Follow TV Tropes

Following

Film / Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Go To

All spoilers for this movie will remain unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guardiansofthegalaxyvol2.png
Rocket: So, we're saving the galaxy again?
Peter: I guess.
Rocket: Awesome! We're really gonna be able to jack up our prices if we're two-time galaxy savers!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the 2017 sequel to the 2014 comedy superhero Space Opera/Space Western film Guardians of the Galaxy and both the fifteenth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the third instalment of Phase 3. Like the first film, it is written and directed by James Gunn. It is based on the Marvel Comics line Guardians of the Galaxy.

Two months after the defeat of the villainous Ronan the Accuser, the Guardians of the Galaxy—which consist of Peter "Star-Lord" Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel)—are riding high on their newfound notoriety, selling their services as heroes for hire. Unfortunately, when they take a job for a race called the Sovereign in exchange for their captive, Gamora's sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), the Guardians end up angering their easily-offended clients and get put on the Sovereign's hitlist. Now the Guardians are on the run from the Sovereign and the team's old Space Pirate enemies/allies, the Ravagers, who have mutinied against their boss Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker) for his softness on his former apprentice Peter, and are now leading the Sovereign's manhunt. And just to complicate matters, Peter's Disappeared Dad Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell) has resurfaced, along with Mantis (Pom Klementieff), a protégée of his own.

A sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, was released on May 5, 2023, once again written and directed by James Gunn. Gunn wrote and directed The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special for Disney+, which released in time for the holidays in 2022 ahead of Vol. 3's release.note  In between, the Guardians' story was continued in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Love and Thunder, with Gunn consulting on the Guardians' portrayal in each.

Previews: Sneak Peek, Teaser Trailer, Big Game Spot, and a Full Trailer.


Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes # to B 
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: When all hope seems lost, Peter is finally able to tap into his Celestial ancestry and take full advantage of the cosmic energy within Ego's planet form, effectively becoming a god "with a small 'g'". However, destroying Ego ends up severing his ability to do so from that point forward so he uses his new power to effectively eliminate it for good.
  • 2-D Space: Averted; while the Guardians fly into an asteroid field to avoid the Sovereign drones, the majority of the enemy force just goes around the asteroid field to wait for them to come out.
  • '70s Hair: Ego and Meredith have one in the flashback opening, fitting for the time period.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Ego, the Living Planet, is a Celestial, so he crafted bodies for his exploration of the universe. He deliberately chose someone who looked like an action hero from The '80s, like Kurt Russell, to help connect with Peter. I mean, he looks an awful lot like Kurt.
  • Abusive Parents:
    • As Rocket and Yondu reach Ego, Yondu mentions that his parents sold him off as a Child Soldier to the Kree.
    • It's revealed that Ego plans to use Peter's Celestial power to make every planet in the universe become himself by terraforming them with plants he placed on them. It gets worse when it's revealed that he murdered all of Peter's half-siblings when they failed to inherit his Celestial powers, then stashed their skeletal remains in the caverns on his planet. Then, he subjects Peter to a Fate Worse than Death by making him a Living Battery for 1000 years as punishment for his insolence. He's also a surrogate parent to Mantis but, according to her, he treats her more like a pet.
  • Accidental Misnaming:
    • Gamora's still trying to understand Earth culture and mispronounces David Hasselhoff's name as Zardu Hasselfrau.
    • Drax gets the technical name of the batteries wrong. More than once.
  • Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Quite a few.
    • Nebula and Gamora's argument after their big duel, where Nebula explains why she hates her sister to Gamora at length.
    • Yondu expertly deconstructing Rocket's behavior on board the Ravager ship, explaining how he and Rocket aren't that different.
    • Mantis using her empathic abilities to telepathically learn about Drax's family. Because the audience already knows Drax's backstory, all we see is Mantis collapsing into tears while Drax stares beatifically into the distance.
    • Yondu's funeral.
  • Action Prologue: Double subverted. The battle with the Abilisk is reduced to a Meaningful Background Event during the opening credits, but Rocket's stereo gets smashed before the fight is over, snapping Groot out of his reverie and returning us to the protagonists' point of view for the rest of the fight.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • One of Stakar's first lines is yelling at Yondu about how he betrayed the code.
    • Teenage Groot takes up all his time with video games, which are something of a passion of Vin Diesel's.
  • Actually Pretty Funny:
    • When Baby Groot brings "that guy's eye" and Rocket insists on keeping it just to mess with the guy, Yondu just stares at him before letting out a slight chuckle.
    • The traitorous Ravagers laugh at Rocket mocking Taserface.
  • Adaptational Abomination: While Ego the Living Planet was quite powerful, the Ego of the film is more of a cosmic being despite having the ability to take a human form. His true form is a giant glowing brain with the planet being something he formed for himself rather than just being a planet given consciousness. He becomes more Lovecraftian when his true colors are revealed, as his Assimilation Plot involves spreading pieces of himself to grow like tumors on planets.
  • Adaptational Badass: Star-Lord ends up being significantly stronger than in the comics. In the climax, he dukes it out with Ego Man of Steel-style. However, following Ego's death, Peter loses his powers.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: Ego while still a bad guy in comics here has all of his worst attributes ramped up, in a similar manner as was done with Ronan in the previous movie. Ego was regarded as something of the cosmic hero's joke villain when anyone except Kirby was scripting him. Up until 2017 with his appearance in Ultimates 2 fighting alongside Galactus, most modern stories had silly plots like the Hulk fighting monstrous zits on his surface, and him hiring Rocket-Raccoon to de-louse his hair. The movie version is not a joke, being as dark and destructive as Ronan was.
  • Adaptational Modesty:
    • Mantis' costume has leggings and no plunging V-neck, in contrast to her original outfit from the comics.
    • Ayesha's robes are also a mite bit more conservative than the Leotard of Power she has in the comics.
    • There's also Aletta who's dressed up to the collar like Mantis — it's safe to say this applies to anyone who isn't Drax.
  • Adaptation Species Change: In the comics, neither Ego nor Star-Lord were Celestials, either completely or half-breed. In the movie, they are. Or so Ego claims...
  • Adapted Out: J'son of Spartax is Peter's Arch Nemesis Dad in the comics instead of Ego, though he seems to have inherited some of his personality.
  • Adrenaline Time: James Gunn said in the DVD commentary that he likes to composite scenes filmed at different speeds to give a layered effect (sometimes subtle, sometimes pronounced) to the final scene.
    • Used in the forest scene when Rocket's gravity traps blow the Ravagers into the air. There are layers of Ravagers moving at different speeds both as they're flying up and dropping back to the ground. A similar timing effect is used during the Flechette Storm trap.
    • Used extensively when Yondu has regained control of his Yaka arrow and is using it to take out all the mutinous Ravagers on his ship.
  • Advertised Extra: Although Sylvester Stallone is listed among the main cast members, he only appears in three very brief scenes.
  • Agony of the Feet: "Please tell me you have a refrigerator somewhere full of severed human toes. ... Let's agree never to discuss this."
  • Affectionate Nickname: Yondu refers to Groot as "Twig" and Rocket as "Rat".
  • Alien Blood: One of the Ravagers bleeds green blood, when he's hit by Yondu's arrow.
  • Alien Geometries: The support trusses inside Ego's core are actually Mandelbulb fractals.
  • Alien Sky: The planet Behert has four moons.
  • Always Save the Girl: During their Darkest Hour, Peter tells Drax to get the recently unconscious Mantis to the ship to keep her safe. On the surface, Ego starts pulling them into Quicksand Sucks and Drax holds her above his head as he drowns.
  • Anachronic Order: Within the greater MCU. Most MCU films follow a fixed timeline and are set chronologically in the order of their release. However, James Gunn decided to set this film just two months after the events of the first Guardians movie, meaning that it takes place well before the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, and the rest of Phase 3 despite being the third film in Phase 3. Though given that the series is set clear on the other side of the galaxy from the rest of the 'verse's properties, there's not much continuity to worry about aside from the seed of Ego that's clearly in Missouri.
  • And Starring: The opening credits feature two examples:
  • Apocalypse How: Ego's big plan falls into several classes at once. Species will be extinct but planets aren't annihilated — they'll just be remade in his own image.
  • Arc Words:
    • Ego uses the lyrics to "Brandy" by Looking Glass as the motto that defines his life. It plays during the opening scene and he quotes it twice to Peter as his justification for leaving.
      Ego: But my life, my love and my lady is the sea.
    • Amusingly, references to David Hasselhoff show up at least three times during the film, when Peter is arguing with Gamora, when Ego reveals his true colors, and when Peter is giving Yondu's eulogy.
  • Armor-Piercing Question:
    • The final confrontation with the Big Bad:
      Ego: You are a god. If you kill me, you'll be just like everybody else!
      Peter: What's so wrong with that?
    • Kraglin's response to Taserface's plans for mutiny.
      Kraglin: If [Yondu's] so soft, what are you whispering for?
    • Combined with Armor-Piercing Response:
      Peter: I finally found my family. Don't you understand that?
      Gamora: I thought you already had.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: A very Downplayed Example. Peter says to Ego "You shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my Walkman!" While upon first hearing it seems to fit the trope well, both movies established that the Walkman and the mix-tape it contains are some of the last ties Peter has to his mother and it is actually a highly treasured item.
  • Artistic License – Geography: Missouri does have one nuclear power plant in a rural area, Callaway Nuclear Generating Station, except it has only one reactor and cooling tower... and wasn't commissioned until 1984, years after the movie sets Ego and Meredith's romance before Peter was born. The power plant in the background of the opening scene is Plant Bowen, a coal-fired plant in Bartow County, Georgia.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Nebula's role is beefed up significantly compared to the first movie.
    • Kraglin had barely a handful of lines in the first movie and accomplished no more than the nameless Ravagers. Here, he plays an important part in accidentally inciting Taserface's mutiny and aiding in Yondu's subsequent escape, and effectively becomes the Guardians' getaway pilot during the fight with Ego. He also has a large role in Yondu's funeral. It's less surprising an ascent when you realize said extra is played by the actor who also does the motion-capture for Rocket—and who is the director's brother to boot.
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: So very much; at least half the entries on the first film's page got confirmed.
    • So Peter is a Half-Human Hybrid who can wield an Infinity Stone briefly without dying? That kind of power is exactly why Ego wants to use him, and didn't just kill him outright.
    • Yondu is a career space pirate, criminal, and murderer who grew up in a Kree slave camp yet he considers Peter's father to be a "jackass". Ego is revealed to be an Omnicidal Maniac who sired and murdered hundreds of thousands of his own children when they failed to inherit his Celestial gene and plans to wipe out the galaxy to replace it with more of himself. "Jackass" turns out to be an understatement.
    • Why does Gamora have fewer obvious cybernetic parts than Nebula, despite them growing up as Thanos's Co-Dragons? And why was Nebula so homicidal towards her adoptive sister? Thanos, being Thanos, pitted them against each other. The loser would be Strapped to an Operating Table and "upgraded" to overcome any weakness. Gamora was always the better fighter, and fought to survive like the scared child she was — which led to Nebula being medically tortured after every defeat, leaving her in constant pain. Nebula blamed Gamora for the mutilation, and killing her would be the only way Thanos would stop.
  • Assimilation Plot: Ego's ultimate plan is to become the entire universe.
  • Asteroid Thicket: It's a quantum thicket, with asteroids whisking in and out of existence. And then subverted when the rest of the Sovereign fleet just flies around it.
  • As You Know:
    • In the first scene with the Guardians, Gamora exposits that they were hired by the High Priestess to kill the Abilisk. Maybe she thought Rocket had forgotten, you know, given that he was setting up background music and his known penchant for thievery.
    • The Sovereign admiral points out that the anulax batteries are extremely flammable, a fact Ayesha likely would have already known.
    • Gamora recaps Peter's childhood excuse of calling David Hasselhoff his father to Peter himself. Downplayed, however, in that Gamora gets some details wrong (e.g., saying Hasselhoff piloted a magical boat rather than a talking car), forcing Peter to correct her so she can tell the rest of the story properly.
  • Atrocious Alias: Nearly everybody considers Taserface's moniker to be laughable, even those who sided with him in the mutiny. It's bad enough to the point where even the normally serious Sovereign Chambermaid laughs at it as he sends his dying message.
  • Attack Drone: All the Sovereign's starfighters are remotely controlled from a room filled with what look like arcade video-game cabinets on their home planet — even when going to a place as distant as 700 hyperspace jumps. This is no surprise considering that Ayesha explains earlier that they consider each of their "genetically perfect" numbers too precious to waste in a war.
  • Attack the Injury: The battle with the Abilisk in the prologue isn't going well for the Guardians, as the beast has a hide that shrugs off all their weapons... until Peter notices a previous injury that left an open incision in the hide. He points it out to Gamora, who quickly uses her sword to open a massive cut from the original small wound.
  • Audible Sharpness: Audible in the scene where Gamora sits alone out in the open on planet Ego and pulls out her sword to behead a plant next to her.
  • Author Appeal: James Gunn is a big fan of David Hasselhoff, who plays a significant role in this film.
  • Awesome Mc Cool Name: Taserface considers his moniker this, but everyone else finds it hilariously dumb.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Rocket takes literally every opportunity he can to insult or annoy Peter and Yondu, but he's visibly very upset at the thought of leaving either of them to potentially die in a planet-sized explosion.
    Rocket: Yondu, we're about to blow!
    Yondu: Get to the ship!
    Rocket: Not without Quill!
    Yondu: You need to take care of the Twig!
    Rocket: [voice breaking] Not without you!
  • Backing Away Slowly: After accidentally stabbing Drax with the Yaka Arrow while practicing in The Stinger, Kraglin walks backwards a few steps before running away.
  • Badass Boast: Quill attempts this, only for his boast to be hijacked by Rocket.
    Drax: Quill, to make it through that, you'd have to be the greatest pilot in the universe!
    Quill: Lucky for us...
    Rocket: I am.
    Quill: ...I a— [glances at Rocket in exasperation]
  • Bad Liar: Nebula offers to help the Guardians defend themselves from a potential hostile force if they'll remove her restraints; when Gamora claims that Nebula would simply take the opportunity to attack her immediately, Nebula gives a comically awful attempt at denying this, leading one of the Guardians to quip that, being the daughter of a monstrous genocidal maniac, she'd have learned to be a better liar.
  • Bait the Dog: We are told by Yondu of all people that Peter's father is a "jackass", but Ego at first seems like a pleasant guy, trying to reconnect with his son, sharing his love of 70's music, and playing catch with Peter with an energy sphere that he taught him how to make. And then we learn Mantis is treated more like a pet with benefits than an adopted daughter by Ego. And then we learn of his grand scheme of assimilating the universe. And then we learn that he killed dozens of his children simply because they were of no use to his plan. And then we learn that the best way for him to carry on with his scheme after falling in love is to give his wife a brain tumor... see a pattern yet?
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Kraglin, apart from a mouth grill, is the most human of the Ravagers as well as the most sympathetic. The rest have scarred looking faces, even the lieutenant who insists on loyalty to Yondu.
  • Berserk Button: Rocket still hates being called a raccoon.
  • Better Off with the Bad Guys: Peter Quill is abducted by aliens shortly before his mother died of cancer, and was being raised by Yondu Udonda as a Bounty Hunter before eventually becoming a hero. In Vol. 2, it's shown that he finds his real father, but his real bonds are with Yondu, who in the end reared him as his son.
  • BFG: Gamora manages to not only jury-rig an entire spaceship cannon made up of three rotary guns that's bigger than her during a fight, but walk around with it sitting on her shoulder as she fires it at full-auto straight into the Ravager craft said cannon came from.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Rocket keeps shouting "NO!" each time Groot points at the "Instant Death Button" that will set off the bomb.
      Groot: I am Groot!
      Rocket: NO! No! That's the button that will kill everyone!
    • Gamora when she thinks Peter has died in a massive explosion.
    • Ayesha after all her ships get destroyed in the Final Battle.
    • This is also the last thing Ego says when Peter accepts losing his immortality.
    • Peter starts begging and sobbing for Yondu not to sacrifice himself when they ascend into space with only one flight suit and one space rig. Yondu doesn't listen.
