Funny / Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Make no mistake: this is by far one of the darkest and most dour installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but given how this is still a James Gunn movie, there's always some laughs to be had.

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• The sad melodramatic moment from the trailer with Nebula seemingly carrying a dead Peter? He just passed out drunk. To add to this, it's obviously a dummy.
• When discussing Peter's drinking, Rocket suggests that Mantis uses her empath powers to help him through it or just get rid of it completely. Groot gravely misinterprets what Rocket meant.
  Rocket: Yeah, Mantis can just touch him and make him feel good!
  Groot: I am Groot?!
  Nebula and Mantis: Gross!
  Rocket: NO! Not like that!
• During Adam Warlock's attack on Knowhere, Kraglin, whilst in hiding, makes an attempt to use the Yaka Arrow by directing it at Adam's head, only for it to harmlessly bounce off.
  Adam: Who threw this thing at me!?
  Kraglin: [remains hiding, very still]
  Adam: Baby! [leaves]
• Memetic Mutation aside, Adam's introduction is equal parts awesome and amusing since it reaches Overly Long Gag levels of chuckle-worthy. Almost reminds you of the Krabby Patty gag from the Krusty Krab Training Video.
• The High Evolutionary has one of his underlings bring a step for him to stand on so he can tower over the six-foot-tall Ayesha.^note  Elizabeth Debicki is a towering 6'3" tall, while Chukwudi Iwuji is a fairly average 5'8" tall. To say the height difference is obvious would be the equivalent of saying that the Mojave Desert is dry.
  • Recall that in the previous film, Ayesha had her own underlings roll out a red carpet for her to walk across snow before it jammed. It's very likely that the High Evolutionary is where she gets the habit from.
  • Before he gets slammed to the wall by the High Evolutionary for his troubles, we're treated to what amounts to Adam's first swear words, given his dialect and the fact that he Really Was Born Yesterday.
    Adam: Yes, there's something wrong with me! I was stabbed, you extraordinary phallus— (gets Blown Across the Room by The High Evolutionary)
  • The High Evolutionary threatens to destroy Ayesha's entire civilization if she fails, then cheerfully goes "Tootle-oo!" as he leaves.
• When Mantis tries to convince Peter to reconnect with his grandfather, he claims said grandfather is probably already dead since he thinks humans die at fifty years old. Mantis is horrified by such a short life and then asks if Peter is going to die.
  Peter: [offended] I'm not fifty!^note  At the time of the film's release, Chris Pratt was 43 years old. Not quite 50, but he's on his way.
• As the United Ravagers board the Guardian's ship in full force, Mainframe cheerfully informs them they're about to be robbed blind.
  Mainframe: Hey guys! You're about to be boarded by the United Ravagers. You can surrender and turn over any stuff worth anything and live, or you can die. Totes up to you!
  • One of the Ravagers is Krugarr, who practices the Mystic Arts and uses portals to teleport his companions onto the Guardians' ship... and to materialize a "cry laughing" emoji, since all of the others were laughing and he couldn't, because he has No Mouth or facial features other than eyes.
• Peter trying to keep Drax from killing anybody on their mission.
  Drax: And we'll kill anyone who gets in our way!
  Peter: No, not kill anyone.
  Drax: Kill a few people.
  Peter: Kill no people.
  Drax: Kill one guy—one stupid guy who no one loves.
  Peter: Now you're just making it sad!
• As he notices Quill is upset, Drax offers him a zargnut, which Peter declines. Then follows a long conversation between Peter and Mantis, at the end of which an upset Mantis points out Drax never offered her a zargnut. Drax claims he's eaten them all... as he slllooowly lifts the last one to his mouth.
• When the Guardians land on the Orgoscope, most of them manage land feet first and slow down by taking large strides in low gravity, except for poor Mantis, who lands pelvis first and ragdolls around for a while.
• Peter tries to have a private heart-to-heart with Gamora by communicating through their spacesuits. Unfortunately, he ends up pressing a button that allows the rest of the Guardians to overhear and feel uncomfortable with how awkward the conversation was getting. Peter assumed that the blue button was for the private channel to the blue spacesuit (Gamora), but that's actually the line to all of them. Mantis and Drax then explain how each color corresponds to a different colored spacesuit.
  Peter: How am I supposed to remember all that!?
  Drax: I find it very intuitive.
