Headscratchers / Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Distraction

• After being built up to being a dangerous and powerful badass capable of curbstomping Drax and survive his ship blowing up, Ronan gets easily distracted by Peter Quill dancing in front of him. Right before that he easily swats away Rocket who had also got in his way. How did he manage to pick up the Villain Ball at the end of the film?
  • In fairness to Ronan, Quill went all out with the distraction, and after being blown up that many times and being unfazed, you're allowed a little overconfidence. It wasn't like he was in a hurry to finish things, since he was already monologuing when Quill started dancing.
  • Ronan was definitely having a moment - it isn't enough to kill the people of Xandar, he has to make them suffer first (including demanding they renounce any gods they worship, etc.). Some goof dancing in front of him ruins that moment and probably bothered his pride.
  • I think its kind of the point that the moment was so goddamned absurd that it would shake even Ronan out of his gloating rant of triumph. He's about to annihilate the planet and... dude's dancing?! What the fuck?
  • If it could send the entire viewing audience into a mental BSOD looking at it, no mystery why it also gave Ronan a moment of confusion.
  • Plus, it's not even the first time in the film that Quill stopped someone in their tracks by flabbergasting them with Earth pop culture and customs. See the "finger across throat" gesture and his attempt at dancing with Gamora.
  • "Humans confound the universe" is a pretty standard element (dare I say, a Sci-Fi trope?) for stories that have one human and a multitude of varied aliens. It's generally played as one of our greatest advantages; the ability to act in completely baffling ways under dire circumstances. Ronan was about to end all life on the planet, it was his triumphant moment of glory, and suddenly the human starts singing and dancing. It doesn't even compute (that flat "what are you doing?") to Ronan, and the answer just infuriates him.
  • Ronan is also a zealot and up to that point everyone has been fighting him. His entire personal code is based upon strength and fighting. Those with strength fight and dominate, those without cower and wither away. A foe getting up and dancing while singing a song you never heard of is unheard of.
  • As someone pointed out on the Fridge Brilliance page, the song Peter started singing was "Ooh Child" and Thanos spends all of his few on-screen moments addressing Ronan as "boy." That parallel probably helped grab Ronan's attention, in combination with the sheer WTF-ness of Peter's song and dance routine.
  • Also like the Aztecs , poor Ronan was faced with an out of context situation so foreign that he mentally lost his footing of the situation.
  • Gamora and all the bystanders were pretty much dumbfounded too. It's not a situation where you expect someone to start singing and dancing, which is exactly why it works.

Groot's twigs

• Did Rocket happen to grab the right twigs at the end, or are a bunch of Groots now growing on Xandar?
  • You can plant a cutting of almost anything, and with some luck it will take root. Clearly this was the desired result, or they wouldn't have put it in soil in the first place.
  • In that case, are there now thousands of Groots across the galaxy from every place bits of Groot got hacked/torn off? Also, if it's so easy to make more Groots, how is he the last of his kind? (Maybe the others would be clones, but even identical twins have some differences.)
  • I figured Groot planned ahead. Remember the scene where the Guardians are preparing for Ronan's assault on Xandar and Groot pulls a tiny sprig with a leaf off his face? He was taking a cutting of himself just in case something happened to him during the mission.
  • The flower he gives to that girl way back at the start of the movie might have some deeper meaning considering his regenerative powers too.
  • The answer to the second question is "yes in theory but no in canon." There aren't a bunch of Groots growing across the Galaxy. Even the little part that he regrew from had to be planted first. There wouldn't be any others unless someone went out of their way to plant the other pieces.
  • This is true. Any sprig of Groot that is planted and tended to can grow into another Groot. This is from comic canon.
  • Which gives some fridge heartwarming where he gave the flower to a little girl. He was giving her the means to grows another one of him, possibly a better one. Fridge horror if you choose to believe that Groot is a creeper and gave her the means to stalk her.
  • Stalk her. Stalk.
  • It's a lot simpler than the reproductive processes of most races.
  • You're asking the wrong question. If you take any plant cutting, place it in soil, water it sufficiently and give it enough light, it will grow into another plant – but if you leave some broken branches lying on the ground, they'll just rot. Even a flower left in water is unlikely to grow into a new plant without just the right conditions. In other words, broken and untended bits of Groot will soon become nothing more than dead wood. Unless someone purposefully plants one with the intention of growing it, as Rocket did (though Word of God has it that Rocket did not know that Groot could regrow this way). So a more interesting question is, would anyone with both the knowledge and motive have realized this and secretly grown their own Groot...?
  • Moreover, did the Collector have more in mind when he offered to buy Groot's carcass than just putting it in a display case?

Rocket understanding Groot's abilities

• Another question - Did Rocket know that Groot could regenerate? Or did he just take a chance on grabbing some sticks and hoping it would work?
  • He doesn't seem that shocked with the baby Groot appears in the pot, but he wouldn't have grieved so much if he thought there was a chance he could come back. Though it's possible he did know and just forgot because the shock of watching him die was too much (this happens in the comics). Either he forgot or the Nova Corps suggested it to him.
  • The part where sapling!Groot in the flower pot yawns, the look on Rocket's face seemed to be astonishment mixed with joy, to my eyes. Consider it being one of the few times something happens that he doesn't have a quip for. That suggested to me that while he might have hoped Groot would regenerate/regrow from such a small piece of himself, he didn't know.
  • He does know he can regenerate - he comments as such when Groot loses his arms against Gamora. But he probably doesn't know how much Groot can regenerate nor how fast since Groot is still regrowing his arms when they're first put into the Kyln. Though that may have been Groot saving energy. But he probably didn't think Groot could regrow from a twig since, let's face it, you kill anything else by blowing it up, it's gonna be dead even with some sort of regenerative ability. The twig gesture might have been as much a gesture of remembrance (you wouldn't stick your friend's ashes on a shelf in a plastic bag - you'd put it in something nice) that happened to result in something good happening. He might have also thought that the twig would regrow but not be sentient, assuming that Groot was some sort of experiment like him and thus possessing unusual but limited powers rather than someone with extraordinary powers.
  • And we still don't know if baby Groot has all of the original Groot's memories.
  • There is a time-skip between Rocket mourning Groot after Ronan's death and him showing up with a flowerpot and a baby Groot in it. Could be that in between those scenes someone just suggested he take a cutting and grow himself a new Groot.
  • Rocket does indeed comment about Groot regrowing limbs, pun intended. They may have been through enough scuffles for Rocket to have observed this. Perhaps Groot explained the regeneration from any situation from small-talk fun fact to "if anything should happen to me, do this." Knowledge would not necessarily soothe Rocket in the event of watching your buddy smashed to kindling, or even reassure said kindling could regenerate. Still, Rocket could give it a shot. Another possibility is Nova Corps knew just enough of the species (having some information on his rap sheet) to mention it to Rocket, or, being the plant geeks they seem to be, just said it was worth a shot. I personally like to think Dey suggested it.

Growing Arms

• Here's a twofold question. Why does it take so long for Groot to grow his arms (it took pretty much an entire scene, and the flight to the Kyln to fully regrow them) when he is seen constantly growing bits and pieces that are equal in mass to his arms in seconds? And why did his sacrifice at the end "kill" him? He's a plant, so where are his vital organs? Why did that one fall kill him, despite all the other things we've seen happen to him throughout the movie?
  • While Groot's physiology is a mysterious thing, I think the problem at the end of the movie is that extending himself enough to protect the other Guardians made him vulnerable, hence Rocket's protests. Maybe he's more fragile when he does that, and so the impact shattered him when it wouldn't have affected him otherwise.
  • He may have also just been saving energy since it wasn't a particular dire situation. Plus, it was a hot sunny day at the time - Groot might have actually been a little dehydrated.

Groot Unusually Uninteresting Sight

• So if Groot is such a rare alien that even the Collector wants a piece of him, why is the rest of the galaxy so blasé about his existence?
  • The Collector has an eye for the exotic, and recognizes something rare when he sees it. Everyone else assumes he's like any other weird species they'll pass by once and never see again. Any awe might also be quickly replaced with annoyance once they hear him saying the same thing ad nauseam. The Collector has been to all sorts of places and seen all sorts of weird critters, and yet has never encountered anything like Groot, so he has more reason to be amazed.
  • While it was obviously played for laughs, I'm surprised that The Collector pays so little regard to Rocket, given how unique he is too.
  • The universe is a strange place. No one knows every creature out there, and presumably thing "yep, walking tree. Surprised I haven't seen one of those before" at most.
    • So the universe is basically New York City?
  • Rocket is not unique. There are lots of raccoons on that planet called Earth. There are trees, too, but they can't walk and talk, so Groot is unique. Or no, after all there is another planet with trees that can also walk and talk, but they are not exactly space faring, and the Tolkien state keep them hidden.
    • Why would the Collector need Rocket? He's already got a Funny Animal in his collection. They drink martinis together in The Stinger.

The Gamora and Nebula fight location

• So Drax shoots Nebula and they walk away. But later when Gamora goes to her part of the plan Nebula is there. Did Nebula's body move, or was Gamora's part of the plan in that room. Why didn't the rest just wait for her to smash the green thing if it was in that room if it took a second?
  • Nebula is shown putting herself together after the Guardians leave. She probably took a shortcut.
  • Assuming I remember the layout correctly, the floor where Nebula was shot was also the ceiling where the green thing was attached too. When Drax blew her backwards, she fell down a story, while Gamora likely just took the stairs.

The giant window in Ronan's room

• If Ronan had that giant window that anyone could fly a ship through, why go through with that complicated plan to bust and hole in the side and all the other stuff?
  • Remember when the Ravager fleet fired at the ship when the fight started and the shield blocked it? Chances are that when Gamora killed the ship's security, she deactivated that shield, which allowed Rocket to fly in and take that shot.
  • But if there was a shield than how did they make the first hole?
  • The bridge was protected by its own shield, which was why Gamora had to power it down so that the others could get in. Plus, it would be the most heavily protected part of the ship, which is why they went for one of the hangars instead.
  • Ronan also opened up the window in order to start blasting at the Nova Corps ships to weaken their net holding his ship back, and I don't recall him closing it again. So regardless of the defenses on the window, there's the fact that Ronan opened a big gaping hole in it himself. Probably once the nose of Rocket's ship got inside, momentum did the rest.

The Aether in the Collector's possession

• In the MCU, the Aether is an Infinity Stone. Why did it not react when the other stone was in the same vicinity? Also, was it destroyed when his assistant went crazy?
  • It's possible that the Asgardian's line about having two in the same vault being too dangerous was more about making it more of a target for someone like Thanos.
  • And it most likely wasn't destroyed.
  • Or it simply wasn't there. It seems unlikely the Collector would concentrate all of his prized treasures in a single location.
  • Word of God from James Gunn says that Knowhere wasn't the only collection site that the Collector has. Perhaps the Aether is elsewhere.

Rocket's lifespan

• Rocket says that he hasn't got that long of a lifespan. But how would he know that if he's the only one of his kind and he doesn't even know what a raccoon is?
  • Also, it was the idea that since Ronan had the Infinity Stone, and as such the power to destroy just about every living creature, Rocket Raccoon was essentially saying 'I've got nothing to lose.'
  • Impossible to say given how little we really know about the movie version. Although it would be extremely dark, even by mad science standards, to actually inform your experiment of its estimated life span.
  • He'd be fully aware of how quickly he's aging. It's a pretty good assumption that the rate won't change.
  • Remember that he's not some bizarre alien. He's an actual Earth raccoon genetically altered to have human intelligence. He could have known other raccoons who died and remembered or simply known by genetic memory.
  • He may have overheard the scientists who modified him talking among themselves about their "specimen's" characteristics and physiology, life expectancy included.
  • We also don't know what standard he's comparing his lifespan against. Quill may not have "much of a lifespan" compared to the rest of the cast, either.

