Headscratchers / Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

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Earth animals

• The High Evolutionary's usage of ordinary Earth animals (as opposed to random alien species) as the subjects for his experiments is odd enough, but then the scene where Rocket finds a new batch of raccoon kits, with a label of their taxonomy and origins, confirms without a shadow of a doubt that these are Earth animals as opposed to Alien Animals. The question is... how and why? Does he go to Earth and randomly abduct animals? Did he set up a breeding farm of Earth animals? Cloning Earth animals makes the most sense, but why does he choose them over any of the millions of alien species in the galaxy, aside from just being more heart-wrenching to the audience? Not to mention that some of his subjects include very odd choices like walruses, pandas, and tapirs. And for that matter, as horrifying as it would be, what's stopping him from including humans among his subjects, unless he idolizes them too much for that (or he actually does so and it was just censored for the audience's sake)?
  • The High Evolutionary comments off-handedly that when he visited Earth he was enamoured with much of its culture and nature, the problem was humanity. So he seems to essentially have a Foreign Culture Fetish for Planet Earth, hence the usage of earth animals. Conversely, he evidently writes off humanity as a failed species and has no interest in experimenting with them as a result.
  • We don't know where he got all those children from. There's a decent chance that they are at least part human.
  • In a Word of Saint Paul situation, one of the star children actresses said that they were told their characters were evolved from fish, which might explain the whisker patterns.
  • Given the High Evolutionary's overall "tantruming child" behavior, it can probably be likened to him "going through a phase". Earth animals are his current single-minded obsession, his current "favorite toy" to play with until it "breaks" and he loses interest.

The High Evolutionary

• For someone as psychopathic and omnicidal as he is, it's odd that the High Evolutionary never tried to destroy the actual Earth despite confirming that he visited it before. He notes how imperfect it is, so it would make perfect sense for someone like him to pull a planet-scale Kill and Replace on it with Counter-Earth as the replacement to prove he can replicate it better, but he obviously has never done this. Again, does he just respect humans too much for this?
  • For all the horrifying actions of the High Evolutionary, he appears to have zero interest in going out of his way to antagonize any other civilizations unless they stand between him and his research, with characters stressing that if you just stay out of his way he won't bother you and the Evolutionary himself claiming he'd leave the Guardians alone if they just gave him Rocket (granted he could be lying, but for the most part he seems to just have zero interest in them one way or the other before his Villainous Breakdown kicks in full-force). Quill at one point accuses him of wanting to "take over the world" and he points out he has no interest in that, just perfection. It's possible he'd start wiping out other civilizations (with things like the Hellspawn) once he pulled off his "perfect world" and replacing them with said perfect worlds, but since he never got anywhere near that point we can only speculate.
• In all those years and with all his resources, why is his face still in that state?
  • Perhaps he refused to repair his face, because it would be an admission that one of his "lesser" creations had gotten the better of him. He'd rather wear the mask and pretend that he was never damaged than acknowledge the truth.
  • Alternatively, he did try to fix his face... but no matter what he did all he could see was tiny imperfections. Like all his work, no matter what he did all he saw was failure.

Nebula and the car

• If Nebula potentially learned how to drive while she spent some time on Earth during the blip, how does she not know how to open a car?
  • The car they were using was of a considerably older design than what she likely would be used to, doubtful there'd be any cars like that on the Avengers Compound.
    • Yep. Modern cars tend to have remote locks. Counter-Earth seems to be based on Earth in the 80s when the High Evolutionary visited.
    • It's hard to appreciate how much the design language of cars has changed over the decades, partly because it's snuck in over time. Setting aside remote locks, a lot of modern cars don't have a button to push...you just pull up/out on the handle and the door opens. Inside, the door handle on older cars can be located somewhere odd. They're just lucky that Counter-Earth was based on the 80s instead of the 50s - starting even automatic cars from that era involved shifting into neutral first (though the sight of watching Peter fumble with a manual transmission could have been utterly hilarious... "Uh, guys...why are there three pedals?").

Quill in Space

• How does Peter not have damage after Adam rescues him? If he was frozen enough for his face to deform like that, he should have, at the very least, huge amounts of facial frostbit and tissue damage.
  • He still had the damage right after being rescued. And they have advanced medpacks that can repair almost any damage as long as you're still alive. Mantis had her arm set and fully healed within seconds. Even Rocket had the severe burn that had been sitting for a day or two that healed completely. The reality is that Quill wouldn't have experienced the damage he did. Our skin is very elastic, but it is also durable. He would experience a little bloating but be fine within a day. Similar to the swelling of a minor allergic reaction.
  • Although he lost his powers when his father died, Quill is still half Celestial. He may still be more resilient than a normal human.

Counter-Earth and the Snap

• If the High Evolutionary is so intent on creating and maintaining a perfect society, why didn't he go apeshit when Thanos snapped his fingers in 2018? He would've likely lost most, if not all of his staff and test subjects, and his life's work would be delayed at best or collapsed at worst for those five years until everything went back to normal.
  • Who's to say he didn't freak out? We don't know exactly how many people he had under his employ before or after the Snap. Or maybe he found some degree of beauty in the Snap being Perfectly Balanced, as all things should be.
  • Or maybe he was snapped.
  • Either he was snapped and therefore didn't know about it until it was already over, or he wasn't snapped, in which case there wasn't really anything he could do about it. He's powerful, but he likely didn't even know what had happened, and probably wouldn't be willing or able to take on Thanos even if he knew. He probably raged and seethed at something out of his control affecting his work, but eventually accepted the setback and just ramped up production to get the Counter-Earth population back up. For all his flaws, he does show that he's (sometimes) able to accept setbacks and complications, working around them or starting over (even if that usually manifests as him blowing up a planet).

