 because when the high evolutionary skin mask is removed, it's like, man,

Just like being back with our old pal, Red Skull. It made me miss Hugo, for sure. Yes. He's quite goopier than the Red Skull is with his face off when he takes his face off. I'm really excited for all of your goop commentary today. It was one of the first thoughts that you sent after the screening. And I want you to track the presence of goop throughout the entire discussion today.

When are we at our goopiest? It's my life's goal. What is the arc of the goop? Yeah, if you've... I will just take this as one of many million podcasts to recommend that you watch the TV series Lost. And if you watch the TV series Lost and happen to listen to a podcast I did about that, very goop-centric. And I have a lot of Lost thoughts as they pertain to this film as we're going to talk about today. Oh, fun. I'll have to talk about Lost with you. Can't wait. Joe.

Yes. One of the things that we do in the opening snapshot is give a quick synopsis of how we felt about the thing that we're discussing on a given day. We will dive into all of the character arcs in great detail and explore our thoughts more as we do. But overall, how did you feel about volume three?

Yeah, I quite liked it. I'm going to give it higher than 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's not my favorite Guardians film, and it's not my favorite Marvel film. I think... So something that...

Kevin Feige said in a press conference, the Guardians press conference moderated by Nathan Fillion, was that, you know, to the extent that Marvel gives a blank check to someone, they gave a blank check to James Gunn in terms of like not constricting what he did, where the characters ended. That in previous installations, it has been a bit proscriptive, especially when the Guardians were going to like bleed into Infinity War and Endgame. But,

But here it was just sort of like, you do you, buddy. Okay. So there is a huge benefit to that of a creative getting to be creative. However, and we saw this already with Volume 2, sometimes it benefits James Gunn to have like a little bit of a leash on him, I think. And this is quite a long movie and there are certain sequences where I'm like, need to be here. That being said, the emotional beats hit really hard. Even when I like got...

A little antsy about feeling like I was being emotionally manipulated. It still really worked on me. So I can only say that I cried through a lot of this movie and had a great time at the cinema. How about you, Mallory? Any distinction between first and second viewing? Like more tears, fewer tears? Any change across the experiences? Um...

I think fewer moments of crying, but crying harder when I cried, if that makes sense. And it was a bigger audience than I saw it with the first time. And so I just laughing. I love going to the cinema and laughing with a bunch of people in a room. It's just joyous. So how about you? I fucking loved this movie. I'm so excited to talk about it with you today. I...

I have no idea how many times I will cry today talking about it, but I was so moved by it. I was just a fucking wreck at the screening. I was sitting next to our wonderful producer, Steve Allman, who is here with you today. And he can attest. I was digging my fingers into his arm. Like a, like he was my life raft tethering me on the first viewing because it was just so emotional. I think somehow the second time I saw it this weekend, um,

I cried even more because not only did each of the moments still hit, but I was like anticipating them and getting worked up in advance. Yeah. The, you know, I've, I've always loved the guardians franchise and you and Sean had a lovely chat about this on big pick. It has always played. It has played a seismic and essential role in the life and evolution of the MCU. We'll, we'll hit that a bit more as we go today. We'll, we're going to do a little rankings talk in a minute. So maybe we'll hit it there. Um,

But that ability that the franchise has always had to surprise you, and then as you get further along in the arc of the characters, to pair surprise with deep investment and expectation is like a really hard thing to be able to pull off. And I think a lot of people had really high hopes for the movie, especially given how, I mean, how many years passed between Volumes 2 and 3. Obviously, we were with the characters in Infinity War and Endgame, the holiday special, etc. But it's been a minute, and...

For it to land, especially in a moment where a lot of MCU properties have disappointed lately, was a huge joy in that more macro sense. And then in terms of the specific volume three of it all and the Guardians franchise, I just think that that vintage Gunn and Guardians blend of...

The heart humor, the horror, right? Like the action-packed sequences, the fresh and inventive and like utterly creative landscape of the movies. And then that earnestness, like it is so unapologetically earnest, which I think is kind of rare in general, but really difficult to pull off in movies.

juxtaposition and like in, in adjacency to those other elements. And it just is like that, that brew that works so well. I mean, everything with rocket and the flashbacks in this movie was just so heart wrenching. The whole found family idea that we always talk about Joe. And we always love talking about the sense of belonging, the guardians central ethos of, of,

learning to accept who you are and like finding other people who help you do that was just a really beautiful conclusion. And I think that's the other thing that it felt like a conclusion, which is really rare increasingly in like franchise IP stories. Obviously there are some things at the end that spin forward to future installments, which we'll get to, but yeah,

this felt like the end of this specific version of this specific thing with these specific characters in this specific way. And it packed such a wallop because of that. And I just feel like really grateful for it. I think that unique blend of...

Because this is a very gory movie. It's a very violent movie. It is like a hard PG-13, right? And so the way in which James Gunn can blend that goop and gore and an F-bomb here and some very harrowing animal cruelty stuff and all of that with, as you say, genuine open-hearted earnestness

unapologetic sappiness. It's astounding how he is able to weave those two together. I always want to give credit to Nicole Purimlin, who is a screenwriter who, like, out of the writer's program at Marvel, originally came up with, like, a

a lot of the foundation of Guardians of the Galaxy. I want to give James Gunn plenty of credit, and we're going to throughout this whole conversation, but I do not want to let Nicole's contribution be forgotten because it is sort of like the foundation that James built off of. But I think that, especially, you know, something that Sean and I talked about on The Big Pick is the fact that they let James write the dialogue for the Guardians in Infinity War and Endgame because

he has their flavor better than any other writer in the MCU stable. However, and we'll get to some specific instances, there are some character choices that he didn't agree with that he's been talking about. And so what that did is watching this movie threw into sharp relief for me what he can do with these characters. Like a character like Star-Lord, again, we'll talk about some more specifics, but a character like Star-Lord who I was like kind of out on

after some, you know, a lot of the like macho posturing in Infinity War and Endgame, et cetera, et cetera. I was like all the way back in on it. I was like, oh yeah, like he is able to give us this archetype that usually I don't really like in a way that I really emotionally connect to. And I was, it helped me appreciate how fine tuned his sense of these characters are. And to that larger point that you make about like,

what a bunch of a-holes, right? Like taking these a-holes and giving them that emotional or heroic core that helps me really connect with them, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And I think like such a key part

to when the movie's home is the balance of how the characters are deployed, which like hasn't always been executed as expertly, but I thought was really the right calibration inside of this film. So like to your Peter point, you're getting the moments with that character that you need, but they're not coming at the expense of the time you need to be able to further enhance your appreciation of say nebulous arc, et cetera, et cetera, on and on the examples go. And then you put all of those characters inside of, um,

The visual palette of the Guardians universe, which again, I would recommend people listen to the big pic chat that you and Sean had where you shared so many insights about the cosmic template setting inside of the MCU.

But like, this movie is coming on the heels of Quantumania. And we spent a lot of time, as did many other people, talking about how even though there were parts of that movie that like looked cool and neat, there was just something that didn't feel like it fully clicked or was fully like rendered, not literally in terms of the effects, but in terms of what universe they were trying to convey, right? And so Guardians just like,

I mean, it like posterizes quanta mania in that respect, right? You're just like, when you see them in their like little Skittles bag. Yes. Yes. Space suits moving toward this orgo sphere. Like there's a version of that that looks amazing.

but I was just transported. And when these movies work at their best, that's what they do. They transport you. And then there are going to be the musical cues and the use of diegetic sound. Obviously, the awesome mixes have always been central to the emotional beats of the Guardians films. And it's all just working together in harmony. And it's all inside of this really personal quest in this movie, right? Where the conflict with the villain is about protecting and saving their friend, right?

No shade of trying to save the world. That's important too. But at the zooming in and zooming out, you have to have them. Yeah.

And I think especially, that works especially well in terms of the world of the Guardians because the first Guardians movie is almost like ground zero for McGuffinication of the MCU, right? We get the monologue about the Infinity Stones in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Obviously, they cropped up in their various forms in other movies, but this was when Marvel was really starting to think about the gauntlet and all that sort of stuff like that. And

your mileage may vary when it comes to various MacGuffins, both within the Guardians universe and throughout the MCU, but to make the Thing tied so closely to the preservation of life of a dear friend is, you know, again, it just makes this feel even more emotional. Yeah, and I just think I love your point about calibration because

A friend of mine walked out of this movie and he texted me and he was just like, this is the best Guardians lineup. And I was like, yeah, like it absolutely is. And even especially like where Gamora winds up on sort of the outside coming back in, that helps balance it in a way where it sort of decentralizes a love story.

And then makes it just even more a family story, which is nothing wrong with a love story. You and I love a love story, but like it makes it just more about the family to quote Vin Diesel, our Lord and Savior Vin Diesel. It is fast back season, you know? Also, we're centering the purest and truest love story that you can have, which is Craiglin and Cosmo. So there's that. Joanna. Joanna Robinson. Joanna.

You're writing a book. You wrote a book. Available for pre-order now. I'd like to direct everybody to pre-order this incredible tome of knowledge and insight and perspective. Marvel expert. Sage guide in the IP era. Sure. So I have a simple question for you. What does this mean? This movie being good, what does it mean for Marvel?

Again, Sean and I talked about the length on the big pic, so we're not going to go too, too deep on this, but...

it's, I've been saying this, I've been like sending you endless texts about this, that, that it's like, my theory is that it's a mixed bag. Right. And which is unfortunate because you would like a win to be a win. And Marvel has been on such a wobbly path. And so I would love to just say like, this is, I think this is a great movie. And I think this really feels like Marvel back in its bag. And, and wouldn't it be great if everything going forward is as solid as this or even more so. Um,

And something I was talking to Sean about is I was like, if Secret Invasion lands, which is coming out in June, right? I think we will feel like Marvel is steady. One thing I didn't talk to Sean about is that

the right strike just started. And so like blade has been put into a pause and all this other stuff is going on. So like, even as they are trying to like write their ship, here comes this other one more thing to sort of rock the boat. But I support the writer's strike and I support the union. But so there's all of that. And then there's this question of like, does this movie, given that they gave James Gonda blank check, does this movie like,

Does it reflect glory back on Marvel or does it reflect glory on James Gunn, who like Joss and Taika and Ryan Coogler has been one of those directors or writer-directors who like sort of stands outside of the Marvel machine in certain ways. And he's leaving to go run DC. And so is this just an example of like, well, phew.

The most talented person to make a Marvel movie in the last couple of years is going to go run the competition. I don't know. What do you think about that as like a sort of mixed bag response? Or do you just be like, Marvel's back, baby. Like, how do you feel? No, I agree. It's definitely like the fact that the most consensus around a Marvel property in a minute. I will say, I think that

there's a little bit of no way home erasure and like discussion around this movie and how long it's been since there were something people like, I know there's like the distinction of the, the Sony. That's my question. Like, yeah. At the end of the day, it's MCU canon. It's part of the MCU. Right. And that, but, but even that, like it's been a year and a half since no way home. It's not like that was two months ago. You know, that was a, that was a minute ago. So yeah, I, I agree. I think that like the, the fact that this is pretty widely celebrated and,

And the guy who made it is now running your leading competitor is like not ideal. I think that the win inside of that is just that like,

It's nice to remember. I thought that the guys did a great job of talking about this in The Midnight Boys. Like, Van shared really, like, lovely thoughts about just... It's nice to remember that people can be excited about a Marvel movie again, right? And to just, like, live inside of that shared joy and celebration for a minute because, you know...

There are a lot of different things that all of us loved about the Infinity Saga, right? Specific characters, specific movies, specific team-ups. Everybody's answer is going to be different. But one of the...

great through lines is going to be that it was a thing we all got to share together and enjoy for more than a decade of our lives. And that's just so rare. And so to return even for a minute to that headspace where you just get to talk about a Marvel thing with your friends and share all of the different ways that it made you happy and think back to all of the connections to the things that came before, right? And there's, again, some set up for the future, but without necessarily having to worry about the

15 things shoehorned inside of it to set up the next stage of production was just, is nice and refreshing and feels like increasingly rare. So if they could, if they can capture that again. I mean, it's very similar to how you and I felt before

doing House of the Dragon, right? Where we were like, remember when we all watched Game of Thrones together and we all liked it together. Yeah, so like the monoculture is good, actually. Like it can be good, the great unifying stories that we are captivated by in this increasingly fractured pop cultural landscape, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there's a power in that. You know what gets rid of fatigue? Like a potent, delicious cup of coffee.

Or nine if you're Mallory in a given day. Love some caffeine. Yeah. I also love a ranking. Yeah. I want to ask you about a couple ranking-centric matters before we get into our character deep dive. Caveat, as always, Jo, we both reserve the right to A, not commit to an actual ranking in response to any of these queries, and B, change, update, amend, rework entirely.

an answer should we give one? And we reserve that right in perpetuity. So that caveat issued got three ranking prompts to throw your way. First one, where does volume three rank for you inside of the guardians franchise? And what's, what's the overall guardians solo film ranking for you? You can include the holiday special in there if you'd like, or you can just do the three volumes. I'll leave the Kevin Bacon special aside and say, um,

I know we don't agree on this, but I go one, two, three, one being the best. And I think I prefer one to two, even though two has...

A lot deeper emotionality running through it. There is no beating the surprise and delight of one that came out of, even though I enjoyed the MCU to that point, one was just sort of like this being slapped across the face with something incredibly exciting and cool. So as much as I enjoyed seeing two, again, I think it felt like a little, you know, there's like five post-credit sequences. Like it's a little James Gunn being a little self-indulgent, right? Yeah.

And so one just felt tighter to me. Two feels more emotionally profound. And then three I love, but I would still rank it third. I mean, they're all great movies. How about you? Yeah. Yeah. I think there's no wrong order, really, truly. They are just all wonderful films. And I think on a rewatch, it really like two is so much better.

better than people give it credit for. And I think a lot closer to one than people give it credit for. My order currently is 3-1-2. But they are all in my top third overall of MCU movies. I think.

pretty comfortably, honestly. Like, certainly in the top half. I'd have to actually sketch out all of the rankings, but I think the top third, pretty comfortably. Yeah, they're separated by degrees. There's not a vast chasm between any of these installments. So, yeah, 100%. Holiday special checking in last, but, you know, that's okay. So a couple bangers on the musical front in that one. All right, next ranking for you, Jo.

Where does the Guardians franchise rank for you among standalone character franchises? So to be clear, this does not include the Avengers films. That is a different thing. Okay? And so we can say that it's a character franchise that has...

at least three films in it. Oh, at least three. Okay. Unless you want to extend it, but otherwise that's going to make it a very wide consideration set. I was going to say at least two, but at least three works for me. At least two is also fine. Okay. I don't have, that's fine. Okay. So my question was going to be to you, does Spider-Man count, but we already established that you believe Spider-Man does count. Absolutely. So number one, Cap, Captain America. Easy. Yeah.

Number two, Spider-Man. Number three, Iron Man. Number four, Guardians. Number five, Thor. And number six, Ant-Man. Did I miss any? I'm just going to commit to my top three. Oh, okay. Cap number one. Easy. I will say it was the hardest time I've ever had feeling sure about it, though, because I think there is real competition, but it is still number one.

just edging out Spidey is Guardians for me. Moving into the number two spot and then I have Spidey third. Iron Man, my distinction with Iron Man is always Tony is the most important character in the MCU to me, but not because of the Iron Man films. The first Iron Man film, yes, but I think Iron Man two and three are like in the bottom third of MCU films. Oh, I know we disagree on three. I love Iron Man three, but two, we both agree is a loser for sure. Okay, and then Joe, the most important ranking of all, the awesome mixes.

This is also one, two, three for me, which is really, it's really funny because one being the best, because I was looking at it after he posed this question and two has more songs on it that I like as individual songs. Um,

But the specialness of one and the way in which Gunn both fought for it in the first place and secondly wove it into the fabric of the universe just makes that album so special. My friend got it on vinyl and he would like play it at Christmas. And like, you know, when I got my first, when I bought my first car with my own money, that's the music that I put on in the car. Like, I don't know. It's just a very special album, that first mix. How about you?

That's beautiful. When you get whatever car is next for you, will you be playing Jeff Sadecki's Yellow Jackets playlist as your first musical experience in that next vehicle? No, nothing's as good as Cherry Bomb. Come on. It's an incredible song to drive around in. Boy, I'm also going one, two, three. They're all great. I came close to putting two as my favorite just because it has...