  • Big "YES!":
    • Ego shouts "Yes!" when Peter succeeds in creating an energy ball. It's only later we discover it's because Peter is the first of thousands of Ego's children to show actual ability.
    • This is how Kraglin greets the arrival of the Ravager fleets at Yondu's funeral.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Especially in contrast of the first film's cheerful And the Adventure Continues style ending. The Guardians manage to stop Ego from assimilating every life in the universe, but Yondu sacrifices himself to save Peter in the process, and thousands of beings are killed by Ego's blob. Gamora and Nebula manage to reconcile, but Nebula still leaves to pursue revenge against her father. The last shot of the film before the credits, holds on a close-up of Rocket's tear-streaked face. Also, one of The Stinger scenes reveals that Ayesha is in the process of creating a superior lifeform she calls "Adam" that she believes will be able to destroy the Guardians.
  • Bizarre Beverage Use: After capturing Baby Groot to make him their mascot, the Ravagers spray him with alcohol to humiliate him.
  • Blatant Lies: Rocket catches on right away that Yondu is lying about keeping Peter "because he was skinny, could fit into places the rest of us couldn't,
  • Blob Monster: Ego's seedlings taking over various planets appear as a pulsing blue mass of ooze.
  • Bloodless Carnage:
    • A lot of characters die onscreen in this film, but rarely is any blood seen outside of the first monster they dispatch on the Sovereign homeworld.
    • The Sovereign use attack drones, so none actually get hurt when one is blown up... well, their egos get bruised.
  • Body Horror:
    • As a consequence of going through several hundred warp jumps when the safest maximum amount is fifty, Kraglin, Yondu, Baby Groot, and Rocket all get heavily distorted by the excessive jump travel.
    • Nebula goes into great detail over Thanos's cybernetic modifications on her, such as taking an eye, removing her left arm, and removing her brain.
    • Ego reconstructing his human form every time it's hurt.
  • Body Motifs:
    • An unconventional example; Ego is closely associated with tumors. He infected Meredith Quill with cancer using his powers. As he activates different fragments of himself on other planets, they are covered in ugly blue growths modeled on tumors. In behavior, Ego himself is a sentient, malignant tumor; an abnormal organism who exists to grow and consume the universe, killing all in its path.
    • To a lesser extent, he's associated with brains. His original form was a disembodied brain that he gradually built a planet around, and he specifically chose to kill Meredith Quill with brain cancer.
  • Boldly Coming:
    • Implied. Ayesha takes notice of how alien the Sovereign's method of reproduction comes across to Peter, and suggests he show her the Terran way sometime. He begins accepting, then switches to refusal when he remembers Gamora's presence.
    • As depicted in his animated diorama, Ego wooed a lot of alien women in an attempt to sire a child who could assist him with his grand plan.
  • Bookends:
    • Peter and Yondu's relationship ends as it began: With Yondu whisking Peter away to safety after he watches a parent die. Peter is also picked up by Kraglin and the others just after Yondu, whom Peter has just realised was his true father figure, sacrifices his life to save him.
    • The film kicks off with Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky", and the symphonic finale at the end of the song can be heard during the credits.
  • Both Sides Have a Point: Deconstructed, as because both sides have a point, they are unwilling to listen to one another: both Peter and Rocket are right in that they're the only ones on the ship who can safely fly through the Quantum Meteor Field; Peter because he's been flying the Milano since he was ten, Rocket because he was literally created to fly spaceships. Too bad both of them suffer from Testosterone Poisoning at the time so that they end up fighting for control and allowing an asteroid to hit the ship. Gamora yells at them for this later:
    Gamora: Either one of you could have made it through the field, had you flown with what's between your ears instead of what's between your legs!
  • Bottomless Magazines: Explicitly averted during the fight with the Abilisk. Peter is clearly shown changing power cartridges for his guns, and later on the rifle Gamora is using runs out of ammo, forcing her to switch to her sword.
  • Breaking Speech: Between Rocket and Yondu.
    Yondu: You can fool yourself and you can fool everyone else, but you can't fool me... I know you play like you're the meanest and the hardest, but actually you're the most scared of all... I know who you are, boy, because you're me!
  • Break Out the Museum Piece: Yondu gets his Yaka Arrow Controller (his "mohawk" looking cybernetic piece) irreparably damaged by Nebula, forcing him to use a larger and bulkier prototype version. Being called a prototype, and being bigger/bulkier, yet not seeming to have any greater functionality than the one he used before, indicating it is just an older model.
  • Break the Haughty: A Downplayed Example. Ayesha is portrayed as quite smug and arrogant throughout the film. When she fails to kill the Guardians and loses all her ships it takes her down a few pegs and she appears to be a bit haggard and disheveled during the movie's stinger. However, she retains her title of high priestess and still has a superior attitude regarding her new creation that she believes will be able to destroy the Guardians.
  • Break Them by Talking: Occurs when Nebula convinces Baby Groot to set her free. It's a downplayed example because given Baby Groot's child-like state of mind, she is able to easily play upon his fear and anxiety that Rocket could be in danger.
  • Breaking the Fellowship: Yondu suffers a mutiny. The mutineers kill the crew that insist on being loyal to Yondu. When Kraglin apologizes, delivers the fin, and lets Yondu out of the brig, Yondu kills the rest. There are a hundred crews of Ravagers, and this crew is dead.
  • Breather Episode: This, and the other two MCU films released in 2017, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok served as a Lighter and Softer break of MCU comedies sandwiched in between the Darker and Edgier 2016 films of Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange and 2018's Black Panther (which, whilst not quite as heavy-hitting as Avengers: Infinity War which came right after it, still had a more serious and emotional tone and fewer quirky and comedic one-liners compared to the three MCU comedies released in 2017).
  • Brick Joke:
    • Nebula is repeatedly told to leave a fruit alone because it's not ripe. When she's finally set free and gets her hands on it, she immediately spits it out in disgust. "It's not ripe."
    • Once Peter learns about his matter manipulation powers, he says "I'm gonna make a 800-foot-tall statue of Pac-Man!" Later in the climactic battle, he gathers rocks around his body to become a giant Pac-Man.
    • Gamora switches to a big gun when fighting the Abilisk, saying she's not likely to beat it with a sword — yet that's exactly how it's beaten. The payoff comes when Gamora gets her hands on an even bigger gun and uses it on something a lot smaller than the Abilisk, but more dangerous — Nebula.
    • Young Peter said to his friends that David Hasselhoff was his father. Ego briefly changes his form to the Hoff at one point, Peter likens Yondu to Hasselhoff during the latter's funeral, and David himself also appears during the closing credits. Additionally, Hasselhoff performs one of the songs played over the end credits. ("Guardians Inferno")
    • Drax's infamous penis question was actually answered by Ego having to take a whiz earlier.
    • Drax refuses to wear a Jet Pack in the first battle because the chest strap hurts his sensitive nipples. When Peter slaps a jetpack on him in the final battle, he yelps in pain when it deploys over his chest. (It's hilarious)
    • One that reaches across movies — when Groot has to find Yondu's old head-fin, he instead brings all sorts of junk, including "that guy's eye" from the first movie. Two months later and Rocket still wants it.
    • Another one that reaches across movies. In the last one, Rocket built a bomb that could destroy moons; this time Rocket builds one capable of destroying a Celestial, who's powering a planet... that's the size of Earth's Moon.
    • The troll doll that Peter swaps out for the Infinity Stone at the end of the first movie is laid down among Yondu's personal artifacts at his funeral. The little blue thing Yondu bought in the first movie also shows up.
    • Yondu describes Peter's biological father as a jackass in the first film. Come Vol. 2 and the reveal of Ego being an Omnicidal Maniac, Yondu gleefully lands his ship right on top of Ego and says, "Hey there, jackass!"
    • During Peter's extended metaphor about Cheers and the conventions of TV programs, Gamora eventually yells at him that she has no idea what he's talking about. Later at Yondu's funeral, Peter pauses to explain the significance of David Hasselhoff in his story for the benefit of the other Guardians, clearly no longer desiring his references to be meaningless to his listeners.
    • Rocket convinces Yondu to play one of Peter's tunes, leading up to the "Come a Little Bit Closer" scene. Were there extra cassettes around or something? Not highly likely. Turns out it was in a Zune.
    • Crossing both movies: While Peter's mother gives him his first two mix tapes, the first while she was alive, the second (because of his own delay) after her death, he receives the third (the Zune) as a post-mortem gift from Yondu, the man he has ultimately recognized as his true father.
  • Bridal Carry: Drax carries an unconscious Mantis to safety this way during the climatic battle. Romantic undertones are nill because he earlier got physically ill at the thought of it.
  • Bright Is Not Good: Ego's planet (and thus, Ego himself), is brightly coloured, and the Guardians find it beautiful. As it happens, Ego agrees, so much so that he wants to consume all other worlds in the cosmos and turn them into extensions of him. That being said, as Ego's true nature keeps revealing itself, this also reflects on the surface of his planetary self, which goes from an idyllic paradise to a hellish, sinister wasteland.
  • Bullying a Dragon: After Rocket effortlessly cuts through half of Yondu's Ravagers, one of them decides to taunt him that he "ain't that tough without your gadgets". Cue him getting a raccoon to the face.
  • Burial in Space: After sacrificing himself to save Peter, Yondu receives a form of cremation that sweeps his multi-colored ashes/embers out into space. To the surprise of the Guardians the rest of the Ravagers come to celebrate his life with space fireworks.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Ego treats most of the horrible things he does in this manner, including murdering his own children. After all, what is the suffering of mortals to a godlike being such as himself? Even his murder of Peter's mother, whom he genuinely cared for, is regarded as little more than an unpleasant moment for him that he quickly got over like a bee sting or mosquito bite and he really doesn't seem to grasp the full extent of all the evil he's done.

    Tropes C to E 
  • Cain and Abel: Nebula vows to kill her sister, but makes up with Gamora at the end of the movie.
  • Call-Back:
    • Ego explains that he's been looking for Peter Quill for years since Yondu refused to deliver him, but he's only located his son recently, when he heard about a human able to grasp an Infinity Stone without dying immediately, as happened in the climax of the first movie.
    • Yondu turns down the Sovereign's request to kill the Guardians, citing that the entirety of the Nova Corps (whose home planet the Guardians saved at the end of the first movie) would be out for blood, which becomes the catalyst for Taserface's mutiny.
    • Peter mentions that the Kree Purists are still pissed off at the Guardians.
  • Call-Forward: During his customary cameo, Stan Lee mentions he got a job as a FedEx delivery man, referencing his appearance in the chronologically later Captain America: Civil War.
  • The Cameo:
    • Stan Lee makes an exceptionally meta cameo appearance, chatting with a bunch of Watchers and seemingly talking about his previous cameo appearance in Captain America: Civil War .
    • Ben Browder (John Crichton in Farscape, which James Gunn has cited as one of his inspirations for the Guardians movies) makes an appearance as a Sovereign admiral.
    • Ving Rhames and Michelle Yeoh both briefly appear as leaders of different Ravager factions; Miley Cyrus voices Mainframe when the Ravager captains team up in the credits.
    • Howard the Duck also briefly appears at the same bar as Yondu early in the film. His date is played by Molly C. Quinn.
    • The surprise appearance of Pac-Man.
    • David Hasselhoff briefly appears when Ego takes his form. He also sings a song during the ending credits and shows up briefly between stingers.
    • Gregg Henry appears driving a minivan to escape Ego's assimilation wave.
  • Camera Abuse: During the opening credits, Groot trips and bumps into the camera, causing it to shake and move back.
  • Campfire Character Exploration: After Ego reveals himself to the heroes on Berhert, they spend the night around a campfire getting to know each other. For Ego, it's a way to start worming his way into Peter's good graces.
  • Casting Gag:
    • One of Kurt Russell's most famous roles is in The Thing (1982), a film where the antagonist is an alien that has the ability to assimilate other life. Ego the Living Planet has that same ability and plans to implement it on a galactic scale.
    • In the James Gunn film Slither, Michael Rooker played a character who had an encounter with an assimilating alien and lost his life, except in that case he was assimilated and went on to assimilate others as the antagonist. Here, he fights and defeats the assimilating alien before giving his life to save his adoptive son.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue:
    • Rocket's only reaction to seeing the giant, monstrous Abilisk land in front of them and start screaming is "well, that's intense."
    • While the team is fighting the giant inter-dimensional monster, Groot just dances around to "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra, cutely waves hello to Gamora, and other inane things.
      Groot: [waving]
      Gamora: ...Hi.
    • While running from the Sovereign space armada, Peter and Rocket argue over who's got better piloting skills.
    • While the Guardians are crashing their spaceship into a forest on the planet Behert, Groot just sits eating multi-colored candy out of a flower pot.
    • Peter and Rocket have an extended conversation about finding some tape to cover up the "Instant Death Button" that'll set off Rocket's giant bomb as an entire armada of spaceships have an epic Space Battle behind them.
      Rocket: Does anybody have any tape out there? I wanna put some tape over the death button.
      Peter: Nobody has any tape!...
      Rocket: Not a single person has tape!?
      ...
      Peter: You have priceless batteries and an atomic bomb in your bag, if anyone's going to have tape it's you!
      Rocket: That my point! I have to do everything!
      Peter: You are wasting a lot of time!
  • The Cavalry: We get a villainous example in the final fight. The Sovereign fleet show up to kill the Guardians, interrupting their attempt to use Yondu's mining equipment to kill Ego.
  • Celebrity Paradox:
    • Back in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Cap lists the Rocky film series as one of the pop culture phenomenons he must catch up on. Sylvester Stallone, who plays the eponymous protagonist of the film series, makes his MCU debut in this film.
    • David Hasselhoff played Nick Fury in a failed TV pilot in the '90s, which was then released as a standalone movie. This even got brought up quite a bit after Winter Soldier, due to the MCU Nick Fury now having a talking car.
  • Central Theme: Family of Choice. Continuing from the first movie and exemplified by Quill and Yondu and Nebula and Gamora, the movie explores how family isn't blood or where you come from but what you make it. Furthermore, the movie solidifies the Guardians of the Galaxy as a family unit. This is in contrast to Ego and his relationship with his children and eventually Thanos and his children.
    Peter: I finally found my family, don't you get that?
    Gamora: I thought you already had.
  • Cerebus Call-Back: Several to the first film regarding The Reveal of Ego being the Big Bad Dad.
    • Yondu and Kraglin saying Peter's father is a jackass. The film proves this to be not only true, but a complete understatement.
    • The cancer of Peter's mom. Ego caused it, claiming it as a Shoot the Dog moment for him as he believes that "love is a distraction".
    • Peter saving Gamora from outer space by giving her his own breathing device/mask then plays it off as his own heroic moment when they both got rescued becomes this when in this film, Yondu does the same thing to Peter, but he doesn't survive long enough to get rescued, and Peter can only watch helplessly as he dies in front of him.
  • Changeling Fantasy: Peter spends parts of the previous film wondering who his real father was and he turns out to be a small-time god that looks like Kurt Russell who is immortal and has the ability to control the molecules around him both of which are passed on to Peter. Subverted in that he is revealed to be an Omnicidal Maniac who killed Peter's mother and has no qualms using his son as a battery to help further his goals.
  • Character Development: All of the Guardians have progressed slightly since the end of the last movie:
    • Peter tries to be more responsible and a better leader, even chastizing Rocket for fiddling with superfluous work before a battle, as well as criticizing him for stealing two of the Sovereign's batteries. He also cares less about the name Star-Lord, since he got the respect he wanted.
    • Rocket has picked up an appreciation for Peter's music, insisting they listen to it while they work and even humming to himself while fighting the Ravagers. He's also nicer to Groot this time around. Within the movie itself, he realizes that his insecurities are causing him to ruin every friendship he has. He wants to form closer relationships, but his fear of that kind of intimacy makes him act like a jackass until all his friends leave him.
    • Gamora is less adversarial and even learns how to dance and lets herself explore her feelings for Peter. She also shows a much softer side when she interacts with Baby Groot.
    • Drax is less serious, having developed a basic understanding and appreciation for humor, especially practical jokes, and tries to console and offer wisdom to Peter. He even seems to have developed a grasp of metaphors by telling Mantis she is beautiful... on the inside.