Afterlife Prosthetics?

• When Rocket is in limbo and meets Lylla and the others, why would they still have their prosthetics? Is it because this is more like a memory of the last time Rocket saw them in their respective state and this wasn't a real limbo, or is this an actual afterlife? If the latter, is it possible Lylla and the others were effectively waiting for him to join them into an actual afterlife for animals? One has to figure that the concept of time is different between the living and deceased, and as far as they're concerned—they had only recently died.
  • It could simply be that they see the prosthetics as part of themselves. It was only after they were experimented on that they met each other, so it's representative of who they are.
  • If it's in Rocket's imagination, then he's imagining them the way he remembers them. If it's an actual afterlife, then they're all just taking A Form You Are Comfortable With, since he might not recognize them otherwise.
  • If it hadn't been for the modifications, they'd just be regular animals rather than sapient beings. They wouldn't have become friends, and Rocket wouldn't have gone on to become a Guardian. So it sort of ties in with Lylla's message in this scene about how what happened to them, while terrible, was necessary for them to fulfill their higher purposes in life.
  • We see them as horrifying monstrosities, they just see themselves. They were happy and at peace in the hell the High Evolutionary gave them. They played games and dreamed a beautiful future as a family. We see their pain; they see their joy.

Counter-Earth Failure

• If the High Evolutionary was trying to create a perfect version of Earth without corruption or bigotry, why would he allow American-style suburbs (a result of both a racist desire to keep "undesirables" out of white communities and corporate lobbying for car-based infrastructure) to exist?
  • The explanation is likely that the High Evolutionary had an essentialist worldview; that the problems of human society were not the fault of the systems in place, but that of the individuals living within them. This would also explain why he's so cruel to his experiments. Either that or he had no involvement with the development of Counter-Earth's society and was only involved with its creation, assuming the rest would fall into place naturally.
  • There's absolutely nothing inherently racist or corrupt about what suburbs physically are: low density housing spread out across a wide area in a region on the outskirts of a city. Human institutions twisted many of the early suburbs into segregated communities, but there's no reason these institutions would be replicated on Counter-Earth.

Peter's Helmet

• Simply put, where is it? That thing was his trademark, yet it's nowhere to be seen in the movie. It definitely would've been useful as he was making his way to Knowhere near the end of the movie.
  • Gunn has now answered this on Twitter: it's in his desk drawer on Knowhere.

Lylla former Rocket associate

• In the first film, Lylla's name appeared in Rocket's rap sheet when he was arrested by the Nova Corps on Xandar, which seemed to indicate that she was a former ally of Rocket's, before he met the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, in this movie, it is sadly revealed that Lylla was cruelly murdered by the High Evolutionary, so it seems inconsistent to say that Lylla was alive and an associate of Rocket's in the first movie.
  • It's possible that at some point Rocket simply name-dropped Lylla as an old friend without giving any other details, leading the Nova Corps to assume she was an accomplice to his past crimes.
  • Alternatively, Rocket has happened to know two separate people called Lylla by cosmic coincidence since there's nothing more than the name in GotG Vol 1.

Peter Quill's Grandfather

• How come Peter Quill's grandfather is still alive today? Quill did not believe that his grandfather was still alive on Earth, since for him, it was impossible for a man like his grandfather to live that long, however, once Quill returns to Earth, he is reunited with his grandfather still alive and It is a very beautiful and sweet scene.
  • Quill assumed that his grandfather was dead because 90+ is longer than most humans live, although obviously people can in fact live that long or longer. Quill also left Earth at 8, and young children tend to have a skewed perspective of what "old" is, hence his offhand remark to Mantis that humans typically live to around 50. Also, Quill was deliberately avoiding facing his grandfather, and assuming he was dead provided a convenient excuse.
  • It's relatively simple for someone to live into their nineties if they're taking good care of their health. That said, it may be that the woman who greeted Peter was a live-in nurse, so it's highly possible that Jason doesn't have many years left.
  • She looked a little old to be a working nurse. I figured she was his wife, having remarried after Peter's abduction, and is maybe 10-15 years younger than him.
    • The actress is credited as "Grandma Quill."
  • In addition, if he was snapped, that would shave off another five years.
  • Per James Gunn, "Meredith Quill was 19 when Quill was born. His grandpa was in his fifties when Quill was abducted in 1988." The movie takes place in 2025-26, so if Grandpa Quill was 51 in 1988 (this would have made him 24 when Meredith was born) and he got blipped, he could be (chronologically) as young as about 83. On the other hand, if the movie takes place in 2026 if he was 59 at the time and was not blipped, he'd be (again, chronologically) about 97. So "he's chronologically about 90, +/- 7 years" fits. And living to be 90 is not exactly an extreme outlier...per the Social Security Administration's actuarial tables, about 14-15% of males make it to that age.
  • Olivia de Havilland and Kirk Douglas lived to be 104 and 103 respectively. Generally if the family has good genes, living to 90 plus is perfectly plausible. Meredith only got cancer because of what Ego did to her, so it wasn't hereditary in this case.