The Collector

• I've seen, both on the character page for the movie and the YMMV page, the claim that Thor 2 suggested that the Collector was working for Thanos. Uhm... how, exactly? I didn't get that vibe at all. His whole, "One down, five to go" line doesn't necessarily hint at that. He's the Collector. He collects things. That's what he does. That's his whole shtick. Of course he would want to collect the infinity gems for himself. So was there something I missed or can't remember in the Thor 2 stinger or was this theory just a leap in logic?
  • I vote for "leap in logic." In the comics, the The Collector will only work for someone if he can get something even more rare and valuable at the end of the deal. What could Thanos offer him in exchange for the Infinity gems? His line was vague enough that he could have easily meant getting all of the stones for himself.
  • It's a bit of a leap in logic, but basically: The Aether was given to the Collector on Loki-as-Odin's orders, and Loki was working for Thanos during the Avengers, and Thanos' prize for his aid would have been the Tesseract Infinity Stone. It's a bit of a stretch, but it's also safe to say that something sinister is probably going on with the Collector.
  • Of course, we don't know for certain that the plan to use the Collector was Loki-Odin's. It could have been a protocol Odin established a long time ago, or done by someone working behind Odin's back. Pretty sure Sif definitely name dropped the All-Father, but she could have been bluffing to allay suspicion.
  • While he isn't a typical villain, The Collector isn't exactly the nicest guy around and is pretty greedy. It is within his character to simply want all the Stones for himself and would be willing to do some questionable things to get them.
  • In the comics, when Thanos acquires all six Infinity Gems, The Collector has one of them in his collection, and Thanos gets it from him (unlike in the movie, The Collector doesn't realize the Gem's true worth, so he's willing to make a trade for it with Thanos). If/when they're gonna do The Infinity Gauntlet in the movies, it's possible they're gonna follow the storyline in the comics... So it could be The Collector has nothing to do with Thanos, but Thanos will eventually come to take The Aether from him.

Broker and the Collector

• So Gamora decided to betray Thanos and give the Orb to the Collector. Fine. But when Yondu interrogates the Broker, the latter leads him to the Collector also. Was the Broker/Ravager also working for Tivan? Did the Collector hire two completely independent parties to retrieve the Orb for him? That would be in character, I guess, but why did it never come up when the Guardians turned the Orb over to him?
  • It makes sense to have several agents looking for the orb but them not knowing about the others' existence. If he were to openly hire 1000 agents or put up posters saying that he'll pay a crapton of money for the orb sooner or later someone is going to figure out its an Infinity Stone because of how hard he's looking for it. This way they all think its just some weird trinket the Collector fancies and he'll pay a lot of money for.

The Infinity Stones and who can touch them

• Okay, so Quill's apparently an Immortal, so he can touch them. But how come the Others are able to? And Ronan as well?
  • It's apparently not about being immortal, but about having enough mental and physical resilience to be able to withstand the load. Ronan's physically superhuman and an obsessed fanatic, so he qualifies. The Guardians are spreading the load out among five people, so they also survive; that plus the fact that they are five extraordinary people. (Peter is half "something ancient" and pretty strong-willed, Gamora has cybernetic enhancements and mentally tough as nails, Drax is a superhuman wall of muscle and an obsessed maniac, Rocket's a cyborg and has the willpower to survive being 'repeatedly taken apart and back together', and Groot... well, he is Groot.)
  • Regarding Peter's ability to touch the stone and survive, this is some interesting food for thought.
  • Perhaps the Power Stone is controlled not necessarily by the physical power of its wielder but by willpower. The aliens seen briefly controlling it were probably like the Jaeger pilots from Pacific Rim, in that they needed to be mentally connected to control the stone's power. Ronan's only goal was destroying Xandar (and then destroying Thanos later), so he possessed the willpower necessary to control the Power Stone. Later when Peter caught it, he was almost torn apart and needed the support of the rest of the Guardians to mentally command the stone to destroy Ronan.
  • I got the impression the stone only destroys you if you directly touch it. Ronan was seen chipping away like everyone else when he was holding the stone in his hand. If you put it in an object instead, like Ronan's hammer, it can be wielded safely as there is no direct skin contact. The Celestial also wielded the Infinity Stone by placing it in his hammer and I assume the Infinity Gauntlet works on the same principle. Ronan would have died if he held the stone any longer in his hand.

Dropping the Stone

• Also, if the Infinity Stone could have destroyed Xandar just from touching the ground, why couldn't Ronan just drop it from his ship while the Nova Corps was trying to stop him from landing? Aside from the chance to gloat at his victims before destroying them.
  • Because dropping a glowing stone from several miles up means that all the dozens and hundreds of ace pilots in their planes have more than ample opportunity to just swoop in and grab it out of the air.
  • Also it would be very hard to find afterwards, and Ronan has about 1000 more worlds in the Nova Empire he wants to destroy.
  • It's a little unclear regarding the rules by which the Infinity Stone operates. I very much doubt that it's like some kind of purple dirty bomb that can just be dropped and kill everything. My impression is that its power has to be wielded with at least some kind of intent in order to operate the way Ronan wanted it to.
  • There's also Ronan's own psychology to consider. The guy wants to be the one to destroy Xandar personally. He doesn't just chuck the stone out the window 'cause he wants to do the job himself.

Pop Culture References

• So since Peter Quill was abducted from Earth in 1988 and apparently hasn't been back since...how does he make a Pulp Fiction reference when describing the orb, which came out in 1994?
  • They've got a galaxy-scale civilization with casual faster than light travel and communication... and you're wondering how he was able to watch a movie from Earth? Seriously? Watching Pulp Fiction would be as simple as going onto whatever the galactic version of the internet is and downloading Earth-created pop culture.
  • As cool at that is, I don't see them going through the effort just for a tiny little backwater planet that even the Asgardians decided not to visit anymore.
  • It's a galaxy scale civilization with super advanced technology. The "effort" would be impossibly trivial.
  • Who says he is referring to Pulp Fiction? In the 1955 movie 'Kiss Me Deadly', there is a glowing briefcase containing a nuclear explosive, so he could be referring to that.
    • It's also potentially a reference to the lethal glowing contents of a car trunk in Repo Man, which came out in the 80s.
  • Peter was abducted at a very young age - he looked about ten. So, how did he know so many of the things he referred to? Footloose, The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly as suggested above, Jackson Pollack... what kind of little boy is interested enough in that kind of stuff that he still remembers it and casually references it decades later after immersion in a different culture? Ninja Turtles I'd get him remembering (and, for that matter, having been interested in at the time he left), but The Maltese Falcon and Footloose?
  • He mentions how his mother felt it was very important to share the things in pop culture that she loved with him (she made his mix tapes after all) so she probably introduced him to all that stuff, and he of course retained it because of the deep emotional connection to his mother
  • PopCultureOsmosis - You don't need to watch Footloose to know that it was about dancing and Maltese Falcon to know it was about people trying to get a Macguffin.
  • I doubt that. Osmosis does require you to be immersed in the culture. He'd have been absorbing Ravager culture, not American.
  • And who says Peter's abduction is the only time the Ravagers came to Earth? Clearly they were here at least once more, to get the cassette player in the Milano (it's not Peter's Walkman, it's a separate tape deck). I picture a situation where some of the Ravagers visit Earth every few years for whatever reason; somewhere along the line they picked up a VCR or DVD player and some movies, which Peter watched obsessively since they were about his planet. Or else he figured out how to intercept and descramble satellite TV signals from Earth. (You know, pirated signals.)
  • For that matter, Peter himself could have come back to Earth in the meantime for whatever he wanted or needed, but realized that he had basically nobody and no future on this planet and was more at home out in the galaxy.
• He says "shiny blue suitcase," not "glowing briefcase." Although in theaters I also thought he said glowing briefcase. Maybe it was edited for the Blu-Ray? Either way, I don't think it's a specific reference, just "yep, that's a MacGuffin."
• You sure are easily impressed.◊

Walkman

• How does Peter get the batteries to power his Walkman if he hasn't been to Earth since his original abduction? Even rechargeable batteries only last so long. (I guess it's possible for him to have rigged up an alternate power source using alien tech, but still...)
  • Considering the advanced technology of the setting, rigging up a power source for the walkman would be utterly trivial.
  • Look at the dude's ship. Specifically, the hi-fi system he has built into the wall. He obviously didn't have that stuffed in his backpack when he was abducted, and it's clearly of Earth manufacture. So it's pretty clear there is some kind of market out there for Terran art, culture, and products. I mean, he's not stranded in some unknown quadrant of space that's never heard of Earth and can't find it again — every alien he meets seems to know about Earth and that he's from it, and the Ravagers just casually fly down to pick him up. The real wonder is why Quill's never gone home — if that's even the case. He might well have flown back a few times before heading back out into the stars.
  • He wouldn't even need a market for Terran products —first time his Walkman ran out of batteries, or broke, he could have taken it to a junk shop and asked if it could be fixed at all. A galactic culture with casual interstellar travel and communications would certainly be able to reverse-engineer a mechanical player of magnetic tapes. Once that's done, an older Peter could have just gone back to the same dealer and asked them to build him a bigger version to install in his ship.
  • If I'm not mistaken, the big one in his ship is clearly Earth manufacture with a name brand and everything.
  • The man knows about 200 space pirates. All he'd have to do is mention he'll pay 100 units for a fresh pack of AA batteries and wait until one of them swings by Earth. (So that's what keeps causing the Marvel Universe to suffer all those invasions from space!)
  • what about Loki? It's established in Thor 2 that the Asgard can get to this sector of the galaxy; it's also mentioned more than once that Loki has ways of getting around the World-tree that don't involve the Bifrost. He could very well have made trips to Midgard - in fact, given his personality and the fact that none of the other Asgard have been to Midgard in centuries, he is almost guaranteed to have done so! It wouldn't be OOC for Loki to fund some of his personal projects (and maybe a safe house or two?) in the wider galaxy by picking up desired items in places he goes to quite easily but where others (like Yondu, and most of the Ravagers) wouldn't be able to easily blend in. After all... Loki did manage to wear an impeccably appropriate outfit for the opera in Berlin.
  • Vol. 2 gives some insight here. The Ravagers have machinery that can 3D print complex circuitry out of a hose, and Yondu can buy Earth memorabilia from a junk shop, so between those two it's not difficult to imagine Yondu and Quill buying fresh batteries, printing new ones, or rigging up a different power supply.

Bitch

• Quill called Ronan "bitch". While that word is very old, the idea of calling a man a bitch, at least outside of prison, is a fairly new concept only coming into common use in the 90's. Seems out of place for him to use it.
  • Well, to be fair, pretty sure the Dr. Steve Brule Nova officer stated he'd apprehended Peter at least once, which meant he could've gone to prison before and heard it there. And, even if he didn't, humans are at least common enough to be recognized by other aliens, so Peter might've learned it from another human who happened to be abducted at a later time period.
  • Translator implant. The concept of one prisoner demeaning another by questioning their lineage is (apparently) universal and unfortunately time-honored; because of the Translator Microbes in effect Quill hears it as a phrase he's familiar with. This could also account for people calling Rocket a raccoon, and why people are confused by Quill's cultural references.
  • Quill was abducted at age eight. "Bitch" may simply be the nastiest swear-word he'd yet learned at the time. (Note that the film freely uses "a-hole", but does not use the full-length word.)