    • Groot is still a baby so he's actually moved backwards, being contrary, fussy, impulsive, and only weakly grasping what people want him to do.
  • Chasing a Butterfly: Baby Groot chases around and nearly eats an alien bug while the rest of the Guardians are busy fighting the Abilisk. Rocket immediately notices from 50 feet away and zooms over to stop him.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The batteries that Rocket steals from the Sovereign. Their explosive potential became essential in taking down Ego's core.
    • The mysterious plant Ego introduces Meredith to in the opening is part of his attempt to become all life in the universe.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Mantis reveals that, besides her empathic abilities, she can also help Ego sleep when he needs rest. Come the climax, she uses her power to forcefully put Ego to sleep, giving the Guardians a better chance at killing him.
  • Chunky Updraft: A swirl of pebbles surrounds Peter as he begins using his powers against his father.
  • Comedic Work, Serious Scene: This movie is just as dense and wacky as its predecessor, but the scene where Gamora and Nebula find the corpses of Ego's other children is Played for Horror, and Yondu's death and subsequent funeral are Played for Drama.
  • Comically Missing the Point:
    • After Rocket launches a Stealth Insult at Ayesha, he realizes he winked the wrong eye and points that out, instead of being worried about the repercussions of insulting the team's clients.
      Rocket: I'm sorry... that was meant to be behind your back.
    • When a frantic Mantis wakes up Drax to warn him of Ego's intentions, he thinks she wants sex and goes to elaborate lengths to tell her how much this squicks him out.
    • In the opening fight Drax concludes that the monster's hide is too tough for their weapons and dives into its mouth to be swallowed whole... where instead of attacking its vulnerable organs he ineffectually cuts at the same hide from the inside.
  • Coming in Hot: The Milano's emergency landing on Berhert.
  • Compact Infiltrator:
    • Yondu claims that the reason why he kept young Peter Quill instead of bringing him to Ego as per their agreement was because Quill was smaller than anyone else in his gang, making him useful for sneaking through tight spots - or as he puts it, "good for thievin'." He's lying: it's because Yondu figured out that he'd been hired to track down Ego's various children so that the Living Planet could use one of them as a battery for the Expansion. Plus, Ego was murdering the kids who didn't measure up, a fact that prompted Yondu to grow a conscience.
    • In the finale, Baby Groot is found to be the only member of the team small enough to sneak through the tunnels and plant the bomb on Ego's brain. The only downside is that Baby Groot isn't terribly bright: even after repeated explanations, he can't remember the difference between the button that activates the timer and the button that triggers instant detonation. Worse still, he sets off before Rocket can finish the mission briefing.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Once Ego gets a hold of Quill and begins to enact his Assimilation Plot, Yondu and Rocket shut him up by crushing his avatar with a spaceship.
    Drax: What are you doing? You could have killed us all!
    Rocket: Uh, "thank you, Rocket?"
    Drax: We had it under control!
    Mantis: We did not!
  • Composite Character:
    • The film version of Ego combines elements of the comic book Ego the Living Planet with J'Son of Spartax, who is Peter Quill's father in the comics, and the Priests of Pama, who raised Mantis in the comics. His appearance and desire to "seed the universe" make him similar to the Gardener, an Elder of the Universe like the Collector and the Grandmaster.
    • The Sovereign seem to be a composite of the Enclave and the Universal Church of Truth. In the comics both have links to Adam Warlock.
  • Consummate Liar: Ego is a very good liar and smooth manipulator of people. When he first meets Peter and tries to excuse why he left him and Meredith, he says that it was because he couldn't stay on a planet without Meredith. Which wasn't entirely untrue; his growing genuine feelings for Meredith actually began to make him have second thoughts about his entire Assimilation Plot, and he would have stayed on Earth had he allowed them to continue growing — at least, so he says. So he killed her so that he wouldn't be tempted.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • During the fight against the Abilisk, Drax lands harshly right next to Baby Groot, who stops dancing. He resumes each time Drax looks away, and freezes again when stared at. This calls back to the same routine in the stinger of the previous movie, when Groot had just regrown from a twig.
    • The cybernetic eye of one of the Ravagers is once again a subject of great humour for Rocket.
    • One of the planets seen in the climax is Xandar, identifiable by the Nova Corps fighters flying overhead.
    • Two of the items on Yondu's funeral barge are the crystal frog statue he purchased (or stole) from the Broker, and the orange-haired troll doll Peter gave him instead of the Infinity Stone at the end of the last movie.
    • In the post-credit scene featuring Stakar reforming his old team, one of the members (Krugarr from the comics) conjures magical circles just like the ones seen in Doctor Strange. This is a reference to his comic version being a student and successor of Doctor Strange's.
    • Peter's grandfather can be glimpsed in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene on Earth — he's driving a car that narrowly avoids being destroyed by Ego's seed.
    • During the end credits, Stan Lee tries to convince his now bored alien companions to stick around by telling them that he has "more stories" to tell, and is credited as "Watcher Informant", implying that his previous cameos were also all the same person.note 
    • At the end of the credits, David Hasselhoff advises the audience to remember "we are Groot."
  • Continuous Decompression: When the Milano crashes into an asteroid, much of the rear end of the ship is ripped off. For the few seconds it takes for Peter to seal the breach, Nebula almost gets sucked out of the rear and even up in the cockpit there's a massive rush of air.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Ronan the Accuser was more of a Hate Sink, Obviously Evil, deranged fanatic who set out to destroy Xandar out of his hatred for the Xandarian people and their culture. Ego seems benevolent at a glance, and even when his true nature comes out, he's driven by what he sees as his purpose in life rather than any actual hatred for the people who will die as a result. Their personalities and aesthetic also strongly contrast; Ronan was a rabid psychopath who never made any effort at being personable or even acting like it, and he had a very dark, grim style, while Ego is gregarious and easy-going, although that serves as a cover for his moral bankruptcy, and he's surrounded by colour and light, with Meredith describing him as "an angel, composed out of pure light".
  • Contrived Coincidence:
    • Gamora and Nebula, during their fight on Ego's surface, at just the right time in the plot, happen to stumble across a cavern containing the remains of Ego's numerous offspring who proved useless to his plans. This on a planet the size of Earth's moon.
    • One's added retroactively to the previous movie when Ego mentions that Quill was able to hold the Infinity Stone without dying because he's half-Celestial, meaning he's probably one of only a handful of beings in the Galaxy who could have pulled it off—and he just happened to be there when it needed to be done.
  • Conversational Troping: Peter, while dancing with Gamora, discusses the Unresolved Sexual Tension ("the unspoken thing") nature of their relationship and how the moment they become an Official Couple make "the ratings drop."
  • The Corrupter: Ego tempted Yondu to break the Ravager code and traffic him his children. As he admits, he did it knowing that doing so would involve Yondu to break his code, but preyed on him by offering more money than Yondu would ever know. His plot is carefully manipulating Peter to become his puppet, heir and battery to harvest the universe and he preys on Peter's unfulfilled longing for Gamora, his need for family and revealing him to be an immortal superbeing like Daddy with the universe as his oyster. He's effective until he gets too confident and starts slipping and starts spilling the beans about his true nature.
  • Cosmic Horror Story: Falls onto this later in the movie. A Genius Loci Eldritch Abomination that is also a Reality Warper is apathetic to literally EVERYONE, and wants to turn them into himself. Oh, and the main protagonist is apparently his son.
  • Covert Pervert: Ayesha expresses distaste for the random manner in which other civilizations create their citizens... then expresses interest in Peter giving her a hands-on demonstration of these primitive methods of reproduction. For Science!, of course.
  • Crapsaccharine World: Ego's planet comes off as a bright, Oz-like Crystal Spires and Togas verdant world filled with floating air bubbles that delight the Guardians at first. Upon detecting Ego's secrecy as well as Mantis' guilty behaviour, however, Gamora realizes that something isn't right, which is confirmed when she and Nebula discover the cavern of skeletons.
  • Crazy-Prepared:
    • Rocket outfits the campsite with an absurd number of traps and gadgets in the event of intruders.
    • Yondu has the rear section of the Ravager ship able to break off and fly on its own just in case something were to happen to the rest of the ship.
  • Create Your Own Villain: If Rocket hadn't stolen from the Sovereign, Ayesha would have never been out for the Guardians' blood.
  • Creative Closing Credits: Where to begin:
    • Instead of the MCU's now-usual two Stingers, this film has five.
    • The entire credits roll over a colorful retro background.
    • Rolling credits also include first character portraits being vandalized, then characters dancing to the music. Including Jeff Goldblum as The Grandmaster, a character that not only doesn't appear anywhere in this film, but won't appear until two movies from now.
    • Several of the credits start out as "I am Groot" before being replaced by the actual name/job/department.
  • Creator Provincialism: Star-Lord, like director James Gunn, hails from Missouri (in the comics, Peter Quill was born in Colorado instead).
  • Credits Gag: A few of the listed closing credits start out as "I am Groot" before changing to the actual line (including Marvel Studios and "No raccoons or tree creatures were harmed in the making of this movie. The same cannot be said for handlers of said raccoons and tree creatures."). We also get pictures of the various Guardians dancing, and we get some yearbook style scribbles over them, like "P + G" in a heart and devil horns on Rocket.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: Rocket knocks out Gamora and forces everyone to evacuate the planet without Star-Lord, as telling the others would cost them their lives.
  • Crush the Keepsake: Furious over Peter's refusal to join him in conquering the cosmos, Ego crushes his son's Walkman and mix-tape, Peter's one gift from his late mother he had kept since he was eight.
  • Cue the Falling Object: After a lengthy and violent crash through a forest, the Milano finally grinds to a halt. There is a brief moment of silence while a Title In gives the name of the planet. And then the wing of the Milano snaps and falls to the ground.
  • Cultural Translation: Mary Poppins does not have widespread recognition in Taiwan. It turns out that Totoro — the eponymous spirit from My Neighbor Totoro, who also magically flies with an umbrella — is a better cultural reference. Therefore in the Taiwanese dub (and subtitled) version of the movie, when Yondu floats down on his arrow, he shouts "I'm Totoro, Y'All!!"
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Ego takes out the entire Sovereign fleet of Attack Drones in a single Big Damn Heroes moment.
    • Rocket delivers this repeatedly to the Ravagers when they came to the Guardians' ship to capture them by taking them out with booby traps and physical confrontations. He's only subdued when Yondu shows up with his Yaka Arrow.
    • Once Yondu regains control of his Yaka Arrow, he and Rocket inflict this on the mutinous Ravager crew. They barely even break stride as they walk to the cockpit.
  • Curiosity Killed the Cast: When the Blob Monster stops advancing on earth's surface, people flock around to see what's going on. But then the blob expands further burying the curious crowd.
  • Cuteness Proximity:
    • Mantis finds Rocket adorable, thinking he is a puppy. At least, to begin with.
    • The Ravagers are taken in by Baby Groot, going as far as to give him a little outfit. Taserface even says that he's too adorable to kill, though that doesn't stop them from pouring liquor on him to torture him.
  • Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Ego justifies his absence during Peter's childhood by indicating that his human form needs to periodically go back to his planet in order to recharge energy. Subverted when Ego admits he killed Peter's mother in order to rid himself of any incentive to abandon his cosmic plan to spread to the rest of the universe.
  • Dance Party Ending: The ending credits feature the Guardians (and some other characters) dancing to the tune of a Zune.
  • Dangerously Garish Environment: The surface of Ego the Living Planet appears to be a amazingly beautiful if slightly trippy '80s psychedelic wonderland... But this trope comes into effect when it's revealed Ego is an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to assimilate the universe, and can grow crackling energy tentacles from the formerly-beautiful scenery.
  • Darker and Edgier: When compared to the first film. The first Guardians, although dark at times, still felt peppy and upbeat and ended on a high note. The sequel, meanwhile, is a lot more somber due to the heavier themes, raunchier jokes, eviler villain and ends on a somewhat bittersweet note thanks to Yondu's death.
  • Darkest Hour: All hope seems lost during the climactic battle. Yondu's Yaka Arrow is broken, he and Rocket are buried under heavy rocks which are about to crush them to death. Meanwhile, Drax and Mantis are drowning in quicksand. Gamora and Nebula are about to be squeezed to death by Ego's energy tentacles. Baby Groot is trapped in the cave passage which closes up around him, threatening to detonate the bomb. Peter gets impaled by Ego's energy tentacles and moans in pain. The Blob Monster advances on the planets, killing innocents by the thousands. Time for Peter to tap into his 11th-Hour Superpower and save the day.
  • Deadly Dodging: One Ravager shoots at Rocket who jumps in the air and the blast hits a fellow Ravager.
  • Dead Man's Trigger Finger: When Rocket attacks the Ravagers with his tranquilizer darts in the forest, one mook fires his gun while collapsing.
  • Death by Cameo: According to the audio commentary, a lot of James Gunn's family members were in the scenes where Ego's seeds assimilate various planets and they all die in them. The only ones who don't die are Gunn's parents, who are shown on Earth narrowly avoiding being assimilated in the Expansion there.
  • Death by Irony: Ego deliberately gave Meredith Quill a brain tumor because his genuine attachment to her was getting in the way of his ambitions. He himself dies when Groot plants an explosive right next to his own "brain".
  • Death from Above: During Yondu's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he uses his Yaka arrow to cut loose one of the Ravagers' ships, crushing several of them.
  • Death of a Child: It's revealed that Peter had thousands of half-brothers and sisters, all of whom were murdered by Ego for not inheriting the Celestial gene. Gamora and Nebula even stumble upon an entire cave full of skeletons, many of which clearly belonged to small children.
  • Deconstruction:
    • Peter's dynamic with Ego and Yondu is one for the hero's journey, chosen one and other narratives about the orphan's ordeal and changeling fantasy. Peter is both special and disposable; his existence was to be a mere tool and battery for a mad god to harvest the universe, and he would have been killed had he not been special — just like all his other half-siblings were — and he owes his own childhood, personality and independence to Yondu's change of heart. There's no special grand plan for his existence or big destiny about his past, unlike other heroes like Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter. Ultimately, Peter's real purpose and specialty is to be an adventurer on the margins with other outcasts and rejects like Yondu, Drax, Rocket, Gamora, and Nebula, with no special purpose aside from what he chooses to do with his life.
    • Alternately, there's the Mentor Archetype regarding Ego. Earth-tone clothes, tells the hero about his special destiny and powers, acts as a father figure. Except he's actually a selfish jerk who just wants to use the hero for his own purposes. And he can't be killed, not permanently, as long as he's on the planet.
    • Meredith Quill deconstructs the Disposable Woman trope. Despite Ego insisting he loved her, he still considered her disposable enough that he gave her a brain tumor so she wouldn't affect his plans. Unfortunately, her son, who watched her die, disagrees.
    • A minor one with the trope Both Sides Have a Point; because both sides have a point, they are unwilling to listen to the other.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Nebula and Yondu, who served as antagonists the Guardians fought and outsmarted in the first film, end up as members of the team in this one. Given their current circumstances, they don't really have any other choice.
  • Delayed Reaction: After watching Mantis get hit by a piece of flaming debris, Drax just stares for a second before realizing he's supposed to shout "Look out!" in these sorts of situations.
  • Den of Iniquity: Yondu is first seen in a "disreputable place", where the employees seem to be Sexbots.
  • Destroy the Product Placement: A Dairy Queen gets destroyed by Ego's seedling during the Expansion, as does Peter's Sony Walkman, in close-up no less.
  • Diegetic Switch: Like its predecessor, the film makes extensive use of diagetic music. It's one of the most popular things about the trilogy. The movie ends with a perfect example, having had one problematic father die helping him kill a monstrously abusive father, Peter puts on Yusuf]/[Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" over the ships speakers, and we learn that fathers can change as the Ravagers show up to forgive Yondu and give him a Ravager's Funeral, to the cheers and tears of Yondu's other son, Kraglin.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Guardians take out a Celestial, an immensely powerful being. Mantis is strong enough by herself to put him to sleep, if only for a few minutes.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: After Ego's planet collapses in on itself, Yondu pulls a Heroic Sacrifice in the vacuum of space and dies in Peter's arms.