  • It turns out every colored button is linked to a different colored suit, except for the yellow button which does connect directly to the yellow suit (Peter). Mantis doubts this when Drax tells her, so she tests it... and presses a button that jacks her volume up and creates a feedback squeal into the yellow suit by shouting "HELLO!" in a hammy voice, making Peter wince.
    Mantis: [casually to Drax] You were right.
• When the team breaches their way in, Mantis lands right on her head. Same thing happens again when the High Evolutionary drops them with the abilisks, though this time she doesn't have the benefit of wearing a helmet.
• When the team is confronted by security on the station, Peter bluffs the guards by claiming they almost killed everyone by opening the airlock to a compromised room without proper procedures first. When Drax starts rambling about how they are obviously just normal workers, Peter covers by claiming he's the boss's nephew. The security chief is sympathetic.
  Chief: Yeah, I've got one of those too. [glares at one of his men]
  Guard: What?
  • The chief goes on at some length about how much the subordinate infuriates him and admits he suspects he's going to kill the man some day. Said guard doesn't understand what he's talking about.
• Gamora thinks the woman Peter was in love with sounds less like her and more like Nebula. Both Nebula and Peter laugh it off, but she grows uncomfortable as Peter's overly long held gaze starts to warm towards her as if he's having an epiphany.
  Nebula: KNOCK IT OFF!
  Peter: What?
  Nebula: Don't look at me like a lost puppy needing a soft place to lie down!
  Peter: I didn't say anything! [Beat] I just never noticed how black your eyes were.
  Nebula: They were replaced by my father as a method of torture.
  Peter: He... picked a pretty set.
  • Nebula's laughter when she tries to laugh it off at first sounds extremely forced, suggesting she may indeed already have feelings for Peter she’s trying to repress.
• Mantis convinces a guard to let them pass by making him fall in love with Drax. Drax's expressions imply this is not the first time she's done this, while Mantis has trouble not bursting out laughing at his reaction.
  • Prior to this, reference is made to a Noodle Incident where Mantis used her powers to make Drax fall in love with a sock.
• Peter attempts to use his charms on Ura, the Orgocorp receptionist, to get her to help them before Gamora instead holds her at gunpoint.
  Peter: She was totally into me, man!
  Ura: I kinda thought you were a douchebag!
  Peter: Oh, come on...
  • Later, Peter pleads with Ura to give him an open channel with the security guards so he can plead for the life of his friend. She relents, only for Peter to admit that was a stupid idea, he just wanted system access so he could override their suit systems.
    Peter: [smugly, to Gamora] I told you she was into me.
• Peter aggressively explains to the secretary they captured about how the woman he love died because she got "thrown off a magic cliff," but she came back somehow ("No one else who died came back, was it the magic cliff? I don't know!"), but now she's "a total dick." Ura is confused and bewildered.
  Nebula: You left out some important information, but... that is the gist of it.
  • Also, after Quill's complains that Gamora is now a "total dick", Nebula complains how Gamora was always like that and yet, Nebula's considered the mean one.
• Mantis refers to Rocket as Peter's best friend, which causes Drax to correct her that Rocket is Peter's second-best friend, after himself. Later, Peter himself calls Rocket his best friend, and Drax still claims that Rocket is his second-best friend.
• Remember Mantis using her mind control in tandem with her martial arts back in the Holiday Special? This time she gets creative.
  "You're a kitty cat! [...] You feel like dancing! [...] VIOLENT RAGE!"
  • Then the third guard starts shooting everyone... except for the second guy, who's evading all the gunfire by dancing.
• Groot, having remained aboard the Bowie, flies into Orgocorp to pick up the Guardians and clumsily smashes into the ornate pedestal where ships land.
  Groot: I am Groot!
  Nebula: [blandly] Yeah, that looked cool.
• The escape from the facility is accompanied by another track from Earth’s past. What song is chosen for a scene involving a bunch of bad guys flying around haphazardly and Drax being wounded and having to be helped away? The often overlooked but no less smooth and bombastic baby-maker "Reasons" by Earth, Wind & Fire. It wouldn’t be Guardians without a zany moment of cosmic chaos set to a crooner about a one-night stand.
• Adam Warlock adopts the pet of a Ravager he killed and Ayesha reacts like any other mom whose kid brought home a stray cat.
  Adam: I will train it in the ways of the Sovereign. [animal begins licking its crotch] I will train it not to do that.
  • As for the Ravager? Ayesha tries to get Adam to "show him they mean business", only for Adam to disintegrate him to the horror of everyone there.