Knowhere and the Earth animals

• Why did the people of Knowhere decide to keep the Earth animals (eagles, penguins, kangaroos, etc) that Rocket rescued? It would not have been illogical that Quill, once he finally decided to return to his home planet, would also take all the Earth animals back to Earth with him.
  • They might be worried that the animals from the High Evolutionary could be carrying some sort of alien virus or pathogen that could be dangerous to Earth's indigenous species.
  • Knowhere is still cleaning up after the fight at the movie's conclusion. Finding a new home for the animals, wherever that may be, could take a while.
  • They know Cosmo, maybe they just really like animals and wanted to keep them around because they're cute and awesome.
  • Perhaps Quill did take some of them back and saw they were taken to zoos or the appropriate places offscreen.

The Sovereign's previous actions

• The reveal that the Sovereign were created by and answer to the High Evolutionary raises some questions about their actions in Vol. 2. Ayesha has the Guardians at her palace but then lets them go, and later attempts to kill them over Rocket stealing the batteries, both of which go against the High Evolutionary's goal of recapturing Rocket alive. It's possible that the High Evolutionary left the Sovereign to their own devices until sometime after 2014, but surely he would've alerted all of his species about the experiment he wants back at all costs.
  • He flat-out calls them a vanity project. Not even a mistake to be erased, but a stupid whim he never cared about. Still, he does get mad at them for letting Rocket escape, even though by all indications he never so much as told them to be on the lookout.
  • This is supported throughout the movie. The High Evolutionary is very conceited about his intelligence and never takes responsibility. Rocket shouldn't have seen the flaw in his rapid evolution chambers when he couldn't. He couldn't even figure out how Rocket came to the conclusion. He was angry that his crew couldn't see that capturing Rocket was the highest priority and tried to mutiny. Everyone is just supposed to know what he needs when he needs it. Even when Quill calls him out on the imperfections of Counter-Earth, he kind of sidesteps it and moves on, blaming it more on something wrong with the Ani-men than flaws in his experiments.

Rocket's survival

• Rocket is on life support, in an oxygen mask, and convulsing when he gets fluid in his lungs. But then while the rest of the team is at the High Evolutionary's ship, Gamora is carrying him around like a rag doll, sans machines, while Counter-Earth is blowing up and Adam Warlock is attacking. How did he not die before his teammates got back with the code?
  • Incredible luck (and Plot Armor). He absolutely could've died, but it's not like Gamora had a choice. Better to protect his body and maybe save him than give him away to the High Evolutionary. Keep in mind that there's only a few minutes between Rocket almost getting taken and Quill returning with the deactivation code, so it was probably the nick of time to save him.
  • Since the High Evolutionary wanted him alive or at least intact, War Pig probably made sure he could survive the trip before she disconnected him from the machines, enough that he was able to make it through those few minutes before Quill got back. Keep in mind that he basically did die, they were just narrowly able to bring him back.

Gamora

• Why is this Gamora so drastically different from the original? Even before joining the Guardians, she hated being seen as "the most dangerous woman in the galaxy." She was taken out of her timeline during the events of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, and in that film, she was already planning on betraying Ronan so she could start a new life. She was the one constantly pushing for the rest of the group to do the right thing. Even in Avengers: Endgame, she was very easily persuaded by future Nebula to deflect to the heroes' side and fight against Thanos. Why is she now such a grouchy, Trigger-Happy Jerkass who would lead a group like the Ravagers?
  • Because her sister and her sister's friends keep treating her like a lost family member who has forgotten everything she loves instead of an entirely new person. As for the Ravagers, remember they have a strong code of honor and are known for being a very tight-knit group. Yeah they're pirates, but not murderers or monsters. They're basically the Guardians without the personal baggage for Gamora.

Awesome Mix Vol. 1?

• Is it ever explained what happened to Quill's original Awesome Mix Vol. 1 from the first movie? I noticed that he had taken the tape deck console out from the Milano and Benatar and had installed it in his room in the beginning. Is that where the tape is, canonically?
  • Probably in his room on Knowhere along with his mask, which James Gunn stated he left in his desk drawer. It's just not important enough to the story for us to see it.

Took you long enough, Adam!

• The second movie takes place in 2014, just a few months after the first film. This movie seems to be set in 2025, judging by Peter's comment in the end credits scene about how he's 45. Why did it take Adam Warlock eleven whole years to attempt his mission of destroying the Guardians? It seems unlikely that it's because he wasn't mentally developed enough, because he still isn't that mentally developed in the film.
  • He was still in the cocoon at the end of the previous movie. He may not even have had a mind, much less any mental development, at that stage. It took the following 11 years for his mind and body to reach something close to maturity, and Ayesha made it clear that they hatched him prematurely specifically because the High Evolutionary wanted to use him to attack the Guardians. Not only was he not sitting around for 11 years before attempting his mission, he probably wasn't even sitting around for 11 minutes — just out of the egg and straight onto the attack.
  • Maybe Ayesha was snapped during the Blip, and without her to watch over him, his growth in the cocoon was stalled. Maybe he was snapped, depending on whether he was in a state where the Snap would have considered him an applicable life form.