  • Digging Yourself Deeper: When Ego confesses that he gave Meredith a fatal tumor, he has a split-second to justify his actions to Peter. He just says "Now I know that sounds bad."
  • Disappeared Dad: Ego left Meredith before Peter was born, so Peter never knew his father. When Peter naturally asks why this happened, Ego explains that he had to periodically return his planet in order to survive; when Meredith died whilst Ego was away, he was so grief-stricken that he couldn't bear to return to Earth for Peter, instead hiring Yondu to abduct him from earth and bring him to Ego instead. Except that's actually all a lie; Ego was actually off cavorting with other women on other planets as part of his Assimilation Plot and just couldn't be bothered to take time out to retrieve Peter when the tumor he put in Meredith's head finally killed her.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: At first it seems like High Priestess Ayesha of the Sovereign is gonna be the main antagonist, pursuing the Guardians over a slight, but she becomes small fry when Ego's plan to assimilate all life is discovered.
  • Disposable Vehicle Section: Yondu ditches and detonates two-thirds of the Ravagers' command ship, killing Taserface in the process.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The Sovereign are particularly infamous for meting out the death penalty for the smallest slights against them. Their reaction to Rocket stealing some of their batteries? Send an entire battle fleet after them with orders to shoot to kill. And as stated by the Sovereign's leader, the batteries were of lesser concern to her; the more grievous transgression was Rocket's insult against their people. The last scene reveals that her actions were disproportionate even by Sovereign standards, and she's being called to account for the ludicrous waste of resources.
  • Dissension Remorse: Kraglin is the instigator of a crew mutiny, tired of Yondu constantly putting Quill's well-being and desires ahead of their entire den of thieves. His pointing this out causes an uprising he soon regrets when the rebels begin viciously spacing otherwise very strong crew members simply for being loyal to Yondu. Kraglin eventually helps Yondu escape, kill the mutinous crew, and save Quill. Kraglin actually apologizes saying he never meant to cause such a huge reaction; he just had some complaints that he wanted to get off his chest and it snowballed from there.
  • Distant Prologue: The movie's prologue takes place on Earth in 1980, and shows Ego romancing Meredith Quill, before the birth of their son. Then it jumps 34 years later, specifically two months after the first film.
  • Distinction Without a Difference: During an argument, Peter calls Rocket a raccoon, which is Rocket's big Berserk Button. Peter apologizes, admits that he went too far... and says that he meant "trash panda" instead.note 
    Rocket: ...is that better?
    Drax: I don't know.
    Peter: [laughing] It's worse. It's so much worse.
  • Divine Conflict: The personal battle between the two immortals Ego and Peter.
  • The Dog Bites Back: The much-publicized scene of Baby Groot running after a Ravager, screaming furiously, before throwing him off a catwalk, is Groot's revenge against that man in particular for screaming at him while he was locked in a cage, soaking him with a foul drink, and even stomping on him as the other Ravagers mockingly call him their mascot.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: Drax helpfully points out why Mantis revealing Peter's feelings for Gamora is hilarious. Unfortunately, this leaves Drax the only one laughing.
    Drax: She just told everyone your deepest, darkest secret! You must be so embarrassed!
  • Don't Think, Feel: Peter's newfound powers don't do much since he has trouble summoning Ego's energy. However, Yondu tells him that he should try using his power with his heart, not his mind. The advice enables Peter to empower himself enough to be able to go toe-to-toe with Ego. Yondu's own masterful control of his Yaka Arrow comes from instinct.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: In the climax, Rocket gives Groot a bomb with which to destroy Ego, showing him which button, if pressed, will activate the five-minute timer before it blows and which will set it off instantly. When Rocket asks Groot to repeat his demonstration, he keeps gesturing to the death button, provoking this reaction in Rocket. Subverted when Groot does, in fact, press the countdown button and all the Guardians escape alive.
  • Duct Tape for Everything: Rocket wants to put tape over the "instant death button" on the detonator so that Groot will be able to tell it from the other button.
  • Due to the Dead: After the final battle, the Ravagers show up to give Yondu a proper Ravager funeral.
    Aletta: Yondu Udonta, I will see you in the stars.
  • Dying Alone: Yondu abducting Ego's offspring and delivering them to him breaks the code of the Ravagers to such an extent that Stakar exiles him saying he will never hear the Horns of Freedom when he dies and the Colors of Ogord will never flash over his grave. Yondu rescuing Peter from Ego's planet as it implodes at the cost of his own life is what gets Stakar to rescind Yondu's exile, gathering several Ravager squads to arrange a proper sendoff to Yondu's funeral.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Yondu could never tell Peter that he loved him or that he was proud of him because that would be seen as a sign of weakness among space-pirates. However, in his final moments with Peter he shares his true feelings.
    Yondu: He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn't your daddy. I'm sorry I didn't do none of it right... I'm damn lucky you's my boy.
  • Dynamic Entry: When he arrives on Ego's planet, Yondu makes sure to land his speeding ship right on top of Ego who's currently trying to taking over the galaxy.
    Yondu: Hey there, jackass!
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • One for Thor: Ragnarok: the Grandmaster is seen dancing in a bubble during the end credits. The character does not appear at all in the film proper.
    • Adam Warlock's actual cocoon is also seen during the stinger.
    • The original comic-book Guardians of the Galaxy — Starhawk, Martinex, Krugarr, Charlie-27, Mainframe, and Aletta (later Lady Starhawk) — appear as Ravagers.
  • Eat Me: After a few minutes of fighting the Abilisk, it becomes clear that they're not going to be able to easily kill it because its skin is too tough to penetrate. Without thinking it through too much (or at all), Drax jumps into the monster's mouth reasoning that he can "cut through it from the inside." Realistically subverted when the interior skin turns out to be just as thick and tough as the exterior, a fact Peter and Gamora are well aware of.
  • The Empath: Mantis has the ability to read and alter emotions through physical contact.
  • Enemy Mine: Started out as such for Nebula and Yondu, as they join the Guardians for the sake of their survival.
  • Energy Weapon: The ship Yondu goes to Ego with is equipped with dozens of spherical laser guns that are small yet pack a punch. What's unusual about them is that the balls can roll around the ship in trenches carved in the hull, taking several positions around it. To dig their way to Ego's core, the lasers gather in several spots at the front to destroy stalagmites and walls in the way. The balls can also be concentrated into a specific area to create a focused beam, or dispersed around the hull to fire in several directions.
  • Enlightened Antagonist: Ego came to his plans and discoveries out of normal curiosity and millennia of living, experiencing and sharing connections with mortals who he would eventually outlive, searching for some meaning or purpose for himself, trying to find another being who he could form a bond with, which only increased his loneliness to the point he's decided to replace all known habitable space in the universe with himself.
  • Enmity with an Object: In his continuing attempts to understand "metaphor", Drax at one point screams "Die, spaceship!", despite the spaceship itself being an inanimate object that can in no way hear him.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Deconstructed. Ego wants to assimilate the entire universe, but he did genuinely fall in love with Meredith Quill, and even in the present still has fond memories of "his river lily". At the end of the day, however, Ego's Assimilation Plot is still his ultimate ambition, and he willingly gave Meredith a brain tumor in order to get rid of her and keep himself from constantly coming back to Earth. He himself says that it broke his heart to do it in a very genuine tone, but in the end Ego still considers himself a higher being. This is also the case with his son, Peter, whom he does genuinely like, and bonds with but, the second Peter turns against him, he has no problem turning him into a living battery for "a thousand years" as punishment (although considering a Celestial's lifespan, this is probably the equivalent of a spanking and a time-out to Ego). He only bothered bonding with Peter, however, because Peter possessed Celestial powers as well, meaning he is the only one with a place in/on Ego's world, as Ego's other children weren't so lucky.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • While the Ravagers are ruthless and sometimes even murderous Space Pirates, their code expressly forbids trafficking in children. Yondu's dealings with Ego — specifically, abducting Ego's children from planets all over the universe and bringing them back to him — are why he and his fleet were exiled. At the time, Yondu justified it as "I didn't know what was going on", but stopped when he actually realized that Ego was killing them — and adopted Peter to protect him from Ego.
    • Nebula is a "daughter of Thanos" and known to be the "biggest sadist in the galaxy" but even she is disturbed to see all the skeletons in Ego's cave and becomes somewhat more willing to help the Guardians defeat him.
  • Everything Sensor: Peter has amusingly converted a Mattel football game into a sensor that can detect an approaching extra-dimensional alien, among other things.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Ego is so convinced in the worthlessness of other forms of life that he killed his lover for being a distraction, and expected her son to agree with him. He's equally baffled that he's willing to give up immortality and enormous power to save the universe. He also genuinely doesn't understand why Peter has a problem with his plan to destroy the universe or why anything he's done is wrong, including murdering children. They were in his way and/or no use to him so he got rid of them. That's what happens to puny mortals who stand in the way of powerful beings.
  • Exact Words: Ego promised Yondu he'd never hurt the children he hired him to deliver. And he didn't. They never felt a thing.
  • Exactly What I Aimed At: Taserface celebrates dodging Yondu's arrow, only to get caught in the explosion that Yondu uses to destroy the ship and seal the fate of all the mutineers.
  • Expository Theme Tune: As with "Awesome Mix Vol. 1", the songs in "Awesome Mix Vol. 2" were chosen by Peter's mother to explain her relationship with his father over their time together and apart. Towards the film's end, the audience gets to hear some of "Awesome Mix Vol. 3", which offers a brief glimpse look into the father-son relationship between Peter and his adoptive father, Yondu.
  • Eye Scream:
    • Part of Nebula's backstory involving Thanos' attempts to make her better. Whenever she lost a fight against Gamora, Thanos would replace some part of her body with cybernetics in order to "improve" her. Nebula lost a lot of fights. Do the maths.
      Nebula: Thanos pulled my eye from head... and my brain from my skull... and my arm from my body... because of you.
    • Baby Groot manages to find Vorker's eye from the last film during a Rummage Fail. Rocket insists on keeping the cyborg implant for the laughs.

    Tropes F to K 
  • Facepalm: Rocket facepaws after Baby Groot, being tasked to retrieve Yondu's prototype fin, instead comes back with his underwear.
  • Facial Dialogue: There's no dialogue when Mantis uses her powers on Drax. She just breaks down crying as she feels the death of his family, while he peacefully stares into the sunset.
  • Failed a Spot Check: None of the Sovereign in the throne room notice Rocket showing off the stolen, glowing batteries in his satchel even as he is bragging (within hearing distance of them) to Drax "You wanna buy some batteries?"
  • Failed Attempt at Drama: A prime aspect of the humor of the movie.
    • Ayesha makes a Big Entrance to meet Yondu with a ridiculously long entourage, all wearing grand robes with white fur, including two minions deploying a blue carpet from a roller so her feet won't get cold in the snow. Then the roller gets jammed, and the music cuts out.
    • After knocking Yondu out, Nebula takes a bite out of the fruit that Gamora and Drax had been keeping from her in what would have been an awesome moment if she hadn't then spat it out because it's not ripe yet.
    • After Nebula gets her spaceship from Kraglin and explains her Evil Plan to him, he merely states he thought she would buy a necklace, or a fancy hat, or anything girls usually like. The rising dramatic music even silences as he talks.
    • In a dying act of revenge while his ship explodes around him, Taserface relays the coordinates of Yondu and the Guardians to the Sovereign. His only request is that Ayesha tells Yondu the name of the man who sealed his fate: Taserface! The Sovereign taking the message cracks up laughing and Taserface groans as the explosions catch up to him.
    • The Guardians dramatically regroup while the camera turns around them and an uplifting music plays, as numerous ships crash and explode into giant fireballs around them... and then, a piece of flaming debris flies right into the side of Mantis's head and knocks her out, seriously spoiling the scene.
  • Family of Choice: The theme of finding a family, or realizing that you already have one, runs deep throughout the film:
    • After being sold into slavery by his blood parents, Yondu found a new family in the Ravagers who rescued him, and they reaffirm their bonds when they come to his funeral.
    • Gamora is upset when Peter lashes out at her, wondering why she can't be happy for him when he's found his family — "I thought you already had!"
    • Drax responds to Nebula's scornful remark of how the Guardians aren't friends with "No; we're family." This is particularly meaningful coming from Drax: not only is the page-quote exemplar of Literal-Minded evidently learning the concept of metaphor, but Drax is the only one of the Guardiansnote  who has ever experienced normal family life and relationships.
    • Nebula was forced to battle Gamora by their "father" when they were young, and suffered heavily for Gamora's success; Gamora wanted to win, while Nebula "just wanted a sister!" By the end of the film Gamora does regard Nebula as her sister, though it's uncertain if the feeling is still mutual and, for the moment, Nebula gently rejects joining the Guardians' family in favour of continuing to go after Thanos.
    • Mantis experiences what a real family is like via Drax's powerful feelings for his dead wife and daughter, which is probably part of why she turns against her adopted father Ego — who regarded her more as a pet than anything else — and joins the Guardians.
    • Yondu metaphorically smacks some sense into Rocket by pointing out that he's pushing his friends away for fear of being hurt, and Rocket comes to accept his role in the family the Guardians have made for themselves and is one of the most hard hit by Yondu's death, letting his estranged family know of his redemption so they'll attend his funeral.
    • And of course, the big one: Peter is initially skeptical, then incredibly enthusiastic, and finally utterly disillusioned by his genetic father Ego. He realises only at Yondu's funeral that Yondu was his true father.
  • Fanservice Extra: Those, umm, service androids that Yondu is consorting with on the planet of Contraxia.
  • Fantastic Measurement System: Distance in space is measured in larger "jumps" and smaller "clicks" between them. The Guardians travel 47 "clicks" to the nearest jumping point to make one "jump" and thus escape the Sovereign fleet. Later in the film, Rocket and Yondu quickly do 700 "jumps" in a row, with Yondu complaining that it is unhealthy for a mammalian body to hop more than 50 "jumps" at a time.
  • Faster-Than-Light Travel: Unlike the first movie, which left the universe's method of FTL travel unexplained, the second reveals that ships travel via Portal Network with fixed points in space that ships travel between in order to make a jump. Fewer jumps the better.
  • Fist Pump: There is a close-up on Peter clenching his fist during the Loved Ones Montage right before gaining his 11th-Hour Superpower.
  • Fireworks of Victory: At the end of the movie, all of the Ravager factions show up at Yondu's funeral. They'd heard about how he sacrificed himself to save Peter and help destroy Ego. Forgiving his past transgressions against the Ravager Code, they give him a Ravager funeral complete with fireworks to honor his sacrifice and celebrate the victory.
  • Flat "What": Dramatic version. Peter has this reaction to learning Ego killed his mother.
  • Flechette Storm: Rocket's traps deliver volleys of darts toward the Ravagers, leaving them zero chance of avoiding them.
  • Flower Motifs: Ego called Meredith his "river lily". To those who know flower symbolism, river lilies are funeral flowers, hinting at the role he played in her death.
  • Forcefield Door: Star-Lord activates one to block a breach on the Milano's hull. Drax then activates a second one so he can use them as an airlock when taking a spacewalk.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Obviously, Nebula will survive past this film, because she is confirmed to rejoin for the final battle against Thanos.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The film opens with "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" playing while Ego and Meredith ride in a car. The song is about a woman in love with someone who refuses to give up on the path they set for themselves despite their feelings for her: "My life, my love, my lady is the Sea." Ego hangs a Lampshade on it by using it as part of his speech to Peter.
    • When camping with Ego, Drax reveals that he always thought Yondu was Peter's father since he "looks just like him" (despite Peter not having blue skin). After Ego's true colors are revealed, Peter accepts Yondu as his true father figure.
    • Rocket spends his time just before the opening fight setting up a music system, telling Drax to blame Quill because he's the one who loves music so much. Quill agrees music isn't a priority at the moment. Rocket, despite his repeated conflicts with Quill, really is trying to connect, as Yondu will later inform him.