    Ayesha: [exasperated] I said "show him we mean business", not disintegrate him!
    Adam: Well what more business could we have shown him?
    Ayesha: But now he's of no use to us!
    Adam: [noticing the dead Ravager's pet] Well let's just question the man's friend!
    Ayesha: Friend?! You think that's a friend? It's an animal!
    Adam: [as the pet in question begins whimpering] He looks sad. I really don't enjoy how that's making me feel, actually.
• Despite how badly Ayesha tries to hide her posh upper crust accent, she still fools Gamora into giving them her location. Or, alternatively, it means there are enough members of the Ravagers we never meet before who talk like that, that Gamora didn't notice.
• The so-called "Carrot man", an alien guard who briefly appears in Orgocorp and whose orange wrinkled skin, spiky green hair, bizarre facial expressions and very short screen time make him something of a One-Scene Wonder.
• During the climactic assault on the Arete, Adam smashes into Gamora and Peter's ship ready to kill both. Once Gamora threatens his pet, however, Adam's rage immediately gives way to a stoic "Don't be rash."
• The Guardians arrive on a strange planet (which they later find out is Counter-Earth). One of the ani-men inhabitants throws a ball to Drax... who then chucks it at said girl's face, causing the citizens to gasp.
  Peter: C'mon, Drax! Seriously, dude?
  Alien: Nodu nada!
  (The citizens start throwing objects at the Guardians, with one throwing a rock at Quill.)
  Peter: Ow!
  Drax: (laughs before getting hit with a rock himself) HEY!
  • Peter's aghast expression as he realizes Counter-Earth is a virtual copy of America as he himself knew it in the 1980s.
    Peter: It's like a replica of Earth. This makes no sense.
• The Guardians trying to explain the situation to people who don't speak their language. It mostly consists in shouting very slowly what they try to say while making various pantomimes of dubious quality. In particular, Nebula scolds Mantis for making the same face for "our friend's^note Rocket about to die" and "our friend's^note Drax stupid". Peter also tries to draw the face of the person they are looking for, resulting in what look like a child's drawing. And then Mantis and Drax both agree that it is very good and Drax even asks Peter if he can keep it. Peter lets him have it, delighted that Drax likes it so much. All the while, everyone has to keep telling Drax to not lie down on the couch as it's rude, despite his protests that it's clearly designed for laying down on.
  • The entire time this is happening, the rest of the humanimal neighborhood is gathered outside, trying to peek in through the blinds despite the bat humanimal shooing them away twice.
  • When Peter commandeers the bat family's car, the father immediately has a This Is Gonna Suck reaction. Some things do transcend language.
  • It's easy to miss on a first viewing, but the song that's playing in the background when the Guardians walk into the bat family's home to ask about the High Evolutionary? Koinu no Carnival. Yeah, Vocaloid is canon to the MCU, if you can believe it.
  • The above also lends itself to the amusing thought of the High Evolutionary finding Vocaloid so good and exemplary that it belonged in his perfect world. Turns out classical music wasn't the only human arts worth replicating on Counter-Earth, huh?
• Peter, Groot, and Nebula have to head to the High Evolutionary's lair using the bat family's car. Since it's exactly like an old-fashioned Earth car,^note Specifically a 1984 Dodge Diplomat Nebula has no idea how to open the door.
  Peter: Push it down.
  Nebula: I am pushing down on it.
  Peter: Push the button. [Nebula pushes into the keyhole] It looks like you’re pushing the keyhole.
  Nebula: The what?
  Peter: There’s a button under the handle!! Press that in!!
  Nebula: [finally unlocks the door] Okay... now what?
  Peter: Open the fucking door!
  Nebula: [gets in and closes the door] That is a stupid design! And your instructions were very unclear!
  • There's also a bit of comedy in that the MCU's first uncensored F-bomb wasn't a big moment — it was just Peter losing his temper over Nebula not knowing how to get into a car.
  • Remember that when Peter was shouting how much of a monster Ego was, he still said "freaking". Which implicitly means Peter was more worked up about Nebula not knowing how to open the car door than he was learning his father was a genocidal madman of cosmic proportions who killed his mother.
  • Peter has trouble learning to drive the car since he was only 8 years old when he left Earth and tells Nebula not to complain since she didn't offer to drive. Nebula promptly offers to take over and Peter insists he's fine.