Peter's grandfather not knowing he's alive

• Quill literally helped save the universe in 2023 when it was under the threat of Thanos, and stuck around long enough for Earth to recognize the Guardians of the Galaxy as a group of heroes. How did Jason Quill not learn his grandson was alive until he came home to see him years later?
  • Knowing Peter Quill, he probably requested the people of Earth remember him as "Star-Lord" rather than give away his real name.
  • The Holiday special seems to indicate that not every participant in that battle is universally known. That said, if anything, the way Peter was greeted makes more sense if he was a public figure that has still not visited home yet. His grandfather recognizes him within seconds, and is very emotional after a thirty years absence, but not exactly confused and bursting with questions. Also, you could easily read his step-grandmom as knowing exactly who this person was and why he was here.

Ayesha answers the call

• Why was Gamora not suspicious of the fact that a female voice answered a male Ravager's outpost, especially since the Ravagers seem to be majority male?
  • They're mostly male, but there are female Ravagers (Aleta, Mainframe, Molly Quinn's character in this movie).
  • And Gamora shes also a female Ravager.
  • She also might not be familiar with all the Ravagers yet, and just assumed it was someone she hadn't heard before. Even if she joined up with them immediately after Endgame, it doesn't seem like it's been very long, and they're a decently large group.
  • This Gamora also hadn't dealt with Ayesha like the other one had, so she wouldn't recognise her voice. She's also desperate to get away from the Guardians, and so might not care about anything potentially suspicious if it'll get her off the ship.

The High Evolutionary and Groot

• Super minor headscratcher- why wasn't the High Evolutionary the least interested in Groot? The guy is a walking tree that can reproduce through his remains, is nigh invulnerable, can regenerate limbs almost at whim, transforms and is basically a walking ecofarm. It's also up for debate whether he's The Last of His Kind in the MCU (certainly was enough for the Collector to lose his collective jizz over) so for a terrorist so hooked on biological experimentation, why wasn't H.E. at least mildly curious how Groot works?
  • At the time, the High Evolutionary already has a race he considers near perfect, believing Rocket's brain is the key to making them flawless. All other potential specimens are probably beneath his concern.
  • Also, the High Evolutionary is primarily interested in experimenting on human animals and alien children. Groot is more plant-based in nature, so it's possible that the High Evolutionary saw no value in him.
  • In general, the H.E. is just impulsive and illogical. If he'd bothered to think about it, he might have seen value in Groot, but he just didn't care. And, as stated, his entire focus seems to be on animals. It wouldn't be surprising if he had some narcissistic Insane Troll Logic along the lines of "plant people? I never thought about doing plant people... well, if my genius never thought of it, then it must not be worth thinking about!"
  • Also worth noting is that Groot is a fully-fledged being, which the High Evolutionary doesn't seem to care about beyond if they're a threat. He relishes the idea of taking something "stupid" and "incomplete" and improving it. Groot is already Groot, a fully self-aware and independent entity. Thus, not worth his time and energy.

Rocket sparing the High Evolutionary

• What did Rocket mean when he said he wouldn't kill the High Evolutionary "because [he's] a Guardian of the Galaxy?" Both previous movies had the Guardians directly kill the villain, and they certainly attempted to kill Thanos, plus they've killed plenty of mooks throughout not just their prior appearances, but this movie as well, so it's not like they have a Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude. Is this a case of If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!? Also, what's the point of not killing him if they're just gonna leave him to die on his exploding spaceship? Seems very "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you."
  • A James Gunn tweet revealed that the High Evolutionary did survive. He was taken out of the ship by Drax and is now in-custody on Knowhere, so they didn't leave him to die.
  • I took it as him essentially saying "I've moved on from you, and I'm better than you." He's not afraid of the H.E. anymore, he's moved on from his rage and grief, because he's found a family in the Guardians. While the H.E. is still consumed by petty revenge, Rocket isn't, he's in a better place where he doesn't resort to violence and killing immediately. There's also a clear element of Cruel Mercy in letting the man who once compared himself to God just rot in a cell like any other criminal, made to live with the knowledge that he was outsmarted multiple times by his hated creation, and that he was ultimately brought down by his own flaws and mistakes.
  • Rocket recognizes that THE, petty and cruel as he is, just isn't really a threat. Take away his gravity thingies and he's just an arrogant, intelligent asshole. Maybe he can become better, probably not, but he's not a driven, universe threatening monster like Thanos or Kang. Just a shitty, abusive stepdad, but on a planetary scale.
  • For a man with no forgiveness in heart, life worse punishment than death.
  • Arguably, what Rocket is saying is that he's MORE than what the High Evolutionary created. More than what his abuse gave rise to. Rocket is telling him that he is Rocket Raccoon, of the Guardians of the freakin Galaxy, and he doesn't even consider the HE worth a bullet anymore.

Why not just use the Sovereign?