My single favorite Guardians needle drop, which is father and son at the end of volume two, I just think is absolutely perfect needle drop and perfect movie moment. I fucking weep every time I see that and revisit that still. But one is a deeper lineup. No holes in that lineup. None.

No. None. Yeah. Mr. Blue Sky by ELO is one of my favorite songs of all time, but I identify it so closely with the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind trailer that like it doesn't belong to Guardians, but it is one of my favorite songs of all time. So, yeah. Is it time to get into our character deep dive, Joanna Robinson? Let's do it. Rocket's waiting for us. We'll all fly together.

One last time. All right, we're going character by character. Obviously, there will be a little bit of bleed as the characters pop up in each other's deep dives here. But we're going to start with Rocket because this is Rocket's movie. We got the Rocket origin story at long last. It was gutting. And Joe, James Gunn, has been very...

local about how important it was to him to do this movie specifically so that he could finish telling Rockets story. What do you make of that? I love this. I love this idea that he, well, I think Gunn has said in any given interview that he relates deeply to all of the Guardians.

But I especially love what he has to say about relating to Rocket. Can I read this quote from Devin Coggins' interview with him at EW? He says, I'll always feel gratitude towards the character because of that Rocket's isolation helping him understand the Guardians. James Gunn says, I also relate to him. He's just an angry little guy who pushes everyone away because of his own fear and vulnerabilities. I think I felt like that a lot. I think a lot of people have felt like that. And the thing...

End quote. And the thing I want to say about James Gunn is that he is like, I think, both a genius and a tough cultural figure for me to wrap my arms fully around. So the self-awareness that he has of his rockety tendencies, and Rocket is a character that I love, but that angry push people away sort of spikiness that James Gunn can have, to see him...

Try to process it, try to dig into it. I mean, like, oftentimes I'm like, maybe you should go to therapy instead of putting in your movie, but not in this case. I feel like this is a really special examination of a person and their pain. And we're going to talk about, we're going to get into later, like some authentic or not authentic or faithful or not faithful adaptations of characters later.

from the Marvel page to the MCU. James Gunn has always been the person who has played fastest and loosest with these characters. And I just think that it's really special what he's done with Rocket. I love Rocket Raccoon. This is one of my favorite Marvel characters of all time. I think Bradley Cooper deserves some goddamn awards for what he's done with his character. Let's get him that Oscar. I'm like, yes! Yes!

He's so good. So, like, rewatch, you and I both rewatched one and two and, you know, bits of Infinity War and Endgame and the special, et cetera. And I'm just captivated by him in every single scene. I just think he's an incredible creation. And I'm thrilled that he's the center of this story. I feel exactly the same way. He has always been such a mesmerizing figure. And this is one of, like, the great things about

We'll tease another pod. You, Neil, and Dave did best series cappers. Great idea for a pod on trial by content. And like that idea of a capper and what makes something a capper, giving us something new and

that also helps us recontextualize everything that came before. Yes. It's a meaningful thing if you've invested this much of your life in these stories, like we and so many MCU consumers have, right? So not only was this Rocket origin story and everything in the present timeline in Volume 3 with Rocket and his fellow Guardians genuinely beautiful, but it will forever enrich the way that we revisit the

Rocket's scenes in Volumes 1 and 2, but also in Infinity War and Endgame and beyond. Just every single moment where he's talking to somebody else about loss. If somebody's calling him an asshole, well, why? I just thought this was incredibly wonderful. And I think one of the moments that we call back to from the past the most with Rocket is one of our earliest moments with him. It's in Volume 1.

And it's when we started to understand that Rockets past, his creation was this specter that had hung over and defined every moment of his life. Steve, can we hear this so that we can keep this in mind throughout our chat today?

Joe, that is always red in me. I'm so

amazing performance from our guy, patron saint of The Ringer, Bradley Cooper. Oh my god. That line, I didn't ask to get made. Like, that is just always...

always shredded us when we've heard it. And you know that there is something there that you will find out about in time and to actually see what that making looked like, what was taken from him, but also then perversely, like what he was able to find and gain. And then what was taken from him again, and this cycle of loss and grief found family, lost family that has been,

been the central orbit of Rocket's life. I think what's also true is that... So that comes after... I did my rewatch after the first time that I saw. Yeah. Guardians 3, I think you did before, but you always can hold all these things at once. And I really valued watching these after having seen 3 because...

Just so many lines hit differently when you watch these after three or moments, because before this fight, this brawl, very early on in the prison sequence when Rocket takes off his shirt and Quill sees his back, and it's just all like...

And so, you know, you see this like intrusion upon this, this raccoon. And also his lineup card and on the list of his cybernetic enhancements. And you're always like, what happened here? But.

But like speaking of cybernetic enhancements, and we're going to return to this again and again and again, but like when he says in that quote, turn me to some little monster, right? So he thinks of himself as a monster. And one of Gamora's earlier lines is about Thanos. He tortured me, turned me into a weapon. So the way in which these people thought about themselves as a weapon, as a monster, et cetera, et cetera, before they got to redefine themselves as guardians. Right.

Right? Right. And this idea, again, we're going to talk about this, but this idea of being made to be something, especially by a father or creator of some kind, is shared across almost every single one of these misfits. Yeah. And including characters who initially were opposed to each other, right? Like hearing you say that makes me think of Nebula and her, I wasn't always like this moment, which comes with

right? With an Avenger in Endgame when they're on the time heist and she reaches her hand in to take the orb, which contains the Power Stone, and we watch the outer layers melt away. And that's a bonding moment for Nebula and Rhodey, but it's also a bond that Nebula can form and share with Rocket, a bond that builds and builds and builds over time. And so every version of that, like every bond inside of the Guardians, right?

is unique and specific to those two characters, but that's the shared, that's the tendril that connects all of them, is that they all have their version of it, and thus it's a thing that they share, even though it's utterly specific to their past experiences. It's also something that most... Yearning tendrils. Yeah, yearning tendrils, and something that a lot of viewers are going to bring to the experience of watching these movies too, right? It might not be a...

cybernetic enhancement that, you know, that, that new, uh, that new lovely shade of, uh, of eyes that Thanos gave you when you were being tormented. But, uh, it's something, it's something, uh,

By the way, Nebula used to have whites in her eyes, and now she doesn't anymore. And it's an interesting development for that character. More depth for Quill to fall into. To lose himself in. Making their way through the orgosphere. I'm into it. Let's talk about Baby Rocket getting selected. We get throughout the film...

flashback after flashback origin story after origin story download would you call it a flashback or flashback to i mean he is you know hooked up it's a flashback to medical healing equipment take some notes from the galaxy 3 yeah um

I wasn't thinking of the Book of Boba Fett, I can't lie, but I was thinking of Game of Thrones because when all of these sweet little fluffy babies turn around and push themselves against the back of their cage, heart-wrenching and arrowing, little Rocket...

moves forward and stands and stares bold. It made me think of Hot Pie at Harrenhal in season two and this explanation that he had learned from one of the locals that if you stare down, you won't get selected. And spoiler for season two of Game of Thrones, that ends up not being true. And then Hot Pie pisses himself in terror, realizing that this was poor advice.

But that was what I thought of here. And the design on Little Rocket is just, Joe, I mean, this is just so darling. And we return to the Little Baby Raccoon design at the end of the movie when Rocket scoops them all up. Unbelievable. I also loved because what makes Rocket different and how those differences and those abilities and those unique qualities are what lead to the high evolutionaries of

jealous rage and obsessive quest. I love how before any of the procedures, this moment gives you like a little insight into how Rocket was already different. It's like Skinny Steve, right? Like he's going to throw himself on the grenade before you put the super soldier serum in him. Yeah, exactly. Do you think that Peggy Carter also has a framed photo of little baby Rocket on her basket?

Camp Lehigh? No, I asked. Did anyone drop that off during the time list? I think she has a plushie, a little baby rocket plushie. And I can't wait for you to have one as well. I can't believe I don't have like more. Obviously, baby rocket wouldn't have been possible to now, but more rocket merch in general. Longtime rocket enthusiast. I have some group merch. I'll have to work on my rocket. We'll rectify it. Adam, are you listening? Great.

Rocket meets the rest of Batch 89. I was about to say Batch 99, Clone Force 99. I was going to say Batch. Always on the mind. Batch. Joanna, these sweet little creatures, all of whom have been cut up, defiled, experimented on, augmented by the High Evolutionary. And we're thinking back to that Xandar lineup when all the Guardians were arrested. Yeah.

Where we first saw 89P13, subject 89P13 is Rocket's name and Rocket was listed as his alias. Half-World for his origin. Lila listed as an associate. All of these things that have been there from the very beginning, of course, in the comics. Lila, love interest, love.

How did you feel about these other creatures from the moment that they entered your life? This is where I was personally on edge. And don't worry, I got there eventually. But I was very certain that none of these animals were going to survive this movie. Like 100% certain. And so I was...

At first annoyed because I felt like I was being emotionally manipulated. It was like everything was calibrated to be the most heart-wrenching, the most, the cutest. I mean, like there's a little, there's some body horror in here as well, but like emotionally cutest sort of thing. And I was like, I know what you're doing, James Gunn. You're trying to make me care about all these people so that I'll be upset when they die and I will feel Rocket's pain with him and blah, blah, blah. And like baby Rocket is just like. It works. It does work. Devastating.

But I was annoyed at first. I was like, you can't do this to me. And then he did it to me. So, you know, whatever. Just let it wash over you. How about that body horror aspect that you mentioned? I mean, this was very upsetting.

When Floor first rolled out of the shadows, the person I was watching was like, absolutely not. It's scary. No, it's very scary. It's scary, yeah. Initially scary, and then your heart melts. And you're like, I would do anything in the world to protect Floor at all costs. Yeah, absolutely. The first word that we hear is,

rockets speak when he meets and they don't have their names yet that comes later but when he meets Lila, Tiefs, and Floor the first word that he squeaks out Joe is hurts

That's horrifying. I would like to also... I know. I would like to do corrections department, something I said on The Big Pick, where Sean asked me if I thought Bradley Cooper did the voice for Olive Rocket. And I was incorrect because Sean Gunn, who does the physical performance for Rocket on set, so there's this huge component of it, did the voice of Young Rocket. So I do not want to rob...

Stars Hollow resident Kirk of his glory here. So shout out to Sean Good. Just one more feather in Bradley Cooper's hat, though, that you had no trouble believing that he had voiced. And Sean Good for matching the Brooklyn accent or whatever. How do Rockets new pals respond to Rockets pain, Joanna? What do they do?

Lila cleans his wounds through the bars. Through the bars. She cleans his wounds through the bars. I mean, we're animal lovers. Okay. No, I love the distinction that Van made on the Midnight Boys where he was like,

Okay, Joe and Mallory are both animal lovers. Mallory tends to get a little bit more invested in the cute characters like I do. And I was like, thank you for not leaving me out in the cold van. I do love animals. I'm not going to claim to go to the moon the way that you do. And I love you for it. Every second of it. A lot of animal lovers here at the Ringiverse. I did write in our outline here, the tears I cannot see because I could not see my computer screen and the words on the dock. Oh.

While writing this. I mean, and one of the genius parts of all this is like all four of them could have been in a cage together, but

But the fact that like Lila and Rocket, who formed the strongest bond of the four of them, are separated by these bars. And so then later when they have their brief moment of freedom is the first time that they can like fully embrace each other. Yeah. And even though like also then that the flip side of it before they get to share that full embrace, the fact that like this very literal barrier cannot in any way like impede the bond that they build with each other and the connection that they forge. Yeah.

It's just really beautiful. That's how I feel when we talk through a Zoom screen, Mallory. Do you know what I just realized? Speaking of, we mentioned the story of Yellow Jackets pod. We will be recording the Yellow Jackets finale pod in Europe because we will be in Europe when we receive the screener for that. This will be the first time we ever record in person together. Is that not wild? That's so funny because I've recorded with the Midnight Boys in person. We've never recorded in person together. Right?

Yeah, I think that's right. Oh, boy. Okay. The bonding. We just mentioned it. Let's explore it. The way that Bash 89 fosters this family. The way that Rocket is learning. He's going through these horrific torments. And there's this interesting parallel track where we are watching this foul thing that the High Evolutionary is doing to Rocket. And he's like,

We don't get to see the same moments for the other characters, but we can glean that every one of them is experiencing their version of that, their trials, their tests. And the way that their connection is forging in parallel with their burgeoning intellect, emotional intelligence, consciousness, etc.,

The way that we get to see like the prodigy at work in these rocket sequences was again, like not a surprise. I, you know, I was thinking of rocket telling Tony that he's only a genius on earth, on earth, iconic. Right. So we know that rocket only in there. Cause he has small hands. Genuinely supreme in his ability. And that's always been our understanding of, of what he's capable of, but to see like the path to that is,

And then to see the other things that are budding in real time, like when he starts to steal, right? He starts to take. And this is like, this is our battery stealing guy. And it's there. I love the first moment. I love the first moment that it happens. That it's just like not remarked upon. And it's just like a little thing that he does. Exactly. And, you know, and it grows and grows so that when he like starts to furrow around like his cage for things, we know that he's been just sneaking stuff for years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The way that they talk with each other about this rising awareness, this heightened sense of self. I loved when Tief said, I've been thinking. And they asked him how he's been thinking. I don't know. I just thought that was like so wonderful.

The way, of course, Jo, that they talk about the idea of the sky. I mean, this is a recurring beat in the movie. There's this initial discussion. The question about, no, is this the sky? No, it's the ceiling looking up in the moment before death into the light. And then this idea of going into the great beyond. This was just...

Very sad and like an effective way to show us at once how they're gaining this greater sense of possibility in the scope of existence, but also how their frame of reference for everything is still contained to what they have literally been able to look at around them until that point. Yeah.

And then you think of how the other three like didn't get to. That's what I was going to say. I think like it's, it's such a, yeah, ever leave. Oh, but also the fact that like, we're going to talk a little bit more about the high evolutionaries, bad parenting, but like,

The way in which Rocket has been singled out for treatment and gets to see things that the others don't get to see. But his personality is such that he's got a massive chip on his shoulder when we meet him as a grown-up raccoon. Yeah.

And a high opinion of himself, but that's not part of who he is here. Like he is smarter than all of them and quote unquote better if you want to put that kind of like qualifier than all of them, but that they're just his friends and he just loves them. They're just his family, you know? Much like he's smarter than all of the guardians, but they're just his friends. They're just his family. Joe, it's like poetry. Oh man. Can we talk about them picking their names? We heard it at the top.

This was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I couldn't have loved this more. How did this hit you? Again, this is in the space where I felt like I was being emotionally manipulated. I'll take this moment to shout out the great Linda Cardellini doing double duty in the MCU as Lila.

And then Asim Chowdhury, who's a comedian that I love as Tiefs. I'm not as familiar with Michaela Hoover as Floor. Is this where we mentioned that Judy Greer was War Pig, even though it's not relevant to this particular scene? Tara Strong is also here. Yeah. I saw that tweet. Someone was like, Judy Greer is War Pig. I was like, that's funny. And then it was true. Unbelievable. All right. Good for you. Good for you. I don't know. I don't want to be cynical in this space where you're feeling very emotional. I just want to support you.

Well, I know that a thing that you love is the moment where characters choose to give themselves a name, to give each other a name as a signifier of this sense of identity. It's something we talk about a lot in Star Wars, right? It's one of the reasons that the Clone Wars series was so effective. You take something like the Clone Wars where we've got

nameless legions under helmets on one side, faceless nameless legions as battle droids on the other. And you say, this is Fives. This is Rex. On and on and on the list goes. These are the characters you will forge a bond with. And just a moment like this, not only seeing the joy that they were able to bring each other when they learned what names they had each chosen, but what that meant about

about their sense of self. And I think for Rocket in particular, obviously, because he's the character in the group we know the best, it's another example of how it allows us to go back and

And appreciate a new so many little moments with him. Like in volume three, he says, someday I'm going to make great machines that fly. Me and my friends are going to go flying together into the forever beautiful sky. Lila and Teets and Floor and me rocket. He doesn't get to do that with them, but that is exactly what he gets to do.

with the guardians and there's beauty in that there's comfort in that there's like a sense of the possibility of hope and peace even in really dire times in your life and then there's also because it's guardians the reminder that like that doesn't mean it's always smooth and easy like when you think of rilett when you think of rilett rocket the pilot and

spacecrafts. Like, so many of the moments that pop to your mind right away are him and Quill arguing with each other. Like, they're dick-measuring contests about who should get to pilot. Who's the better pilot? Yeah, who's the better pilot? Who should be the captain, et cetera. We get the captain payoff in this movie, obviously. But, like, I love the moment in Guardians 2 where Rockets are like, I was cybernetically engineered to pilot a spacecraft. And...