    • One for Infinity War: When Nebula requests to be freed from her cuffs to help the Guardians fight off a potential hostile force. Gamora claims she'd just attack her as soon as she was released, leading to Nebula giving a very unconvincing reply that she wouldn't. One of the Guardians quips that, being the daughter of a genocidal monster, you would think she'd know how to lie better. Infinity War reveals that, of all the horrible things Thanos has ever done, he never lies and has never taught his daughters to lie, making them both exceptionally bad at it.
    • When Peter and Gamora have a private conversation after meeting Ego for the first time, Peter feels Ego is a little too good to be true, while Gamora insists they go along and see if he really is Peter's birth father. Besides if he turns out to be evil, they'll just kill him. Ego truly is Peter's birth father, he is too good to be true, he turns out to be evil, and the Guardians have to kill him.
    • After arriving on Ego's planet body, Gamora asks why there are no other people living on it. Mantis answers that it would be akin to a dog inviting fleas to live on itself. This is later revealed to be a big hint to how Ego views all mortal life as ultimately beneath him to justify annihilating them.
    • Kraglin shuts down Taserface's initial discussion of mutiny ("If [Yondu's] so soft, why are you whispering?") and he backs down. In the end, Taserface only really moves forward with mutinying when he thinks he has Kraglin's support.
    • Peter's Walkman is knocked around during the opening battle scene, cutting the music short. In the film's climax, Ego distorts the music coming from the Walkman before crushing it entirely.
    • Why would the form Ego created just happen to resemble a human man from the '80s? It doesn't. He's a shapeshifter. He can look however he wants. Which foreshadows that all the little dioramas he shows Peter are just as customizable, and he's doubtless shown them to his other kids.
    • At one point Mantis mentions Ego's preoccupation with his "progeny". Unlike the word "child" or even "offspring", "progeny" almost always implies multiple children, which indeed turns out to have been the case.
    • As mentioned in Flower Motifs, river lilies are used in funerals, and the fact that Ego calls Meredith Quill his "river lily" subtly emphasizes how he is directly responsible for her death.
    • Kraglin and Yondu mentioned in the previous film that Peter's father was a jackass. Since Yondu knew by then what Ego was doing to his offspring, this is a severe understatement of the truth.
    • Because Yondu broke the Ravager code by trafficking in children (repeatedly stealing Ego's offspring from their mothers and home worlds on commission for him), Stakar angrily informs Yondu that when he dies, the other Ravagers will not be there to ceremonially honor his life. In the end, because Rocket sent them word of Yondu's Heroic Sacrifice, Stakar and the others do come to pay their respects. It is only from Stakar's earlier detailed condemnation that we realize just how much their attendance would have meant to Yondu (and does mean to Kraglin).
    • When he begins to bond with his son, Ego states that he has made "many mistakes", but Peter was not one of them. Many of those "mistakes" he's referring to are the thousands of other children that he killed because they did not share his power.
    • Ego tells Meredith that the alien plant he stashed in Missouri will be "all across the universe." As he's already repeated the process on other planets as part of his "Expansion", he means the statement literally.
    • Another one for Infinity War. When Peter discovers that Ego killed his mother, he unleashes his blasters on him in an uncontrollable rage, not caring that this is ultimately pointless as Ego is far too powerful to be killed by this. In Infinity War, he similarly attacks Thanos after finding out that he killed Gamora, screwing up the heroes' carefully laid plan to separate him from the Infinity Gauntlet in the process.
  • Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: At the end of the movie, Nebula has put aside her vendetta against Gamora and accepted her apology, but is not willing to become a member of her Family of Choice. Though, she may change her mind if her mission to kill Thanos goes sour.
  • The Four Loves: An example centering on Peter:
    • Storge focuses on his male role model "dad": Ego, or Yondu?
    • Eros is manifested in his budding but shaky romance with Gamora.
    • Phileo is exemplified by his Family of Choice with whom he spends time going on adventures of derring do.
    • Agape is exemplified by Yondu, the one who he eventually regards as "dad", doing a Heroic Sacrifice to ensure Peter's survival.
  • Friendship Moment: The funeral for Yondu has beautiful moments between all of the Guardians.
    Mantis: It's beautiful.
    Drax: Yes. And So are you. On the inside.
  • FTL Travel Sickness: Individual hyperspace jumps are relatively safe, but the strain increases as the jumps are chained for longer distances. The 700 jumps that Rocket, Yondu, and Groot must do to cross the galaxy in order to get to Ego takes a toll on them. Their bodies, and those of the other people on the ship, physically distort and stretch similar to spaghettification, and when they finally reach Ego, they fall to the deck in exhaustion and Groot throws up.
  • Full Moon Silhouette: Formed by some Ravagers that Rocket bounces into the air using his anti-gravity mines.
  • Funny Background Event: Inverted for the opening credits. While the Guardians engage in epic battle against an inter-dimensional monster, Baby Groot dances to "Mr. Blue Sky" on the edge of the platform. But the entire sequence focuses on Groot, while lasers and Technicolor Fire blaze behind him. Some of the characters come into the foreground to interact with Groot or are simply thrown over to him during the course of the battle.
  • Funny Conception Story: Implied. Drax mentions that he heard the story of his conception as a tradition every winter solstice, but aside from him mentioning that the story was "beautiful", no specific details are given.
  • The Future: As with the first film, completely averted. Despite the film featuring futuristic-looking spaceships and cities and tech, it is explicitly set in the year 2014 (same as the first film), complete with several sequences set on earth in 2014.
  • Gender Flip: Mainframe, whose comic counterpart is the future form of The Vision, is portrayed by Miley Cyrus.
  • Genius Loci: Ego's true form is a planet — well, technically it's a giant brain at the center of the planet, but the planet itself is effectively his physical avatar.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Discussed very briefly when Peter and Gamora mention how the former grew up saying the trope namer himself was his father, and that he'd be touring around in Germany to explain why his father never seemed to be present. invoked
  • Getting Eaten Is Harmless: When fighting an enormous tentacled creature with nigh-impervious skin, Drax leaps down its throat to try to cut it open from the inside. This fails completely because its skin is just as thick from the inside, but after it's killed, Drax emerges from it unharmed. Justifiable because Drax is that badass.
  • Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls: Platonic version with Mantis and Drax as they watch the fireworks. Mantis says they're beautiful; Drax, looking at her, agrees, and says she's beautiful too… on the inside.
  • Glorified Sperm Donor: Ego is this from the start, and only descends further down the ladder when it's revealed that not only did he willingly abandon Peter (and thousands of other children), but he was also responsible for Meredith's brain tumor. In the end, it's Yondu who's deemed to be Peter's true dad, since he did (or at least tried to do) all the hard work of raising, protecting, and genuinely loving him.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: Ego notes in his narration when introducing the Guardians to his planet that the first thing he knew when he awoke was that he was terribly, terribly alone.
    Ego: For the first time in my existence, I am truly. Not. Alone!
  • Godzilla Threshold: Downplayed and Played for Laughs. When trying to get to Ego's core to plant their bomb on him, the path forward is far too small for them to fit through (and they have no proper equipment to blast through), before Quill indicates Baby Groot below them.
    Rocket: ...That's a terrible idea.
    Quill: [in resigned agreement] Which is the only kind of idea we have left.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The inversion is discussed at the start — Peter is put out by Gamora using a firearm rather than her sword, stating that guns are his thing and swords are hers. She ends up using the sword to finish the fight anyways, but the movie makes it clear she'll use whatever she can get her hands on, given the scene with the BFG.
  • Happily Adopted: By the film's end, Peter embraces Yondu as his true dad. He also realizes that he was so fixated on an unrealistic ideal that he completely overlooked the surly yet also loving adoptive father who was already right there with him.
  • Happiness in Slavery: Mantis seems to give off this vibe at first, being content with her purpose, possibly because all she really has to do is help her master sleep. However, it's a ruse. She despises her enslavement, and only fear keeps her from warning his victims, at least initially.
  • Hate Sink: Beneath his affable facade, Ego is one of the most despicable villains in the entire MCU, next to Ronan the Accuser, Red Skull, Hela, and Mysterio. He's extraordinarily selfish, cruel, utterly lacking in empathy, cowardly, immature and completely without any moments of genuine kindness or compassion. Even his sole positive traits, his love for Peter and his mother, are undone by his selfishness, as he had no issue enslaving the former and killing the latter to further his goals.
  • Hates Being Alone: Ego doesn't like having to be alone in the universe, and once he finds that he has an offspring (Peter) with the Celestial gene, he revels in the fact that he's no longer alone. With regards to the expansion, he isn't quite powerful enough to do it alone, and if he has to force his own son to stay by his side for eternity, so be it.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Nebula's allegiance to the Guardians is tense and ambiguous. During the final fight she claims she's helping them solely because they're a way off the deadly planet, although she contributes to the battle, including wiring herself up to power the ship's weapons, with no complaint. She also leaves without a fuss, signifying that she doesn't want to kill Gamora anymore but is also unwilling to join her.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Nebula, who was Ronan's Dragon in the last film, has joined her sister as a member of the Guardians, however temporarily.
    • Yondu has similarly gone from an antagonist leading the Ravagers to a wholehearted member of the Guardians after his crew plot a mutiny against him.
  • The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: Out of the three major villains (Ego, Taserface, and Ayesha), the female one (Ayesha) is the only one who doesn't get killed. Justified as the Sovereign use remote ships instead of sending out actual flyers.
  • Heroic BSoD: After the Ravager mutiny, Yondu can only stare blankly ahead of him as the loyal crewmembers get Thrown Out the Airlock, pleading for his help. This is in part due to some brain damage he suffered when his "fin" got shot off. He only snaps out of it when he learns Ego has Peter.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Yondu stays behind when the others flee Ego, specifically to help Peter escape once Ego is dead. Rocket only has one space suit and one jetpack, so Yondu takes the latter. After they clear the atmosphere, Yondu puts the space suit on Peter to keep him alive and dies shortly after.
  • He's Back!: After being overthrown in a violent mutiny and then Forced to Watch the murder of his loyal crewmates, Yondu is suffering from some serious Heroic BSoD by the film's mid-point. It's only when Rocket informs him that Ego has gotten his hands on Peter that he snaps out of it and exacts a brutal Roaring Rampage of Revenge on his mutinous crew and eventually Ego himself.
  • Hidden Depths: Ego is really into 1970's Earth music, even using the song "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" as a way to justify his way of life. While he treats Mantis as more of a pet than an adopted daughter, the fact that he needs her help to sleep implies that, for all his horrific actions and callousness towards mortal life, deep down he still feels guilt for his actions over the millennia.
  • His Own Worst Enemy: Though the film largely focuses on Peter's daddy issues, the B-plot is about Rocket sabotaging his relationships because he's insecure and thinks he's nothing more than a lonely monster.
  • Hollywood Darkness: During the ambush on Berhert. Justified by the planet's several huge full moons. note 
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Ego's demise is due mostly to his arrogance and callousness towards his 'family'. He regards Mantis, his supposedly adopted daughter, merely as a way to escape his boredom through sleep; she repays his disregard by using her powers against him so the Guardians have a chance to destroy his brain. Peter, of course, immediately turns on Ego and tries to kill him when it's revealed Ego murdered Meredith via brain tumor.
  • Hoist Hero Overhead: More like hero does this to another hero. Drax lifts Mantis over his head to stop her from getting sucked into Ego's core.
  • How Do I Shot Web?:
    • In one the Stingers, Kraglin tries to use the Yaka Arrow and control fin he inherited from Yondu. After several botched attempts, the arrow flies off and ends up hitting Drax.
    • Peter's attempts to control "the light" have shades of this. He's able to do it, but not very well, until Yondu gives him a "Don't Think, Feel" speech.
  • Humans Are Special: Of all the alien beings Ego had sex with, only the human Meredith produced an offspring with his Celestial abilities. Meredith was also the only being who Ego admits he fell in love with. That's why he had to kill her.
  • Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Downplayed. The hyperspace jump itself seems pretty clean and straightforward when done in moderation (i.e. "less than 50"). Doing 700 in a row, like Rocket does to get Yondu's ship to Ego's planet quickly, is shown to distort all life inside the ship. It wasn't fatal and didn't appear to have any lasting effects... at least not in the short term.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • A Sovereign pilot named Zylak gains a large gathering of enthusiastic fans as he chases the Milano through the quantum-asteroid field, surviving longer than everyone else, but when he's shot down by Drax, everyone leaves in disgust.
      Sovereign: You suck, Zylak.
    • While Drax is very insensitive about others, when Mantis says she doesn't like him "that way", he gets easily offended.
      Drax: Hey! There's no need to get personal.
    • Drax tells Mantis that she has the strength to put Ego to sleep. When she succeeds, he admits he never thought she could do it. He also brags about how exceedingly humble he can be after Ego downplays the scale of his planet.
  • I Am Not Weasel: Among the things Rocket is called are "puppy", "trash panda", and "triangle-face monkey" by various characters as a Running Gag.
  • I Can't Dance: Discussed. Gamora's claim from the first film is brought up, and in this one, Drax remembers his wife was the same, far too serious-minded to have fun at tribal events. Which is why he fell in love with her in the first place.
  • I Gave My Word: Yondu gives his word to the Sovereign to bring in the Guardians alive; however, he admits to Rocket that his word "ain't worth squat" and is willing to bargain. (His crew, however, not so much, being motivated mostly by greed.)
  • Ice-Cream Koan: Drax attempts to explain to Peter why Gamora doesn't want to date him because there are "those who dance, and those who do not." He unfortunately means this entirely literally, as Peter dances, and Gamora does not.
  • Idiot Ball: Rocket's inability to keep himself from stealing causes the Guardians a lot of trouble, enough to likely follow them into the inevitable sequel. This is lampshaded by Yondu, who says that Rocket's actions are an attempt to hide the fact that he's afraid of committing to a relationship.
  • Ignored Epiphany: Ego states to Peter that Meredith was the first person that he genuinely loved other than himself, enough for him to consider settling down with her for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, he saw this as an obstacle rather than the answer to his search for meaning, and thus killed her to prevent himself from abandoning the Expansion.
  • Imagination-Based Superpower: Deconstructed. Ego's powers, as he explains briefly, stem from manipulating matter on a molecular level through sheer will. It's sort of like being a Reality Warper, except he can only change the physical environment around him. However, there seem to be shades of Semantic Superpower in play as well — it took Ego thousands of years to figure out how to manipulate matter enough to form a tough carapace to protect his exposed brain, eventually managing it by sheer force of will (with eons afterwards to perfect this method). His son Peter, on the other hand, gets a grip on his Celestial Power immediately, after Yondu chides him with a Don't Think, Feel speech. Despite Ego's extreme age and experience utilizing said power, Peter is able to stand toe-to-toe with him by using his abilities in the exact opposite manner.
  • Immortal Immaturity: For a Celestial who's is millions of years old, Ego is remarkably immature, childish, and, ironically, impatient. He acts impulsively and short-sightedly despite having all the time in the world and greater power than most other beings. This extends to his shallow relationships with Mantis, who is more or less his organic alarm clock, and his interactions with Peter and co. That said, much of said millions of years of life were focused on figuring out how his own powers worked and building a planet around himself, not on activities that would produce mental/emotional maturity.
  • Immortality Immorality: Being immortal has made him incapable of truly forming any long-lasting meaningful bonds with beings who are mortals. As such, Ego doesn't see any meaning or purpose in their lives and doesn't see what's wrong with killing them, since sooner or later they would just die anyway and he absolutely doesn't see why anyone would choose to be mortal, as his final exchange with Peter proves.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills:
    • Yondu's use of the Yaka Arrow in the first movie was impressive, but it particularly shines here during his escape from the Eclector, even before he reaches the room with the video monitors.
    • In the same scene, Rocket watches one of those screens and sees a Ravager coming toward the control room. He scores a perfect hit shooting through the wall while holding his gun at arm's length and not even properly aiming it. After that first shot, it takes him no time at all to master the technique.
  • Inadequate Inheritor: Ego kills all of his children who do not inherit his powers, and as such are unable to help him with the Expansion. There have been quite a lot of them.