• The High Evolutionary says he wants Rocket because they haven't been able to create a species capable of innovation and invention. But he already has that in the Sovereign, which is evident by their drive and ability to create something like Warlock. Yes, High Evolutionary says they're failures, but he says the same thing about Rocket. He just wants the one quality that eludes him, which the Sovereign already have.
  • The High Evolutionary really seems like he doesn't actually know what he wants, and wouldn't be able to recognize success even when it's right in front of him. His standards are contradictory and impossible. Plus, he's insanely narcissistic: he dismissed the Sovereign as a worthless side project, so it doesn't matter what they achieve, he has to dismiss everything they create as worthless. To do otherwise would mean admitting he was wrong about them, which he could never do.
  • Rocket pointed out a flaw in his own hyper evolution chambers that even the High Evolutionary didn't know about. What's likely is that Ayesha created Adam Warlock using technology and processes he already knew and understood. To him, that's about as 'innovative' as taking a device and putting a clock on it. He probably thinks he could easily create something more powerful than Adam Warlock without much effort, it just doesn't serve his goals at the moment, so he dismisses Adam as a toy. His ego can't let go of the fact Rocket found a flaw, however, so Rocket must be 'special.'
  • I think it's also petty, vindictive SPITE. He doesn't just want Rocket's brain, he HATES Rocket for being better than him, for seeing what he didn't. The Sovereign didn't have that on them. They never proved him WRONG.

How long is Peter's trip to his grandfather and if it's longer than a week or two, why?

• We see him visit Jason Quill, but even if he stayed for a week or two, that's not so long that he'd have to give up his position as a Guardian to do it. We get that he's done "running from his past", but all it takes to reconcile with his grandfather is a long explanation as to what he's been up to all this time and maybe an apology for running away at eight years old, and maybe a second apology for not visiting him when he was on Earth during Endgame. I can see him taking a week or two in order to catch up with happenings on Earth, but it's little more than a vacation to what is for Quill, a quaint and primitive country. Apart from his grandfather, there really isn't anything left on Earth for Quill. No job, no property, no friends, and after seeing the cosmos, Earth would seem a tiny little backwater planet to him.
  • Considering how old Jason is, he probably doesn’t have much time left. Peter probably wants to make the most of it and not leave because there’s a risk Jason could die when he’s away and Peter already wasted enough of their time together.
  • The whole point is that Quill realizes he's spent his life running from his past, and has been hurting others by doing so. He's going to Earth to reconnect with his family; he's probably not going to settle down permanently, but popping in for a quick visit and then leaving again would defeat the purpose.
  • He's also giving up the safety net. After all, there's a possibility his grandfather would be furious at him for never coming back, meaning Peter could have that as his backup to flee again in case he has to do some heavy duty making things right.

Adam Warlock's forehead thing

• Is it ever explained what the stone gem thing in Adam Warlock's head is? I know in the comics it's supposed to be an infinity stone, but given that they don't exist anymore, what is it supposed to be?
  • Two reasons include a focus point for his power that emulates an infinity stone (But nowhere near as powerful), or just an aesthetic design choice that the Sovereigns find particularly appealing. It may have some sort of meaning in their culture, like the 'classy' equivalent of a barb wire bicep tattoo.

Cosmo

• Cosmo appears to have a translator device collar, which explains how she can talk. Fair enough. But one, how did a dog barely leaving Earth come into the possession of the Collector, and two, how did she end up with an extended lifespan and telekinetic powers?
  • Well, we've seen several times that Earth isn't completely unknown in the wider cosmos, there's even one of those hexagon wormhole jump things very close to the planet. The Kree, Ego, the Ravagers, the Skrulls, plenty of folks have been to Earth. Someone was nearby, spotted her, and decided to rescue her; it doesn't really matter who it was. And we know the Collector keeps an extensive network of contacts and always has his eye out for unique specimens, so it makes sense he eventually got his hands on her.
  • As for her lifespan and powers, in the comics she was mutated by "cosmic radiation". There's no indication that this is different in the MCU.
  • Maybe some galactic power heard that Earthlings were starting to venture out into space and sent someone to keep an eye on us, who then decided to pick up Cosmo instead of letting her die.

Rocket's surprise at becoming the new leader

• I know it was played for emotional drama and it was one of the best scenes of the film....but realistically why is Rocket at all surprised that he was chosen as the new leader of the Guardians? He's been acting as Pete's number two lancer ever since the team was formed, in Vol. 2 he claims he's the "best pilot in the galaxy" (sidelining Quill), and everyone remembers how he mockingly called himself the leader when Thor was there, and he and Nebula pretty much kept the team alive during the Blip. So why is it only now that he's surprised, as if he's the last person anyone would want to be chosen. Isn't he the best choice without saying?
  • Keep in mind that until relatively recently, Rocket saw himself as a little monster who was undeserving of love, let alone fit to lead others. He also probably never imagined anyone else but Quill as being able to lead them. Sure, Rocket joked about being the leader that one time when Thor was around, but when Quill returned after being snapped, he didn't contest him resuming his role as captain.
  • Part of Vol. 2 was Rocket acknowledging his Jerkass behavior, like bragging and mocking, was a way of driving people away because he was afraid to get close and risk losing them— because of the trauma we see in this movie. He took advantage of the situation with Thor as an opportunity to troll Quill, but it wasn't a serious grab for power. Deep down, he likely sees himself as unfit to lead because he believes his first attempt at "leadership", getting his friends away from the High Evolutionary, was a failure that got them all killed. The trauma of that incident is very fresh in his mind when Quill chooses him as the new leader, and he was also already upset about the Guardians apparently breaking up. He was caught off guard in a very vulnerable moment.
  • Adding to this, Rocket seems to have always considered himself mostly as the group's "wheelman/triggerman". He's an excellent pilot, and deadly with a gun, but he's never seen himself as a leader, just the guy who does the flying and the blasting. So Quill saying he's leader material is a shock.