There's this like immense depth of like horrific backstory there, but also he was ready to wield that like a cudgel, a quill because he wanted to win. And all of that is there inside of Rocket. I have like another interesting kind of callback to a Rocket line in this stretch that I

Didn't click quite as instantly for me. This actually gets back to what you were saying about the end game and fit a new war, like lack of, uh, uh, uh, continuity in certain spots. But I, I talked myself into this. Let me know what you think. So there's the moment in with, with, I love the, the, the rocket Thor relationship as I've, I've discussed many times on this podcast, but,

You think you're the only one that lost people. This is Rockets pep talk attempt in Endgame. What do you think we're doing here? I lost the only family I ever had. And he's talking about the Guardians in that moment. He and Nebula are there. They're trying to bring back everybody who was lost in the snap. And it's like, you watch this movie and you're just like,

Well, wait a minute. That's not true. The Guardians weren't the only family that Rocket ever had. He had this whole other family. But then that started to...

resonate even more powerfully in a way because of that idea of like the recurring beats of grief and like needing to pull yourself out of that and how like the guardians were the characters and the family who allowed him to do that in the first place obviously grew you know before even the rest of them and then how losing them

would feel doubly as tragic to Rocket because they were the ones who gave him that sense of possibility that he had lost with Lila and Teeps and Floor. And to your point, there's a moment in the first Guardians where...

after Drax has ill-advisedly called Ronan to nowhere and gotten his ass beat, right? And he defends his action by talking again about his wife and his child that he lost, right? And Rocket goes, oh, boo-hoo-hoo. My wife and child are dead. Groot gasps when Rocket says this. And then Rocket says...

care if it's me. Everybody's got dead people. That's no excuse to get everyone else dead along the way, right? So that's where he is in his processing loss is he's like, he's calloused over, right? Everybody's got dead people. I don't care. Pick yourself up. You know, and like, he's got a certain point there, but like he is not fully open himself to feeling the loss that he feels then when he is speaking to Thor in that game. So, yeah. Yeah.

Let's talk about that loss. Everybody's got dead people, Mallory. Oh my God. Okay, so this is where my, you know, if you're listening, you're like, Joanna, she's so hard-hearted. She's so cynical in my earlier section. This is where it pays off because like, here's where the compliment cavalry arrives when I'm saying like,

All right, so you can see where the beats of a movie is, like, where they're going. You're like, all these people are going to die, and it's going to be horrifying. And Lila's going to die, and he's so anxious and excited to get them out. He's got this key card. He's going to get them out. Lila getting shot, and then the other two getting shot as well. And you don't even see it. You just turn around and see their poor bodies. Devastating!

The performance from Bradley Cooper here, this is Bradley Cooper, the performance of Bradley Cooper here, and like, again, it's just sort of like you can see it is incredible storytelling. And this is the execution of something. Not even just like what the story is, but how it's executed. So you can see that this is going to come and it devastates you anyway. And that's just, my compliments to the chef, you know? The moment where Rocket realizes that they're not going...

that there's no escape, that they are not a part of this foul future, but this future. We'll talk about the high evolutionary side of that, of course, later. The decision to try to get out of there. Again, you think back to this number of times with absolute certainty we have heard Rocket say, like, oh, we're going to escape. We're getting out of here. And the moment where he first figured out how and the

and heft of pain that is tied up in that for him and the way that you know he thinks back to that every single time that they escape subsequently. You mentioned, Joe, that we don't see the shots. We obviously see the High Evolutionary's first shot hit Lila in the moment of that initial embrace. We don't see Tiefs and Floor get shot, just their lifeless remains. But what we do see is after Lila is killed, Floor

Rockett to leave, begging for the three of them to get out of there. That fucking killed me. That was so heartbreaking. You mentioned Bradley Cooper's performance. That scream from Rockett when Lila is shot, like, shoots to the pantheon of most intense and upsetting MCU moments. There are so many movie moments to the point where it's parody where a character's like, no!

you know and it's like Darth Vader no yeah so for it to like hit yes the like platoon on your knees Adagio on strings you know like for it to hit you know again and I think to your point about prison breaks I was thinking about this when I was watching the first Guardians and

you know, he's busted out of 22 prisons, right? And it's like one of the first things we learn about him. And so this idea of like him being good at getting out of prisons when the, one of the most painful things that has ever happened to him is that he was not able to break his friends out of prison. My God. To know that he like made sure he would never be in that spot again with other people that he loved. It's just, ugh. You know what else I loved in this stretch and thought was really effective? When

we're watching this breakthrough that Rocket has with subsequent batches and, like, what the High Evolutionary and his minions need to tweak to... Horrifying. What is it about? Stamping out the violence? Like, all of these discussions about the presence of violence and what triggers violence. And I loved how, like, those exchanges are about... There's, like, this later, later moment with Lila and Rocket about the idea of, like, the guiding hands, but...

the conversation about the hands that are crafting and corrupting unknowingly introducing this tendency for like something horrific and Rocket really like

like calmly, academically explaining why it was happening and what they could do to change it. And then what is the thing that triggers that violence in Rocket that like, frankly, is something we associate with Rocket as like a very, a character very prone to violence. Like how many times have we seen our guys spin around in a slow-mo with a machine gun, delighted to be mowing down his enemies? Cackling, yeah. What triggers it? It's not...

a hideous experiment like with the high evolutionary. It's not some sort of academic or intellectual pursuit. It is the raw emotion of losing something that he loved. It is the most base and fundamental thing that he could experience. Sad. Should we talk about Rocket in the present day? We'll obviously return to Lila and Teefs and Floor in the context of a present day moment. But let's get into a little Rocket's Guardians action here because...

The whole impetus for the plot of the movie, as we teased earlier, Joe, is this very personal pursuit in a couple ways. Yeah. There's the high evolutionary pursuing Rocket because of his obsessive need to not be bested by one of his creations, to take this thing that he can't understand and use it for his own ends. Right.

The fact that he has deployed Adam Warlock, his other minions to try to bring, basically bring back what he considers his IP, right? Yes. And then on the other side, there is the Guardian's deeply personal desire to protect their friends. They need to get this passcode that can override the kill switch that was activated on Rocket's heart after Adam Warlock's initial attack and then the med pack usage so that they could save their pal. That is what the movie is about.

Saving your friend.

But it's, yes. And it's deep. Like, when you, okay, Guardians 1 is still my favorite Guardians movie, but when you rewatch it, the Power Stone as a MacGuffin is just, like, such garbage compared to, like, this, you know? And especially because, you know, for Ronan and for Thanos, like, Power Stone means power, you know? Or vengeance, I guess, for Ronan. But, like, the personal stakes for the High Evolutionary, again, like, we talk about the Marvel's

villain problem. I've heard from a lot of people they didn't really like the High Evolutionary in this movie. And I mean, once you've absolutely squandered Lee Pace as Ronan, there's really not much to...

Not much else you could do, but I quite liked him and I liked... Me too. You know, in the... We're going to talk about this, like, you know, strain of bad dads throughout the Guardians trilogy, but, like, it's his IP, but it's also his wayward child, right? And the way in which he thinks of this is, like, as Rocket is, like, a thing that belongs to him, but also a part of him. And so then it's just, like, deeply personal on both sides. His creation has passed him by. Yeah. I...

I love an infinity stone, personally. But, like, you know, sometimes a MacGuffin is a piece of hunk of rock. And sometimes it's your friend's very life. I hear they make great paperweights. Shout out to TVA. Oh, yeah. I got a few of these in the drawer. What are you talking about? Oh!

we'll chat from all the other Guardians perspectives about how they're thinking and feeling about Rocket during this stretch. But from Rocket's perspective, the moment where it seems like it's not going to be enough, that it didn't work, they couldn't fix things in time, where it seems like Rocket is going to die. I'm eager to discuss the Peter of it all when we get to him shortly. But Joe, from Rocket's perspective, he goes to King's Cross. He goes to the King's Cross, Jeff.

There's like, this is such an overt visual lift of this scene from the films that I was frankly astonished that Michael Gambon wasn't there. Yeah. Honestly. Absolutely. How did this hit you emotionally when Rocket sees Lila and then further in the distance? Absolutely devastating. The, I mean...

The nuzzling, I just, I can't, I can't get through it. But like, his guilt, so he says, I got you killed, right? And, um...

I was weeping here, Jo. I was re-watching some of Rocket and Nebula's scenes in Endgame. And there's that moment when Tony's just lashing out when he gets back at the beginning of Endgame, right? And he's like, you know, I lost the boy, blah, blah, but he's angry, right? And...

You know, and like the other Avengers aren't sure what to do. And Rocket is the one who says he's pissed. He thinks he failed. Right. So like thinking about Rocket watching Tony dissolve over not being able to save Peter and a bunch of other people, half the planet, et cetera, et cetera, half the world, half the galaxy. And knowing that he's thinking about his own failure in that in that moment.

And then the anger, he's pissed he thinks he failed. So it's not just like anguish, it's that anger that's associated with it. Well, and that idea with Rocket of how anguish calcifies into anger is so central too. Like one of my favorite parts of the Guardians franchise is the Yondu-Rocket relationship in volume two. We get that, you know, truly iconic, you're like a professional asshole or what? What?

line from Yondu, but you think, okay, how did that become the way that Rocket was? Steve, can we hear this volume two clip? You can fool yourself and everyone else, but you can't fool me. I know who you are. You don't know anything about me, loser. I know everything about you.

I know you play like you're the meanest and the hardest, but actually you're the most scared of all. Shut up! I know you steal batteries you don't need, and you push away anyone who's willing to put up with you, because just a little bit of love reminds you how big and empty that hole inside you actually is. Well, there's the other, there's also the Yondu rocket exchange, right, where Yondu says, I know them scientists, what made you never gave a rat's ass about you. It doesn't say ass, there's a...

There's a little bleep over the ass, but never gave a rat's ass about you. And he says, just like my own damn parents who sold me their own little baby into slavery, I know you are, Roy, because you're me. So, like...

But for him to tie it to this high evolutionary storyline before we learn about the high evolutionary storyline so concretely. And then for, I mean, again, it's just interesting for James Gunn to say Rocket is me. Well, then if Yondu's Rocket, Yondu is him. But then Quill is also, you know, it's just like thinking about the way that James Gunn has fractured his various traumas over these various characters is fascinating.

But then there's repetition as well. Yeah. And like for Rocket, but also then for every character, what happens in your life that leads you to put those walls up? And then just as crucially, more crucially, ultimately, what happens that allows you to pull them back down? And so for Rocket, like some of that is his time with the Guardians and this acceptance that they find with each other. But some of it is this closure that he, depending on your character,

interpretation of what is happening here, either that he gives him himself or that Lila gives him to say, this wasn't your fault. Like this was, this is not a weight that you need to carry. And also you've got more, more living to do. Go back. Some strong Goodwill hunting vibes. Not your fault. Sean, I swear to God. It's not your fault. Yeah. Now I'm going to cry thinking about Goodwill hunting. Well, another great one. Well, where does this all lead Joe? It leads to rocket deciding.

that he's done running. He wakes up, joined in the fight, and when he hears the High Evolutionary's voice and turns and marches in, and we see everybody follow him. Great eye roll from Gamora, but she follows too, doesn't she? You think back to...

We'll actually hear this clip later, but the very famous Peter Quill loser's speech in Guardians 1, one of the end lines there is for this question of, well, why?

to give a shit, not run away. That idea, not run away, has been central to the text of Guardians from the minute that these characters decided to form up and become a team and become a family. And so to see them follow through on it in this way here, on such a personal level, like, really hit. I think, to your point...

There was a moment when that became their mission. But what I love about the Guardians is that when we first meet them in Guardians, they're so self-interested and they're so self-motivated. And it's like Gamora is actually the one trying to pull them to the moral choice. She's the voice of morality of like, we cannot let this stone get into the wrong hands, et cetera, et cetera. So to flip her outside of that and have Quill

et cetera, be the one pulling her towards the moral thing. She's there for a ravager paycheck, right? And he's like, no, we got to do this right thing. So to that eye roll point that you make, it's just like, it's a really fun thing to do with a fun way for James Gunn to react to one of his main characters being bumped off in another movie. He's like, well, let's do something very interesting with that, shall we? But I love that point you're making too because

you know, how do families function? How do teams function? How do friendships function? Like, not every single person inside of a group has the exact same perspective and experience. You share that with each other. And so, like, to your Gamora point from Follow Me On, well, she had that direct exposure to Thanos. Like...

here rocket is the one who has this direct history with the high evolutionary and so you know and on and on the examples go but so the character who's providing like that push and that more personal impetus and then like you know they're gonna be the one to move forward because they have the reason to but when everyone else decides to follow them that's what friendship is right right and they're like your your personal battle is my personal battle too exactly yeah yeah

And it's our personal battle, too, after seeing all of these little baby animals. Because when Rocket goes to the baby raccoons and they crawl up on his nose, this was just one of the most darling things I've ever seen. But also an amazingly rich Rocket moment because he turns and he looks at the label, Joe, and what does he see? Raccoon. Raccoon-y, yeah. Franchise-long bit. Rocket rebelling against...

All of the different animal names that people hurled at him. Badger, squirrel, raccoon, rabbit. Trash panda. Trash panda. Trash panda was mean and Quill meant it to be mean when he said it. It's worse. It's way worse. Quite rude still. And the way that he, in this then final showdown with the High Evolutionary, incorporates it again. Here's another naming ritual into his name. The name's Rocket. Rocket Raccoon. Like,

taking something that had been hurled as an insult or something that pointed to what as brilliant as he is, like he still didn't totally know or understand and to allow him to incorporate it into his sense of self and his identity. It's like a real, we've mentioned Thrones a couple of times. There's a real like wear it like armor.

moment. I loved it. And I think that individuation is so interesting because like what the high evolutionary says sort of right before that is he says, you think you have some worth without me. Right. And so again, we're going to get into his poor parenting skills, but it's that like, it's that thematic strain of bad dads viewing the child in this franchise as a weapon, as an extension of self and,

What Ego says to Quill in Volume 2, which is, you're nothing more than a step on my path, right? Or I want to do this together, but I suppose you'll have to learn by spending the next thousand years as a battery, right? Like, that is how Ego talks to his son, Quill. And this is a similar, very similar scenario. And so for the...

Quill and for Gamora and for Nebula and for Mantis and for Rocket to all break away from these bad dads and sort of create their own identity, which they have found in this other family is so strong. And I could save this for Easter eggs, but I'm going to say it now. When the High Evolutionary says, 8-9-P-1-3, it's a veryly miserab 2-4-6-0-1. And he's like, no, I'm Jean Valjean. I'm Rocket, Rocket, Raccoon. That's who I am.

Incredible. I love it. I absolutely love it. What did you think of Rocket in this battle? Because he handles the High Evolutionary with the aid of the Gravity Boots, but with ease. Everybody comes to help because that's, again, how teams work. What did you think of Rocket's, because I'm a freaking Guardian of the Galaxy, decision not to kill the High Evolutionary?

I think it's a very silly moment, given, to your point in our notes here, that they just blow the ship up momentarily after that. But also, it's just, like, such a violent, bloody movie. So to have, like, a we don't kill moment after the Guardians have left just, like, a smear of carnage across this entire movie is very silly. Yeah, he should have been, like...

Quill's been talking about face-offs this whole movie. I clawed your face off, motherfucker. Now we're going to have to make this a rated R movie because we said fuck twice. Groot, stab him through the fucking mouth. Let's go. Can I ask you a question on the fuck front? You can always ask me a question on the fuck front. The regular person can dance it all the time. Maybe.