  • Insane Troll Logic:
    • Ego vehemently claims to Peter that he legitimately fell in love with his mother and knew that if he continued to spend time with her, his love for her would eventually make him stay on Earth, eclipsing his mission of assimilating the universe. So what does Ego do to rid himself of this distraction? No, he doesn't leave her (because he'd keep coming back for her as stated above) or disintegrate her in the blink of an eye (too noticeable). Instead, he gives her a brain tumor that will ensure that the distraction he's come to love dies a slow, painful death while he doesn't have to watch. This seems to stem from his own Lack of Empathy towards mortal life; everything else dies anyways, so why should the methods matter? It also helps fuel the debates on whether or not he loved her, he thought he did but didn't, or he was just claiming to have loved her to endear himself to Peter.
    • The gist of his plan. The reason he began his plan for "The Expansion" was his loneliness and disappointment at no life being like him. He even at one point shouts in triumph that Peter's presence means he is finally not alone. So to combat this... he decides to destroy every living being in the universe and make all planets an extension of himself, ensuring he would be alone forever.
  • Instant Expert: Peter masters in an afternoon what it took Ego millions of years to master, masters it well enough to fight Ego to a standstill while the others set him up the bomb.
  • Instant Sedation: The Ravagers falling victim to Rocket's Tranquillizer Dart traps are knocked out in seconds. Then again, they are hit by at least half a dozen darts each, so the dosage is certainly high.
  • Insult Backfire: Between Quill and Drax.
    Drax: I am uncertain about parting ways.
    Quill: God, you're like an old woman.
    Drax: Because I'm wise?
  • In-Universe Soundtrack: Like the first movie, much of the soundtrack originates from inside the story. This film explores additional ways that characters listen to the music, such as homemade portable loudspeakers and the Eclector's intercom system in addition to the headphones and tape deck used in the first film. And after Peter's Walkman is destroyed in the film's climax, he is given a Zune with new music on it, which provides the song for the ending scene. Highlights include "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra and "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac.
  • It's All About Me: Ego's biggest flaw, in fact (he doesn't call himself "Ego" for nothing). While he and Peter share many traits (they both indulge and find meaning in period Earth music and both really get around for starters), he assumes that Peter would find mortal life just as uninteresting as does. In a grander sense, finds other life disappointing compared to himself... so he seeks to replace all life with himself. He only creates offspring to have someone to keep him company, so long as they possess some of his cosmic power so he can use them to further his plans. Otherwise, he considers them disposable waste.
    • The reason he gave Peter's mother a brain tumor that killed her in a slow and agonizing manner? It would have pained him to see her die when his master plan would kill all life in the universe, and he also couldn't bear seeing her die quickly so he made her terminally ill and left. Yeah, Ego is that selfish.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Ayesha might be an arrogant, condescending bitch, but her grievance against the Guardians is that they (or rather, Rocket) stole some priceless batteries, which were the very things they were hired to protect.
    • Yondu was absolutely right; Ego is a jackass.
    • Kraglin, who previously had defended his captain, does have to admit that Taserface is correct about Yondu seeming soft when it comes to Peter. This is the tipping point for a mutiny, much to Kraglin's horror.
    • Peter berates Rocket for pointing out that they can charge more for their services when people find out they've saved the galaxy for the second time in less than six months, but Rocket is right: when you're the best at something, you should be able to charge more for your services.
  • Just Friends: Mantis' and Drax's lack of attraction to one another is a Running Gag. Drax gets physically ill at the thought of sex with her.
  • Just in Time: Kraglin hits the brakes on the tumbling Ravager ship only milliseconds before it could crush Drax and Mantis.
  • "Just Joking" Justification: Even after Peter learns the circumstances and reason for Yondu keeping him when he was "a skinny kid," he does rightfully call out the latter for all the verbal barbs he had to put up with in the rest of his childhood. Yondu doesn't exactly deny it, but still brushes it off as his way of joking.
    Peter: Guess I should be glad I was a skinny kid, otherwise you would've delivered me to this maniac!
    Yondu: You still think that's the reason I kept you around, you idiot?
    Peter: That's what you told me, you old doofus! [...] You said you were gonna eat me!
    Yondu: That was bein' funny!
    Peter: ...Not to me!!
  • Karmic Death:
    • You wanted the ship, Taserface? You can have it. You got rid of Yondu's loyalists by throwing them out the airlock? Okay. But as soon as Yondu gets free and his weapon back, you're the one who'll have to watch as your loyalists are slaughtered and you end up getting blown up on the ship that you stole.
    • Ego gave Peter's mother brain tumor that ultimately killed her, so it's fitting that he died by having a bomb detonate in his own brain.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Any sympathy the audience may have had for the mutineers goes right down the drain when we see how much they taunt and abuse Baby Groot.
    • Ego:
      • He raised Mantis, but, by her own admission, he treats her as more of a pet than a surrogate daughter.
      • Just like his murder of Meredith, Ego plans to kill the other Guardians so he's is the only thing Peter has left.
      • He also crushes Peter's Sony Walkman, the last thing he has to remember his mother.
      • He briefly takes on the form of David Hasselhoff to mock Peter, who would claim the Hoff was his father as a child.

    Tropes L to N 
  • Lack of Empathy: Going hand-in-hand with his narcissistic personality, Ego's regard for lives other than his own is decidedly limited; he killed thousands of his own children when he realised they couldn't help his goal, he gave Meredith Quill a brain tumour when he realised he cared about her (considering that a weakness), and he thinks nothing at all of the countless lives that would be destroyed by his ultimate plan. That he describes the sensation of meeting life other than himself as "disappointing" speaks volumes.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Stan Lee seems to acknowledge that he's had multiple appearances in Marvel movies, and was just telling the Watchers about when he was a FedEx deliveryman.
  • Last Request: Knowing he won't survive the ship's destruction, Taserface radios the Sovereign to get back at Yondu, telling them his location, and asking just that the last thing they tell him before killing him is that Taserface sent them. And even then their representative laughs at his name. (Whether they intended to honor his request isn't known, but what ultimately happens to Yondu makes it moot.)
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Simply the fact that there's a character named "Baby Groot" and that adult Groot is nowhere to be seen gives away his death in the first movie.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • Stan Lee still has a lot of stories to tell.
    • Peter blatantly states that his relationship with Gamora is that of a Will They or Won't They? couple, à la Sam and Diane from Cheers, and that they can't resolve Unresolved Sexual Tension, because ratings will surely go down once they do.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: When confronted with the monstrous Abilisk, Drax's response is to roar and leap straight into the creature's open maw. This is despite Gamora trying to tell him that such a thing would be pointless. His actions complicate the mission as now Drax needs to be rescued as well.
  • Leg Cling: A deleted scene has Ego showing the Guardians a Xandar War Memorial he built, showing Star-Lord "single-handedly saving the galaxy". To the dismay of the other Guardians, Peter Quill is pictured as larger than life, standing triumphantly above Ronan the Accuser, with Drax reduced to a monkey on his shoulder and Gamora clinging submissively to his leg.
  • Leitmotif: A motif is introduced, initially as a theme for Ego, symbolising Peter's emotional relationship with his father, first played in a heartwarming note as the two play catch with a ball of energy that Peter created. After Ego is revealed to be the antagonist, the theme is played throughout the third act in a more intense or sinister note. It plays against the Guardians' theme from the original film just before Ego's death, symbolising Peter choosing his Family of Choice over his Omnicidal Maniac father. The theme returns one last time as Yondu delivers Quill to safety, where Quill learns that Yondu was always his true father figure, and plays in full force as Yondu dies.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Rocket and Yondu's reaction when Baby Groot brings back a freshly-severed toe.
    Rocket: Let's just agree to never discuss this.
  • Like a Son to Me:
    • Yondu's feelings for Peter, in a contrast to Ego because Yondu sees him as his son and Ego sees him as his "battery".
    • Played for Laughs with Baby Groot, with Rocket, Peter, Drax, and Gamora coming off as surrogate parents.
    • Played straight by Peter as he deals with his Heroic BSoD regarding Yondu's death. While listening to Cat Steven's "Father and Son", Baby Groot comes to him seeking comfort and Peter shares the song with him indicating an increased sense of responsibility toward Groot. This is reinforced in the stinger where Peter and Teen Groot have a classic parent/child argument about keeping their room clean. Peter even says "Now I know how Yondu felt".
  • Like Father, Unlike Son: Ego indeed shares a number of similarities with Peter in their interactions. He's a roguish womanizer who seduces alien women of multiple species, loves the same kind of music, and has affable qualities, which makes him a manipulative sociopath devoid of sympathy, capable of overcoming any human bonds and takes the love 'em and leave 'em to the extreme. This horrifies Star-Lord when he learns the truth.
  • Little "No": Peter can only choke out one of these as Ego crushes his walkman in front of him.
  • Living Battery: When Peter refuses to join Ego in his quest to rule the world, the latter threatens to banish him to a life as a battery.
  • Lovecraft Lite:
    • The film proper opens on the Guardians fighting the Abilisk, a multi-tentacled dimension-hopping monster, and defeating it with a sword.
    • Ego, a millennia-old Celestial, has spent ages implanting plants onto various worlds and attempts to swarm them with his genetics in an Assimilation Plot, fathering a human offspring à la The Dunwich Horror. His offspring is largely humanoid, and while his plan comes close to winning, the Guardians find his Achilles' Heel and are able foil his plans, albeit with the loss of one of their number, Yondu.
  • Loved Ones Montage: Shortly before beginning to wield his newly unlocked Celestial power, Peter takes a moment to remember his experiences with his family, both old and new.
  • Love Hurts: In a twisted way. Ego supposedly realized that, of all the women that he had children with, Meredith was the one he genuinely grew to start to love... and that made him also realize that if he didn't do something soon, his feelings for her could make him stop his Assimilation Plot, so he stopped visiting her and gave her the fatal brain tumor before he grew to care too much about her to the point that it would pain him if she lives out her natural lifespan. Even in the present, talking about Meredith seems to invoke more of a sincere reaction out of them than anything else.
  • Love Redeems:
    • Defied with Ego. The Omnicidal Maniac had visited Meredith Quill three times and was genuinely falling in love with her. Before his love could fully manifest itself, he realized that this love for one lifeform would prevent him from being willing to devour all life in the Universe. Thus, he stopped visiting her and implanted a tumor in her brain, killing her. He went to the extreme of killing her because he knew he wouldn't be able to stay away otherwise.
    • Played straight with Yondu. His Heroic Sacrifice for Peter redeems him in the eyes of his fellow Ravagers, and also allows Peter to realize that Yondu truly loved him as a son.
  • Ludicrous Speed: The film uses hyperspace "hops" ("jumps") in this way. A mammal is only supposed to be able to handle 50 hops at a time. This crew, being what it is, goes for 700. We see their faces getting cartoonishly warped as they're screaming. Groot seems unaffected... until after they arrive, he pukes candidly and suddenly, like a baby would.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Ego the Living Planet, who can grow himself a body that looks like a human male, reveals himself to be Peter's father on their first meeting.
    Peter: Who the hell are you?
    Ego: I figured my rugged good looks would give it away. My name is Ego, and I'm your dad, Peter.
  • Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: Discussed by Drax, who mentions that Ego's human-esque avatar has to be... ahem, "fully-equipped" in order to be reproducing with other species, because Ego the Planet is not suited to such a task.
    Drax: If he's a planet, how could he make a baby with your mother? He would smush her!
  • Manipulative Bastard: Ego knows exactly how to win Peter over to his side, despite Peter's initial skepticism. He plays catch with him, claims that "Brandy" by Looking Glass is one of Earth's greatest musical compositions if not the greatest, and tempts him with the immortality that being a Celestial entails.
  • Manly Tears: Peter weeps for Yondu at his funeral.
  • Market-Based Title: Japanese posters say "Guardians of Galaxy: Remix" instead.
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!":
    • The Ravagers have a moment when Nebula intervenes to put a stop to their fun. They might be Stupid Evil, but they're smart enough to know pissing off a daughter of Thanos isn't a good idea.
    • The entire remaining Ravager crew panic when Yondu turns his Yaka Arrow on them. You can actually see them freeze the minute they hear him whistle.
  • Meaningful Echo:
    • "Sometimes the thing you're searching for your whole life, it's right there by your side all along." Peter originally meant the line as a Love Confession to Gamora, but uses it at Yondu's funeral, to signify that he's the father Peter's been searching for all his life.
    • Yondu saves Peter the same way Peter saved Gamora in the last movie. He dives into space and gives Peter his space rig.
  • Meaningful Funeral: He may have been exiled before, but all the Ravager factions show up to Yondu's funeral and give their salute after finding out he gave his life to save his adoptive son and helped to take out Ego.
  • Meaningful Look: Between Gamora and Nebula before jumping onto an ascending pillar that would get them out of the Collapsing Lair.
  • Meaningful Name: Ego. His Evil Plan is to take over many planets and mold them into his own image, spreading himself like a virus until every planet in the galaxy is a part of him. More obviously, he turns out to be an arrogant, self-absorbed and condescending maniac who places his own needs over those of others. When explaining his plans to Peter, Ego presents himself as the first and most important being in the universe — but really, he's just another planet among others, albeit with terrible delusions of grandeur.
  • Meta Casting: Star-Lord's father, Ego, is portrayed by Kurt Russell, a popular 80s action hero that people Chris Pratt's age most likely grew up watching. This not only ties into making Ego appear as a badass father figure to Peter, but makes his role as the Big Bad much more shocking and hard-hitting.
  • Meeting-the-Parents Sequel: Star-Lord's reunion with his father drives a major part of the plot.
  • Metaphorically True: Ego told Yondu that he wouldn't hurt any of the children brought to him. He didn't — they never felt a thing when he killed them.
  • Mexican Standoff: Amongst the Ravagers in the forest, when Taserface questions Yondu's leadership qualities.
  • Mickey Mousing: Briefly: during the final battle, Peter begins the last fight by bashing Ego with a rock in time with every second beat of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain".
  • Mind-Control Eyes: Peter's pupils change to a sky blue when under Ego's influence.
  • Mondegreen Gag: When Drax asks Peter about the name of the batteries they were hired to save, he somehow confuses the word "Anulax" for Harbulary".
    Peter Quill That's nothing like what I just said.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • The first two-thirds of the film act like a Mood Lightswitch Rave, to the point where individual lines in the same scene can quickly shift between drama and comedy. A few of the Brick Jokes in the final third also carry the capacity for whiplash, most notably Peter summoning a giant Pac-Man made of rocks.
    • There's a lighthearted atmosphere when Mantis makes Quill's love for Gamora public but when Mantis tries to touch Gamora, the mood changes instantly.
      Gamora: Touch me, and the only thing you're gonna feel is a broken jaw.
    • The tragic and horrifying scene where Yondu's loyal crew members are Thrown Out the Airlock and Taserface mocks a despondent Yondu about their deaths abruptly takes a turn for the hilarious when Defiant Captive Rocket starts making fun of Taserface's name.
    • The film ends on a very somber note before cutting to black. Then "Surrender" by Cheap Trick starts blaring and the viewers are treated to a Dance Party Ending credits sequence with five humorous stingers.
  • Mook Horror Show:
    • Rocket vs. the Ravagers. He's got the entire area rigged with traps and makes complete fools out of the entire crew, and they never stand a chance against him. Although their abuse is played for comic effect and Rocket is clearly enjoying himself, there's nothing in the scene that suggests his traps were intended to be non-lethal. note 
    • Later, the mutinous Ravagers against Yondu's Yaka Arrow. They are mowed down before they can even react, some of them in complete darkness, with just the light of the red trail of the arrow illuminating their demise.
  • Motile Vehicular Components: Yondu's ships is built with spherical laser turrets rolling around in trenches in the hull. They can fire a concentrated barrage or Beam Spam Death In All Directions.
  • Multi-Directional Barrage: When the Sovereign track the Guardians down at Ego's Planet, they surround the laser drill with their drone fleet. Nebula is able to use her own cybernetics to re-power the lasers, which can be positioned in almost any orientation, and they fire them in every direction, destroying the entire Sovereign fleet.
  • Mundane Utility:
    • The first thing Peter does with his newfound celestial power to shape matter out of Ego's planet is to form a ball to play catch with.
    • Ego uses Mantis' empathy powers to treat his insomnia.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: When Peter wonders to Gamora if Ego really is his dad and they can trust him, Gamora counters with "If he ends up being evil, we will just kill him."
