"Zardu Hasselfrau! Zardu Hasselfrau, hey!"
In these times of hardship,
just remember:
We! Are! Groot!
just remember:
We! Are! Groot!
"Guardians Inferno" is a disco cover of Tyler Bates' Guardians of the Galaxy theme, with lyrics written by James Gunn, and performed by David Hasselhoff and "The Sneepers". It plays during the end credits of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (after "Surrender" and "Flashlight"), and also closes the soundtrack Awesome Mix, Vol. 2. In August 2017, Marvel shared a TopPop-inspired music video
for the song, guest-starring Gunn and the main Guardians of the Galaxy actors, both online, and on the GotG Vol. 2 home media releases.
"Guardians Inferno" provides examples of:
- '70s Hair: Some of the music video's performers (including most of the men involved with making the Guardians movies) wear wigs to accomplish this.
- Brick Joke: Gamora mangles David Hasselhoff's name as "Zardu Hasselfrau" near the beginning of Vol. 2. In "Guardians Inferno", the one and only Hoff is introduced as "Zardu Hasselfrau".
- The Cameo:
- Stan Lee can add yet another notch to his cameo list, as he shows up near the end of the video. He doesn't dance, however, despite joking about it in the "Behind the Scenes" video.Stan Lee: I've always wondered why the world hadn't tapped into my musical talent before...
- One of the extras costumed as an alien is Guillermo Rodriguez (from Jimmy Kimmel Live!), who also should have had a cameo in the movie (as a cop on Earth), but this ended in a Deleted Scene.
- Stan Lee can add yet another notch to his cameo list, as he shows up near the end of the video. He doesn't dance, however, despite joking about it in the "Behind the Scenes" video
- Chroma Key: Liberally used throughout the music video, with psychedelic space or geometric shapes as background. '70s-style chroma key, of course, meaning it's painfully obvious.
- Curtain Call: In the video, the robot takes a bow after the song finishes.
- Double Vision: The video is extremely fond of the classic special effect making a performer appear twice at once, mirrored by the middle of the screen.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: The video's set and costumes make liberal use of sequins and glitter.
- Fake Band: The song is credited to "The Sneepers feat. David Hasselhoff". There is, of course, no such band; it's the main cast of the movies (Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Michael Rooker, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan) and director James Gunn having loads of fun in full Disco regalia.
- Fanservice: Several of the video's performers wear low-cut outfits, and Bautista doesn't wear a shirt at all.
- Finger Gun: The dancers, as well as Zoe Saldaña, make frequent finger-gun gestures along with the zapping sounds of the music to evoke Ray Guns.
- Gratuitous Disco Sequence:
- In the GotG Vol. 2 end credits, this song accompanies a display of holographic stickers of the Guardians and the Grandmaster dancing.
- The whole music video is one long, very gratuitous, very Disco sequence, slavishly following the style and limitations of a music video from the '70s.
- Homage: The song and the video evoke Meco's disco covers of scores from Star Wars, and when the Dutch variety show TopPop staged a dance number around the first one.
- Irony: Most of the Guardians cast members, who play aliens in the films, appear without alien makeup in this music video. In contrast, Chris Pratt, who plays the Token Human in the films, is hiding his face underneath a robot suit.
- Leave the Camera Running: The video runs a little longer than the song itself, even showing when the performers stop holding their final poses.
- Non-Appearing Title: No-one ever sings the words "Guardians" or "Inferno".
- Porn Stache: Sean Gunn is sporting an epic one along with his '70s Hair.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "We! Are! Groot!"
- Retraux: Everything is designed to evoke disco performance videos of the 1970s, from the set design, costumes, and lighting. It was even shot on vintage television cameras to get the right look.
- Shout-Out: The song's title is a reference to the 1976 musical Disco Inferno.
- Stylistic Suck: The music video slavishly follows the visual codes of '70s television, including laughable "aliens" and "spacemen" costumes, painfully obvious Chroma Key and other crappy special effects, over-the-top shots and camera moves, etc. Seriously, it's so "bad" in a well-done way and faithful to the tropes of the timenote , without knowing the context it's almost impossible to guess it's not a vintage music video.
- Tin-Can Robot: One of the costumed dancers is a glitzy robot with a bucket head, doing vaguely robotic dance moves throughout the video. The ending reveals it's Chris Pratt inside the costume.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: One of the lyrics for the number is "Getting down and dirty with a Procyon lotor." Procyon lotor is the scientific name for "raccoon". This refers, naturally, to Rocket Raccoon. The video puts those words on the screen, presumably so viewers can look them up.
- Walk Like an Egyptian: In the background, Pom Klementieff briefly integrates the Egyptian walk in her dance moves.