Yeah, always. Have you seen the clip of Billy Boy and Dominic Monaghan talking about the F word in Lord of the Rings? Oh, yeah. And when Dominic Monaghan goes, fucking Buckleberry Fairy, where would you put an F mom in Lord of the Rings? Fucking Buckleberry Fairy. It's just incredible. What a moment for Steve Aulman, by the way, the scribe of the ringer tome on where you would have inserted an F bomb into every prior Marvel property, Steve.

As Pepper once said to Tony, you can rest now. All right. Rockets future, Joe. Big movie for Rocket and music. We get it at the beginning. We get it at the end with the Florence and the Machine. Take me through it. There is...

A TikTok that currently exists of Florence herself watching the end sequence of this movie and crying. And it's one of the best things I've ever seen. Same. I can't stop watching it. She's just sitting there crying as she's watching her song being used. We got this great email from JB saying,

Who said, your mileage may vary on needle drops and we'll talk more about needle drops in this because obviously it's a hallmark of the franchise. But JB says, I do want to highlight the acoustic version of Creep in the opening scene for the way it told us about Rocket's frame of mind.

Because it's a version of Guardians 3 that could have further explored the fact that the other Guardians themselves had developed their own relationship to music over the course of their time in the MCU. What song does Nebula listen to when she's down? What song does Drax listen to when he wants to dance? Because he's a dancer now. Wow. Yeah. But I love that because, yeah, we – it's such a good signal that this is Rocket's movie for –

Guardians 1 and 2 to be so closely tied to Quills Walkman and the mix and what that means and how he feels when he listens to those particular songs and thinks about his mom and all that sort of stuff like that. And so to open on Rocket having this musical moment. Sean Fennessey was like, bit on the nose. I was like, absolutely on the nose. Also worked for me. Sorry. You know, I just, I loved not every needle dropper for me, but those bookends.

really, really mattered. You know what I mean? And this idea of Rocket as like the DJ of nowhere, you know what I mean? Just like, yeah, playing through the speakers. I just thought it was great. And like, again, because it really works in lockstep with Rocket becoming the leader of the Guardians at the end, becoming the captain. Yeah.

because, you know, Quill was always the one sharing that music with others. And now that's one of the gifts that Rocket can provide to other people is like letting that music into your life. But also we know, we come to understand in this movie that Rocket has his own history with music like this really, we'll talk about it in the high evolutionary section, but this like really chilling conversation with the high evolutionary about music. When Rocket thinks the Guardians are breaking up because everyone's going their own way. That's it? It's over? Yeah.

He is crestfallen, Joe, but it's not over. Sova? Because he's the captain now. Yeah. Did you think that he was going to die in this movie? Are you glad that he didn't? Are you glad that this is where he ended? I didn't think they would have hit it as hard in the trailer if he was actually going to die in the movie. I think they would have wanted to make it a surprise. I did think that, like...

Quill might die or something like that and we'll talk about I mean his fucking face explodes I definitely thought he might die I thought certainly someone might die but like Rocket I felt like

Again, they wouldn't have made it seem like they did in the trailer that he was going to die if he was. But it was such a hard thing to talk, you know, because, like, I feel like you and Steve changed your screening to the earlier one that you were going to go to because you, like... Yeah. We couldn't talk about it. I had to miss the first one because it was the same night as the first round of the NFL draft, so I couldn't go. And it was originally going to go, like, a week later. I was just like... I can't. I can't... Yeah. Because we couldn't...

We were trying to tell you that it was, on the animal cruelty front, devastating and really emotional. But I didn't want you to think that we were telling you that Rocket was going to die. So we were trying to be like, it's going to be tough. But not that tough. I don't know. Your trailer point is a good one. I...

I think I felt similarly after seeing the trailer, but then when I did my rewatch, there were just so many moments that feel like they're pointing toward Rocket's death, including literally him talking about his lifespan. So I became very worried heading into the movie after the rewatch. I'm very glad that he's alive and well and...

teaching the newly formed guardians, including Adam Warlock about the power of Zune and murder. Yeah. I do need to use a moment quickly to share something that when I tell you it has been a discussion in my home for hours on end, hours on end to the point where I said to Adam,

Do you want to come on the pod and talk about this for a minute? Does Adam want to come on the pod? He said I was free to sum up his opinion. Okay. He loved the movie, just to be clear. But he was so pawed by the first stinger and charging into this horde of native creatures after like an entire movie spent.

understanding, appreciating, and rescuing other life forms. He's just like, how did they do it? Here's what I'm telling myself. I don't think that they murder those little critters. I think maybe there's some other... Like a Grogu nap situation? Because Kraglin was like, I could do this by myself, which would have meant, you know... Arrow time. Piercing all of them to death with his magical arrow. Again, check out our Magical Blades and Magical Weapons Trope score spot. Uh...

And, you know, then Rocket was like, we'll do it together. And then he said word and they charged. And I'm going to hope they charge towards some sort of like just a nap time talking to or something like that. Hugging it out. A dance party with the Zoom. Will we see Rocket again in the MCU, Jo?

Almost certainly. Though Sean Gunn has said that he's probably not playing Rocket again, but that's based purely on the fact that he does this on his knees. And he's like, listen, man, I think he's in his early 50s. He's like, listen, man, or late 40s. He's like, no, no.

So we might get a different baddie, but I feel like Coop will come and take a couple days in a sound booth to give us one of the greatest performances in all the MCU. And the fact that they made him like the leader of the Guardians, and I feel like we're definitely going to see the Guardians again in some format, then yeah, I do think we're going to see Rocket League. Do you think we'll get another Guardians movie after the Guns era? Or just that the Guardians will appear in other properties? Yeah.

I think we could. I do think we could, but I think they would take a minute. Then again, it's been five years since Guardians 2, but they would want some distance. But with a different lineup, yeah, I think we would say the Guardians again. A Cosmo-centric story, you know?

Cosmo does not work for me on any level. With love and respect to Maria Bakalova. Oh, God. Steve is offended by the Cosmo take and Azamai, which is why I moved on to Peter rather than responding. Very diplomatic of you. Say that Cosmo was a BD. I didn't say that. I just said it doesn't work for me. That would be, that was cruel. A cruel, cruel thing that Kraglin did. Terrible. Terrible.

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Star-Lord. Yeah. Peter and Rocket. I know we just talked about Rocket for a really long time, but we got to hit the Peter and Rocket of it all for a minute because the relationship between these two has been so central. We think of these characters as like really part of duos or trios or clusters inside of the group. And we obviously always think about Rocket with Groot and Quill with Nebula, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But Peter and Rocket...

And their friendship, their rivalry and friendship has been like one of the real beating hearts in the center of the franchise. Their feud...

they're bickering. The tension inside of their relationship is one of the really interesting things about revisiting volume two and then makes the like depth of love and devotion on display here even more poignant. Peter repeatedly calling Rocket his best friend, much to Drax's chagrin in this movie, was just wonderful. Like, I loved it. And I mean, there's a couple things, there's a couple...

there. We'll get to like what bickering means in the world of guardians in a, in a bit, but we have to think about, of course we have to think about the snap, right. And we have to think about the fact that like when you, when you have a found family and maybe you bicker all the time, but maybe then they go away for five fucking years. How do you, how do you behave differently when they come back? And also to my earlier point about like James Gunn doing this dynamic versus someone else is,

Even again, if James Gunn wrote some of the Guardians dialogue, the Thor Peter Quill dick measuring never worked as well for me as the rocket Quill squabbling did. I love Thor in certain modes. He's very funny. And like, there is some like very funny posturing between them, but it just like, it just made Star Wars seem like a douche. Whereas like with Star,

Which I think kind of is. But like with Rocket, it's like squabbling brothers. You know what I mean? In a way that like just works so much better. It's the way you like wrestle in your own living room for who gets the remote. Yeah, totally. Great call. The heart of the bond between Rocket and Peter and between all the Guardians is something we've alluded to many times. This is as good a place as any to hear the...

Guardians Hall of Fame clip before we leave our Guardians experience. Steve, can we hear this for volume one? I look around at us. You know what I see? Losers. I mean, like, folks who have lost stuff. And we have, man. We have. All of us. Our homes. Our families. Normal lives. And usually life takes more than it gives, but not today. Today it's given us something. It has given us a chance. To do what? To give a shit. For once. Not run away.

I still love it. Usually life takes more than it gives, but not today. It's just a wonderful piece of writing. Guardians, man. Joe, when we revisit that moment and the forging, of course, you referenced Rockets, his contribution to that scene. They're a bunch of assholes in a circle. The stretch of the

of volume three where Peter in conversation with Mantis is recounting all the people he has lost sometimes because they died sometimes because they left him sometimes because they were right there and didn't want to be with him

And the way that he channels that pain into this unflinching pursuit of his best pal, like, I'm not going to lose Rocket either, to the point where he's not only willing to go headfirst into peril after peril, but literally to dive headfirst out of an exploding pyramid in the sky. Yeah.

And his response, again, your mileage may vary on Peter Quill as a character, but when he was sobbing over Rocket and thought that he had died and was screaming and refusing to believe that he had lost him, I was like deeply moved by it. I thought it was really good. Listen, Chris Pratt is great in this movie. Like the thing with Star-Lord is that the like, Star-Lord being in an Infinity War plot line is,

coincided with the like fall from grace that Chris Pratt had and sort of like, as I said to Sean, I think corners of the internet more so than like the broader audiences, but like, and so it was all sort of tangled up and it really took this performance with this script and these motivators, right? Save the cat, save the rocket, you know, sort of thing versus this,

Peter in the first movie is motivated by his pursuit of money and then his crush on Gamora and all this sort of stuff like that. And the second one is all wrapped up in his daddy issues. Completely understandable, but that's all what that is about. And this is about, I gotta see my friend. And there's so much more engrossing for me. I thought it was phenomenal. And I think that... I love that it's Gamora telling Peter not to...

dive out and save Rocket, right? When it's Rocket who told Peter not to dive out and save Gamora in the first movie. Peter's forever just freezing his face off in space for people. Gotta love that about him. Nothing else. Speaking of Gamora, let's talk about Peter and Gamora for a moment here because while our Peter experience has evolved and changed, the

deep and abiding love that he feels for Gamora remains very present, though their relationship is quite different because, of course, this is 2014 Gamora. This is the Gamora from the past who doesn't... She did not share the experiences with Quill that he shared with her. And he, initially at least, cannot accept this. And the place that we find him at the beginning, which I thought it was interesting that it was like a very...

tonally distinct place from where we left him in the holiday special in a way that I liked because like you don't just get over somebody who you love who is not a part of your life like right away and so to see him in this like drunken stupor and then the way that that compounds the blame and this sense of that sense of failure because he's like if I hadn't been hammered this wouldn't have happened to Rocket so all of these things are tied up in each other

We really got to run the whole emotional gamut with Peter and Gamora in this movie. We start in a position of shock, Joanna, because Nebula, who is in touch with Gamora, has not told Peter that Gamora is a part of the Ravagers now. What did you think of seeing Gamora with Stai Stallone and co.? And co.? First of all...

We're going to get to like a much more important wig watch later, but like shout out the wig watch on Zoe Saldana in this movie, because I love like, this is a different Gamora. Her wig is different. I'm saying great. Love that. Um, also,

Also, the friend that I went to go see this with, he was like, because, you know, Michelle Yeoh was in this pack, you know, in the Sylvester Stallone sort of promise of a new future Guardians thing. And then she subsequently got another MCU gig. And so he was just like, more like Michelle, no, not going to be in this movie. Like, it's just anyway. I love that Gamora has her own shit in this movie. Yes.

They all have their own shit in this movie. It's very important. I really like, we'll chat a little bit more about it later, but I really liked her where she ended. I love it. Loved it. The desperation for Quill. The open comes, open line. The whole team can hear declaration of love, but also the way that he is basically begging her to love him back. This is like a classic Guardians moment because you have like this really heartfelt beat and

And then Drax is going to... The way that Drax was like, it is. So funny. And then, of course, that leads into the whole this color button communicates with this color suit and Drax saying seems intuitive, which was just hysterical. But there's like this really sincere moment where Gamora is just like, I don't think so.

I don't think so. Like you want this thing and it is not what I want. But what I guess, and we're going to talk a little bit, I have a little bit more to say about that, but I think in this moment, his vulnerability again is very important because like there's a swagger to Star-Lord that is appealing in a Han Solo kind of way. You know what I mean? Like, and in the, you know, in the next section, right? When he's like flirting and charming women, right? Yeah. The fact that that is like,

you know swirled in the cone with this like extreme right heartbreak and yearning and vulnerability makes it that much more appealing and when he does do that bravado showing off trying to peacock for her right uh or as our friend alexander skarsgard told very fair recently cas cocking right casual cocking um

That it's rooted in this place of deep insecurity. Right. I loved when he was like, I'm really excited that you're going to get to see this again for the first time. Delightful.

We also get some pettiness. The pettiness then leads to a dash of accountability. And so it's pettiness paired with growth. You love to see it. We love a character on an arc, as we always say, Joe, the pettiness comes. This is elevator recap that we get. This had been teased in that we had glimpsed some of this in the trailer. Star Lord is just basically like, if you are watching this and you somehow did not see infinity war and end game, let me quickly update you on some of what you missed. We,

We used to be in love, only she doesn't remember because it wasn't her dad threw her off a magic cliff, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then Joanna Robinson, I would like you to please do us all the great gift of telling us where the accountability comes into play. Says, and then I lost my temper and nearly destroyed half the universe. And I like wanted to stand up on my feet and cheer in the theater. Did your feet or cheer?

Did yours? Oh, yeah. Oh, great. Yes. A little fucking accountability. This thing that Peter Quilt Star-Lord did in Infinity War has just aggravated me every single time I've rewatched that movie. I just cannot fathom it.

It's always been a tough one for Star-Lord. That's a real tough look for our guy territory. Something that James Gunn agrees with a lot of MCU viewers about. Here's a quote from a recent Aaron Couch Boris Kitt THR piece. Quote, they did some things that I wouldn't have wanted, says Gunn of the films. Parentheses, yes, he says, Star-Lord would have killed Gamora if she asked him to. No, he would not have punched Thanos and doomed the universe. End quote.

I love that James Gunn is taking gentle shots, not just at the MCU, but at one of the second best Avengers movie after Endgame on the way out the door. Catch up on Midnight Court if you haven't yet. We thank it. Yeah. Insistence. I love this because, okay.

As I've told you, I don't know if I've said it publicly on the mic. I think I have that I've been reading a lot of Harry Potter fan fiction in the last week. You have mentioned that. Yeah. Great. It means that I've just like gotten a better understanding of certain tropes because that's what fan fiction does. It just like retries and retries and retries tropes. And there is this like amnesia trope.

that is so interesting. This isn't quite an amnesia trope, right? Because like, this is Gamora at a time, a different Gamora, but it operates under the same auspices of the, of the amnesia trope, which is like amnesia trope within a love story. And you've seen this again, like it doesn't, you don't have to read Harry Potter fan fiction to get this. You know what I mean? Like there's like the Muppets take Manhattan does it with like Kermie and, and, and Piggy and stuff like that. And, um,

where there's this pain point. First of all, it's a fun way to watch two characters fall in love again or explore this idea of like, are we fated to be together? Even if I meet you on a different point in my timeline and you're, you know, Peter Quill is a different person than who he was when he met Gamora and this Gamora is at a different point than who she was when she met Peter Quill. So can we still...

be compatible or and there this is the pain point that comes up again and again in this fan fiction trope but like comes up here um

Stop insisting I'm someone I'm not. Whoever she is, I'm not her. And in this movie about identity and people putting you in a box and making you be who they think you are, right? Is Rocket a number or is he Rocket Raccoon? Is Gamora this woman that Peter Quill lost or is she her own person on her own path? And I think...

this comes through so clearly in their goodbye. I don't mean to like hop ahead to like the goodbye, but she says, I'm still not who you want me to be.

And he says, I know whoever you are ain't so bad. Right? So he has to let go of his rigid idea of or trying to force her into. I know that if you just got to know me, you loved me before. I know if you just got to know me better, you would love me again. He has to just like, like we like to say in this podcast, hold it loosely. If you love something, let it go. And maybe we'll come back to you. You know? I really loved this part of the movie too. Like the way, I mean, the, the,

that we get from Gamora was a little intense, but the substance of it and the way that she says exactly that to Peter, like, I don't know what's going on inside of you that you need me to be the person who fixes that for you, like who fills that hole for you, but that's not what I need right now. And like how painful that would be for him to hear, but how...

really badly needed to because it's true. And to then, you know, when we get like some other like cute little, oh yes, there's a big battle and these two characters have wound up on top of each other. But to build toward that moment of acceptance where they can part and understand they're both moving forward in the way that they need to because that's the last thing that we want to talk about with Peter is that

This idea of Peter learning to swim and how that was the thing for him was actually like heating. You know, we get it in the form of a lot of classic Drax. Mantis comedy. Drax comedy. Like, of course, calling back to the fabled volume one, don't call me a thesaurus. It's just a metaphor, dude, as people are...