Rocket is Peter's best friend?

• Since when? Both Vol. 2 and Infinity War had them constantly argue and butt heads with each other. And does Rocket feel the same way, considering he'd probably consider Groot to be his best friend?
  • People tend not to understate their relationship in a time of crisis and Vitriolic Best Buds is a thing. Groot I was definitely Rocket's best friend in Vol 1, Groot II is more of a surrogate son to the whole group.
  • It seems to make sense. Mantis is his sister, Kraglin a sort of older brother, Groot a kind of communal surrogate son, Drax is definitely his friend but is much closer to Mantis than Quill, and Nebula is a former enemy who, even though he seems to fully trust her by now, he's unlikely to get very close to. While Quill and Rocket did clash a lot, their dynamic is the closest to best friends. And as stated, if you've got a few close friends and one of them is suddenly dying, you're probably going to call them your best friend, out of care and grief.
  • The two of them and Drax are also the only ones of the original team left - since Groot was reborn, Gamora is dead and Mantis and Nebula joined later.

Just use the comms!

• Much of the Guardians' problems in the third act was because they did not properly communicate with each other. Don't they have comms to keep in contact with each other? How long would it take for Peter Quill to send a message to Drax and Mantis to stay back with the Ship because he and Groot have this totally awesome escape plan where he jumps out of the High Evolutionary's Lab using Groot as a parachute. All Drax, Mantis, and Nebula have done was get themselves trapped by the High Evolutionary, forcing Quill, Gamora, and Rocket to go back and rescue them.
  • They were using comms, thats how Quill gets Gamora to swing by in Bowie and rescue him and Groot. Mantis and Drax were supposed to be on the ship protecting Rocket but went awol. Quill had no reason to comm them to tell them to do what he already told them to do.

What was Ayesha doing on Counter-Earth?

• What the heck was Ayesha doing on Counter-Earth? If she was there to negotiate with the High Evolutionary on the survival of her race, wouldn't she be already at his Laboratory? Also was she seriously just sitting there on her ship as the planet was blowing up? Shouldn't she see the distant explosions that are getting closer to hers and immediately take off? If she was worried about Adam who was also on the planet, she should know he is very tough and can survive the vacuum of space. All she had to was fly her ship out of danger and wait for Adam to catch up with her.
  • I assume she was just waiting around for Adam to bring her Rocket, with the plan of taking Rocket to the High Evolutionary. (You wouldn't want Adam to talk to the High Evolutionary; he'd probably say something stupid and ruin everything.) As for why she didn't just flee once the planet started exploding...yeah, I've got nothing. That doesn't make any sense.
    • Adding to that, she likely was there SPECIFICALLY to keep Adam under supervision, because he's still basically her CHILD. She's making sure he doesn't, say, try to adopt another thing from the planet because he felt sorry for it, or kill Rocket because he's freaked out by him.
  • Ayesha likely isn't used to being in danger and on the front lines of a conflict. When things started exploding, she probably didn't know what was happening and just froze up, not knowing what to do except wait for Adam to rescue her— which he almost did, so it wasn't completely unreasonable for her to expect that. Maybe she didn't think her ship could get her out of the blast radius fast enough, while Adam definitely could, if he only got to her in time. As for why she was just hanging around a random spot on Counter-Earth, she probably wanted to stay out of the way and avoid drawing the High Evolutionary's attention until she had Rocket secured. She knows he's petty, violent and impulsive, and he's threatened to annihilate her civilization if she displeases him again; best to try and keep him from even thinking about her until she can come to him with certain success.

Floor’s Modifications

• In Rocket’s flashbacks, we are introduced to his honestly adorable cagemate Floor, a bunny who (from what this troper can see) has had her proper legs cut off, moves around using crude metal spider-legs grafted onto her, and, most notably, has had her mouth covered with an implant (or potentially even removed entirely). That last one in particular raised an interesting question: how was Floor supposed to eat/receive proper nutrition? Admittedly, it’s possible she could have been “fed” through an IV drip or a feeding tube of some sort, but it still seems odd (and somewhat disturbing to think about).
  • All of the High Evolutionary's experiments are odd and somewhat disturbing to think about. This is just par for the course. Anyway yes, she probably has a feeding tube of some sort.
  • I think it was mentioned somewhere (probably James Gunn's Twitter) that her face mask opens up for her to eat.

"Spaceport"

• Why does everyone refer to hangar bays as "spaceports"? Normally, if there's a section of a large ship where smaller ships can go in and out, that's a "hangar bay" or maybe a "docking bay". In contrast, a "spaceport" is analogous to an airport. Usually spaceports are found on the ground, and anything calling itself a "spaceport" in space would have to be a facility entirely focused on being a place for ships to arrive and depart from, as opposed to being a large ship that just happens to take on smaller ships from time to time.
  • Well, the Areste is a pretty enormous ship, so its hangar could be large enough to be considered its own "facility entirely focused on being a place for ships to arrive and depart." Space stations in real life are sometimes referred to as spaceports. It could also be somewhat colloquial— an analogy might be a large aircraft carrier with the facilities to qualify as an airdrome. "Airdrome" and "airport" are often used interchangeably even though that's not quite correct. The hangar bay could be a "spacedrome" that's just called a "spaceport" because that's what people are used to saying.
  • Alternatively, "port" can mean "an opening in the side of a ship for boarding or loading"— in this context, "spaceport" might just be shorthand for "port that opens into space."