  • From Gamora's POV aboard the Bowie, we see him first give the accelerator a few taps before he properly gets in motion, but then he cuts a corner across someone's lawn before finally reaching a straight street.
• Drax quickly gets bored of waiting at the Bowie and clotheslines a passing motorcyclist to steal his bike and tricks Mantis into riding off with him. This leads to an awkward moment when Nebula calls him to bring the Bowie to the Arete to escape the exploding Counter-Earth while Drax is standing right behind her. Mantis then points at Drax to say it was his idea/fault as the planet bursts into fireballs and the city crumbles behind them.
  • He tricks Mantis into coming along by telling her they're riding back to the ship, which is right behind them.
• War Pig storms the Bowie to kidnap Rocket while Gamora's using the bathroom humming one of the songs from Peter's Zune. We then watch the bottom of the stall door as she spends several seconds jumping just to completely pull up her pants before exiting.
• Adam accidentally rips off War Pig's head when he arrives to steal Rocket, and then awkwardly tucks her head under his arm.
• Gamora attempts to fly the Bowie to meet with the Guardians, but is obviously stumped on sitting in the pilot seat. She ends up flying it with the prow dug into the earth halfway across the city before finally coming to a rest near Peter, complaining the ship was stupidly designed.
• When Peter and Groot are taken to meet the High Evolutionary, he's busy on a terminal, and raises a finger for them to wait. After a few minutes, Peter gets tired of waiting and goes over to accost Recorder Theel, the scientist with the data he needs to save Rocket, yelling at him and demanding his cybernetic. The High Evolutionary immediately gets up and begins their meeting as if nothing happened.
  Peter: Oh, you got time for me now?
• When the High Evolutionary rants to Peter and Groot about his Utopian aspirations, Peter sneers "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!" To which he immediately retorts "I'm not trying to conquer the universe." The madman unintentionally admitted that he is "an impotent whack-job" because he was too full of himself to even notice the accusation, much less deny it.
  • In the same scene, one could find some dark amusement in Peter's dumbfounded response to the High Evolutionary's Final Solution for Counter-Earth, having acknowledged Peter's criticism of his creations' social issues being valid.
• After another failed attempt to use the Yaka Arrow and seeing that a dog can do better than him, Kraglin calls Cosmo a bad dog, something the latter refuses to let go, and Cosmo constantly tells him to apologize.
  Cosmo: [gasps] Do not say that to me!
  • Some of her complaining is shown throughout the movie, and the melodrama cannot be overstated. Once, she demands Kraglin take the insult back while she lies down on the floor, as dogs do, but from the voice acting you can practically picture her as a teenager flinging herself on a bed while crying inconsolably.
  • By the time of the third act, she has apparently been complaining about it non-stop that during a game of cards, the other players, including Bzermikitokolok, the Broker and Howard the Duck, are well aware of it and beg Kraglin to take it back, not because Kraglin is being a jackass but because they are tired of Cosmo's complaining.
  • Cosmo's so pissed at Kraglin for his remark that she calls him worse than the Soviets because despite sending her to outer space without the intention of getting her home, even they don't call her a bad dog.
  • During the card game, Cosmo plays by using her telekinesis to move the cards.
• After Groot and Peter shoot the High Evolutionary's minions, they grab the one they need and jump out of the ship as it leaves orbit. The High Evolutionary is unimpressed.
  The High Evolutionary: Quite a novel escape plan. Jumping headfirst into an exploding planet.
• Nebula meets the Star Children... and finds that she can't understand them either.
  Phylla: Joob joob?
  Nebula: (In the most "done with this" tone imaginable) Oh, piss off.
• Unlike the original Gamora, the 2014 variant doesn't understand Groot. As such, she's left utterly confused throughout the movie by the others having full conversations with him.
  Peter: You guys should know by now that I always figure out a clever way to get out of a fix.
  Mantis: How did you get out [of the Arete]?
  Peter: That's not really important right now.
  Groot: [proudly] I am Groot!
  Mantis: Jumping a thousand feet to your death without a parachute is a clever way of getting out of a fix?!
  Gamora: You're all just making up what he's saying, right?
• While one of the most emotional moments of the entire movie that firmly a Tear Jerker as Rocket meets his friends in the afterlife during his Near-Death Experience, there is a bit of a Mood Whiplash before the end after Lylla calls Rocket her "beloved raccoon", which causes his last words to her before being brought Back from the Dead to be trying to matter-of-factly correct her that he is not a Raccoon only to be cut off mid-sentence as he's revived.