Yondu's Southern-American accent

• Why does he have one?
  • Lots of planets have a south.
  • Translation Convention, most likely.
  • (OP) Um, no, if that was the case, Peter (and the audience) would hear everyone with a Southern accent.
  • He's not hearing a southern-american accent, it's southern-novarian.
  • Because Michael Rooker was born in Alabama and can be described as a method actor.
  • Makes about as much sense as anybody else having an Earth accent.
  • Maybe whatever Babel fish or similar allows everyone to speak English (by the way, what's the comics' explanation for that?) gave Yondu a Southern accent to mimic his only other parental figure.
  • (OP) I like this explanation the best, I think it makes the most "sense."
  • The movie lists Star Lord as having a translator implant when he is scanned by the Nova Corps.
  • (OP)That still doesn't explain why only Yondu has a Southern accent.
  • Perhaps the translator also takes accents into account; since Quill is originally from the US, the translator goes with the closest accent in the possessor's native tongue that would serve as an analog to the speaker's actual accent, and given Quill's personal experience, that would be a Southern accent.
  • Acceptable Breaks from Reality. There's no real reason he has one. None of them are speaking English (except for Quill) so realistically none of them should have an Earth accent, but if we follow that logic none of them should be speaking English and the whole movie should be subtitled as they all jabber in Xandaric or whatever. Just go with it.
  • I suppose it's possible that the planet Yondu is from developed the accent for the same reason Earth's south did. So, basically what the first guy said.
  • I always thought that because Peter's mother has a southern accent he mentally associated that with the parental figure. Yondu is the closet one he had for the past twenty plus years. So his translator implant mentally gives Yondu his father figure one, that he carried throughout the movie.
  • Or whatever translator takes into account the cultural representations of that planet and translates based on that so wherever Yondu is from is kind of close to Southern-America on his planet. It kind of reminds me of a story I heard about The Terminator when it was going to be dubbed into German Arnold Schwarzenegger being Austrian asked to do his voice in German. The people in charge, however, said no because they thought he sounded like a farmer. Now obviously to English speakers Arnold Schwarzenegger sounds nothing like a farmer but presumably if I had some kind of Sci-Fi translator he'd sound like this.
  • Alternately, Yondu used some secondhand translation-tech to talk to Quill immediately after the abduction, and the tech in question had previously been used by some alien who'd visited the American southeast. (Maybe to collect raccoons for a certain illegal research project?) Later, once the Ravagers decided to keep the boy, they got him his own translator-device. This mostly copied its English from Quill's own speech - hence, nobody else had a Southern accent - but it rendered Yondu's dialect as "Southern" because that's how Peter already expected his captor/adoptive father to sound.

The lack of the Nova Corp's standing army

• The Nova Corps have just finished a brutal war with a fascist empire, and have an entire empire of their own from which to draw resources for their war effort. Their soldiers are also shown to be well trained and reasonably competent, indicating that their military is fairly organized. Nevertheless, Ronan's ship was able to waltz right into their home world's atmosphere and get within miles of their capital before he faced any resistance. When he does meet resistance, it's only in the form of (admittedly cool) one man fighters. Even if they were demilitarizing after the peace treaty, the Nova Corps should have had at least a few capital ships or anti-aircraft turrets to defend the primary nerve-center of their empire, especially since they were still at war with rogue factions of the Kree Empire.
  • During the scene where the Ronan is looking for information at the prison it is mentioned a large Nova Fleet is being sent to retake the prison. The fleet either was still looking for Ronan or assumed that he was going to continue his attacks on outposts so moved to defend them. Without knowing the time between the Nova Prime receiving the warning and the attack, it isn't clear if the fleet had time to get back to Xandar in time. They were probably in route to the system as the battle happened.
  • To use real life as an example, we do not keep our carriers and cruises just off the coasts of our own country. There are some but most are in the various water of the world. As well the same can be said for all military forces, there are areas of concentration but it is all scattered everywhere. If anyone attacked Xandar it would be quite understandable for them to think it would be a military operation and not a zealot with a (semi) suicide mission. So they had limited defenses designed to hold off attackers until more forces can arrive against traditional engagements.
  • Xandar still seems to be very lightly defended for the capital of a space empire. To continue with the United States allegory, imagine a terrorist sailing up the Potomac to Washington DC and not facing any opposition on the way, and when he reaches Washington the strongest force in his way are SWAT police. Or maybe we just never saw the fight with the equivalents of the Coast Guard, Air Force, and National Guard?
  • I think part of it has to do with where he attacked. Simply put, nobody expected him to attack Xandar. He's attacking a planet with 12 billion people smack in the middle of a large, thousand-something world empire that he could never, ever, expect to hold for any reasonably amount of time. Instead of Washington DC, it's more like he tried to start at Kansas and work his way out. They didn't know he had the Infinity Stone, so they had no real reason to think he'd go for Xandar when he did. More likely was working his way in from fringe worlds. They probably focused their fleets out there because that's where he's been attacking as of late.
  • Don't forget that those "one man fighters" were capable of physically restraining his giant dreadnought of a ship. He had to actually pull out the power of the Orb to break through that. I suspect that, under normal circumstances, those would have been more than enough defense for Xandar. However, an oversized ( Thanos tech? ) dreadnought headed by a captain wielding an Infinity Stone is not "normal circumstances".
  • Also, space is big. Like... really really big. In the grand scheme of things, a 3 km long object is going to be pretty easy to sneak in until it's extremely close.
  • Plus, "The Nova Corps have just finished a brutal war with a fascist empire," would also likely explain why the Nova Empire's military is supposedly weak; they likely haven't had time to replenish from their losses to the Kree Empire.
  • The second movie establishes that many ships in Guardians of the Galaxy use a complicated portal network which has exits both inside and outside an atmosphere. If Ronan's ship uses these gates, he might be able to get fairly close to Xandar with a bit of planning.

Thanos's status as a threat

• Thanos, the big bad of the MCU, really doesn't come across like that in this film. His resources seemed limited to The Other, an unknown amount of "daughters," and Ronan who he hired. As far as we know, he possesses none of the Infinity Stones. Loki's scepter, which is likely the Mind Stone, he gave away and it was lost. In the course of Guardians of the Galaxy Thanos loses The Other, Ronan betrays him, and both Gamora and Nebula betray him as well. Sure, Thanos had access to the Chitauri army, but GOTG seemed to present him as not much of a threat. Even the Nova Corps is aware of him, presenting him as a threat, but not the end-all-be-all.
  • This could easily be deliberate on Thanos' part. Working from the shadows and through different fronts might make him appear weak so that when someone DOES try to go for him they underestimate him. Working through agents also minimizes the risk to himself.
  • The most dangerous threats are the ones who don't appear to be such in the first place.
  • Loki's spear may not be the Mind Stone but a weapon made from it, just like HYDRA weapons made from the Tesseract. Thanos probably wouldn't want to trust him with an entire Infinity Gem.
  • Yeah, I never bought the idea that the gem in the spear is the Mind Gem. It never seemed all that powerful. I mean, Tony Stark was immune to it just because he had a man-made object over his heart. One would think it would be far more dangerous instead of being a random weapon.
  • Thanos doesn't get out of his chair in this movie. He's letting the little people fight it out until the end, because he is completely unconcerned over anyone truly wrecking his plans.
  • Thanos gives orders to guys like Loki and Ronan, incredibly powerful and commanding figures in their own right. Thanos gave Loki an army and, being as Ronan is a Kree fanatic and his soldiers were Sakaarans, quite possibly set Ronan up with one as well. If you think that a guy who commands entire armies and uses planetary-class threats as his lieutenants isn't much of a threat, that's a personal problem.
  • I have to agree with the OP. Thanos was enraged by Ronan's betrayal. Both his "daughters" betrayed him and he did not see it coming. Loki tricked him. He has failed to exact vengeance on Loki or retrieve the Tesseract. Loki had just fallen through a rip in space and Ronan was a terrorist renegade without the backing of the Kree Empire so both were desperate individuals with few options. Thanos' army failed to conquer Earth and lost rather easily at that and most likely would have lost a prolonged war. Thanos's "armies" do not strike me as being any more impressive than The Ravagers (pirates). Gamora thought the Nova Corps as strong enough to keep the gem away from him. Yeah, Thanos is a threat to primitive planets, but he does not come across as one to a civilization like the Kree or Xander. Thanos strike me more as some sort of intergalactic pirate or scavenger who hides in the outskirts of space civilization who needs the gems to be a major threat. He has to hire outside, disloyal agents because he has none he can depend on. He failed to retrieve the stone himself letting it slip through his fingers yet everyone knows he is after them so its not like he is hiding it. I don't seem him as a major threat yet either.
  • The Kree and Xander are heads of entire empires so it stands to reason that they would be prepared to make it difficult for Thanos to get the Infinity Stone, which Thanos would already know, and is likely biding his time to steal them. Likewise, the Asgardians are one of the most powerful races in the universe, which it seems is common knowledge, so again Thanos is likely biding his time to get the Tesseract and exact vengeance on Loki (actually come to think of it, it's possible that since Loki took Odin's place, he may be planning to hand the Tesseract over to Thanos in order to escape his wrath), which would explain Thanos' lack of action. Now you can take this as showing Thanos is not much of a threat, or you can take this as showing just how powerful these races are, that they can make the Mad Titan pause. As for the Chitauri's capabilities; keep in mind that they thought Earth would be easy to take over because Loki told them that, so they didn't bother with any kind of strategy or sending in their most powerful weapons (the Leviathans) in first, because they thought they just needed to blast a few things and the humans would surrender, but instead they suffered a bad case of the Avengers. Also keep in mind that nuking the Chitauri command ship may not have killed all of Thanos' forces or even the majority of them (we see a live Chitauri in Tivan's Collection, so clearly the nuke didn't kill all of them), so Thanos may have a massive amount of Chitauri still left over. Plus as mentioned up above, this is a guy who has planetary-level threats serving as his personal lieutenants. If that's not a major threat, I don't know what is.
  • Gamora left him for moral reasons, so that has nothing to do with how powerful he is. Nebula left because Ronan was within arm's reach with the Infinity Stone, so it was pragmatism. Also just because he 'lost' his two battles we've seen is more of a failing in his agents than anything in him. The Chitauri had the Avengers on the ropes and they only won through a combination of desperation and a failing in Loki's mind control. The Guardians beat Ronan because Ronan had at that point abandoned Thanos' plan and decided to go solo. I would also like to point out that Thanos didn't get a chance to go after Ronan before the Guardians got to him. We haven't actually SEEN him do anything other than move a few pawns around on the board.
  • Since Thanos selects his agents and in some cases trains them I would say their betrayals and failings are a failing on his part. It is hard to expect victory when your agents continuously fail and betray you. The Chitauri were having plenty of trouble with the Avengers and only started to win thanks to numbers. I doubt they would do so well against a force that was more on their level in technology and numbers like Asgard or Xander. And Thanos failing to do anything is where this problem comes from. We only see him betrayed at every moment meaning he fails to inspire enough fear or loyalty to prevent it and he fails to take revenge for failings or betrayals. All he does is sit in his chair and make threats. Sure, this is likely to change in the future, but as first impressions go it is a letdown.
  • Thanos gains a lot by having others forget and underestimate him, and little from going out against a big, unfriendly universe when he doesn't have the resources in hand to guarantee his victory. Ronan, Loki, Gamora and Nebula are all competent underlings, and Loki and Ronan came this close to winning. Yes, Thanos is betrayed a lot, but this is an appropriate development given his comic persona. Thanos is polite in all his interactions, never loses his temper and is very generous in that he has given these broken, lost individuals the resources they need to carry out their own petty grudges. From his perspective he is somewhat justified in not quite understanding why they would want to betray him.
  • All this debate does raise a concern about Thanos as a character, though. Wouldn't it be deflating if they never bother exploring Thanos's villainous motivations and instead, when the time comes, roll him out as a Generic Doomsday Villain? As (what I guess is) the capstone antagonist for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it would really be appreciated if they characterized him before he gets sicced on the heroes.
  • That would be a disappointment. I hear he is supposed to appear in Avengers 2 and be the big villain in Avengers 3 so they still have time to do some background, but I hope it is more than a quick background narration or that he has more depth than Malekith, who was one of the weakest villains in any films ever.
  • They spent the whole movie presenting Ronan as Hulk-tough and prouder than Lucifer, but when Thanos sneers at him and calls him 'boy', Ronan falls in line. The power is implied, not shown: if Thanos gets out of that chair, he'll be sitting back down with Ronan's head in his hand. As for not showing Thanos' other resources, the movie isn't really about Thanos, and they had other uses for their CGI budget.
  • Plus, when Gamora and Nebula desert him and Ronan starts threatening him after he gets the Orb, Thanos seems more annoyed than concerned about that. Now maybe he already has another Infinity Stone to counteract the Orb, but even still, if Thanos considers Ronan having an Infinity Stone to not be a cause for concern, then that implies Thanos' capabilities are frighteningly powerful.
  • Setting aside his Bad Boss problems and considering only his overall efficiency: we're only seeing Thanos' failures, because movies are (generally) made about successful heroes. When Thanos is the winner, it's not a Bespin kind of win where the heroes can run like hell and hope to fight again someday - it's more of an Alderaan kind of win.
  • To lay all this to rest on whether or not Thanos is a threat: we see what Loki is capable of in Avengers and we see what Ronan is capable of here. Both of them are incredibly powerful and basically require teams of superheroes in order to defeat them, and yet they work for Thanos because they are terrified of him. They can give some of the strongest members of both teams a run for their money (Loki and Thor can fight on relatively even terms and Ronan curb-stomps Drax), but when Thanos threatens them, they're basically pissing themselves. And finally, as said above me, these are movies about superheroes who are (generally) successful in their endeavors. If Thanos becomes successful in his endeavors... there are no more movies. It's basically game over; Thanos-1, all other superheroes-dead.
  • In the comics, when Thanos finally acquires all the Infinity Gems, he kills half of all the living beings in the whole universe with a (literal) snap of his fingers. They do press the Reset Button on that later on, but this should give you clue what kind of a threat he is, if he's successful.
  • This is a BIG MISTAKE people keep making. They keep comparing movie Thanos to his comic version. The two are separate characters. Yes, Comic Thanos is boarder line invincible especially under the pen of Jim Starlin. But then you have Avengers Assemble Thanos who while still powerful was far more cocky and eventually defeated in a somewhat humiliating way. Movie Thanos is different from both. And so far all we have is talk about how powerful and feared he is supposed to be despite his plans constantly failing and his agents betraying him.
  • So far, we have yet to see Thanos so much as lift a finger towards anyone. That's the scary part. He's been quietly manipulating virtually everything in the MCU from the background. He seems not to care about losses and being double crossed. Presumably such things are trivial inconveniences in the face of the Xanatos Gambit he probably has planned.