Because metaphors are going to, they're completely literal. Metaphors are going to go over his head. Nothing goes over my head. Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it. Nothing goes over my head. That's why I knew we were in for something special with Guardians. But, you know, we get a lot of the Drax comedy.

as he's relaying this message for Mantis, but the substance of what Mantis is saying. And if anyone missed the holiday special, that's where we learned that Ego is also Mantis' father. So Mantis and Peter are siblings. And this idea that life is a pond and that Peter is moving from lily pad to lily pad, woman to woman, relationship to relationship, and like hasn't learned to swim. And that Peter gets to the point in this movie where he says, I need to go figure out how to do that. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Can I just say that when... Honestly, when Chris Pratt's face started to, like, blow up, like, and crystallize, I think I muttered out of my breath, they're really going to do it. Yeah, me too. Because I was so sure he wasn't going to die because of frickin'...

what I'm calling Chekhov's Mitch Hunsberger, which is the character that the actor who plays his grandfather played on Gilmore Girls. And I was like, Mitch Hunsberger! So, you know, when they show us a photo early in the movie to remind us who this guy is, that when he shows up at the end, we're like, oh, right, it's his grandpa in case we didn't rewatch Guardians 1 this weekend or whatever. Or catch him driving away from Ego's blob in... Yeah. But I was like, I can't believe this is all gonna end with friggin' Mitch Hunsberger from Gilmore Girls. But, um...

But yeah, to have Mantis and to have Gamora hit him with that reminder. And then in a movie where family parenting children is so important, we're talking about what's going on with Drax and Nebula a little bit later.

For Star-Lord to realize that he had his childhood taken from him and to know that he has to go back and be in a child space. And yes, Star-Lord is a classic sort of man-child kind of character. Yeah, rest of development. Right. But he needs to go and be with his grandpa, go back to Earth.

Eat some cereal. For the Star-Lord to be grounded again. Be a kid. Yeah. Yeah. But I love, too, that it's not just the Mantis council about life is upon, learn to swim that he's heeding. It's that idea from, like, he gets mad in the moment when he's recounting all of his losses. And she's like, wait, didn't you leave somebody, too? It's pretty weird, actually, that you never went back to Earth to see your grandpa, like,

he probably misses you. And you hear that and you're like, right. Yeah. And so for Peter to, to like have that moment of recognition, like for that selfishness, even though the selfishness is anchored in, in, in loss and despair to turn into selflessness. Like I'm not the only one who has lost something. It's that, it's that classic recurring idea again. And like, maybe I can close that hole in somebody else's life that has been that the source of that for them for so long was like,

It's for Peter, yeah, but also it was like a moment of maturity for him to like give that to somebody else that instead of just going and having more adventures, though he will have more adventures, which I guess we should talk about for a minute because of the stinger. Speaking of names, you might remember this better than I do, even though I just rewatched these movies, but like how many people call him Pete? Is it just his grandpa? Rocket calls him Pete. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Rocket and his grandpa, right? And so it's just sort of like, I don't know, the things that people called you when they knew you as a kid that people who know you as an adult don't call you. You know what I mean? So he's like, Pete. Now we all have to call him the legendary Star-Lord because that's what the singer said. How are you feeling about this? Star-Lord will return. I was genuinely shocked because I was like, surely Chris Pratt is done.

But we got this really interesting email from listener Corey that I'm just going to get your temperature on, okay? It says, in the comics, Legendary Star-Lord is a run that leads up to Secret Wars and Kitty Pryde's subsequent helming of the Guardians of the Galaxy. But since mutants, and more specifically X-Men, have not been introduced yet, many speculate that they exist in another corner of the multiverse. I think we will not be seeing Chris Pratt return. Every time a legacy character...

or a multiversal version of another hero is introduced, they're almost always tagged with an identifier to help distinguish them as a unique variant of the titular hero. Think Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Mighty Thor, Jane Foster, or even Miss Marvel, Kamala Khan.

This leads me to believe that the mantle will effectively be passed to a new iteration of Star-Lord. This new hero could enter from another universe during an incursion or secret wars. It could even be the mystery relative mowing the lawn while Peter eats cereal. Yeah. And to help...

To help argue my case, since when do MCU movies tack honorifics onto the final stinger? Insert name will return. And this is Joanna cutting in. I did do some research. And yes, Kang will return. Thor will return. Loki will return. Adding legendary. This is Corey again. Adding legendary seems superfluous in my opinion, unless there's a reason for it.

What do you think of this theory that they would do a, the legendary Star-Lord would return for a different version of Star-Lord? I'm in. This is great. I love this. It's really smart and interesting. I hadn't thought about it at all. Oh, I love that. It fits the whole, you know, mantle passing era that we're in. Obviously works in the multiverse. Nice way to keep the idea of a certain character present without just doing the same thing. Helps kind of cement that conclusion of this chapter further too. I like this a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Pratt has given a series of non-answers about whether or not he would turn like other other people have been like, you know, Zoe Saldana is like, I'm done. You know, Dave Bautista is like, I'm done. Sean Gunn's like, my knees, you know. He's like Joel and Tess in The Last of Us after walking up a few flights of stairs, you know. He's like Martin Short in Only Murders in the Building. What do you think his thoughts on gut milk are?

I don't know, but I bet he loves a dip. So something that Pratt said to Entertainment Weekly and a number of other outlets is he says, oh man, I don't know about returning. He says, there's a brilliant group of incredible minds in charge of coming up with the stories and I'll be standing by waiting to answer the call if they call. Interesting. It's a whole maybe. Okay. Okay.

I don't mind it. What do you think? I mean, there's a ton of theories bopping around about this. Do you have any other sort of interpretations? I think that, you know, Steve's joke about how the stinger was a contract announcement, which killed all of us and was really resonated. This would be like a better reason, ultimately, for like not to be that, but to be a way to like keep saying to us as the audience that we can...

really like leave a moment in time and our experience with those characters in that space and place, but also like not have to go through the rest of the MCU without ever thinking about a version of the guardians again. I'm into. So because if we had like, and again, we can leave all of it behind if we want to, but if we had like,

Groot and Rocket and Adam Warlock. I'm ready for more Adam Warlock. And a new Star-Lord. I'm into it. I'm ready. Kraglin, sure. Sean Gunn, not on his knees, sure. Great, you know. I would miss Drax and Mantis, which gets us to Drax and Mantis. Let's talk about them for a few more minutes. What a fantastic Mantis movie, right?

Incredible. Incredible. Palm is so good in this movie. Unbelievable. In the running for non-Rocket MVP, I think, Mantis. Just wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I've always loved Drax, and I really liked Mantis right away in volume two. I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I didn't love the holiday special in part because I thought the

that question of character balance and character calibration was just like off in it in ways that I understood for the structure of the story. But this is such a more deft deployment of Mantis and Drax both as individuals, but they are really like so linked in this movie and really since they've come into each other's lives. I think it goes back to the point I was trying to make as I offended all of Rudd Nation around Ant-Man, which is like some people are leading characters and some people are like perfect supporting characters. And they're like,

perfect supporting characters in this movie. They're so good. And again, they have their own shit going on. But they're so incredible in this movie. And I agree. I liked the holiday special fine. I just didn't love it and nor do I feel the need to rewatch it necessarily. We're going to chat more about Nebula and some other Nebula beats separately. But let's talk about

Mantis, Drax, and Nebula as a trio because they have a lot of shared scenes and beats in this movie. And...

including a doozy that I thought about for a long time in the wake of watching the movie, which is this like big blow up fight. They have the pyramid is rising. The frost is setting in their entrance space. They're all going to die. Drugs bangs down the door. They get inside and boom, it's time for like the real stuff that you never want to hear. Shiv, Shiv and Tom on the balcony, you know, dude,

All time scene. All that. I can't wait to listen to the succession pod. Cannot wait. That was unbelievable. Basically, the sequence here is that Nebula demeans Drax. Mantis defends him, but also calls him stupid. He's crestfallen. She wipes his memory. Let's go through those beats in a little more detail. The Nebula...

attack here. Like, saying that Drax is a liability, saying that Mantis is only there to come in and defend other people's weakness. This hurt. It hurt from our gal Nebula. It was painful. She's not a soft person, our girl Nebula. It's not soft power. It's hard power from Nebula. But I think it really sluts nicely into that

into the theme throughout the franchise and in this installment of what is a weakness and what is a strength. Yeah. Right? And like, you know, if Gamora worries that she's a weapon in Volume 1 or Rocket thinks he's a monster or whatever it is, it's like, what is Drax? And he quickly displays his strength outside of his brutal strength. His like...

I speak other languages, bilingual strength, you know, his dad power, right. Comes through. And I mean, absolutely a violation by the way, to wipe his memory. That was tough. Yeah. I do like the moments where they talk about like when it's, whether it's ever okay for her to use her power on her friends. And you feel there, that's like, yeah, there's a transgression there. And even though she's doing it to like,

shield him from his pain. It's... There's a barrier breach there that's hard to walk back. I thought Mantis, despite that, had, like, a lot of gems in this stretch. The way that she says that Drax is the only one of them who doesn't hate himself was like, damn, that hits you like a fucking hammer. That was huge. That was huge, yeah. And I think, yeah, these... Like with Shiv and Tom, I think, right, you only hurt the ones you love. Like, you can only absolutely...

you know, demolish someone if you really know them. Absolutely. There's this volume two exchange where Gamora, they're talking about, um,

Gamora says he's our friend. And Nebula says, all any of you ever do is yell at each other. You're not friends. And Drax says, you're right. We're family. We leave no one behind except maybe you. But that distinction between friends and family is so important because, like, I have certain friends that I think of as family. You and Steve are definitely a part of my family. But, like,

But I actually haven't tested the bounds of that because I've never had like a knockdown drag out fight with you guys. And there are people that you've had knockdown drag out fights with, be it your family or your partner or your friend. And when you come on the other side of that and you are still fighting,

family, friends, partners, whatever the case may be. There is something so safe and secure in that. And that is what this is underlining perfectly, I think. I totally agree. I think that's why it hits so hard. It's just like, you can think of the moments in your life like that where you're like, I can't believe I said that to a person I care that deeply about. Or like, I can't believe somebody I thought loved me that much said that to me, but also I understand that only they could because they're the only ones who know me that well. And then like,

through that is difficult, but a rewarding thing when you can. Plenty of times you don't find the other side of it, which makes the times that you do find the other side of it that much more rewarding. You know what I mean? Absolutely. The idea of Mantis's power, too, is interesting in that context. We talked about...

whether she should have used it on Drax, but then you shift to something like the Abelisk scene. We take these creatures who we associate as Guardians fans with this really kind of raucous opening to Volume 2, a little baby Groot bopping around, this explosion of rainbow-colored confetti. Mr. Blue Sky. As always, Mr. Blue Sky is always very violent. The discussion about skin being the same thickness on the inside and the outside, etc. But

These creatures who we have seen slain, who we think of as like a threat for Mantis to be able to say in this moment of like peril, right? Urgent peril. It's a very scary moment, by the way. Very. Like the way the light keeps going on and off and all of that. They're like eye level with their giant fangs, right? And she's just like,

You know, they eat batteries, not people. And also, they're probably just scared of, like, what we're going to do to them. And for her to reach out and use her empathic power to forge this, like, bond. I mean, I was just like, Mantis, do the Mythosaur next. This is another... Yeah, and it was giving me John and the Dragons. But, like, this is another...

franchise-wide theme for Guardians, which is the enemies that become your friends or your family, right? Like, so when we first meet the Guardians, they're literally, like, chasing and fighting each other in the first movie. Showdown in the streets. Right. So they, but they form, you know, and then, like, Drax is the enemy when they get to prison. And they, like, form their family and then, like,

People like, I mean, Mantis wasn't really like an enemy, but she was working for the enemy to a certain degree. But Nebula, like folding Nebula in, like this idea of again and again and again taking an enemy and making them a friend or a family member. And Adam, Adam also gets that treatment. Not your Adam, but Adam Warlock gets that treatment in this movie. So yeah, the Abolus bonding is part of that. The Abolus bonding, though, is also a section where I was like,

is there too much movie in this movie? Like I want Mantis to have her own storyline and her own stuff going on, but like, there's just a few set pieces. Like when we get to counter earth, that's another one where I'm just sort of like, there is a lot going on in this film. So, but we got to learn about the proper way to use a couch and to see that delightful to quote Nebula, uh, refresh, refreshing blue,

blue soda. So... Drax on the couch. Drax on the couch was fantastic. I just loved when he was like, it's gotta have more than one function. He's right. It does, by the way. The Avalisks, at least, were not just part of, like, the set piece because they are with Mantis at the end. She calls to them as she departs. And there's this really crushing, but also kind of, like, affirming parting of the ways for Drax and Mantis. When Mantis says...

I'm going to go off on my own too. And I loved that she said...

I never got to like think about what I wanted when I was with Ego, only what he wanted, but also then said, and then I did what the Guardians wanted. And like, again, like the nuance, right? Of like, there's all of this really wonderful and enriching stuff about being a part of a family. But then there are the times where you're like, what do I want to do just for me? And like one of those doesn't have to diminish the other. And I thought the end of the movie did a good job of reminding us of that. And when Drax is like, I'll go with you.

She says no. And then Nebula tells Drax she needs him there on nowhere. You weren't born to be a destroyer. You were born to be a dad. Now, from Nebula, who, as we just recounted, has been quite rude to Drax, this is really meaningful. But in that larger tapestry of the Guardians universe and the bad dad of it all, to...

prop up tracks as the rare good dad and the nurturer and the guider and the leader who can like help and heal and preserve and protect like the contrast is just so stark because of the number of villains in the guardians franchise who were deployed in the exact opposite fashion i think um

First of all, when they get in the pyramid and there's all these kids in cages, I was like, literally, who is this movie for? That was intense. I was like, this is so upsetting. Are children seeing this movie? Anyway, there was, I don't know exact age, I'll guess maybe like eight, a young kid, like a couple rows in front of me. And by like midway through the movie was like huddled in her mom's lap for the rest of the movie.

I don't think this is for children or, you know, children of a certain age. Yeah, when she says you weren't meant to be a destroyer. Again, it's that like naming, right? Or reshaping of your reputation. The weaponry forged? Have we mentioned the tropes? Of course.

oh, the destroyer becomes the dad. But I think that, you know, as we already mentioned, like Drax's origin story, the way he enters his narrative is seeking vengeance for the loss of his wife and his kids, like his vengeance on Ronan and Thanos. And so this was really emotional for me, knowing that Dave Bautista is like,

I'm pretty done. I was just like this, what a beautiful, it's so funny when you're doing like who's done calculus. And I was like, well, Dave Bautista says he's done. Right. He's like, not only is he like, I don't want to show up with my shirt off anymore. He's just sort of like, I've just kind of done. I love James Gunn. That's all I want. I just want to follow James Gunn everywhere. But then I'm like, oh, is Karen Gillan done? Because they put Karen Gillan in like with Drax in that, you know, Nebula and Drax are in the same spot. So I was like,

Does that mean Nebula is done because they ended them together, you know, not together, together, but together, you know? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Leading a new society there on the, on nowhere. Um, there was a quick discussion of this on the midnight boys. I need to take your, your temperature on this. Drax and Mantis. Do you ship it? I'm okay with it.