• When the High Evolutionary calls the Guardians to demand they give up Rocket, Peter screams in reply "Screw you! You stretched-faced, RoboCop-lookin', Skeletor wannabe, purple nurple piece of--" before High Evolutionary destroys his earpiece and Peter admits to the other Guardians that "he hung up". With all of Peter's past pop culture-flavored insults, he seems to have been building towards this last longest one. Bonus points in that he appears disappointed that he couldn't finish.
  • His reference is a Brick Joke Played for Horror later on when it is revealed that just like Officer Alex Murphy his face *is* actually just a rubbery fake skin stretched across a bare skull.
    • Peter was so enraged by the mad scientist, had Chris Pratt not wasted the one Precision F-Strike that is allowed by the PG-13 rating of the film earlier at Nebula, Quill would more than likely have opened his retort with "Fuck you!" instead.
• This one line:
  Nebula: They know three frickin’ words and two of ‘em are “joob”!
  • Immediately after the child said "joob joob" again;
  Nebula: NO! Listen to me! You need to talk to the other children (Mantis starts to pantomime what Nebula is saying to the children), all of them here, and tell them to stay away from the freakin... What the hell are you doing, Mantis??
  Mantis: [Absolutely done with Nebula] EXPLAINING IT, DICKHEAD!!!
• Drax tells the children that his daughter used to love him making monkey noises, and proceeds to calm them all down with silly faces and noises. It's a wonderful, heartwarming moment, showing how Drax is far more than just a destroyer... except he is clearly making robot noises. He even does a stiff-armed robot dance.
  Mantis: How is that a monkey?
  Nebula: Beats me.
• Upon being asked why he didn't tell them he knew their language, Drax says they didn't ask.
• When the Guardians are freeing the children, Mantis comes across a hideous mutant named Lambshank that looks like a walking tumor in one of the cells and screams in terror. She then awkwardly assures it she wasn't screaming at it but something really scary behind it, and she thinks the mutant looks really cool. The mutant seems to completely buy this obvious lie and cheerfully thanks her before waddling off after the other prisoners.
  • The official blooper-reel includes the unedited version of this scene, which shows James Gunn acting as the stand-in for Lambshank, crouched down near the floor and twitching as he walks out of the cage.
• When the Guardians rescue the animals, Mantis comes out carrying an irate monkey in what pet owners will know as "air jail", and that she then tosses to one of the denizens of Knowhere, who then screams as the monkey scratches at her face.
  • In a deleted scene, said denizen has now kept the monkey as a pet.
• Quill gets wrapped in a bear hug at the end by all his friends as Gamora watches, grinning. Then Adam awkwardly shuffles around before joining in the group hug.
• In stark contrast with everyone else making heartfelt and emotional speeches, Gamora and Nebula bid each other farewell by just smiling and grunting at each other.
• Drax initially tries to go with Mantis because he thinks she needs protection, over her protests. Nebula convinces him to stay on Knowhere in a heartwarming culmination of both their character arcs. Then when it comes time for Mantis to leave, it turns out she really didn't need his protection, because she still has the three Abilisk they saved.
• In the mid-credits scene, Rocket, Groot, Kraglin, Adam, and Phyla are discussing their favorite music while waiting for the horde of wild animals they're hired to defeat arrives. Phyla's favorites are eclectic in their variety, saying she loves pop princess Britney Spears and nu-metal innovators Korn. Note that while this is happening, the otherwise defenseless villagers are crying and weeping behind them, clearly thinking that these people they hired have no idea what they're doing and they're all going to die.
• The Stinger of the film is just Peter having breakfast with his grandfather. His chewing can be heard over the "Will Return" Caption referring to him as "The Legendary Star-Lord"... as well as the Marvel Studios logo and the Disney distribution credit.
  Peter: I mean, if she needs help mowing her lawn, I'll do it, but I kinda feel like her son should help. He's gonna sit on the porch and watch me do it. Like he's a forty-five year old man, able-bodied, and I'm mowing his lawn. It just feels weird.
  Grandfather: Don't get me started.
  Peter: Oh really? Now I kinda want to know.
  • The newspaper Peter's grandfather reads has the headline about Kevin Bacon's interview regarding his alien abduction.
• The end credits includes an actor whose character is simply credited as "Gamora shoots this guy!".

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