Pink Aliens

• There's a lot of pink aliens running around, it's the most common alien skin color next to blue. You think they're Pink Kree? In the comics Pink Kree are an oppressed minority (the rest are blue, and mostly a bunch of jerks) who would probably be a lot happier out of the empire than in it.
  • Pink Kree are only pink compared to the blue Kree; they are supposed to look like Caucasians. According to Word of God (James Gunn's twitter), the pink aliens are Krylorians.

Human Aliens

• Is anyone besides Quill supposed to be human? Like, a human whose ancestors were once on Earth? Not really familiar with the Marvel lore on this one.
  • In the movie itself, no. Drax is a human in the comics, but the movie changed him into an alien.
  • If Quill is the only human, what species are the Nova Corps supposed to be then?
  • Xandarian. And I'm not up to speed with the lore, either, but I think it might be that (earth) humans are descended from aliens, or something.

Imprisoning Gamora in the Kyln

• Why did the Nova Corps choose to shove Gamora into the Kyln along with Quill, Rocket and Groot? (Besides the fact we wouldn't have a plot otherwise.) She's not a thief or a bounty hunter, she's an notorious assassin with connections to Thanos himself. Why on Xandar weren't they holding her in a safe location and interrogating her for every last bit of information they could get, rather than throwing her into a hellhole where it's clear she would have gotten shanked in half a day were it not for Quill and Drax?
  • They might have considered her better dead than alive, considering Thanos would come after her, so they simply have the other prisoners do it for them so their hands stay clean.
  • It’s possible that the Nova Corps just doesn’t realize how corrupt the Kyln really is. A place full of corruption doesn’t generally go out of its way to show that, so the guards at the Kyln were probably able to do a decent job of hiding any major problems from the overseeing powers. Rocket knew how corrupt it was, as he’s a seasoned criminal who’s likely interacted with enough other seasoned criminals to have gotten the run down about the Kyln and its problems, but that doesn’t mean that the Kyln’s corruption is common knowledge. Notice that he felt the need to point out to the other characters how bad the Kyln is, so he clearly didn’t expect them to know, and Peter even naïvely suggested that the guards will protect Gamora, right? That’s probably what the Nova Corps people assumed as well – and they may have actually intended to use Gamora’s stay in prison as a way of softening her up. Since the characters were never shown undergoing any sort of trial process, it’s likely that they were in there not to serve their sentences, but simply to be kept secure while whomever’s in charge got around to addressing their cases. They may have been hoping that spending a few days in a prison where 93% of her fellow, violent inmates wanted her dead, and where, if she remained, she’d be yelled at, spat upon, and eventually murdered no matter how careful the guards were, would make Gamora much more eager to enter a plea bargain and spill her guts about Ronan and Thanos to save her own hide. Remember, Nova Corps didn’t know that Gamora planned to betray her bosses anyway, and even if she’d said something to that effect to the police, they’d have had no particular reason to believe her on the spot and probably would have decided to follow procedure and lock her up. They may have even attached special orders to her case to keep her safe, knowing what kind of reception she’d get from other inmates. But since the guards were lazy, selfish jerks, who also probably didn’t want to piss off some of the worst criminals in the galaxy by protecting Gamora, they probably figured they could just let the murder happen, and if somebody higher up complained, just shrug it off with, hey, determined inmates, not our fault. So if the team hadn’t escaped prison within 18 hours of their arrival, we probably would have been treated to scenes with court-appointed lawyers reasoning with Gamora, being baffled by Groot, getting exasperated with Peter, and giving up on any sort of defense for Rocket.
  • Perhaps there were legal complications. The Nova Corps knows/suspects Gamora's involvement in many deaths, but not in their jurisdiction - making her a foreigner with a very bad rep caught engaging in a minor squabble over stolen goods. It might not have been possible to hold Gamora under local laws, so they threw her in a prison outside all jurisdictions until they could figure out where to send her to stand trial.
  • In a deleted scene (An extension on the criminal bio scene after they are arrested), they explain. When the talk about sending them to the Kyln, Dey (John C. Reilly's character) objects, explaining how bad of a place the Kyln is, but his superiors tell him that its the only prison they have at the moment (Or at least the closest) that can safely handle the Guardians. If they don't think a local prison planet side can hold an apparently moronic tree, a 3 foot rodent, and the goofiest thief/conman alive, then they probably aren't confident that it would hold one of the chosen assassins of Thanos either.
  • I'd like to believe that the Kyln acts as a holding cell for those with upcoming trials. On account of none of the Guardians got one in the first place.
  • RACCOONS ARE NOT RODENTS. They are members of Order Carnivora, not Rodentia, and are related to bears and weasels (and by extension, dogs, cats and seals), not rats, mice and beavers. The sheer ignorance on the matter shown by Quill and aliens is one thing ...
    • When did Quill use the word "rodent" to describe Rocket?

Awesome Mix Volume One

• How can that tape still be usable? Cassettes degrade slightly ever time they're used. After being played over and over again every day for 26 years, that tape should have fallen apart.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. Who are we to say that they can't restore a magnetic tape? This could also explain the excellent sound quality, which cassettes weren't really known for.
  • As someone who is still owning (and listening to) 30 year old tapes I can attest that high quality tapes are surprisingly long lasting (the cheaper ones tend to stretch out way too fast). The sound quality is not getting better over the years though. Nevertheless, I was more surprised that the Walkman was still working than the tape itself.
  • His mother would have used a good quality tape. Because she knew it had to last, as she wouldn't be able to re-record him a new one...
  • The first alien fix-it place that Quill took it to for (probably) earphone problems probably gave him a 50-year guarantee, and he rode that guarantee like the jackass that he is.
  • Considering that his ship also has a tape player, which I doubt comes standard, it's likely that he's had the walkman repaired, and the tape restored or whatever. It does seem to be his most prized possession, after all.
  • The Milano has a 3D printer that can spray complex alien circuitry out of a hose. Whose to say it can't repair a magnetic tape?

Gamora: Action Girl or Faux?

• Is Gamora a straight Action Girl or a Faux Action Girl? She kicks ass, certainly, but it really seems that she needs to be rescued a whole lot in the movie. Hell, they had to rescue her early on from three ordinary prison thugs! You'd think an alien cyborg trained by Thanos would've been more than capable of handling herself against them.
  • She rescues herself from the thugs, then drops the knives in an attempt to walk away. Drax takes advantage of that opening to begin choking the life out of her, at which point she needs to be helped out.
  • That's an excellent example of what she was doing wrong in this movie (wrong as in a mistake the character made, not a screw-up by the writers). She's an infamous assassin who can kill pretty much anyone with her bare hands, but she's trying to get away from that life, and doesn't have any real skills besides killing. Take, for example, her meeting with Quill. She could have killed him and taken the Orb, but that would have defeated the purpose of her atonement. Instead she tried to steal it, which she's simply not very good at, and then Rocket and Groot came in and everything went to hell.
  • The stealing part wasn't so bad. Her mistake was in the initial sizing up of Peter - which you could either attribute to her being an assassin usually eliminating any possible threat immediately, or Peter's habit of deliberate Obfuscating Stupidity getting the better of her.
  • Really Gamora is no more or less competent than any of the others, bar perhaps Groot. You can't really have a faux action girl when the whole crew are determined screw ups.

Peter being left alone in the hospital

• So Peter has just seen his mother die in front of him, after refusing to grant her last request. And his grandfather (I'm assuming its his grandfather) just takes him out of the room and leaves him? I get that he has just lost his daughter, but what person just leaves a child alone in a hallway after a loss like that? And the room was full of people, surely one of them would have gone out of the room just to make sure Peter wasn't left alone. It seems like it was just purely for plot convenience so he could run away without anyone seeing him.
  • All the people inside were presumably also close family and friends. Can't they at least have a few seconds to mourn? Peter ran out pretty quickly. From personal experience, someone wailing over the recently dead doesn't comfort kids very well, and his grandfather probably held out as long as he could when he was taking him out.
  • It's possible that his grandfather just needed a moment to pull himself together before trying to help Peter deal with the loss. The door to the room was open and everyone was right there, so it's not like the situation was all that different from just turning away for a few seconds. They weren't in the middle of nowhere, so presumably someone saw Peter run off and get abducted (which leads to some fridge horror in how that would be coped with), but there wasn't much anyone could actually do about it, short of physically restraining him without knowing there was any danger of anything more serious than him running off to be by himself for a bit.
  • It's possible the grandfather was expecting the doctors to come in and attempt to revive her somehow. That might be even more traumatic and so he was hoping to at least leave Peter with the image of her in somewhat of an intact state.
  • Peter was sitting quietly outside the room listening to his Walkman for a while before he was called in to visit his Mother. His Grandfather probably trusted him to continue doing that while the adults inside made important decisions about whether or not to resuscitate.
  • It was the 80s, right? Kids were often left to fend for themselves. A lot of these kids overcorrected as adults, and became helicopter parents.
  • Also, kids from rural backgrounds tend to be given more latitude to roam around on their own than kids in suburbia. Quill's home town is pretty small, and for all we know, the hospital might've been within walking distance of his mother's house: Grandpa may have assumed Peter was running home to cry in the privacy of his bedroom, rather than break down in front of everybody.