I don't feel like it's vital, but I'd be okay with it. That's how I feel. It works either way. If it is romantic, I love that for them. And if it's platonic, if it's friendship, I think that's beautiful too. The tears streaming down his face, the look on her eyes as she's waving to him, like that hits no matter what the exact nature of their love is. I think that like their relationship has just been so beautiful. You know, you think of like the

the jabs and the barbs and the, again, kind of like literal way that Drax speaks in volume two and the way that he's saying that she's like ugly and hideous, but then it builds this like beautiful, when you're ugly and someone loves you, you know they love you for who you are. Beautiful people never know how to trust line in volume two that I've always thought was like amazing. And the other Drax moment that I think we have to like

have to be thinking about as we're watching this and watching him finally at long last dance is the there are two types of beings in the universe those who dance and those who do not speech that he makes to quill in volume two when he's trying to explain to peter like you and gamora are not meant to be the way that you think you are and on the one hand i think that that idea that people are different and not everybody wants the same thing is like really central to the text and

equally central is the idea that you can change and like you can find people who allow you to be comfortable with a different version of yourself than the one you had before. And with that in mind, when you watch that dance sequence, the person, who he's dancing for are the kids. The kids are drawing him out into the crowd. You know what I mean? So like, you know, there's like all these like,

between the Guardians and that dancing scene. You know what I mean? You get like Groot and Rocket dancing, which is just James and Sean Gunn, the brothers dancing with each other. You know, like that's beautiful. But to watch Drax, like people talk about this all the time. I'm not a parent, but people talk about it all the time about the way in which becoming a parent is,

opens you up to things you never thought you would do. And especially, I think, in that sequence, he's surrounded by a bunch of girls. So it's like, I don't know, it's just like this real girl dad moment for him where he's just like, fuck it, I'm going to dance because I'm a dad now. Beautiful. Great Drax movie, great Mantis movie. Nebula? I love her. Just an amazing Nebula movie. The thing that I love is...

in the absence of Gamora and in the absence and with Quill rather out of commission at the beginning of the movie, like how much she's the leader of the guardians now in very subtle ways. You know what I mean? I mean, in overt ways at the beginning, but just in subtle ways that they're like, should we tell Nebula? Should we get Nebula? Somebody get Nebula. Right. And so, yeah,

Again, it's that five years that Rocket and Nebula spent doing missions while everyone else is gone, which we'll talk about a little bit. But just for her to go from...

Absolute enemy. Absolute enemy to central to this group. A leader is, again, the power of this kind of story that they want to tell. The Nebula Gamora, maybe because one of my most important family relationships is with my sister...

The Nebula-Gamora relationship has been such an important part of this whole trilogy for me. This isn't like... It's not super... It's the subtext, though, of this movie. It's not the text of this movie. Because they seem pretty chill with each other. Much less central, their relationship, than in prior films. But I think the way that these two characters have always...

reflected that ongoing, very important Guardians theme of you don't have to be the person your parents made you to be, right? That Thanos literally made them. That Nebula has these monologues about, like, Thanos taking her apart and putting new parts in and stuff like that and making her fight with her sister. And the body horror that came with that experience for her. Right. That he, you know...

But he took her, stripped her from parts and put her back together to become this machine for him. You know my favorite Endgame scene is not in End Steve with the peanut butter sandwich, but in the top five, right up there, is Nebula and Nebula and Gamora, right? When it's like, in the script it's called Bad Nebula, right? Yeah.

But so like bad Nebula says, you're betraying us. And Gamora says, not you. And quote unquote good Nebula says, you don't have to do this. And bad Nebula says, I am this. And Gamora says, no, you're not. And good Nebula says, you've seen what we become. Gamora says, sister, listen to her. And bad Nebula says, shut up, you're a traitor. Nebula says, you can change. And bad Nebula says, he won't change.

Right? And so I just think that you talk about this all the time about the potential of the multiverse. This isn't quite a multiversal exactly. It's a time travel story. But like the potential of the multiverse to have you read different versions of yourself. And so the way in which

A Nebula who is so convinced that she has to be a weapon meets this heroic Avenger Nebula and is so convinced she cannot change. This is who she is, and it is because of Thanos that she cannot change.

you know, reach to the light is such an important, impactful, and that Gamora is there sort of on the fulcrum of the two of them is such an important story for me in Endgame. It's a very small beat, but I really love it. That's a great call out. It's always been one of the most kind of like quietly haunting Endgame moments when Nebula is

shoots herself and like the self loathing that is a contributing factor there, but also like the commitment that that nebula has to progress into like a different, better version of herself that is untethered from that weight. And like, it's hearing you say that about like multiverse or timelines and like

what you can learn from another version of yourself. It makes me think again of what we were talking about earlier with Gamora and how like, she's not getting that here. She's just hearing about it from someone else. Like she doesn't get to stare at herself and talk to herself and which parts of me are, are permanent, which parts of me, you know, what's nature, what's nurture. It's just like this guy telling her, this is what you used to mean to me and how completely unmooring and like probably infuriating that must be. But how, but what,

what also does like a star Lord of favor in this movie is the way in which Gamora goes from, um, I don't see what I ever could possibly see in someone like you too. I bet we were fun. Oh, right. And, and my heart breaks for Peter throughout the scenes, just to be clear. It's just like, I like that we get to think about it from each of their perspectives. And I think also with Nebula, there is this really interesting, um,

That idea of the self-improvement path that you set on for yourself, right? Like Peter's like, I'm going to go learn how to swim. Or Mantis is like, I'm going to go off with these slimy tentacle people and do my own thing or whatever. Versus someone else trying to perfect you, which is like the high evolutionary MO with Rocket, with Sovereign, blah, blah, blah. And Nebula in Endgame, just as part of her saying where Thanos is,

To the rest of the Avengers, she says, Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. Right. And then when he worked, he talked. And that's how she says, like, he's in the garden or whatever. But, like, this idea of, like, someone tinkering with you and perfecting you, which is a shared experience. Yeah. I would argue Quill and Ego as well, like, fits into that bucket. Well, and how, like, two characters like Rocket and Gamora can...

try to find the possibility in that instead of just the pain, like the way that Rocket makes her a new arm and it's not like you have to be a weapon that I'm going to wield the way it was with Thanos. It's,

how can I help you move to the next stage of who you want to be? And all of the different things that she can use that for. Like, here it is as a red-hot sword, but also here it is as a way that I can lock this ship into place as a bridge. How flexible it is. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I loved with Nebula and Gamora because of, like, the depth of history between them of...

You know, and like you, I really liked the way that over the course of the MCU, we see it from both of their perspectives. It's like, we've watched Nebula try to just flat out murder Gamora time and time again. And yet when Nebula says like, you wanted to win and I just wanted to sister, you're like,

Damn. Yikes. And the way that in this movie, it was like these little grunts of hello or farewell showed us that they had reached this place of shorthand and comfort and understanding with each other that was pretty meaningful to see. And again, though, that doesn't mean because it's a Guardians movie that it's just neat and tidy because when Gamora's like, I want to get out of here.

I'm family, do what I say. What does Nebula say about Rocket? So is he. And that Nebula-Rocket bond is just so impactful in this movie. You know, you've called out their time together during the snap. Like when we think back to volume two, they're together for a lot of that movie and they are not happy about it. They are vehemently

opposed to each other and judgmental toward each other. And so like the place that they're able to get to when Nebula hears, I mean, everybody's response to rocket living is like intense, but Nebula hearing rockets voice, learning that rocket is okay. Her response to that, I thought was like one of the most emotional parts of the entire movie.

Exactly. Like, because she's such a stoic archetype, you know what I mean? Because Peter Quill is like, for all his bravado, is like a soft, he's a soft character, right? She's all spiky and hard. And so when, you know. To the point where she even says, I don't want a soft place to lay down. I was rereading the Endgame script just because that interaction between Nebula and Rocket when everyone knows Nebula

who's alive after the snap is a nonverbal one. So I was just like wondering what the script said, right? When Tony and Nebula, et cetera, come back to earth, right? Right. It says, nearby Nebula watches the sad humans. Rocket sits beside her, grateful. She rests a hand on his furry head. Oh, God.

You know, just like five years of missions together. Like when they're checking in on the hollow with Nat and stuff like that, pre-peanut butter sandwich scene. You know, it's like the two of them have been out on missions together. And it's like, yeah, it's a really important five-year bond. Five years thinking about the people you lost makes you appreciate who you still have, you know? Speaking of surprising bonds, let's talk about Nebula and Peter for a minute, Jo. I know this was one of the...

parts of the movie that you really loved. Where are you on these two? Again, it's just sort of like... What I love about this found family at the end of the day is like... Because when...

Volume 2 deployed baby Groot so brilliantly. The way in which everyone, like in the opening, or there's like sequence when like the ship is crashing or whatever. And everyone chips in to protect the baby. And the baby is what makes them all a family. You know, speaking of things that have been put back, taken apart and put back together, like the fact that Groot is not the Groot we met in Volume 1, but is still Groot. Yeah.

just in case people don't know, like this group has none of the memories of the first group. It's a new blank slate group, but it's still gritty in quality. But the way in which they all like come together as a family to protect the baby is,

But if you look at it, you're like, well, Gamora and Quill are mom and dad. Like, that's sort of how I assess it out or whatever. And then in this, it's like, well, Nebula and Quill are mom and dad. And then by the end of it, you're like, Nebula and Drax are mom and dad of that. And then it's like, it's all mixed up, which is better than just like slotting people into like perfect little rigid buckets. But I love that the Nebula and Quill relationship

Again, whether or not it's romantic, like there's that little bit that was in the trailer about her eyes, et cetera, et cetera. Whether or not it's romantic, it's a strong co-leader partnership. And I also like how...

Like, of the two, you know, she's the one who's been tinkered with more than her sister, right? And if you look at the two of them, both these actresses are absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. But, like, Gamora is the more obviously attractive of these two figures by whatever our stupid standards. And so for her to, like...

Look at Gamora and Quill or for her to like have been brought to that conversation. There's this like discomfort that she has of being like, well, I would never be slotted into being considered that person, that love interest. But also there is some yearning tendrils from her, I think, to like, oh, my sister, like, of course, he's yearning after my sister. The like the hot one. Again, Karen Gillan's very hot. Anyway, I don't know. What do you think about Nebula and Quill?

Yeah, I just loved so many moments between them in the movie. And we get all of those different Guardians emotional beats, like that first stretch where after Quill passes out because he's wasted and Nebula is tucking him in, you know, into his bed and he's saying, I love you, Gamora. The look on her face, like maybe, maybe there is a version of like, oh, I wish she would say that about me. But I don't think that's what's happening there. It's...

And if it is great, but I think it's more, at least more forcefully what you're outlining and just like how it reminds us always of those moments where these characters, even still, even inside of a forged family are like pulled back into feeling like they're a little bit outside of something that somebody else has and how heartbreaking that is. Like this, this, this depth of devotion between two people. It's like, well, what would that, what would that look like for me? And like,

You know, the Nebula had never been one of my favorite characters. But I don't know. This movie, I just thought the Nebula arc was really extraordinary. And it made me invest further in her overall arc than I frankly had thought was possible. Nebula has really grown on me. In the first movie, it's an odd casting choice. And you'll know this a bit more when we get further into our Doctor Who watch. It's an odd deployment of...

of Karen Gillan, I think, in this role. Because her effervescent charm is a big part of who she is. So to put her in the Nebula role is very... Right. And then the sister stuff is so much more to the fore in Volume 2. But I really think it was her in Infinity War and Endgame that really got me all in on Nebula. Yeah. Same. And so this is kind of the...

we've talked about maybe some of the beats in Infinity War and Endgame where James Gunn is like, ah, wish you hadn't. But a lot of the Nebula stuff really feels like it enhances then what we get here. I loved the, to like your who's in a leadership position and when point, like the kind of

Quill Nebula co-lead deployment of the counter-Earth mission was really great. I mean, the whole car scene was, like, incredible. It seems like you're, like, pushing the keyhole. I just loved the way that, you know, the F-bomb, of course, historic, but I loved the way that she was, like, your instructions were very confusing. Yeah.

It's so funny. And one of the moments I do love in the holiday special is when she gets the great, like, you know, no, not all actors are complete pieces of shit line. It's just such a great delivery. Yeah. Oh, boy. We're going to get that caring part of Nebula more in the future, whether we get it on screen or not. Who can say? But we'll know what's happening because...

Nebula's path, we talked about it from the Drax invite perspective already, but from Nebula's perspective, her deciding to stay, and you know, to your point earlier, Jo, about how they're all looking to her, it was notable when they're like, so Nebula's going to lead the Guardians now. Obviously. Yeah, obviously Nebula. Amazing. No. All of these new inhabitants, all of these people that they've rescued,

turning nowhere into Noah's Ark, basically, and forging this new society together. And for Nebula to say not only that she was going to stay and help lead this town, but that she was going to do it specifically to give those children what she never had, like safety, comfort, belonging, was just wonderful. Wonderful. What do you want to say about Groot? There's not like a ton of...

Groot character arc stuff movie, though, you know, some Groot delights. As always, I thought it was harrowing to see Adam Warlock decapitate Groot. I will throw that out there. That was absolutely shocking. I would have nightmares about that if I was a kid. I will say it's still odd to me.

Like, I have never sort of clutched my pearls at a, like, gun violence moment in Guardians. Like, one of the most iconic moments from Volume 1 is, of course, as you already alluded to, Rocket sitting on Groot's shoulders and just, like, spinning in a circle and gleefully cackling as they shoot everyone. Right.

But there was just something about like, okay, when Peter Quill hands Groot the two guns, he's like, you know what to do with these. I was like, okay, great. He's got two guns inside of him. No, he had like 50 guns inside of him and he pulled them all out and like became this shooting machine. I was not a fan of that. And I don't know why. I don't know why because like other gun violence things don't bother me. But I was just sort of like, I don't love this.

I don't know. What did you think? I preferred in the hallway fight where they're all working. I mean, obviously Peter and Groot work as a team there, but like when his, you know, we've seen him use the extended branch to impale and bludgeon characters before, but like, it's not just that it's a bridge for Rocket to walk on so that he can move forward through the hallway and fight too, or like clear in a pass. Of course.

Taser pads on the opposing force's asses was just hysterical. Yes. There are two key tendril moments, right? Yearning tendrils. Yes. There's him just like...

Absolutely like penetrating a person through their esophagus with the tendrils, right? Tough way to go. But then there's also when Quill's face is exploding and his little tendrils break off and freeze. It's like Quill's face is like a tomato on a hot grill. You know, it's just like blistering and bursting. And then it's like he's fine. It's tough.

He's fine. He's fine. Do you have a favorite Groot form? I assume Baby Groot. How are you feeling about Swole Groot? Mountain Groot and the Stinger? Do you like Mountain Groot? I think I like Original Flavor Groot the best. OG Groot. Okay. And I don't know why Baby Groot turned into... Oh, I love Teen Groot. Teen Groot's pretty solid. Teen Groot's great. Yeah. He needs the axe!

Joe, how did you feel about us getting to hear Groot say in plain old English, I love you. I love you guys. I did not like this. I can't tell me. Tell me. Yeah. So we're speaking Groot now, right? That's the interpretation of what's happening here. We see Gamora all movie be like, well, you don't really understand him, do you? And then she does. No, we are Groot. We are guardians. I get it. And you don't think that's beautiful?

I think it would have been... No, I don't like it. I think it maybe would have been more beautiful if it hadn't been such a fucking Dominic Toretto Fast and Furious moment. I love you guys or like whatever, right? You should have said something about family. That would have been...

crossover event we needed. Like if he just like reached a tendril out and like grabbed an icy cold Corona and brought it back into frame, like what will we do with ourselves? Again, the person I saw it with was just sort of like, we are group was bad enough. I don't need, I, yeah, I don't like talking group. I don't like it. Did you love it? I, I was honestly like kind of agnostic on it, but I will say it's signaled to me

more than like any decision an individual character made to leave and do their own thing that this was over. That like while some of the characters might return in another form, this chapter with the Guardians, this was it. Yeah. The end. The pod is not at the end yet though. We still have more to hit. Anything else on Gamora? We have chatted about Gamora and Nebula, Gamora and Quill. What else?

What other Gamora notes do you want to hit before we get to some of our villains? You already mentioned the hallway fight scene, but I just want to say that absolutely killer moment for Gamora in the hallway fight. And what was interesting to me rewatching the hallway fight scene is that the people who get a real Rey and Kylo moment in the throne room is not...

Gamora and Quill, it's Nebula and Quill, which I thought was kind of interesting. But Gamora has that really cool spinny sword finishing move that is just like killer. So good. That Holloway fight was just amazing. Again, shockingly violent, but amazing. I love that every character got...

a really cool, like, I say ball moment, but they're also working so well as a team. It's great. I mean, similar to the opener for volume two, right? But, like, I'm just dazzled by the way that the camera moves in that space. And I know that there are cuts in there and a lot of digital effects in there, but it's still, like, very, very impressive. And it's the clarity of it.