  • The Mutiny: Most of Yondu's faction come to think he's getting soft since the events of the last movie. Not helped at all by the senior factions shunning him for kid trafficking, which is forbidden in their rules. It comes to a head when they're hired to find Quill by the Sovereign and Yondu refuses to turn him in, leading Taserface to overthrow him (thanks to a sneak attack from Nebula).
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Kraglin comes to regret his role in Taserface's mutiny. He only meant a criticism of his boss, not a spark for an overthrow!
  • My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: Mantis readily volunteers that Peter is having thoughts of "romantic and sexual love" for Gamora to demonstrate she has the ability to read people's emotions by touching them.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Yondu's new head-fin is actually an old prototype he'd been keeping for emergencies — it conveniently resembles Yondu's original mohawk in the comics.
    • Multiple movie posters featuring Nathan Fillion as Simon Williams were planned at one point. He even portrays Tony Stark in a parody of the poster for Steve Jobs. And the Conan the Barbarian (1982) pastiche Arkon is a reference to a Marvel Planetary Romance character ... who was indeed played by Simon in a series of movies.
    • Ego's planet near the end has the giant face of Ego on it like his comic-book counterpart, albeit it doesn't talk or emote.
    • The scene where Peter transforms into Pac-Man is a discreet homage to the battle between Ego and Alter-Ego as seen here.
    • Howard's appearance has changed slightly since his last appearance, becoming slimmer and looking more like his comic version. And with a beak shaped like the one in his infamous movie.
    • Krugarr is first seen demonstrating the same kind of magic seen in Kamar-Taj. In the comics, Krugarr inherits the title of Sorceror Supreme at some point.
    • Speaking of, Yondu mentions that he and the other Ravager captains were a lot like Rocket and the Guardians in their younger days, that's because comic fans know them as the original Guardians of the Galaxy.
    • The blue uniforms worn by Starhawk and his fellow elder Ravagers are a nod to the uniforms worn by the Guardians during the famed DnA run on the title. The same run which, probably not coincidentally, was the basis for the movies.
    • Nebula (very briefly) takes control of Yondu's cell of the Ravagers. This is much more in keeping with her comics characterization than the "Thanos's adopted daughter assassin" role she has in the films.
    • When Peter first taps into Ego's power, his eyes turn into stars, and when asked what he sees, he says "Eternity". His look is similar to the actual Marvel Comics cosmic character, the omnipotent and all-encompassing Eternity, which the film may be hinting at for a sequel.
    • At first sight, it would seem that "Taserface" was just a made-up name, something so corny that it was made specifically for Rocket and everybody else to laugh about it. But no: Taserface is an actual comic-book character, albeit a minor one, that showed up for just a couple of issues of the original team of Guardians in the Galaxy. And no, none of the old Guardians laughed about the name back then.
    • Mantis, while not resembling her original incarnation, is a callback to the 2008 Abnett and Lanning run, where she was depicted as a precog and empath.
    • Ego's plan to assimilate the universe with spores is reminiscent of his actions during the Maximum Security event of the comics. There a spore containing his consciousness ended up on Earth and attempted to convert the planet to a new body.
    • A 1976 Fantastic Four story had Galactus instantaneously evolved into a giant, disembodied brain like the film's Ego (though he was restored back into the familiar, giant humanoid form a few years later).
  • Narcissist: As if his name wasn't a big enough clue, Ego finds all life in the universe "disappointing" compared to himself so he seeks to "improve" the universe by killing everything and replacing it all with himself. He seduced hundreds of women and sired hundreds of children to further this plan, and murdered just as many when they didn't inherit his "spark" and therefore were of no use to him. Though he claims he genuinely loved Peter's mother Meredith, even his concept of "love" seems shallow since the things he liked most about her were her looks and her knowledge of 80's pop music, and he murdered her in agonising fashion with a brain tumor so he wouldn't become too attached to Earth, which rather throws doubt on the idea that he loved her at all. He keeps Mantis around to serve his needs and Drax thinks he is treating her like a pet, and his overall vibe is that he sees everyone in the universe in terms of how they can or cannot serve or amuse himself, and even his final plea to Peter is that if he — Ego — dies, Peter will be "condemned" to be just like everybody else. Peter merely asks him "what's so wrong about that?"
  • Narrative Profanity Filter: In the climax of the movie, when Rocket gives Yondu the last jetpack and spacesuit, he translates what Groot tells Yondu as, "welcome to the Guardians of the frickin' Galaxy", and then adds, "only he didn't use 'frickin'." (And as he turns to leave, he tells Groot to watch his language.)
  • Nature Tinkling: While camping out with the Guardians on Berhert, Ego takes a few moments to take a leak, whistling as he does so.
  • Neck Lift: Gamora lifts Mantis by the neck as she questions her about the skeletons of Ego's children she and Nebula found buried in a cave. She only lets her go when Mantis uses her empathic abilities on her.
  • Near-Villain Victory: Ego is very close to achieving his goal, while the Guardians are about to be destroyed. But then things take a turn for the better.
  • Never Trust a Trailer:
    • San Diego Comic-Con trailer (not screened for wide audience) featured Sylvester Stallone in a Nova Corps uniform, allowing the Internet to speak openly about his "cameo as a Nova Corps" member. He turns out to be playing Starhawk and never wears a Nova Corps uniform in the movie.
    • In the full trailer, Ayesha's comments about sensing great fear, jealousy, and betrayal within the Guardians, and that the Sovereign need to "cleanse the universe of this weakness", implying that the Sovereign are Omnicidal Maniacs who intend to wipe out all lifeforms that don't fit their mould. In reality, not only are the Sovereign not treated anywhere near as ominously as they are in the trailer, they are also mostly Plot Irrelevant Villains as they are only after the Guardians because they stole some batteries from them and Ego is the true threat of the film.
    • Sweet's song "Fox on the Run" is played in one trailer but does not appear in the film.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ego has exactly what he wants in a compliant and capable Star-Lord... until he is dumb enough to tell Peter that he was the one who gave his mother a fatal cancer.
  • No Animals Were Harmed: "No raccoons or tree creatures were harmed in the making of this movie. The same cannot be said for handlers of said raccoons and tree creatures."
  • No Endor Holocaust:
    • We see the Ego spore swallow large segments of Earth, Xandar, and other planets, but we never see the repercussions of this (other than the property damage).
    • Averted with Peter's half-siblings. Thousands upon thousands of skeletons in one catacomb.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Taserface is able to challenge Yondu's authority and incite a mutiny by pointing out that Yondu is an unfit leader because always goes easy on Peter no matter how often he double-crosses the Ravagers.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Rocket builds a bomb with two Big Red Buttons. They are right next to each other. One will start a five minute countdown, the other will trigger instant detonation. This causes problems when Baby Groot is the only one who can plant the bomb, but is unable to tell the difference.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • Yondu hits Rocket with this. "I know who you are because you are me!" Rocket ultimately agrees with him especially when Yondu reveals that it was his own parents who sold him into slavery, and Rocket realizes that Yondu really does know what he's talking about.
    • Ego invokes this to Peter a few times. He compares Peter's longing for Gamora to his own reasons for walking out on Meredith, noting that both of them are like the sailor in the "Brandy" song whose true love is the sea. Peter almost agrees until Ego reveals that he killed his mother and the other rejects, i.e. children without Celestial powers.
  • Nothing but Skulls: In a slight subversion of this trope, the cave filled with Ego's fallen sons that Gamora and Nebula find also include the rest of their bones along with the various alien skulls.

    Tropes O to R 
  • Obi-Wan Moment: You knew it was coming when Rocket says he has one jetpack and one space suit left. With seconds before Ego goes up in smoke, Yondu rockets Peter out of there, and puts the spacesuit on his adopted son, living long enough to tell Peter he's So Proud of You before freezing to death in the vacuum of space.
  • Obliviously Evil:
    • Ego talks about the horrific things he's both planned, namely assimilating the entire universe into himself and exterminating all life other than himself, and actually done, such as killing off all of his previous children and giving the one person he claims to have genuinely loved a fatal brain tumor, with complete nonchalance. It's quite obvious he has no comprehension of just how evil he is, as shown by his affront when his son is genuinely enraged by the things he's done. As an immortal being, he sees no purpose or meaning in mortal life, since in his view either he kills them now or they grow old and die, and if he formed a bond with them, well that would make him sad.
    • The defining example of this? He literally tries to downplay giving Meredith a brain tumor the way a teenager might try to defend themselves from responsibility, flat-out saying "I know that SOUNDS bad, but—". He could have picked literally countless means of murder that would have dealt with Meredith quickly and painlessly, but instead chose to give her one of the most psychologically and physically painful forms of death there is, all so he wouldn't have to watch her die. If this were any other character in fiction, such nonchalance would be unbelievable, but since this is Ego we're talking about...
  • Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Keeping with the heavy musical influence of the first movie, it's subtitled "Vol. 2" as though it were an album.
  • Offing the Offspring: Ego sired other children than Peter, but he ended up killing all of them when he found out that none of them had inherited his powers and therefore were of no use to him. Apparently the were thousands of them and there's a cave filled with their skeletons.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Yondu gets freaked out when Kraglin warns him that Ayesha and the Sovereign have tracked him down.
      Kraglin: You remember that Ayesha chick?
      Yondu: Yeah, why? [sees Sovereign fleet] Oh, hell!
    • Rocket lets out a small exclamation when Yondu has him cornered. And then not much later, gives a similar look of exasperation as Nebula's about to shoot him.
    • When Ego once again tries to forcibly get Quill to use his powers for his assimilation plan. Quill, after some inspiring words from Yondu, quickly takes control of his celestial power and in turn the planet, saving his friends in the process. Ego quickly realizes Quill now has the power to fight him and is about to come at him full force.
  • One-Man Army:
    • Rocket, with his various traps and hand-to-paw combat takes out a considerable number of ravagers that approach his camp.
    • In the last film, Yondu took on an entire squad of Sakaarans; this time he takes on the entire mutinous Ravager crew and wins.
    • Ego's first appearance consists of him single-handedly destroyed a Sovereign fleet.
  • The Oner: The opening credits make up a particularly funny one involving Groot dancing to the music... while the rest of the team battles the Abilisk as a Funny Background Event.
  • Our Wormholes Are Different: This movies features one of the most notable examples of characters using the Universal Neural Teleportation Network, a network of hexagon-shaped wormwoles placed all over the galaxy. It allows for convenient faster-than-light travel, but Yondu notes that mammals can't handle more than 50 jumps at a time, just as Rocket accidentally sets their ship on a 700 jumps trajectory.
  • Outrun the Fireball: Yondu clasps Peter and both ascend from the exploding planet.
  • Overly Long Gag:
    • Groot dancing while the rest of the Guardians fight the Starfish Alien.
    • Groot being sent to find Yondu's fin and bringing back something else.
    • Peter really does ask all the other Guardians if they have any tape (except maybe Nebula).
  • Ow, My Body Part!: Drax doesn't like using the jet packs nor wearing a shirt because "he has sensitive nipples." So when Peter has to hastily put a jet pack on him to get him off the planet about to explode:
    Drax: Ow! My nipples!
  • Pac Man Fever: The Sovereign's remote fighter control facility, which looks like both the least professional military installation ever, and the most backdated.
  • Paradise Planet: Ego's world, a beautiful garden planet dominated by lush green cliffs, waterfalls and floating multicolored bubbles; the only building to be found there is Ego's palace. Of course, once Ego's true nature is revealed, the paradise begins flaking off very quickly.
  • Parental Sexuality Squick: Inverted. Drax fondly remembers his parents telling how they conceived him. Apparently, it was a Winter Solstice tradition. Played straight with Peter, who really does not want to know the details. Drax calls out that humans have issues about this trope.
  • Parents as People: Yondu's Dark and Troubled Past involved being sold into slavery by his own parents as an infant, spending 20+ years in kill-or-be-killed conditions in service to the Kree, and then being a captain of the Space Pirate Ravagers, which didn't really help matters, either. However, Yondu also defied Omnicidal Maniac Ego by keeping Peter far away from him, tried raising the Terran child to the best of his (often questionable) abilities, and ultimately pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to save Peter's life. Despite all his flaws, it's clear that Yondu genuinely loved Peter and at least tried to be a half-decent parent, unlike Ego.
  • Party Scattering: Star-Lord, Gamora, and Drax go with Mantis and Ego to his planet while Rocket and Groot stay back to repair the ship and guard Nebula, where they're attacked by Yondu and the Ravagers.
  • Pass the Popcorn: Baby Groot chows down on lollies while they're flying through an Asteroid Thicket. He's later munching on skittles when the Milano is just about to crash.
  • Pet Gets the Keys: When Yondu and Rocket are locked in the ship's brig, they catch Baby Groot's attention and tell him to bring Yondu's prototype head fin so they can break out. Unfortunately, Groot doesn't quite understand what they're talking about and brings back a series of increasingly hilarious object — including a pair of underwear, a severed toe, and a desk — before a regretful mutineer helps him out.
  • Physical God: There's a reason Ego deems himself a "Celestial", which are high up in the comic-verse's list of God Tier creatures. He's an eternal entity, millions of years old, able to assimilate matter and manipulate it on a molecular level by mere will, which he has used to not only take physical form as a planet, but to create humanoid extensions of himself and send them to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. His avatars are super strong and durable, have a potent Healing Factor, and can manipulate matter that isn't part of Ego to the extent of effortlessly wiping out a fleet of drone-ships singlehandedly. Fighting him in his body is almost as bad as fighting Dormmammu. That said, he does have limits: he doesn't have the power to complete his Assimilation Plot on his own, or at least not in what he considers a reasonable timespan (and this is someone who's been alive for millions of years already), and is ultimately killed by applying a bomb to his "core". Admittedly, said bomb is a "super-bomb" built by Rocket using hyper-energy batteries stolen from the Sovereign. He also seems to have a limited level of awareness, with little ability to focus on more than one thing at a time. Hence, it is possible to hide from him on his own body/planet as it takes time for his conscious mind/avatar to locate someone.
  • Planetary Core Manipulation: The final battle against Ego the Living Planet involves the Guardians drilling into the core of Ego's planet, where Ego's "brain" is located, and planting a bomb right on it. The subsequent explosion destroys the core, causing the entire planet to rupture and fall completely apart.
  • Platonic Co-Parenting: The adult members of the team — Peter, Gamora, Rocket, and Drax — are shown raising Baby Groot together. In the opening sequence, each of them gets brief moment showcasing their individual relationships to Baby Groot while fighting the monster.
  • Playing Catch with the Old Man: After Peter reunites with his father, Ego the Living Planet, one of the first things they do to bond is a father-son game of playing catch using their powers to play with an energy ball made of light.
  • Pleasure Planet: Contraxia is implied to be one as the only part we really see is a robot brothel.
  • Plug 'n' Play Prosthetics: In this corner of the cosmos, artificial body parts are not only common enough, but standardized enough that Nebula can simply grab a spare hand from a crate full of prosthetics the Ravagers have lying around and have it work perfectly with her prosthetic arm.
  • Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
  • Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: After Groot's bomb explodes in Planet Ego's core, the planet is wracked by numerous explosions before finally detonating.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: When Peter rebels against Ego, the latter decides to simply use him as a battery for his powers rather than an assistant.
  • Power Source:
    • With the mining ship's generators off-line and the Sovereign fleet blasting away at them, Nebula gets the idea to use her own cyborg components to power the mining lasers, taking out an entire Sovereign fleet with a wave of Beam Spam while she endures considerable pain.
    • Once Ego confirms that Peter has inherited the Celestial gene and can tap into the light of the planet, he realizes he can now power his plans for "the Expansion". While he wants Peter to help willingly, when he rebels, Ego is quite content to use Peter as a living battery.
  • Pragmatic Villainy:
    • At one point Yondu points out to his crew that being complicit in the deaths of the Guardians of the Galaxy is not worth it, no matter how much the Sovereign pay, because it would get the entire Nova Corps hunting them down.
    • Nebula invokes this when she stops Taserface killing Rocket and Yondu, pointing out that the Sovereign and the Kree will pay well for them respectively (and she wants a cut off the take).
      Taserface: I thought you were the biggest sadist in the galaxy!