Rocket's Prison Escapes

• Rocket's rap sheet has him escaping from 22 prisons, so placing him in a maximum security prison like the Kyln makes sense, but why on earth would they not separate him from Groot or keep him in isolation? He's obviously smart and managed to command an entire room full of prisoners bigger and scarier than he looks (due in part to Groot), so that rules out any hope of the other prisoners doing away with him quickly. At least if they had imprisoned Groot in another facility, Rocket probably would have stood less of a chance if the guards/other prisoners chose to gang up on him.
  • Of course given their status as Heterosexual Life-Partners, separating them might have just made them both rampage. And also there wouldn't be a plot.
  • The Kyln looks like an absolute hellhole-style prison in which the prisoners are loosely overseen. The guards clearly don't care at all about the prisoners (and are corrupt to boot; see the blue Impound guard stealing Quill's Walkman, and the guard who opened Gamora's isolation cell so the other prisoners could murder her). They wouldn't bother separating Rocket and Groot because they just didn't care; they assumed escape was impossible, that they had everything in place they needed to stop an escape attempt, and as long as they weren't trying to escape they didn't really care if they were together or not.
  • We've also never seen Rocket's previous escapes. Considering his origins and the way the Nova Corps guys talk about the two of them, he was presumably on his own for a while before running into Groot, so it's quite possible he engineered several escapes on his own before they met each other. (Which may have been in prison, come to think of it.) Separating him from Groot might have seemed like a good way to lower his chances of escape, but if he's already done so on his own, they may have not seen fit to bother. And, building on the argument above, it seems to me that the Kyln was supposed to be THE elite prison, and roughly equivalent to a black hole in terms of keeping prisoners in. Given Gamora's past, she would probably be considered by Nova Corps to be the greatest threat to the general public, and they probably put her in assuming she'd never get out. They might also have considered Groot very dangerous on his own, and wanted to keep him with Rocket in the hopes that a) they wouldn't have to worry about having to carefully watch TWO separate areas of the prison, and b) (like another previous suggestion concerning rampages) that having Rocket around would sooth Groot and keep him from going crazy and destroying everything around him. Considering that Rocket is the only one around whom Groot can speak to and know he'll be understood, taking Rocket away means taking away Groot's ability to talk to ANYBODY, which could easily result in him losing it and ripping a swath through prison guards to get back to his buddy. Finally, if you think your prison really does have no way to escape, it's probably better to leave the genius raccoon with the giant tree, because once the raccoon figures out he can't escape, he can at least convince the tree not to do anything stupid like causing massive amounts of destruction that wouldn't really get anybody anywhere.
  • Rocket's chances of escaping might have also been higher WITHOUT Groot or any of the others. He's a knee-high raccoon in a jail which seems to be exclusively built by and built for normal-sized people. It's a perfect setup for an air duct escape or otherwise slipping through holes in security.

Could Have Avoided This Plot

• If the Collector's assistant hadn't done her suicide-by-Infinity-stone, what exactly would have happened? Obviously the rest of the movie couldn't have happened, but what else? Was the Collector actually going to pay up? Would he have been able to stop Ronan from taking the stone? What would Thanos have done about this? All hypothetical, but I am wondering.
  • The Collector is likely well prepared against thieves, but not against someone like Ronan. He would have just stomped through, and though the Collector would probably try to negotiate Ronan seems the sort to just bitchslap him, take the stone and leave.
  • I presume the Collector would have paid up, he looks like a man of incredible means probably from the countless artifacts that he's actually sold. He strikes me as the kind of guy who'd want a first edition of something and would happily sell anything else to fund important things. As for stopping Ronan that depends entirely on how willing he was to use various things that he possesses and if he had prep time. Ronan didn't seem to be anymore powerful than Malekith wielding the Aether. And that's assuming that Aether is the only super weapon in the Collectors collection. I find it very easy to believe the Collector has hundreds of super weapons.
    • Not to mention that his Knowhere complex was probably impregnable to pretty much anything short of an Infinity Stone going critical in the middle of the place. He's got other treasures worth billions right there in the middle of a lawless settlement of thieves, swindlers and space pirates, and nobody'd walked off with any of it yet. Too bad the Power Stone blew all his quadruple-redundant security measures into purple-sparking smoke...
  • The Collector could have released Howard the Duck on Ronan, and let him defeat the Kree renegade with his Quack-Fu.
  • The Collector is one of the oldest beings in the universe, with all the resources that go with that. He may not have been able to defeat Ronan if he showed up looking for the stone, but he likely could have successfully hidden the stone from him.
  • The comic book Collector probably could've stood against Ronan, because he is among the oldest and most powerful beings in the universe, but his backstory and power level in the movies is yet unknown.
  • The Collector asks them "How would you like to get paid?", and when Rocket replies "Units", he opens a drawer full of the little bars that are seen elsewhere being used as currency, and takes some out to count. It looks like he was indeed about to honor the deal and pay them, but then his assistant takes Stones into her own hands...
  • It really wouldn't have made sense for him not to pay. He's interested in his collection and wants to expand it. Not paying the people bringing him stuff would make it harder to acquire more.

Drax's Literalmindedness

• Why is Drax calling Gamora 'the green whore' if he and his kind are supposed to be very literal? He knows Gamora and what she is enough to want to kill her for working together with Ronan. It's puzzling why he suddenly implies here being a prostitute. 'The green assassin' or 'the green killer' would have made sense. This? Baffling.
  • The other prisoners called her a whore, and he may have assumed she literally was one.
  • Less a headscratcher (since by that point in the film he may have just decided it's not worth bringing it up every time one of his friends says something he finds incomprehensible) and more a missed opportunity, but I can't have been the only one to have expected him to respond to Quill's "we've been given a chance to give a shit" with "I do not feel the urge to defecate."
  • He also uses the line, "I think of Sakaarans as paper people". Wouldn't that be using a word out of its literal context?
  • Really that brings us into a discussion of exactly how Drax's psychology works. He used that in a simile, not a metaphor, so are they somehow different in his mind? This article makes the argument that, from our point of view, he essentially has Asperger's Syndrome and because of that lacks abstract thinking.
  • It may be that he literally does think of them as paper rather than him meaning that they are like paper in physique to him. Additionally, an actual autistic kid described Drax as "like me! He can't do metaphors!". So it would be possible for him to be able to do simile but not metaphor.
  • As for 'whore', while Drax is well spoken, he has some gaps in his vocabulary. It's possible he didn't know what whore means and assumed from the context that it meant some sort of badass. Thus he may have been meaning to literally call her a badass every time. But since he's using an otherwise well known word, no one else might have realized enough to correct him.
  • And part of Drax's character arc is learning how to use metaphors. Sort of. At least enough to smack-talk people and give authority figures (like Rhomann Dey) a hard time.
  • One explanation in fanfiction is that someone defined "whore" to him as "someone who sells their body", which he took to mean mercenary work rather than sexual favors.
  • In Vol. 2, it's hinted that Drax's people don't have hangups about discussing sex, so 'whore' might not have been intended as an insult.
  • Except just before that, he refers to Groot as "This dumb tree", while still calling him a friend. Drax has No Social Skills and again he's being literal-minded; Groot is more or less "dumb" in the sense of mute, since apart from three words he is The Voiceless.

Rocket's Clothes

• Why does everyone have a (usually) one-piece outfit small enough to fit Rocket? The Nova Corps had enough time to fix up the Milano, so they easily could have had one made, but why do the Kyln and the Ravagers have some immediately on hand, when he's the only one of his kind?
  • There's probably a machine that's designed to 3D print clothing so you can quickly and easily make new clothes for whatever species you happen to be. Considering the sheer number of species in the galaxy, it would be practical to just have a way to make it yourself.
• Seems indirectly confirmed by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The Milano can be repaired by spraying new circuitry out of a hose, which means it has a very advanced 3D printer. Coming up with new clothes may be as simple as spraying someone with said hose after loading the right model.
• Also, just because we don't see them on-screen in this particular movie doesn't mean there aren't other races of Rocket's approximate stature somewhere in the galaxy. Snip a hole in the pants for his tail and he's all set.
  • Hole in the back of the pants is a stupid, impractical idea, the sort of useless thing a tailless species might be expected to come up with. The pants would have to be done up at the back or sides, with a "fly" for the tail, not a hole. Think about trying to put a pair of pants on with a tail. You can't squinch it like that without breaking the vertebrae all to mush.