What the Guardians know about this "new" Gamora

• Do the Guardians have any idea where exactly this Gamora they are dealing with came from? They treat her like she is just Gamora who lost her memories and acting like an asshole. However, the truth is that she is actually a time-displaced Gamora who never met the Guardians of the Galaxy and came fresh off the heels of serving a tyrant. Was there anyone who knew where Gamora came from and could tell the Guardians about it? No wonder they keep rubbing each other the wrong way. As far as this Gamora knew, there is this softhearted band of morons who keep preaching to her about how she is better than this, led by some creep who keeps acting like they have been always in love and keeps talking about stuff she never remembers because it never happened to her. She might be a huge jerk to Quill but she has a point that he keeps treating her as if she is something she is not and having an unhealthy attachment to her. How would the Guardians handle her if they knew exactly where she is coming from?
  • Nebula definitely knows as she was there. It's kind of ambiguous from Quill's speech about the magic cliff if he knows but he... seems to have the gist of it at least. Gamora pretty unambiguously explains it during the film though.
  • It's pretty clear that Quill is in denial and trying to impose his memories of "his" Gamora onto the "new" one because he can't cope with the situation, and we're supposed to see him as being in the wrong for it, even if his reasons are tragic and sympathetic, and in the end, he realizes he shouldn't do that. For the others, it's possible Nebula tried to explain it but just couldn't do so effectively. None of the Guardians are stupid, but some of them might have trouble wrapping their heads around it. In Endgame, she seemed to perfectly grasp the mechanics of time travel and alternate timelines, maybe she had trouble trying to "dumb down" those concepts in a way that would make sense.
  • Nebula was shown to have been hiding her knowledge of Gamora's whereabouts from the rest of the Guardians; it's possible she withheld other details about the situation in a misguided attempt to protect Quill and the others.

Do animals have souls?

• So when Rocket briefly flatlines, he meets Lylla, Teefs, and Floor in "the forever and beautiful sky", which is most likely Heaven, and is willing to join them before Lylla tells him it isn't his time yet. Since they're uplifted Earth animals, does this mean all animals have souls, since it's highly unlikely the High Evolutionary could create a spiritual concept (and doesn't even believe in God)? Is there an entire section of Heaven reserved for all the animals that have died? It must be very awkward for the human souls to meet the souls of all the livestock who died for their groceries.
  • Well, Moon Knight established that there are many different afterlives in the MCU, so if non-uplifted animals have a heaven, it's probably separate from the human one(s). In that show they also use the phrase "untethered consciousness" to describe the afterlife, so maybe having a soul that makes it there requires a certain level of awareness/intelligence/whatever you want to call it. In that case, the animals would develop them naturally when they are uplifted, regardless of whether the H.E. intended to make them "spiritual".

Why only Earth music?

• In the first stinger, the members of the new Guardians of the Galaxy list their favorite music acts, and each and every one of them name a band or musician from Earth, even though none of them have lived on Earth, and their only exposure to Earth culture is having known Peter Quill. (And with Warlock and Phyla there isn't even that, as they barely got to know Peter before he left.) With Rocket there's at least the in-story explanation that he liked Peter's mixtapes, but what are the odds that all the others also prefer Earth music over music from Knowhere, or from the countless other civilized planets in the galaxy? Obviously, the Doylist answer to the question is that if they named some made-up non-Earth musician as their favorite, that wouldn't tell the viewers anything about their personalities. But what would be the Watsonian explanation?
  • Well, the main members of that team are Quill's friends/family, so listening to his beloved Earth music on the Zune he left with Rocket is their way of remembering him and the good times they had (yeah, he's not dead, but they don't know when or if he'll rejoin them). It was shown that his love of Earth music had spread at least a little to the other Guardians, with Rocket, in particular, listening to it a few times in this movie— and he's the leader now, so he probably makes the others listen to it just like Quill did.
  • It's possible that for Adam and Phyla, that Earth music is the only music they've ever actually heard, since Adam was straight into action out of the cocoon and Phyla was living in a cage in the bowels of a ship. The Earth music Rocket enjoys is their only frame of reference, so that's what they talk about.
    • The stinger scene seems to take place some years after the movie's finale, so it wouldn't make sense the Earth music is all they have ever heard, since presumably the people living on Knowhere would play the music of their respective cultures, and a city of that size would have its own local music scene as well.
    • What is there to indicate years have passed? Phyla doesn't look any older. Groot is bigger, but he can grow very quickly, he came fully back from just a head in what seemed like a couple of days at most. It is true that others on Knowhere might play their own music, but if the two are spending most of their time with the other Guardians, then Quill's music is going to be most of what they hear. Or humans just make the best music in the whole galaxy, so it's everyone's favorite.
  • Because the audience only knows Earth music. They could've just said some jumble of nonsense alien words, but then that wouldn't add anything to their characterization like the existing scene does.
  • As another component, all of the team would have ties to it on an emotional level. Kraglin seems to have always had an interest in Earth because of Quill (he was the one to go out of his way to celebrate Christmas with Quill back when they were younger). Cosmo is originally FROM Earth, so it may be her small way of reconnecting with her own roots (even though she was from the USSR). Phyla would likely have either heard Earth music growing up (HE loved his Earth operas), or it was the first thing her surrogate family introduced her to. Adam probably grew up on it (remember, he's still basically a kid when he joins the team, possibly even younger than Phyla mentally).
  • My hypothesis is Peter has unwittingly been an evangelist to Earth classic hits and has been converting everyone he's been in contact with ever since (As seen when the Guardians make their first appearance in Avengers: Infinity War)I admit this doesn't explain how extensive everybody's knowledge is, considering all they have is a handful of playlists.