Like it's not confusing. That's really hard to do. Yeah. You can really track your, it's, it's a great, it's a great call out. It's, it's amazing how anchored you are in each moment of a sequence like that. We've hit, I think most of the Gamora stuff, I guess like I'll, I wanted to mention just that I loved how, even though she's like calling rocket a badger and being quite rude, like she does at the end of the day, stay and protect him when the war pig comes and when shit's getting real. And I,

The brashness mixed with the like trepidatious opening of the heart, you know, like what is this spaceship? And the way she's like, I don't know how to fly this. I don't know how to pull the brake, but like the tunes are pumping. And when she picks up the Zune, she boosts the volume. And like, you can feel those little bits like,

It's what Peter had been hoping for, right? Like, you might not think that this can be home, but, like, here are all the ways it can be. And I thought the movie did a good job of, like, building and building in that respect. And so that was why I loved... You know, we get the little, like, it's great working with you too moment with Groot. I love that she went back to the Rappers at the end. I was like, wow. This is, like, a genuine surprise to me. And I think it's amazing. Like...

Your found family can come in many different shapes and many different forms. And it's not always the one that someone else would have predicted. They're so happy to see her. Yes. The welcome. That's where she found her sense of belonging. How wonderful is that? Yeah. I love it. I loved that. Delightful. Kraglin, Cosmo, you're on the record with your Cosmo thoughts. The bad dog bit didn't work for you. The good dog payoff.

Something I do want to say about Nowhere, though. Yeah. Nowhere, which becomes a spaceship in this. But re-watching Volume 1, because as I mentioned, this is a very goop... We haven't even gotten to the goop. This is a very goopy movie, right? Yes. When they first get to Nowhere and they're like...

brain tissue spinal fluid the head of the celestial it's not just like a gutted out there's like vats of goop in nowhere mining it yeah for like organic matter yeah yeah yeah just wanted to shout out that origin of before it had like uh before it was a very like closed set of that like those few doors and that walkway uh it was spinal fluid um

But, you know, I guess the way we think about Celestials has radically changed in a post-Eternals world, but it is still nice to think of them flying the literal head of a god into the office of this evil wannabe god. Just great stuff there. Love the whole Nowhere gang. Love that they chose to make this HQ, which we had seen in the holiday special. Really enjoyed seeing Kraglin work with Yondu's arrow. The volume two, Yondu to pee.

to peter line i don't use my head to fly that arrow boy i use my heart recurs here when yondu like appears as an apparition to craglin and gives him similar counsel to heed i thought the moment where he tried to use the arrow against adam against adam warlock and it just like bounces off of him and adam's like who threw that thing at me so funny this is delightful so good okay so should we talk about the high evolutionary

Please, let's. Jo, we've alluded to this idea of the bad dad's through line of the Guardian saga. This is a continuation. Tell us about it. Bad dad o'clock. Right. So, like, in volume one...

There's Thanos, obviously, king bad dad on his throne, right? Yondu is a bad foster dad for Peter, who just keeps holding the fact that he didn't eat him over him. And Ronan, for all Cree, if you prefer. There's a good dad in that movie, but it's John C. Reilly. One good dad in Volume 1. Volume 2, of course. The baddest dad with the best hair, Ego, for Peter. Yeah.

Yondu, redeemed. Yeah. Your daddy, right? Yeah. Your daddy. Wonderful. And then here we are with the High Evolutionary, right? You know that last episode, and I know you do, all the best cowboys have daddy issues? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All the best guardians have daddy issues. Fantastic. One of my favorite lost episode names. Gammora, Mantis.

I would say even Drax's daddy issues, except they're like reverse in that he was a daddy and now he is again. But yeah, so I think this idea of bad... Like the reason I bring up loss is because as we trace...

the work of Damon Lindelof, which we love to do, he is absolutely fixated on this concept of bad dads, the way that James Gunn is. And both of them are fixated on blurring the line between exploration of bad. There's one thing to just think about a bad dad, but there's one thing to think about a bad dad in the context of like a God, which is something that, you know, Thanos and ego and the high evolutionary are all these God like things.

Yeah.

in that broader sense. I'm sorry, did you want to talk about Taserface? I didn't mean to gloss over Taserface if you wanted to spend some time talking about it. No, I'm happy to never speak of Taserface. Okay, great. The comics character is, there are some similarities and there are some differences. I think the differences are probably more worth discussing when we get to Adam Warlock in a couple minutes, but High Evolutionary

debuted in 66 a stanley jack kirby creation herbert windham a geneticist kicked out of school joe for his foul experiment so he's an earth being that which is interesting because like obviously in this film he kind of has his like thrawn moment where he's like i like to like study your art and listen to your music and i went to earth once but um

He's from Earth in the comics, in his comics canon, Wondegore Mountain. Love it. Always makes us think of Wanda and Pietro. Yeah. You know? Doesn't mean Wanda. Pietro is not my favorite, just to be clear. But this, like, pursuit of enhanced intelligence.

manipulating life forms. Pietro just catching strays years after he's left the franchise. Much like he did in Age of Ultron. Not fast enough to escape. Still confounding. The barbs flying from Mallory. Bet you didn't see that coming, Pietro. I'm still not over. I'm still not over that. I never will be. But this simultaneous...

pursuit of advancement in other beings and then in himself is consistent even with the distinctions in the characters. What do we hear from him in this movie? My sacred mission is to create the perfect society. There is no God. That's why I stepped in. This idea not just that he is a God, but that he's doing something that a God couldn't and isn't. I'm not trying to conquer the universe. I'm perfecting it. I love...

Obviously, the High Evolutionary and Rocket are the characters with the history here. But I really love, given the Peter ego, Volume 2 focus, and Peter's, like, half-celestial history, I really love, like, thinking about Peter in the context of this character. Because...

You know, there's that great moment where he's like, I don't need another speech by some impotent whack job whose mother didn't love him rationalizing why he needs to conquer the universe. And, you know, you think of how at the end of volume two, like Peter was willing to risk everything.

This power, the light inside of him, the half of him that was a celestial, that was a god, to protect the people he loved. And then you think of the high evolutionary, or Ego, or Thanos, or even to a lesser and less effective extent, Ronan, the wannabe gods, or an actual god, as is in Ego's case, pursuing power, power, power, power, power. Right? And the MCU, Joanna. Yeah.

has trained us many a time to think that this is bad. Shockingly, this is not a good thing with the high evolutionaries doing. So if I told you that my five-year plan at The Ringer was power, power, power, you wouldn't pass me with flying colors on my evaluation?

One of the things that was very moving to hear on our Tropes course pod was Frigga speaking to Thor in Endgame and saying, everyone fails at who they're supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person of a hero is how well they succeed at being who they are. And that was on my mind, not just because we had just discussed it, but it was on my mind with the High Evolutionary because it's not just the hubris of

seeking to make living beings exactly as he thinks they should be through his experiments or like the inherent horror of what he's doing to these creatures or his utter lack of compassion, absence of value for life, the way that he's willing to incinerate an entire planet in an instant, et cetera. It's that he gives a speech that's basically the opposite of the Frigga speech, which is like this utterly clarifying moment of, like,

An MCU moral. This is the music sequence when Rocket asks about what he's hearing and the High Evolutionary tells him that it's, quote, be not as you are, but as you should be. This is the opposite. This is the antithesis of accepting who you are, that Frigga message. And of course, what the Guardians have found with each other, right?

accept who you are, and then learn to be the best version of that. Don't always push, push, push to be something that you're not and that you're not supposed to be. He says to take an imperfect clump of biological matter such as you, that's what he says to Rocket,

and to transform it into something perfect. And we're halfway there, aren't we? So not only are you in a perfect clump of biological matter, but you're only halfway to perfect, by the way. Horrible. And again, this just like...

You can just fracture this idea across all of our characters, right? Nebula and Gamora don't have to be what Thanos told them they would be, right? Drax doesn't have to be the destroyer. He can be the dad, you know, blah, blah, blah. What Rocket says in confronting the High Evolutionary about his perfecting it line, he says, you don't want to make things perfect. You just hated things the way they are. And so this idea of like when people try to shove...

anyone who identifies as a misfit into a different bucket, into a different box. It's not that that box is actually better. It's that you can't tolerate me as I am. And that's something that so many people need to hear. So many kids who are being poorly parented need to hear that it's like, you, you are great as you are. So like,

Parents out there, be the frigate, not the high evolutionary. There's this, I was, what I think James Gunn is really interested in exploring is the idea of the narcissistic parent. Yeah. From psychology today, narcissistic parents are,

do not understand that their children are not simply extensions of them as parents. Without boundaries, children of narcissists accept that their purpose in life is to serve their parents' needs and to reflect whatever values or traits their parents place on them. They're not allowed to develop their independent ideas, beliefs, perspectives, or behaviors. They feel pressure to reflect the image that their parents hold of them. So when you think about Manta saying, I did what ego wanted me to do, or Nebula even says that, like, even when...

Thanos was stripping me down to the bone, I was still eager to serve him. You know what I mean? And this is the damaging, codependent dynamic of the narcissist's parent and the narcissistic child. And it's like, that's very... Again, when people look down their noses at comic book movies, this is a very sophisticated theme that James Gunn has repeatedly returned to

in different flavors in a way that did not make us feel like we were watching the same story again and again and again, which is brilliant. Yeah, returning to those beats through different characters helps to reinforce and enhance the richness and the thematic heft of it, definitely. I thought that one of the most cruel moments between the High Evolutionary and Rocket was when Rocket learns that

they're not at that batch 89 is not invited to counter earth and the way he's like, yeah, able to do all these great things, but you couldn't figure out that. Like there's this demeaning, diminishing, pitiless quality to the mockery and everything that he's doing is foul, right? Like if, if,

He saw Rocket as this great achievement and like that would be foul enough, but he's just not even, that's not the limit of it, right? It's like, so I need to take your brain out of your head so that I can figure out how to put whatever is in there into everyone else for the next thing I'm doing. It's always just, I'm starting over, I'm starting over, I'm starting over because like you said, it's not just that he wasn't content with what was originally there, it's he'll never be content because it's not about

the value of the thing in front of him. It's always just about the pursuit of something more. And, like, so that being the thing about Rocket, that he's simultaneously trying to use and, like, warp to his own ends, but also that he kind of can't forgive, right? It's like, you don't...

are something more like you achieved something that I do not, that I didn't intend and don't understand. You are something separate for me. Right. And yeah, you have surpassed my ambition. How? And then that becomes this like blinding quest for him to the point where his own minions have to do a coup. I love a coup. By the way, shout out to Miriam Shore, who's a fantastic Hedwig actress here. And also Nico Santos. Great.

Great actors both that I was delighted to see in these hen trolls. I feel like there's something else going on with the High Evolutionary that might have been cut out of the movie. Not that I'm complaining because there's a lot of movie in this movie, but there's a part where he's like,

staggering towards the cage and Nico Santos' character is like he's in the middle of a treatment and that's before his face gets ripped off so like yeah though he does already have I was wondering about that too he has like the implants on the side of his head he's got the fingertip bands like he's already I think experimenting on himself and trying to like incorporate whatever breakthrough he's made in his hideous acts into his own being too yeah okay

So that was my, that was my assumption. And that of course was one of the things that was really effective about the, ultimately like the role of the high evolutionary in this movie is that we see so clearly. I mean, we understand intuitively, I would hope that the things he's doing are horrific, but like when they go to counter earth and Peter and Nebula and Groot are driving in their car through the streets, like,

Peter calls out specifically the... Utopias don't usually include guys with octopus heads buying meth from kids with cockroach heads, but we see a violent fight in an alley. We see that in this... Again, who is this movie for? Yeah, there's an unhoused crisis on counter-earth. The attempts to make the perfect society are...

not working because that is inherently not what would make a society function. Right. And like Lila's line to rocket about like the hands that made us like are not the hands that guide us. And that distinction getting back to like, like you're saying that whether it's nebula or rocket or whomever, like this idea, like I didn't ask to get made. Like you have to be your own maker. You have to set yourself on the course that you want to try to follow. Nobody else gets to determine that for you. Look what happens when they do. Yeah.

You, Nebula, can become a heroic leader, but by your own hands, right? Right. Speaking of who is this movie for? Yeah. The sequence where Gamora is like running around just watching suburbanites just be exploded. Be exploded is not great grammar. Just exploding around her. This is dark. This is appalling. It's really dark shit, you know?

And we've gotten to be in the home of one of these families, and we've been at their table. We've learned about their house. We've seen the paintings on their walls. Yeah. Yeah. Very upsetting. Awful. What was more upsetting, that show or the amount of goop at OrgoCorp and the OrgoSphere? Want to talk about Nathan Fillion for a second? It's just so goopy. Okay, first of all, shout out to Nathan Fillion for being a champ for that episode.

wearing that suit great great stuff and he was quite fun in this movie absolutely wonderful delightful but it's just a real gooptacular time in the orgasphere it was interesting to see like I just kept going like when they cut into it in order to like get into that yeah like no it's

It's a lot of layers there. A lot of layers there. I liked when Peter had to reach in to get the little sphere they're looking for with Rocket's information. It's like in a little pool of goo and every time anyone's sticking their hand into a control, it's like a basically like a jello mold from. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting to be inside of OrgoCorp and like certainly on like the P

like the pyramid with Recorder Vim and Recorder Thiel, et cetera, just to see all the different people who are in the High Evolutionary's employ in some way and like the scope of the operation you mentioned earlier, like the Yondu Volume 2 acknowledgement of what had happened to Rocket. And again, if we think back to like the rap sheet on Zendar in the first volume, like there's this...

awareness and like the presence of what he's doing across the galaxy at a scale that is like, why hasn't someone dealt with this sooner? Like, what?

Where, where, what? I thought Carol Danvers went to space to fix problems in space. And that's why she wasn't on earth. What's happening? Dude, a Carol Danvers, uh, Nathan Fillion master Karsha sequence. I would watch. That sounds great. Great stuff. I loved the, I mean, I just love Nathan Fillion. I love the recurring, like, yeah, I've got, but Oh, you've got a, a more. I got one of those. Great stuff. Um,

the recorder show, not the only characters who were working on behalf of the high evolutionary. We learned in this film that the high evolutionary created the sovereign, not to be the most highly advanced beings, but basically to be hot dummies. I love a hot dummy. I just love a hot dummy.

Share your thoughts with us, please, on our time with the High Priestess, Aisha, who returned to us in Volume 3. This is just like a... If you're Elizabeth Debicki and you're listening, come here. Come here. Come closer.

What did you do to the people in the wig department that they did this to you, you beautiful creature in this movie? In volume two, she's wearing a headdress throughout the whole movie, I think. In this, they slapped...

a mop on her like it's just one of the worst wigs I've ever seen I was just like why did they do that and there's some I mean as I already said Gamora's got a great wig like there's some good wigs in this movie um

Hated that they did that to our girl, Elizabeth Debicki. Did absolutely, was over the moon for, loved the quick moment when the High Evolutionary has to stand on a crate to talk to Elizabeth Debicki, who is an incredibly tall woman. Loved it. He got on the Jon Snow apple crate. Yeah. Delightful. Absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We said goodbye to Debicki's High Priestess in this movie.

She's one of the people exploded down on counter-earth. Very sad. Her quest before she dies

was incinerated, had shifted from just purely seeking vengeance against the Guardians to trying to, like, restore the Sovereign's position and standing with their maker, the High Evolutionary. And what's so cool about that is these are, like, incredibly hot, golden people. And even they are like, we can be more perfect for you. And we need your approval. Yeah. Yeah. But even hot dummies have a bad dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Warlock has to learn to break away from that, Joe. He was taken out of his cocoon early. This was just like a lot to talk about here. The idea of him kind of being like an undercooked baby who doesn't yet know how to behave. I absolutely love this. The extent of the high evolutionary failures, it extends to that, right? Like not having the patience with his own creations, right?