Construction Pods That Make Better Starfighters Than the Starfighters

• The industrial construction pods used in Knowhere are "nearly indestructible"; not enough to withstand direct fire from the Necrocraft (dedicated starfighters), but enough to ram into them and tear them apart like tissue paper without taking a scratch. Whatever Applied Phlebotinum the construction pods are made of, it doesn't seem to slow them down any (since they can catch up with the Necrocraft easily enough to ram them) and it can't be that expensive (since it's used by a pirate mining operation without the backing of any major government). So... why aren't the Necrocraft made of the same Nigh-Invulnerable material?
  • You kinda answered your own question; they aren't invulnerable to weapon fire, so what would be the point of making that presumably relatively expensive material into starfighter armor, when the material can't withstand standard weaponry and would be destroyed regardless?
  • Again: it can't be that expensive, given that it's used by a pirate mining operation with no government or military funding. Kindly read the question before you bring up points that have already been considered and refuted.
  • It could be THAT expensive. If you can make more from mining than the ship costs, and you intended to repair and use the same ship for several decades, it would make sense to use expensive and heavy metal shielding on a ship that will be regularly hit by rocks.
  • My apologies, I had read the responses beforehand, and I don't know why I considered it expensive. However, expensive or not, it doesn't seem like it's that widespread or all ships would be made out of that material. Besides, isn't a criminal organization having access to technology and weaponry that the government and military does not have, par for the course for superhero and scifi stories? Not to mention the pods and the Necrocraft are designed for completely different purposes; the pods are designed for mining or industrial construction, meaning they would likely operate in an enclosed space, so they need to be designed to withstand collisions to keep functioning, whereas the Necrocraft are intended to operate in open space and wouldn't have to worry about collisions.
  • Most likely reason: those constructions pods have other tradeoffs. They could most likely keep up with the Necrocraft because they had very powerful engines relative to their mass, because they are intended to haul and lift material. I suspect that using the same materials for space fighters would mean spending a lot more on the hull, and also more on the engines, all to get a fighter that is still just as readily blown up in a dog fight. Its not a worthwhile trade except in unusual circumstances ( inside a giant space station-equivalent ).
  • Not sure how the setting of the dogfight makes a difference. A pair of pilots with little or no experience flying that class of craft took apart a group of trained pilots piloting the dedicated dogfighters they were trained to pilot in dogfights. That's the equivalent of two bulldozers taking down an armored column of tanks: if they could do it that easily, then the military would start replacing its tanks with bulldozers on the quick.
  • They seem to be strong only regarding collisions; as we saw with Gamora, a laser blast is still gonna fry them. Also, as we again saw with Gamora, the fighters appeared to be more agile and were able to easily pace her pod. So yes being able to take a harder hit from a wall would be nice, but not at the potential cost of maneuverability, and if it won't save you from getting shot then what's the point?
  • Think of it like a tug boat. Incredibly powerful in terms of muscle to push things much much bigger than themselves, but designed to use that power for a very specific purpose and at the cost of everything else. Note that Peter mentions that the pods weren't designed to fly in space for very long (life support, engine power, fuel supply) and can only hold a single person - even Rocket notes that there's no room for anyone other than himself. And as mentioned, they're strong against collisions but not against weapon fire and there is in fact a very distinct difference between those kinds of impacts. It's also probably a highly unusual tactic to ram in space - the Necrocraft may not have honestly been expecting that and may not have had a plan on how to react to the tactics. Perhaps a better example would be a submarine. They're designed to survive extreme pressures that would literally crush any other type of vehicle and could probably crush any other normal vessel but torpedoes and other weapons can still take them out.
  • I am thinking of it as a tug boat. A tug boat that's fast enough to dodge all of a dedicated battleship's defenses and tough enough to ram it and take it down. And then I'm thinking that if that happened, battleships would be obsolete and tug boats would be the new military superpower.
  • In addition, they are not vacuum-sealed and thus can only be used where there are breathable levels of air.
  • That doesn't answer the question. Why not build vacuum-sealed fighter craft out of the same material?
  • Plus, maybe the material is just too expensive, or it can only be found on the Knowhere (the Collector could keep all of it under his own control).
  • It can't be that expensive, since it's used by a pirate mining operation without military or government backing.
  • Type of material is not the only thing that determines something's durability. The pods nigh-indestructibility could have just as much to do with the shape, inner workings aside from the hull material, or how thick the material is. Maybe the material itself isn't air-tight. Maybe the material is only indestructible when it's at a certain thickness to surface-area ration. There could be any number of reasons that the pods are so tough, but the construction principles behind it won't apply to fighters.
  • That's easy enough to solve: if the material isn't airtight, use an inner lining of conventional material that is. Boom. Done. Problems of thickness are also easy-to-solve.
  • They're indestructible in the sense that they can survive collisions, not that they are immune to starfighter weapons (Nebula's fighter blows up Gamora's pod with standard weaponry, after all) so it really would only be useful in close quarters circumstances.
  • They are shown to be nimble enough to dodge starfighter weapons; not infallibly, but reasonably reliably. They are shown to be faster than the starfighters, or they'd never be able to ram them, so it can't slow them down that much. There's literally no down side to it. Invulnerable to collision but not weapons fire > invulnerable to neither collision nor weapons fire.
  • Again, if they are not invulnerable to weapons fire then what is the point of making them out of that material? The fighters would just tear them apart with ease so you might as well use material that is easy to mass produce because it's cheaper to mine and refine. True there's no downside to replacing it with that material but there also isn't much of an upside either, because they would be used as fighters which would normally have tons of open space or open atmosphere to fly through where collisions would a minor concern compared to the massive amount of enemy fighters and anti-aircraft weaponry that could take them down easily.
  • Not getting slaughtered by a couple of half-trained noobs in freaking construction vehicles would seem to be enough of a "point" to me, since there's no real down side. What's the point of including lifeboats on a ship that's supposed to be unsinkable? Because in the unlikely event that you're wrong, it could save some fool's life.
  • You think Ronan really cares enough about the lives of his warriors, that he would implement such a design that would allow his pilots to survive collisions? Ronan seems to going for quantity over quality in regards to starfighters, so he would be going for a material that would be easy to get and craft. Again we don't know enough about the material to know if it's common or cheap. Yes it's on a space station that houses pirates and smugglers, but don't forget said station is backed and possibly run by the Collector, who was stated and shown to be incredibly rich, so he could afford to make the construction vehicles like that. Ronan likely does not have the resources or materials, nor really the desire to outfit his fighters with a material strong enough to withstand collisions. Besides if this indestructible material is as common as you think it is, don't you think everybody would build their ships with it?
  • Yes, I do. That's why the fact that they don't is a Headscratcher.
  • The fact that they don't indicates that the material isn't common, because again, if it was, everyone would be using it. Saying that because they're pirates, so the material must be common, doesn't mean much without evidence that it actually is common and overlooks the fact that the station they are on is backed and run by the richest person in the galaxy so he can afford to make the pods virtually indestructible. Besides, in scifi and superhero stories, criminals always seem to have access to technology, materials, and manpower that they really shouldn't have, it's a staple of both genres. Besides, for all we know the material comes from the Celestial's head which would be easily accessible to the people who live there, but not to anyone else.
  • Ramming is a horrible (and usually suicidal) tactic in space. It works when Rocket and Quill do it because its unexpected and they're in a rather cramped, dingy space station that has places they can pop out of and blind corners they can ambush the other fighters. However, in the open vacuum of space, this would never work because they could shoot you from 400 miles away. It's like seeing a guy with a sledgehammer taking out a guy with a gun and then jumping to the conclusion that the sledgehammer is the superior weapon. It worked in that particular set of narrow circumstances, but wouldn't work in pretty much any others.
  • The pods are shown to be nimble enough to be able to dodge starfighter weapons. Not infallibly, but reasonably reliably. And that's at point-blank range. How much easier would it be from 400 miles away?
  • It wouldn't be. They'd see you coming and shoot you long before they ever got close. It's why modern fighter jets doesn't dogfight any more. Again, it was an enclosed area, it was completely unexpected tactic, and the Sakaarans seem to be akin to cardboard cutouts with targets painted on them. We saw how well ramming worked against a trained force when Ronan had his fighters suicide bomb the Xandaran city. It turned into a glorified game of Space Invaders.
  • I think this has gotten too focused on the idea that the construction pods are made out of some super material that is indestructible, which I find unlikely. As someone stated before, it is more likely that the pods are just designed to withstand blunt force impact, which isn't usually a frequent concern in space battles with laser guns. Just of the top of my head, the pods are made more like orbs, which would better distribute force from impact. There are probably also plenty of reasons why those design elements would come with unacceptable drawbacks in a starfighter. Also, there has been some discussion about how the pods were about as maneuverable as the fighters, and if the arena is important. I would suggest that the starfighters were forced to really pull back on the throttle because of the enclosed space and that it is likely that in a more open environment the fighters could maintain decent maneuverability at higher speeds while the pods would not be able to keep up or maneuver as well. I'd really like it if someone with an engineering background could put in their two cents as to how the pods could be designed to shrug off impacts and if/how those same design elements would be detrimental if used in a machine meant to go at high speeds through space, through atmospheres, and everything else required of the starfighters.
  • THANK YOU! [insert grumble: Why did it take so long for someone to get this and point it out? end grumble] To go back to the tugboat metaphor (sorry Drax, just be patient) the necrocraft fighters are akin to high-speed cutters (or corvettes, if you're French or a warship geek) - obviously superior in open water, but unable to take any advantage of their superior performance in close quarters, and much thinner-skinned and vulnerable to bumps. It doesn't matter if you can hit 50 knots if you're in a crowded harbor where it takes insane skill to maneuver safely at 20 knots - and when one 10-knot impact will crush your hull so thoroughly that you sink in minutes. And your opponent is in a tugboat that was designed to survive even a 10-knot impact with a freighter a hundred times its size. And all your gun turrets have gotten stuck facing forward, because you're not lucky enough to actually be in a ship, you're in something designed by a reject from the TIE fighter design team...
  • Assuming mostly equivalent engine technologies, then you can only put so much weight on a small craft of comparable size and still have it move at a comparable speed. And the pods are unarmed, but the fighters obviously aren't. If the fighters carried as much armor as the pods they'd either have to strip off all their guns to save weight (obviously not an option) or else fly like bricks (also not an option).
  • A real-life example can be found in MRAPs vs. APCs. It is entirely possible to make a ground vehicle so heavily armored that you can use it for clearing minefields, by driving it over the mines. But why don't they make every tank and APC equally as heavily armored? Because the tank needs to save some room to fit the guns in it, ditto the APC and its troop compartment.
  • Guardian of the Galaxy Volume 2 gives another perspective on this issue. Namely, Rocket and Peter are not "half trained noobs," but some of the best pilots in the galaxy. That they may or may not have been experienced piloting the mining craft would have been a minor problem at most considering the sheer skill they have in general at piloting.

Yondu and His Arrow

• When Yondu takes out the bunch of thugs near the end with his guided arrow, he took a good 20 seconds or more to guide the arrow through each of them. During that time, the thugs remaining could've easily returned fire, but instead they just stand there waiting to be impaled. It looks really cool and all, but they let themselves get killed by it effortlessly because they never try to attack either the arrow or Yondu.
  • If I recall correctly, the first one to be killed was the leader of the mooks. These are mooks, y'know, and probably had a natural hesitation once their leader got killed. That and perhaps they've never seen an arrow like this and were just in a state of "what is that?".
  • This is most likely a case of Viewers Are Morons - if they just showed a blur, everybody falling dead and the gunship exploding, it might have been a more 'realistic speed' but members of the audience would be asking, "When did Yondu become The Flash??"
  • You can actually see in the overhead shot that his arrow is moving too fast for them to really react. It's only when they put the shot closer to the arrow that they slow it down for the benefit of the audience to see what's going on.
  • Look at how scattered they are during that scene, and how tiny the arrow is. The guys at the back probably couldn't even tell what was happening, they just heard Yondu whistling and saw a red blur flying around. By the time the arrow was actually headed for each one of them it was too late to react.
  • Also, even if they could see the arrow spiking their fellow soldiers, they couldn't necessarily tell it was Yondu that was controlling the thing. The ones close enough to see it come out of his pocket or to hear him giving it whistle-commands were the first ones he had it pick off: the others probably died frantically searching the nearby landscape for the "Xandarian snipers" that were obviously directing a mini-drone missile at the invaders.
  • Cinema Wins pointed out three things: 1) these guys are idiots. 2) The arrow is flying pretty fast (if the first guy is still standing when the last one is hit, it was too fast for them to react; they all fall to the ground at once). And 3) When something's about to kill you, common instinct is to try and stop the weapon rather than direct your attention to whoever is controlling it.

Peter's translator

• Peter's ability to communicate with and understand the aliens is explained as being due to a translator implanted in his throat. So why can he not understand Groot when Rocket can?
  • Peter can understanding what Groot is saying: as Rocket explains, the only words the Groot is capable of saying (for most of the movie) is "I am Groot" in that order. The difference is that Rocket knows Groot well enough to distinguish tone, which is something the translator doesn't do. For example, you can say "Oh my God," and it could mean different things in different situations. In one situation, you might be expressing disbelief and in another, you might be expressing anger. Similarly, Rocket understands Groot well enough to understand whether or not "I am Groot" means that Groot is trying to express pride or anger or sadness or whatever.
  • Alternatively, if the movie is following comics canon and Groot actually is speaking a star-fish language(in the comics, half of what he says is technobabble), then perhaps the answer is as simple as Peter's translator not being entirely universal. Perhaps it just has a list of some of the more commonly spoken languages in the universe - Kree, Skrull, Shi'ar-, and Groot's language is just not on that list.
  • I think the above is right on. The movie makes it clear Groot is a rare species. His planet doesn't even really have a name - it's literally called Planet X - and the Collector was practically begging Groot to donate his (eventual) cadaver to his collection. Simply put, nobody but him and Rocket know his language, so nobody could program it into Quill's translator.
  • "We are Groot" isn't Groot learning more words, it's Peter's translator learning Groot's language. Perhaps this should be a Wild Mass Guess too?
  • Alternately, the translator may be dependent on Peter's own hearing to acquire phonemes to interpret, rather than a separate microphone. Rocket's ears probably pick up subtle, higher-pitched sounds in Groot's speech that humans can't discern.

If Ronan wasn't distracted

• Assume that Ronan ignored Peter's dance-off challenge. So... he's just going to destroy the planet that he's standing on at the moment? Furthermore he'd be right at the center of the destructive energy. Did he have a way to leave the planet while it's blowing up?
  • It wouldn't blow up the entire planet- just kill all the organic life on it, as shown in that clip in the Collector's place. He'd be spared, because he was the one wielding the infinity stone. Basically, it would just be a barren, empty planet, much like the one that Quill found the orb on.
    • Morag wasn't lifeless, just abandoned by sentient creatures. It had those little bouncy scavengers living on it. Use of the Power Stone would've left Xandar looking like Real Life Mars, more or less: so thoroughly expunged that even geologists couldn't be certain there had ever been life there.
  • I would also like to point out that at this point, Ronan's sanity is hanging by a thread. He's power-drunk on the Stone and probably incredibly frustrated by the Guardians being so difficult to kill. Imagine if you were a level 100 MMO character with the best gear in the game and a bunch of level 1s were destroying you. At this point he might well have destroyed the planet and killed everybody, himself included, simply out of insanity.

If Ronan wasn't distracted (Part 2)

• So the answer to the headscratcher above is that Ronan would only destroy the surface of the planet. But after he did that how would he leave the planet? Surely all ships and technology would be heavily damaged or destroyed. Maybe his own ship is the most durable, but it's already been taken down and it would be in an even worse state after the planet destruction. Would he be able to repair it alone?
  • When Gamora and Peter are doing the mission briefing, they explicitly say that only organic life is affected by the infinity stone, so presumably he could commandeer another ship.
  • Maybe there was another line, but didn't it just say it reacts to organic matter? I thought it means that the stone does nothing unless a living being uses it. The stone leaving inorganic things intact just feels odd. So you have infinite power and it would be totally useless on, for example, Tony Stark's army of Iron Man suits?
  • To be fair, infinity stones are ancient weapons, likely predating most technology. It's an easily exploited loophole if you have the technology, but you'd still have to be able to neutralize the threat, which isn't easy, regardless of the technology you have.
  • The impression I got from the Collector's speech is that the Stones weren't meant to be 'weapons' - this particular one has a life-destroying effect, but that doesn't seem to be its "purpose" (assuming the Stones were built for a purpose and not just proto-natural phenomena.)
  • Except he used it to destroy the Nova fighters. They might just have meant the whole 'making people explode with power' thing only affected organic matter, but it could be used as a blunt weapon, so to speak, by the user.
  • It also did a pretty impressive job of blowing the Collector's hideout to bits, despite not being acting under a wielder's direction. Most likely, it just spills out power with a capital P, shattering things that get in its way: it's something in the nature of organic matter, not the Stone itself, that causes that Power to then cascade from one living body to another to another, ripping a planetary biosphere to atoms or permitting multiple Guardians to combine their wills against it. An "all life is connected" metaphor, perhaps.
  • I'd be astounded if Ronan did not carry with him the means to call a space-cab... so to speak.
  • Also as said in part one, at this point Ronan is undergoing Sanity Slippage.