When is an animal a person?

• So when Peter says "Yeah he's the dickhead who dissected my best friend!"....um...what? Do you not realize that if the HE had experimented on that baby raccoon in the first place, Rocket wouldn't even exist? Sorry but that animal that the High Evolutionary was experimenting on wasn't Rocket and does not have the cognitive faculties or introspective selfhood that Rocket does, it was part of the building blocks that created Rocket but unless the HE had done what he did, your friend wouldn't even cognitively be alive.
  • Unless someone is a Straw Vulcan or has a Saint-like level of forgiveness, their reaction to seeing a video of their friend being cruelly experimented on and mutilated is going to be less “well, if it wasn’t for him sadistically experimenting on him, my friend wouldn’t be the person I know, so I should be thankful to this mad scientist who has no remorse for his actions” and more “this cruel, sadistic bastard unrepentantly tortured and mutilated my friend. He's an irredeemable monster!”
  • I'm pretty sure that Rocket was already uplifted, showing his modifications and bipedal structure, in the footage they were watching, so yeah, that was Rocket being experimented on. Also, there's a big difference between someone looking back on their past suffering and accepting "what we have today wouldn't have happened if not for the suffering in our past" and that person’s friends saying to the person responsible for said suffering "well, your experiments gave me a friend, so I forgive you and actually I don't think you really did anything wrong".

Explosive-happy High Evolutionary

• If there is one thing Rocket and his creator the High Evolutionary have in common, it is the fact they love to blow up all their problems. When Quill reveals the problems of Counter-Earth to the High Evolutionary, the High Evolutionary does not deny it, implying he knew it all along and was planning on disposing of the planet anyways. However, the problem with this is that he also demands Rocket back in order to study his brain. However, has it occurred to the High Evolutionary that blowing up the planet would have killed Rocket before he could get his hands on him? Couldn't he wait until his henchmen brought back Rocket to his Lab before blowing up the planet? Or is The High Evolutionary really an impulsive and psychotic nutcase who never really thinks things through?
  • "Is the High Evolutionary really an impulsive and psychotic nutcase who never really thinks things through?"— yes, absolutely. He repeatedly shows himself to be short-sighted, erratic, and not even close to the genius he thinks he is. That said, he had already dispatched War Pig to retrieve Rocket by the time he started blowing up the planet, and probably just assumed she would make it back in time. Overconfidence and impulsive destruction fit with everything else we see about his character.

Why didn't Rocket kill High Evolutionary?

• He had no problem with killing the guards, and he'd just shredded HE's face, so what stopped him from taking a second and finishing the bastard?
  • By the time he had a chance, he was hitting a critical mass of trauma. He'd just lost the only friends he'd ever known (and the girl he was in love with), just killed for the first time, and was clearly in a very bad mental breakdown. At that point, probably the only thing he could think was "Rocket Teefs Floor go now!"
  • And by the time he might have composed himself enough to do anything else, the other guards were probably on their way, so he probably also decided to prioritize getting out of there before anything else.

Medpacks

• Considering how quickly the miracle med packs healed Mantis's multiple fractures at the beginning of the film wouldn't there be a risk of it healing all of Rocket's upgrades after they got past the proprietary software leaving him an ordinary nonsapient Raccoon? For that matter why are these things disposable, rather than being part of the beds in the sickbay, ala Star Trek?
  • Presumably standard medpacks are smart enough not to mess with cybernetics, since most people have cybernetics (even Peter has a translator chip). As for why they aren't standard equipment, that's like asking why modern hospitals have a first aid kit instead of a shelf of medication and a surgical suite. Maybe they had something better elsewhere, but that was all they needed.

Why didn't the H.E. think Groot was a threat?

• Nebula was made to wait outside the H.E.'s ship because there was a no-weapon policy and her arm was a weapon, but Groot's entire body can basically turn into weaponry. Melee weapons, sure, but still dangerous. And why on earth wouldn't they scan Groot to see if he was concealing any weapons, if they did that to Quill? Did they not realise that he could hide things inside or transform his body, and just assumed that he was nothing more than a walking tree man?
  • He seemed to ignore him entirely, possibly because he did indeed assume he was nothing more than a walking tree man.

Did Adam just abandon his people?

• So did Adam just abandon the Sovereign? With his mother gone and him with the Guardians, he has basically left the entire civilization that he had previously been super driven to save from the High Evolutionary's ire in the dust. And it is likely they as as a people are in a bad place right now with their leader dead and her progeny errant.

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