The impulsive way that he behaves and the way that his obsession with Rocket is leading him to make all of these different mistakes. But that cocoon, that Adam cocoon that he emerges from early, Joe. I mean, we first saw that in Thor The Dark World in 2013. Yeah, it's been around. People have been waiting for Adam Warlock for a very long time. Obviously, we get the I think I shall call him.

obviously sign off in volume two. That's kind of a promise that Adam Warlock will arrive at last, but this is like a really consequential comics figure who, you know, like we said earlier, it's movie 32 and we've had a lot of television shows now too. So that was a long, long wait for Adam Warlock to arrive. Uh, any comics attachments on, on your part to Adam Warlock? This is a very different rendering from,

Did you enjoy the surrendering? Are you longing for a more true to the comics version of Adam Warlock as some are? Where did you live? Okay. Can we, we loved, we loved this. You and I loved Adam. We love Will Poulter. We thought this was really fun and funny. I love the way he's designed the, like, you know, in the, in the sovereign vein, all of that sort of stuff. Did I miss his like red swimsuit that he wears in the comics? Yeah.

Maybe. No, this was way better. It's just wild because like in the comics, he is powered by the Soul Stone, right? In his forehead. And I liked that we still got a little, a little forehead gem, even if it wasn't the Soul Stone. But I just like, I hope those of you who are listening,

who were with us in 2017, who were like, but if they haven't introduced Adam Warlock, how is the Soul Stone going to get into the gauntlet? We don't understand. It's fine. It was like a vague pool of water. It's fine. But...

Yeah, and there were so many theories, torturous theories, about how Adam Warlock and the Soul Stone were going to, like... You know, because James Gunn originally intended to put him in Volume 2 and then just didn't have time between the five different post-credits staggers that he was doing. I mean, that's about as much space as he had for Adam. Oh, God. Shout out, Soul World. I was talking to...

Sean, fantasy about this on The Big Pick, this idea that Adam Warlock, and I'm curious what you think about this, but like Vision and like Wanda, et cetera, is an extremely overpowered, and Carol Danvers, an extremely overpowered individual for this world. And so the way you combat that is by making him a hot, thick dummy instead of just unbeatable. Because he makes mincemeat.

out of the guardians in the opening of of the movie and is barely like deflected um

He's invincible. Like, what are you going to do up against an Adam Warlock? Yeah. Yeah, I loved the choice to, again, kind of make him like a baby so that he's, like, learning to understand not only his powers but the world around him. I think in terms of the very different rendering here than what's, like, what we would have expected from the comics. I mean, you mentioned the Soul Stone. It's like, we're never going to get that version of the character because we're not doing the Infinity Stones again. So, like...

It was going to be different just because of that. And I think that's okay. Like we talk a lot about adaptive choices and I, you know, do I sometimes like almost on reflex go like that wasn't in the book. Yes. Sure. Literally have a, that wasn't in the book t-shirt that I wear routinely and proudly, but like it's that execution thing again, right? Does it work? Does it work inside of the story and inside of the universe? Does it feel like fully realized? And I just thought that this was like delightful. The, um,

mileage, I guess, is varying. I think there are a lot of Adam Warlock comics enthusiasts who were like... People have been waiting a long time for him. I kind of get it. But at the same time, I think this is a social contract that you have to make when you roll up to a James Gunn comic book thing, which makes me have some questions about this Superman prospect. But like...

Steve Englehart, a renowned comics creator who created Mantis, said in a 2017 interview with Polygon, he was like, I was not happy with Mantis. That character has nothing to do with Mantis. Yondu has nothing to do with comic book Yondu. Starhawk has nothing. Ronan has nothing. Like, again and again, these are characters that James Gunn took a name and, like, perhaps a power set. Perhaps empathic powers and tentacles. Perhaps...

a magic arrow or whatever and then just sort of... Right. Except it's going to be Michael Rooker instead. That's who it's going to be, you know? And so...

I think that's, I totally understand. I also get, of course, very stickler about certain book things. They're very precious. So if other people are feeling that way, I get it. But this really worked for me. Yeah, I loved it. I just thought Will Fulser was so great. And like, I don't know, there were so many Adam moments in this movie that I loved. Like with Blurp when he sees, after he incinerates...

very terrible and he's just like well how are we going to get anything out of him now and Blurp is so sad and Adam's remarks on this right like oh now he looks sad I'm like

really not enjoying the way that makes me feel, actually, and like rubs his chest. Or later, when Blorp is in peril and Adam's like, don't be rash. I just thought that was hysterical. So I loved him in this movie. I think I'm really curious. I think that we waited way too long for Adam Warlock to get one Adam Warlock appearance. To me, there's just no chance of that. So like, that's, I think, the interesting question is...

We talk a lot about how like Thor's character and Chris Hemsworth's comedic potential was unlocked in Ragnarok, right?

I wrote... Sorry, I wrote Thor Party God down under Adam Warlock. Like, there is, like, a Thor vibe coming off of him, right? Which is, like... Definitely. ...cheerful and dumb and capable of extreme and harrowing violence. Yeah, and, like, dies, goes into his cocoon and is reborn even more powerfully the next time. What could go wrong? But I hope that we don't... Because I'm curious, like, how this tone is maintained for the character in other creators' hands in the future. Like...

I don't know that it makes sense on the one hand for people to try to completely replicate what James Gunn did here. But on the other hand, you don't want like the reverse Thor where you go from like the Ragnarok to like Dark World. Not that I think we'll ever get a Dark World in the MCU again. Exactly. Shout out Malachy Thea Kirst. But I will be fascinated to see. Where are you? Where are you in Malachy Thea Kirst registered? Uh, St.

You know, we're looking at some shops in Greenwich, given his fondness for that locale. Great.

Oh, God. Joe, where do you think we'll see Adam again? Which, I mean, obviously, he's part of the new formed Guardians with Rocket and the first stinger. He's got some thoughts on music that I'd love to hear. Do you think that he will leave that character set and interact with other character groupings in the future? Like, what do you... Where do you want to see Adam Warlock deployed? Um, I think, um...

I kind of, I don't know that I want him to be a central figure. I think he works well in like small. So you don't want like an Adam Warlock movie? With love and respect to Will Poulter, whose career I support wholeheartedly. I feel like he should show up for Secret Wars. You know, like that's enough. Enough now. Enough. You know what I mean? And then we'll see from there.

That's where I would expect, you know, that's 2026. That's three years from now. Like that's where I would expect to see the guardians again is something like secret wars. If indeed King dynasty is a film that ever even exists, you know? So we'll see. Yeah.

Any other Adam Warlock thoughts? You know, he got to get in there on the group hug at the end, got to internalize Jax's wisdom about everyone deserving of something. He got to shred his shirt open so that we could all enjoy what Will Poulter did to get ready for the role. That's also a proud Guardians tradition, though, is if you got really ripped, we're going to have a moment where everyone gets to see that. If you didn't have beer for a year, don't worry. We'll make sure everyone knows. Oh.

Oh, delightful. Okay. Anything else on Adam, the High Evolutionary? Any of the villains, even if like Adam, they're villains turned heroes at the end before we move on? Again, I don't think that the ego aside, because it's Kurt Russell, I don't think that villains are like a core strength of Guardians. And I think that's okay. Yeah. Great performances in this movie, though. Really. Incredible. Yeah. No one got Lee Pace around. You know what I mean? Like everyone...

It's working to their ability. We do, but we don't love Ronan, okay? Easter eggs, Joe. Eggs! Tons of them, of course. Fucking Buckleberry Fairy. Many, many, many, many, many callbacks. Want to call out a favorite or two?

I mean, it's gotta be H to the D Howard, the duck. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Howard, the duck. It was fun to see the broker again. I love a poker night. I do. That was just delightful. We loved that so much. Um, I'm, I'm going to go with, let's see so many possibilities. We've talked about so many of these already. I will go with, um,

mostly because it's, it's reached lunchtime and, uh, I'm hungry. So hungry. I just want to shout out. We haven't mentioned them yet. And so even though it's not actually the best Easter egg and it's not really an Easter egg, it's just a central plot point. Can't end the pod without mentioning Zark nuts. So the recurring tracks, this is hard nut through line of this saga, the true through line. Um,

You know what else I loved? I loved the idea with the arm, with Nebula receiving this arm from Rocket, like him gifting an arm instead of taking it. Because, of course, that was the gift, Bucky's arm in the holiday special. And obviously, we've seen him take many a leg and an eye over the years. I'm going to get that arm. Nice to see him gifting an appendage instead of stealing one. That's progress. That's really progress. Okay. Rapid Fire Awards. We wanted to do some awards before we concluded today.

He picked a pretty set, Joe. Let's celebrate some of the highlights. We have to start, of course, with wig watch. With love and respect, I feel like we've already covered wig watch beautifully. Anything that like, is it, is the high evolutionaries skin mask tethered to like the neural net harness? Is that a wig technically or no? Is that eligible? Uh, no. Um,

I do think Will Poulter is wearing a wig, and I thought it was beautifully golden swoopy. So I don't think they sprayed his real hair. I think he's wearing a wig. So I thought it looked great. Best Awesome Mix Volume 3 Needle Drop. Listen, so there's a few things going on. First of all, we're bookended by fabulous choices. The big moments are the beginning and the end, Radiohead and Florence and the Machine, right? Though...

My Marvel book co-author Gavin pointed out to me that like three songs into the closing credits is a Bruce Springsteen song. And he was like, that song is so expensive to spend the money on that song. Three songs into the closing credits. Wasteful. James Gunn's like, I dare you to tell me no. But actually my real, my heart, where my heart is. Yeah.

is Space Hog in the meantime, which is as you referred to it as like the Skittles taste the rainbow moment as they're all sort of descending onto the gloopy orgasmere. That needle drop was my favorite. How about you?

I think this is probably like not eligible because it's not technically on awesome mix volume three, but I will just mention how emotional it was to hear come and get your love again. Like for, I get to play that as like a chip bookend. And that was really amazing. Um, I'll go with dog days are over that. Like that really, it was great. Pick great. Pick. I was a wreck, just a wreck. I mean,

Well, I mean, I thought the Zoom use was good because it's not like they're just going to miraculously discover a third cassette that, you know, Meredith Quill made or whatever. But I didn't miss the, like, very time-focused, retro, you know, needle drops. But Florence is great. Radiohead's great. Wonderful stuff. It was fun to see Rocket, like, move forward to a new decade there, too. That was nice. Yeah. Jo?

From music to laughter. Two of the most important things in life. You have named this. It's a wonderful guardian's name. That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life. This is when they're getting people out of getting people and things out of cages.

And Mantis opens a cage and there's a, you know, very blobby looking creature. And she screams. Then she goes, I was screaming at something scary behind you. Not you. You look really cool. And just crushing every line delivery in this movie. But that one just like really got me for some reason. And the guy just sort of like gloops out of the cage. It's so funny. I loved it. Yeah.

I think my pick is the one we already talked about and it was painful, but I'll offer up two that we haven't talked about because they were also incredibly funny moments and I don't think we've mentioned them yet. I loved the, when they're talking about cheering up Peter and Rocket says, why don't you just touch him and make him happy? And then Groot says, I am Groot. And they said, no! Not like that. Not like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Wonderful stuff. And then I loved the discussion of life expectancy on Earth between Mantis and Peter. The two lines that really killed me there were Mantis saying, what's the point of being alive? And then Peter saying, I'm not 50. Doesn't he say they lived, what does he say? Like they lived to like 70 or something like that? Isn't that what he says? Yeah.

He says 50, yeah, because he's like, he doesn't know. Oh, he says 50? Okay. And then very quickly, they cut to one Mr. Sylvester Stallone, who's 76 years old. Still kicking. Still kicking. All right, next. This is easy. Top tier jerker. It is. And Rocket...

Nuzzling in King's Cross Station. Absolutely. Slash heaven, whatever you want to call it. I've prepared 15 selections. Here's my final 15. I've got them very quickly. This was as low as I could get. Rocket's little defiant face as he is selected.

Rocket's saying, hurts, as Lila glances. Rocket, Lila, Teefs, and Floor picking their names. Lila, Teefs, and Floor dying. Rocket's screaming and crying. Rocket's seeing Lila, Teefs, and Floor at King's Cross as Rocket and Lila nuzzle their snouts. Peter and Groot wailing.

over Rocket when they think he's died. Rocket finding the baby raccoons, collecting them and seeing the word raccoon. Nebula saying, so is he about Rocket being family. Family. Nebula hearing that Rocket is alive. Nebula's face when she tucks in drunk Peter. Mantis and Nebula fighting about Drax. Drax and Mantis waving to each other as they part. Drax dancing. And...

the Guardians team photo at the end of the credits, which made me sob. I was like, I am broken, but also healed in this moment. Just seeing that picture of them, I was just like, again, really struck by how it felt like something was over. Something that I really cherished and was glad I got to share with people I love like you. This is... You know when Rocket describes...

Soaring up into the sky with his friends. That's how Steve and I feel when you're like, I have to reveal to you that I have no fewer than 15 top Teardrinker moments. You're a maniac. I love you. Oh, God. It's good to be with friends. All right. We have two more awards before we wrap today. And there were current rewards across every pod that we do. Was that cool? Did that look cool? Did that look cool? Yeah, we didn't talk about it. Did that look cool? Oh, God.

If this movie had Netflix subtitles, what do you got? The face of the third baddest dad in the galaxy peels gloopily all of his...

fascia i guess i don't know what i would say yeah there you go what do you got uh that was vile okay you beat me on these every single time i loved it and it was wonderful and it made my gag reflex kick in excellent work um

I'm really in the headspace of the origin of this House of R bit, which was Stranger Things and Vecna and flesh descending wetly. We talked about goop a lot. There's a lot of wet flesh. Gross. Gross. Gross.

Do you think we'll see that on the subtitles one day? Damn me.

Okay, first of all, Beesberry just scared the shit out of me. Bees, I miss Bees. It's always nice when Bees joins us. Secondly, I'm so glad that Roman Roy made an appearance. Thirdly, I am genuinely so hungry. We've been podcasting for so long and now I'm no longer hungry because of what you just said. You put me off. I'm still ready to eat, personally. And our last one of the day, Jo. What was it? Yellow discharge? What did you say?

Excretion? Signature Guardians yellow excretions. When Nebula cuts the... Oh, I remember. Oh, I remember. All right. This is like... I mean, maybe we'll keep doing this forever, but it could be like the end days for this year's segment because Secret Invasion is next. Secret Invasion is next? After? I don't know. We have to collect all of them from the last year? Definitely.

Sounds like a job for Steve. It's fine. We only have like 600 hours of bods to go back through to make sure we have a complete archive. Should be fine. Secret scroll. We have no fewer than 15 top tier jigger moments. Secret scroll. Oh my God, Steve. You're incredible, first of all. But secondly, I need to get Mallory a shirt that says top tier jigger moment on it.

You're a top tier joker moment. All right. Secret scroll. This is really hard. Yeah. Yeah. Challenging. But I'm going to give it to Miriam Shore as recorder Vim. Who did it? Who did it?

There were like 150 options and we somehow still picked the same character. We're so good at this. I love it. We're going to survive the secret invasion, Mallory, because we can spot a Skrull. Boy, let me tell you. It's just real. Like the...

timing of the mutiny. You know, like you embed for a long time, you observe, and then you're like, ah! It's time to kick into self-preservation mode once I waited a beat too long. Real scroll-like attempt to stave off death, I thought. I said that at our war pig. This is one of the two.

I guess it's possible that War Pig could have been a Skrull. I wonder if the head ripped off, would War Pig have returned to Skrull? You know, that's a great point you made. Could Blurp be a Skrull? What do you think? No. Sweet little Blurp. When Blurp is galloping at full speed. I mean, he hops up on Adam Warlock's chest. Oh. It's wonderful. Like my cat does. Protect Blurp. Any other thoughts, Jo, on Blurp or otherwise?

No, I'll just be sitting here thinking about the top 15 tearjerker moments for the rest of my life. Oh boy, what a joy this was. All right, that's it. We are not trying to conquer the universe. We're potting in it. And that's a wrap on today's episode. Thank you.

to our guardians of this House of R galaxy. Steve Allman for producing this episode. Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomi Adenaram for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, pop over to the Prestige TV podcast for our Yellow Jackets chats. Head back into the ringer verse this Wednesday for the Midnight Meter 12 induction ceremony with the Midnight Boys. Pew pew. We will see you next week on House of R for the Highlight

hype meter seasonal check-in until then. Joop, joop. The sounds of our tears. Oh boy.

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