Star-Lord can breathe in space

• Even if his helmet provided him with oxygen, how does Peter survive the vacuum of space without a pressure suit? The complete lack of pressure would've caused his body to expand to roughly twice its normal volume, resulting in disabling pain (this happened to Joseph Kittinger's right hand when the seal on his glove failed). Yet he doesn't suffer any ill effects from vacuum exposure, even when he takes off his helmet and gives it to Gamora.
  • One can survive and remain conscious in space without a pressure suit and air for at least 10 seconds. James Gunn specifically inquired about this to NASA, and offered some other in-universe answers for how they recovered. The lack of visible pressure inflatation is probably due to their short time in vacuum. Kittinger spent a significantly longer amount of time with his hand depressured, so it had time to swell.
  • Actually you can survive for around half a minute if you don't hold your breath without suffering permanent injury, which is why he didn't die when he saved Gamora.
  • I'm well aware that he could live as long he limited his exposure (my mistake for not making that clear, poor choice of words), what I'm wondering is why he isn't suffering any of the effects associated with vacuum exposure that occur before loss of consciousness, such as swelling of the body (which usually occurs within about 10 seconds of exposure), rupturing of the eardrums, rupturing of the sinuses, and other effects of rapid decompression.
  • Peter's body does swell. His face becomes noticeably puffier once he removes his helmet. And it's not as if he doesn't feel the effects of being in a vacuum without a pressure suit. When he comes back to the Milano after retrieving his Walkman, he's wincing as he climbs out of the airlock.
  • This could be because Peter is half-alien on his dad's side. His ancestry might make him more durable than a normal human, or at least specifically render him more resistant to the ill effects of vacuum exposure.
  • I assumed his mask was generating some kind of personal force field.
  • Or literal comic book science is at work here. Marvel universe, after all.
  • I was more confused about the fact that his eyes have visibly broken a few blood vessels when they're still in space, but then once they're safe, he's normal.
  • In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 we find out Peter's dad is an incredibly powerful cosmic being, and Peter has the same power inside him. So it's perfectly possible that, even though he didn't know about his power in this movie, he was subconsciously using it to stay alive.

Rocket's origins

• If Rocket is supposed to be a regular raccoon gone through cybernetic enhancement, why isn't he from Earth/Terra? During their arrest scene, it lists his origin planet as "Halfworld".
  • Presumably because he was created on Half-World and it's the only world he's personally aware of being from, because he clearly doesn't remember Earth.
  • One possibility is is that Rocket is from Halfworld, not Earth, and technically he's a [sic] raccoonoid, not a raccoon. In the comics, he was the result of robots giving animals higher intelligence and humanoid traits. The film supports this origin, as his criminal record mentions Halfworld and his otter girlfriend Lylla, but also suggests that the process was torturous.
  • Drax clearly states during the prison escape sequence that he recognizes the animal that Rocket is and that he has eaten said animals in the past. Drax has also never been on Earth, so Rocket must be some type of alien animal that simply evolved in the same manner as an Earth raccoon.
  • Keep in mind that was shortly after people kept calling him "rodent." He may just be referring to "rodent" there.
  • If Quill doesn't know the difference between a Carnivore and a Rodent, don't expect an alien like Drax to, either. RACCOONS ARE NOT RODENTS.
    • When did Quill use the word "rodent" to describe Rocket?
• Rocket insists he's NOT a raccoon. He's unique. He's right, but he just so happens to look EXACTLY like a Terran raccoon.

Groot's first aid

• What kind of Bizarre Alien Biology does Drax have that makes getting stabbed in the chest an appropriate treatment for near-drowning?
  • If his lungs are filled with water, it is a (ridiculously ghetto) way to empty them.
  • Actually, it's not so ghetto. Some paramedics still use this procedure in an emergency.
  • It wasn't just water, it was some kind of byproduct from the harvesting of the Celestial's brain. Drax was likely severely poisoned by exposure, so Groot would have to extract the chemical.
  • It's also possible that Groot's 'needle' was at least partially hollow so that the goo would empty through his finger. It may also be that Groot was injecting chemicals of his own into Drax to help with the process. He is Groot after all.
  • First guy again, here. None of this sounds like what happened in the movie. What we saw happen was Groot carefully planning his move, stabbing only once, and then Drax coughed up some yellow stuff and returned to consciousness. It looked like slapping someone to wake them up, only it was stabbing.
  • He might be using his vines in his hands to manually pump Drax's lungs and get him to cough up the liquid.
  • Don't know if this is what actually happened, but the scene looked very much like when someone is given a shot of adrenaline (at least the movie version). So ... I guess Groot could make some kind of chemical equivalent to adrenaline and inject it via finger needle. Assuming that a sudden influx of adrenaline could jumpstart Drax's system again, at which point he hacked up the water/brain fluid stuff.
  • Near drowning can cause a condition known as Pulmonary Edema, fluid in the lungs. Groot jams a hollow needle into Drax's chest, which allows for the intake of air, which in turn allows Drax to cough the fluid up (Think of a regular plastic water bottle. If you poke a hole in the bottom of the bottle, the fluid will come out of the top more easily.).

Ronan's private war

• Ronan was part of the Kree war machine and fought in the recently concluded hostilities. Once the peace treaty was concluded, however, Ronan rejected the treaty and resolved to fight on, joined by some followers. How can this possibly work? If the Kree empire as a whole was fought to a standstill, such that they've made a compromise peace, how can Ronan, who leads only a small part of the Kree military, continue the war? Wouldn't the Nova Corps just stomp him easily? How is around long enough to be a threat? Alternatively, if he is a threat with just a small part of the Kree military, how could the Nova Corps have ever held out so long against the entire Empire?
  • Ronan can continue the war because he is an obsessed fanatic with loyal followers, and while he claims to continue the war, he actually acts more like a well-equipped terrorist and the Nova Corps regard him as such for the most part. It's only when he's attacking Xander with an Infinity Stone, that the Nova Empire becomes really concerned. The Nova Corps could probably defeat him easily if they could find him. Space is huge, he would be hard to track and don't forget that during his attack on the Kyln, he orders his forces to retreat and destroy the prison when he is told the that the Xanderians are sending a fleet to investigate the prison, so he clearly isn't that much of a threat to the Nova Empire. Plus even if all that I have just said isn't the case, you kinda answered your own question: they just finished a long and brutal war with the Kree Empire, so their military would likely be heavily depleted.
  • That explains how Ronan could avoid being found by Nova, but not how he could continue to supply his forces. I suppose Thanos might be funding and supplying him.
  • A: I assumed the Sakaarans are troops on loan from from Thanos (a la the Chitauri for Loki), so they don't count as Kree troops. And B: he isn't engaged in all-out war against the Nova Corps, but rather guerrilla tactics and smaller skirmishes until he can get Thanos to do the heavy lifting for him. Kinda like how America really doesn't like terrorists, but at the same time we're not worried about them actually destroying America.
  • Plus, it's completely possible, if not outright implied, that Ronan has the tacit approval of the Kree Empire. In which case, all problems of resupplying and evading the Nova Corps could be solved by simply ducking into Kree space when he finds it convenient.

Ronan's Troops

• Why is that, aside from Korath, Ronan seems to have no actual Kree among his army? The newscast Quill is listening to at the beginning before Yondu calls him (talking about riots) suggest that the treaty was unpopular among the Kree populace, so clearly Ronan isn't entirely alone in his beliefs.
  • I thought there were more, I remember seeing some other Kree inside Ronan's ship. Not to mention the Sakaraans are part of the Kree Empire, so the mercs in his command indicate some support. However, even if the signing of the treaty was unpopular among the Kree populace, that doesn't mean that all of them would be likely to join up under Ronan, since they may find him too extreme to follow.
  • Fair point about the other Kree finding Ronan and his methods too extreme. But I don't recall seeing any other Kree on his ship, could you please provide an example of the scene with them?
  • I think those guys piloting his ship with their weird orbs were Kree. They were kinda in the background and mostly did nothing but spin their glowing holoball but they were there. I think they were even those guys who dresses Ronan up in his introduction scene.
  • Ah. I remember those guys, their skin looked grey to me so I thought they were more Sakaarans.

Would he have won?

• Assuming that Ronan's plan to destroy Xandar had succeeded and he went after Thanos like promised, would he have been able to defeat him?
  • That would all depend on Thanos' capabilities at this point in the MCU. My personal opinion is that Thanos would crush Ronan, given that when Ronan starts ranting about coming after Thanos, the Mad Titan seems more annoyed than concerned about a maniac with an Infinity Stone who wants him dead.
  • Right, but the stone Ronan had was capable of destroying planets with a touch, and Nebula seemed pretty confident that Ronan would be able to defeat Thanos.
  • Nebula seemed to be more desperately hopeful than confident about Ronan's chances; note that when Ronan's ship is under attack, she runs away even though, to her mind, he should have been able to win with ease. And for all we know, Thanos already has his own Infinity Stone to counteract Ronan's so it could have gone either way.
  • How do we know Ronan taking the Orb wasn't all a part of Thanos' plan in the first place? He knew Ronan was freaking insane and would likely meet his end, and this way he gets a test subject for his prize.
  • Because Thanos is not all-knowing. And given how he wants the stones, constantly losing them and having them better guarded is counterproductive to his plans and makes him look incompetent. The Collector already knew what the Power Stone was capable of so it stands to reason if Thanos is half as resourceful and smart as some people think he is he would already know what the Collector knows.
  • Avengers: Endgame establishes that Thanos anticipated Ronan's betrayal. He would've had a safeguard on hand for when Ronan delivered on his promise.

Drax going after Thanos

• As in the comics, Drax is not a true hero but a man driven by a mission to kill his arch-enemy. In the comics Drax was created to kill Thanos, but in the movie Ronan replaces Thanos as Drax's nemesis, and he is given a personal reason to hate Ronan, since Ronan killed his family. At the end of the movie, you'd think Drax's thirst for vengeance had been quenched with Ronan being dead and all... But Drax then decides Thanos is his new enemy, since Thanos was behind Ronan. However, it was made abundantly clear that Ronan was not a puppet of Thanos but a man with his own agenda, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the murder of Drax's family had anything to do with Thanos. So why is Drax now so eager to go after him? This seems like a contrived attempt to align the movie Drax with the comic book Drax, even though their initial mission and motives were completely different.
  • First Drax has no idea that Ronan betrayed Thanos. All he has is what Gamora told him, i.e. Ronan works for Thanos. Second, Drax is a simple-minded guy, and doesn't change goals easily. Him switching targets to Thanos isn't so much a personal vendetta as it is him looking for a new target because that's all he knows. Gamora even gives him a look afterward that screams "seriously? You're just going to keep hunting for revenge on another guy?"
  • Drax has essentially been on a suicide mission for years; he probably either expected that he would die in battle or that he would kill himself after his mission was over so he could be with his family. But after Ronan is dead, he finds that there are still people he cares about in the universe so for the first time in years he kinda maybe doesn't want to die, because now he has something to live for. But he has problems coming to terms with that or just doesn't want to admit it out loud, so he comes up with "I need to get revenge on Thanos now" as an excuse for letting himself continue to live. Or he'd just feel weird living without a target for vengeance after he's been that way for so long and Thanos is a good target.
  • There is, in fact, a trope for that.
  • Also, there is Drax realizing that Ronan was just the pawn of Thanos in the end, and if THANOS is still on the loose, he will continue to do the same thing to uncounted others that Ronan did to him. In a way, Drax is showing a bit of selfless nobility.
    • Except that Ronan laughed (likely in a sadistic manner) when he killed Drax's family, so he doesn't have that "just following orders" excuse.

Gamora and the Security door

• Gamora splits from the team so she can dismantle the security door to Ronan's control room. Even has a full on brawl with Nebula so she can unlock the massive door keeping Star Lord and friends away from Ronan. The massive impenetrable door gets bypassed, the team storms in. And Gamora joins the team by bursting out of the floor . If there was a way in through the floor, why the hell did Gamora have to get that door out of the way?
  • They may not have known about the bypass until Gamora found it. Alternately, Gamora didn't just open the door, but undid some kind of seal on the whole room.
  • Gamora only mentioned security doors being in play. Also a bypass usually means alternate route not blast open holes in floors and popping out. That being said it doesn't mean that Gamora didn't gain access from a room below the control room which could have been blocked off by a security door. Just seemed weird way to enter the room when the rest of the team pretty much where waiting in front of the only entry\exit.

The Collector's slave girl

• Was she aware of what would happen when she touched the Infinity Stone? I'll be honest on my first viewing I thought her intention was to use the Stone's power to kill the Collector.
  • She was standing right there listening when the Collector was telling everyone else what would happen, complete with a film reel and slides. So yes, she was aware.
  • She probably didn't know exactly what was going to happen, but I figure she was willing to take the risk. She might become powerful, or she might die; either way, she'd be free.

Why does the Collector have slaves instead of paid servants?

• Of course, this is only being asked because of what happened with the stone. Still, it seems like he should have the money to pay an actual servant who doesn't want to escape or kill him. Are good servants just that rare (understandable, it being a prison planet and all)? Is he just an asshole cheapskate?
  • I'd go with "asshole cheapskate". Just because he has the money to pay for a servant doesn't mean he'd actually use that money for that purpose. It's obvious the only thing he truly cares about is his collection (go figure), and he clearly hands out big rewards for items to add to it. A servant is just an unnecessary expense - why pay to have someone do all the menial jobs like cleaning cages when you can force someone to do it for free? It's not like with the bounty hunters (with whom he needs to keep a good working relationship in order to keep obtaining items for the collection); and even if the slaves want to escape or kill him, he clearly kept them terrified enough to stop them doing it until the opportunity was literally right in front of one of them.

What did Drax eat?

• Drax mentions eating something like Rocket. Does this mean there are more of Rocket's species out there or did Drax go to Earth and eat some of our raccoons?
  • Small furry critters might not be uncommon in the galaxy. Or it might be residual memories from Earth; in the comics, Drax is a human who was turned into an alien.
    • It is doubtlessly the former option. In the films, Drax is established as being an alien from a humanoid race, not a human. On his planet, furry rodent-like creatures that are similar enough to raccoons to be easily mistakable for one another exist.

Laika? Is that you?

• In the collector's ship, we're to imply that he has Laika the space dog as an item. For one thing, the dog's the wrong breed. For another, the dog would be 60. Maybe the suit's the item?
  • It's not Laika. It's Cosmo.

Rocket's taste in art

• While the Milano is en route to Knowhere, Gamora makes a comment about how filthy Quill's ship is, to which he replies in the affirmative ("if I had a blacklight, place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting"), and in turn, Rocket is disgusted by Peter's comment. However, Rocket doesn't even know he's a raccoon, much less what a raccoon is, so how would he know enough about one specific painter from a backwater planet and their art style to piece together the implications of Quill's comment?
  • It's easy enough to know what he means by context, especially if he understands what a black light means and the implications. I'm not all that familiar with Jackson Pollock, and I got it.
    • I'll raise this; I'm a drooling philistine who had never heard of Jackson Pollockand I still got it.
  • Think of it this way; if you recognized every word in Quill's sentence except "Jackson Pollock". Wouldn't you still be squicked out? What if you thought he'd said Van Gogh? Issues indeed, man...

Why not just overthrow the Kree Government?

• Ronan clearly does not like the peace treaty, so why not just overthrow the Kree Government? Even without the Power Stone, he's still got his Universal Weapon (there's a reason why Ronan was the Kree's most powerful member) and an army, all enough to topple the Government that signed the peace treaty. Since there are plenty of people who riot because if the peace treaty, that works in Ronan's favor too, because that's a common cause he can use to rally them. One of his major lines is: "They call me terrorist, radical, zealot because I obey the ancient laws of my people, the Kree, and punish those who do not." If he runs on that logic, then isn't the Kree Government, from his point of view, not following the laws of his people by expelling him, thus giving him a reason to punish said government?
  • Who say[s that Ronan's army is enough to overthrow the Kree government? Remember that he flees when the Nova Corps are approaching the Kiln, and he feels he needs the Infinity Stone or Thanos's support to destroy Xandar. He's also a fanatic — his enemy is Xandar, and he's just blinded to any option that doesn't amount to, "Attack Xandar."
  • But he would do anything to attack Xandar, and I doubt it is beneath him to overthrow the Kree Government if it will help his cause. As stated above, there is plenty of benefit in doing so, especially in helping him destroy Xandar. It's already known there are numerous Kree who do not support the peace treaty, so he could rally them in addition to his own army in overthrowing the Kree Government. Also, if he overthrew the Kree Government, he could bend their military to his will and have them attack Xandar.
  • There is a massive difference between "not supporting the peace treaty," and "willing to overthrow their own government." It's like saying you have enough support to overthrow the US government because you see people protesting something Obama did. The peace treaty was signed for a reason, and riots do not indicate majority support; they especially do not indicate a majority of the military. We have no scale for the strength of the Kree or Xandarian armies, but considering the fact that Ronan appears to have no Kree in his own army, I'd have to say that means he doesn't have popular support among the Kree. Trying to overthrow the Kree government wouldn't just magically add its military to Ronan's, it would be a protracted civil war that would decimate both armies and, in all likelihood, leave Ronan with a lot less to work with.
  • Ronan is a hardcore nationalist and traditionalist, and people like that usually fetishize the nation-state and its government. Depending on the type of leadership the Kree have (since it's an Empire, it's probably ruled by an Emperor), he might think overthrowing them would incur the wrath of the gods or something, or be a betrayal of Kree heritage and culture.

Why was The Milano Brought to Kyln

• Quill was arrested on Xandar. Why go to the expense of transporting his ship to Kyln? Why wouldn't it be the Xandarian equivalent of being impounded somewhere local? The only reason it's there is so they'd have a ship to escape in, but it makes no sense for a prison to be holding the ships of all its prisoners.
  • That's assuming the rest of the prisoners even had ships. We have little idea how Xandarian law works, but the ship might be considered more like a personal effect and thus is stored and returned to the prisoner on completion of their sentence. Knowing the guards of the Kiln though it's most likely only there so they can sell it and split the profits.

Why did Gamora get a private room?

• Why did Gamora get a private room with a door in the prison, when everybody else ended up sleeping in a cuddle puddle in the middle of the floor? She didn't seem to threaten or kill anyone for it, just walked in and closed the door.
  • I assumed everyone had the option of a cell. Gamora easily found one, the guards later instruct prisoners to return to their cells, which I assume to be the same as Gamora's. We even see Quill chatting in a similar cell with the gentleman with the much-required prosthetic leg. This all begs the questions, why then sleep in a pile if cells were available? And, Why did Gamora brave leaving her cell?
  • Gamora clearly has quite a reputation, since when she enters the Kyln, several inmates immediately want to kill her. Since the Nova Corps had files on Gamora, they probably knew this was likely to happen, and decided to give her a cell of her own so she wouldn't get murdered.

Rocket's Depiction as Digitigrade

• Raccoons are naturally plantigrade, like humans and bears, not digitigrade like dogs and cats. Error, or is putting him up on tippy-toes part of his "enahncements"? Why not simply leave him on his flat feet?
  • He's not a Raccoon, he's a raccoon-like alien that has been experimented on.
  • Rocket in the MCU films has been consistently depicted as plantigrade whenever his feet are on solid ground. Rewatch the scene where he is confronting Drax after Quill and Gamora are captured by Yondu and the prelude to the fight with the Abelisk in Vol. 2 and you'll see him standing and walking plantigrade. The only times I can find him standing digitigrade has been in artwork or toys.

Kree Peace

• What is the point of making peace with Xandar if their ambassador isn't even going to bother with stopping Ronan's genocidal plans? Unless the peace treaty (and Ronan going rogue) was just an act by the Kree to lure the Xandarians to their destruction, the Kree making peace with anyone is nonsensical if they won't take care of their own if they go rouge. Not to mention in the sequel, they are said to put a bounty on the guardians for killing Ronan despite his betrayal.
  • Just because they signed a peace treaty doesn’t mean they were happy about it. My guess, the Kree were backed into a corner and had to sign, despite their wishes. When Ronan went off the government was able to just disavow his actions, basically saying “What? We didn’t break the treaty. Dude’s totally acting on his own without our consent, we ordered him to disband.” while privately cheering him on and giving implicit approval by not making moves to stop him. They got to have their cake (the reasons they had to sign in the 1st place) and eat it too (one of their own is still fighting the good fight). Likely the majority of Kree viewed him as a folk hero, someone ignoring dishonorable orders in favor of doing what was right, and none of them were happy about such an “honorable warrior” being taken out by a bunch of bozos. Hence the bounty.

The Design of Nova Vessels

• The Nova vessels make ideal law enforcement vehicles at the beginning of the film but don't seem to have been designed to do what they attempt at the end. They interlock energy fields and stay in formation to create a barrier, one strong enough to initially hold off Ronan's ship, but they do so with the pilot on the wrong side of said barrier. Even before the power stone is used to shatter the arrangement of ships, pilot's were already being crushed and seems to be a major design flaw for a manoeuvre that looks prepared in advance.

How did Ronan learn what was in the orb?

• It seems that until Ronan comes into possession of the orb, he doesn't know that the power stone is inside the orb. Gamora doesn't seem to know what it is either, but Nebula does as she refers to the "stone" during the battle on Knowhere. According to Avengers: Endgame both Gamora and Nebula knew the power stone was in it before being sent to Ronan, so I guess Gamora was just lying about not knowing (which makes sense, she barely knows Quill, Drax, and Rocket at this point). But Thanos clearly didn't tell Ronan, as Ronan outright says "...now that I know it contains an Infinity Stone...", so how did he find out? Did Nebula or Gamora tell him?

Teenage Ninja Mutant What Now?

• How do the TMNT exist as a fictional property in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The Turtles were explicitly created as a parody/homage to Daredevil, but being as how there's a real Daredevil in the MCU, there presumably wasn't a fictional one who just happened to also be a ninja-trained warrior fighting the Hand prior to Peter leaving for the stars. Plus, the real Daredevil doesn't appear until after this movie is set, and even then, the details of his career are not widely known. I guess in the MCU the TMNT are a parody of Batman or someone instead.

"We Are Groot"

• While it's a wonderful moment, Groot saying something other than "I am Groot" for the only time in the entire franchise before his Heroic Sacrifice... makes no sense. When Groot says "I am Groot", he's not introducing himself (presumably except for the times when he actually is introducing himself), that is literally the entirety of his language's verbal vocabulary. "I am Groot" can mean any one of presumably millions of different things depending on whatever variances his language contains (minor inflections, supplementary telepathy, whatever) and first Rocket, and eventually the rest of the Guardians, can understand what he's saying as if he's speaking their language (English as we hear it). So him saying "We are Groot" doesn't actually mean anything in Groot's language, because Groot's language is literally nothing other than "I am Groot"- technically he's speaking an entirely different language at this moment, if not complete gibberish which just happens to sound like a different phrase to what he usually says.
  • Either "We Are Groot" actually does mean something in tree speak, or Groot was attempting broken English to get his point across. "We are Groot" but the last Groot meaning family or something similarly poetic.
  • Or maybe "We Are Groot" is how Groot's kind would voice their vast vocabulary while speaking among themselves, and he's expressing how the Guardians have become his people. The actual tree-speak meaning could be anything from "So long A-holes" to "Nice knowing you" to "You losers better kick Ronan's frickin' ass for me!", but for once the lack of Translation Convention leaves the audience feeling moved rather than confused or amused.

[[folder:The Nova Corps knowing Rocket's past]]

• How did the Nova Corps know about Rocket's past of being of being created by being repeatedly experimented on? They even knew his experimental number, 89P13. It seems unlikely that he would have told them about all the horrific stuff he went through, since in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 it is mentioned that he never even told the Guardians about it, and he probably would have tried to bury his memories of his past.

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