      Nebula: That was when Daddy was paying my bills.
  • Product Placement:
    • Done in a tongue-in-cheek way. After his Walkman gets destroyed, at the end of the film Kraglin gives Peter a Microsoft Zunenote  that Yondu found in a junkyard. Contrary to popular belief, while hardly the massive success of the iPod, Zunes did have a strong cult fanbase and several hardware iterations before the devices were discontinued well before this film came out in favor of the software platform that lives on as Groove. This would also explain how Peter kept his Walkman running all these years without visiting Earth.
    • Dairy Queen is featured at the start of the film. Dairy Queen helped promote this film with a special promotion. The beginning of the film uses the old restaurant since it's in the '80s, while later in the film it changes to the newer DQ Chill and Grill as it's now set in 2014.
  • Promotion to Parent: The second stinger has Quill walking in on a teenage Groot and complaining about how his room is a mess like a harried father.
    Peter: I'm not boring, you're boring. [Beat] Now I know how Yondu felt.
  • The Purge: Twice.
    • After Taserface's mutiny, he has all the crew who are still loyal to Yondu Thrown Out the Airlock.
    • Later, when Yondu retakes control, he kills all of Taserface's supporters with the Yaka Arrow.
  • Quicksand Sucks: Drax gets caught in it when trying to carry Mantis to safety.
  • Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything: "The jump point is 47 clicks away, but to get there you'll have to fly through that quantum asteroid field!" It's a parody of the typical Hollywood Asteroid Thicket, with the asteroids jumping across space in random leaps.
  • Race Lift: Lady Starhawk and Charlie-27, both of whom are white in the comics, are played by Michelle Yeoh and Ving Rhames, respectively.
  • Ramming Always Works: Taking a page from Rocket's book in the first movie, Yondu lands his ship right on top of Ego's human body just as the latter is starting "the Expansion" and using Quill as a battery, interrupting the process.
    Yondu: Hey there, jackass!
  • Rapid-Fire "No!":
    • Peter has one when he realizes Yondu is going to die, as he gave Peter the last spacesuit before they escaped from a planet and is therefore exposed to space.
    • Ayesha has one and (it's the most emotive she gets) topped off with a Big "NO!" when she fails to destroy the Guardians once again.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A few of these get thrown around.
    • Gamora gives one to both Peter and Rocket after they barely survive the encounter with the Sovereign fleet. Stating that either of them could have easily evaded their pursuers had they not let their arrogance and need to outdo each other get in the way.
    • Rocket gets one from Yondu after they escape and kill the mutineers. Telling him that his mean personality and abrasiveness are just a defense mechanism, and that he's actually afraid of being loved because it will remind him of how lonely he really is.
    • Gamora hits Nebula with one after their fight on Ego. Calling out her obsession with killing her. Going as far as to fly a ship half way across the galaxy to try again, and continuing to attack even after she saves her life.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Yondu's first truly selfless act in his life, namely giving the only spacesuit he has to Peter so that his son can survive in space results in his death. The redemption is two-fold, as he not only redeems himself as a person, but that and helping stop Ego redeems him in the eyes of the Ravagers.
  • Refuse to Rescue the Disliked: Discussed by Drax when talking about the Guardians and Nebula's place on the team.
    Drax: We're family, we leave no one behind... except maybe you.
  • Reliably Unreliable Guns: Gamora's gun jams up during the fight with the Abilisk which makes her switch to her sword instead.
  • Removable Turret Gun: After Nebula crash-lands her ship while chasing Gamora, the latter yanks off a gatling-like turret from the ship and fiddles with its circuitry to make up for the lack of a trigger. The turret is much bigger than she is, but she has the Super-Strength to handle it.
  • Revenge Before Reason: By the end of the movie, even the other Sovereign are beginning to question the absurd amount of resources Ayesha is throwing away in her pursuit of revenge against the Guardians.
  • Rewatch Bonus:
    • As Ego explains his background to the gang through his dioramas, Mantis noticeably winces. This isn't the first time she's heard his sales pitch.
    • Ego has never once made an explicitly false statement to Peter and the Guardians, with the benefit of hindsight, most of his statements had a sinister context.
    • Knowing Ego's plans and Peter's role in those plans as well as his history with his other children puts his reaction to Peter tapping into the Light within the planet in an entirely different light.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • The Ravagers betray and imprison Yondu for his perceived softness at the end of the previous film and the opening acts of this one. They also murder all the crew who were loyal to Yondu by throwing them out into space, as he's Forced to Watch. It doesn't end well, with Yondu proceeding to use his Yaka Arrow to take out all of them.
    • Nebula flies halfway across the galaxy to hunt down Gamora, and can only scream incoherently when she finally catches up with her. At the end of the movie, she turns down Gamora's offer to stay with the team in favour of continuing with her mission to kill Thanos.
  • The Roast: Despite being tied to a chair, Rocket successfully mocks Taserface so hard that even his fellow mutineers end up roaring in laughter and ... what a name, Taserface is left spitting in rage.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Ego originated as a villain for Thor in the comics before becoming a kind of Marvel-wide space villain, albeit Thor was the hero who dealt most often with him. His connection to the Guardians is entirely original to the film as is his connection to Star-Lord and Mantis. This change has also modified Ego's origin and powers, since in the comics he had full molecular control of his planet's surface mass and atmosphere which allowed him to be a threat that even Thor was tentative about tackling, and allowed him to hold his own against Galactus. In the film, these aspects are removed to make him a villain not entirely beyond the scale of the Guardians.
  • Rule of Fun: Invoked. Rocket has graffitied the Milano's "spacesuits for emergency" sign to "spacesuits for emergency — or for fun."
  • Rule of Funny:
    • As mentioned below, the film makes a Running Gag of people calling Rocket the names of other kinds of animals, including "rat", "fox" and "puppy", with only Peter seeming to know what a raccoon actually is. Logically however, the alien cast should be equally unfamiliar with rats, foxes, and puppies as with raccoons. Ego, who has not only visited Earth several times, but specifically Missouri, where they have raccoons (seriously, hunting them is something of a pastime) calls him a "triangle-faced monkey." But jokes are funny enough for it not to matter.
    • Even in a Space Is Noisy universe, why else would we hear pinball sounds when a ship is warp jumping?
    • Groot somehow brings a freshly severed human toe when asked to get Yondu's replacement fin. With exception of Peter Quill, the Ravagers (or at least Yondu's faction) do not have any human members, leaving this as the only excuse.
  • Rule of Symbolism: The first thing Peter makes with the power of the living planet is a ball of light. Then he plays catch with his father.
  • Rummage Fail: Groot is tasked with retrieving a replacement fin for Yondu. Cue montage of him grabbing the wrong thing over and over. Among the highlights are an entire desk, "that guy's eye", and a freshly severed human toe. Rocket and Yondu agree to Let Us Never Speak of This Again in regards to the last one.
  • Running Gag:
    • Rocket being called something other than a raccoon, and often demeaning terms, such as "Trash Panda", "Triangle-faced monkey", "Puppy", etc.
    • Nebula pleads to be fed several times, with both Gamora and Drax denying her the fruit she wants, their excuse being that it's not ripe. Eventually, she manages to free herself and take it, but spits it out in disgust, saying it isn't ripe.

    Tropes S to Z 
  • Sarcasm Failure: Rocket only realizes his failures after the fact. He calls out attention to him winking with the wrong eye in relation to his audience's position multiple times.
  • Satanic Archetype: Meredith's description of Ego as an "angel, composed out of pure light" is evocative of Lucifer (whose name literally means "light bringer"), he's charismatic, manipulative, and narcissistic, acts as a corrupter to Peter and Yondu by preying on their vulnerabilities, and, despite all appearances, is ultimately an incredibly selfish and evil being willing to destroy innumerable lives for his own gain.
  • Save the Villain: Gamora pulls Nebula from an exploding space shuttle, only moments after the latter attempted to kill her.
  • Saying Too Much: Ego has Quill believing everything he says, causing his son to become Drunk on the Dark Side and all but willing to join him, even as his description of his plans become more and more sinister. Then, Ego lets it slip that he purposely infected Quill's mother with the tumor that killed her. This revelation hits Quill's Berserk Button causing him to snap out of it with Unstoppable Rage.
  • Scenery Porn: The scenery on Ego's planet is breathtaking. Ego takes the Guardians through an alien vista of lush forests and sprinkled with waterfalls coming out of rock peaks and ponds, and Gamora is shown sitting in the middle of large plain where one can see the sky covered in auroras. Ego's palace is no less incredible, with incredibly ornate floors, walls and everything creating an organic beehive feel to the place.
  • Secret Message Wink: Rocket stealth insults the Sovereign, then winks at Peter to signal that the insult was intentional. Unfortunately for Rocket, he fails at the "discreet" part by winking with the wrong eye, thus doing it in full view of the Sovereign.
  • Seinfeldian Conversation: The failed attempts on Groot's behalf to get Yondu's improved fin takes a detour to discuss his disdain of headwear.
    Rocket: He hates hats. On anyone, not just him.
    Groot: I am Groot.
    Rocket: One minute you think somebody's got a weird head, the next you realize part of the head is just a hat. [beat] That's why you don't like hats?
    Yondu: This is an important conversation right now?
  • Sequel Escalation: A higher-stakes plot (though one more independent from the MCU's cogs than in the original), more effects, more jokes, more big-name actors (even in bit parts!), and more emotional punch. If one considers how old Ego was and how many planets had those seeds of his all over them, this film had the highest potential death toll of any villainous scheme in the MCU (including even Infinity War, as that was "only" 50% omnicide), or for that matter most science-fiction and superhero movies. Even the bad guys in Star Wars didn't want to erase all habitable mortal existence and replace it with extensions of themselves. note 
  • Sequel Hook:
    • A title card before the end credits reads: The Guardians of the Galaxy will return.
    • There are five end credit scenes for the film, and some of them open real possibilities for future Marvel movies.
      • Stakar has reassembled his former team which comic-book fans may recognize as the original Guardians of the Galaxy.
      • Ayesha will present to the rest of the Sovereign her latest creation which she dubs "Adam".
      • Before the credits, Nebula leaves to go kill Thanos, foreshadowing her appearance in Infinity War.
  • Series Continuity Error: In Stan Lee's cameo, Stan claims to have been a FedEx deliveryman in a reference to Captain America: Civil War... when Guardians Vol. 2 is set two years before Civil War. Gunn admitted he slipped up, and handwaved it away saying that Civil War probably wasn't the first time Stan was a FedEx guy.
  • Sexbot: The Ravagers are spending some shore leave on a recreational planet, with plenty of gynoid prostitutes (called Robot Courtesans in the credits) to fulfill their desires. We see Yondu dressing back inside a cosy room, after having hired the services of one of them (who then deactivates herself).
  • Shape Shifter Guilt Trip: Ego briefly takes the form of David Hasselhoff (specifically, his Michael Knight persona) to try to guilt Peter for not accepting him as his father. It doesn't last long, nor does it seem to unnerve Quill anymore than other revelations already had at that point.
  • Ship Tease:
    • Peter and Gamora's relationship in a nutshell. Although it's clearly stated that Peter loves Gamora, Gamora has yet to openly reciprocate his feelings although she has many intimate moments with him, along with a lot of Say My Name moments during the climactic battle.
    • The friendship between Drax and Mantis could be considered a hilarious subversion. Their first moments together show them getting really along despite Drax's Brutal Honesty, but Drax considers Mantis physically repulsive.
      Mantis: [speaking about fireworks] It's beautiful...
      Drax: It is. And so are you. On the inside.
  • Shirtless Scene:
    • Peter changes his T-shirt in full view of Gamora and Nebula for no particular reason.
    • Yondu also gets one of these, in his first scene at the robot brothel.
    • Drax, of course, carries on being a Walking Shirtless Scene. He has sensitive nipples.
  • Shooting Lessons From Your Parents: In one flashback we see Yondu showing a young Peter how to shoot a blaster rifle.
  • Shooting Superman: A Downplayed example. After Peter learns that Ego gave his mother brain cancer, Peter unloads his blasters on him, shredding his physical human form. While Peter might have suspected that using blasters against a Physical God would be ultimately pointless, he is just too pissed in that moment to think about anything but killing him.
  • Shout-Out: Collected in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Shout-Outs page.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: Comes at the climax, the final dialogue between the villain and Quill:
    Ego: You are a god. If you kill me, you'll be just like everybody else!
    Quill: What's so wrong with that?
    Ego: NOOO!!!
  • Sibling Rivalry: Thanos pitted his daughters against each other, then punished the loser. Nebula lost every time, and each time she'd have a part of her body replaced with cybernetics to make her stronger.
  • Single Specimen Species: Partly averted regarding Ego. In the first movie, we find that Knowhere is "the severed head of a Celestial." This Celestial apparently had a humanoid body (and head); Ego, on the other hand, is shown to be a floating brain, and when he learns to manipulate matter, he forms a planet instead. Only when he wants to explore does he form a humanoid body, which must return to the original planet to recharge periodically.
  • Single Tear: Peter sheds one after learning what Ego truly is, as the Living Planet takes his walkman and destroys it.
  • Sixth Ranger: Mantis, Yondu, and Kraglin officially join the Guardians as of this film with Nebula as the Guest-Star Party Member.
  • Skewed Priorities: While waiting to fight an inter-dimensional space monster, Rocket is assembling a speaker system so they can kick ass to music. Even Peter can't go along with this one.
  • Slasher Smile: Both Yondu and Rocket sport chilling ones while they're slaughtering Yondu's mutinous crew. They're also laughing maniacally.
  • Smug Snake: Ego is immensely powerful but allows his selfishness and arrogance to blindside him as well as his misunderstanding of Peter and his willingness to go along with his plan. It's also clear that he never bothered to become more skilled with his powers as he never imagined he'd go up against someone who was his equal and so Peter is able wipe the floor with him in battle.
  • The Smurfette Principle:
    • Zig-zagged with the teasing of Nebula joining the Guardians (she doesn't). However, it's ultimately subverted when Mantis decides to tag along with the group at the end.
    • With the Ravagers, Aletta looks to be the only female among them until Mainframe is introduced, and it appears that Aletta has an all-female crew.
  • So Proud of You: Yondu's last words are telling Peter how proud they are of the man they helped him become.
  • The Sociopath: Ego wishes to assimilate all life into himself because he was dissatisfied with his first encounters with other life. When he fell in love with Meredith Quill, he gave her brain cancer in order to keep his head clear. She was not the only mortal woman he slept with, as he needed a child for his scheme. Most of his children are dead because they were useless to him without powers, and he tries to use Star-Lord as a human battery when he defies him.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance:
    • Baby Groot dancing to Electric Light Orchestra's cheerful "Mr. Blue Sky" is the opening of the movie, with the actual action of the rest of the Guardians fighting the Abilisk relegated to the background.
    • Glen Campbell's breezy "Southern Nights" is played while Rocket fights Yondu's crew. Mostly by Wreaking Havok with gravity mines.
    • Jay and the Americans' upbeat "Come a Little Bit Closer" is the background music to which Yondu, Rocket, and Baby Groot, lay waste to the mutinous Ravagers.
  • Source Music: The song playing in the opening battle and credits ("Mr. Blue Sky" by the Electric Light Orchestra) is playing through a special stereo Rocket was hooking up before the arrival of the monster. When Drax is thrown onto the box at the end of the credits, it abrputly cuts off the song as well, earning Groot's anger towards Drax.
  • Space Is an Ocean: Used metaphorically by Ego, when he compares himself and Peter to the sailor in the song "Brandy" whose true love is the sea.
  • Space Is Cold: Yondu and his fellow Ravagers who were Thrown Out the Airlock freeze to death in space much too quickly.
  • Space Is Noisy: The space fireworks at the end come with sound.
  • Spanner in the Works:
  • Staggered Zoom: Right before the bomb on Ego's brain/core goes off, it zooms out in this manner.
  • Standard Bleeding Spots: During the Final Battle, Peter bleeds from the forehead and on side of the mouth.
  • Standard Hollywood Strafing Procedure: Played straight with Nebula gunning for Gamora (except when she's running across her field of fire, when it becomes Hero-Tracking Failure). Albeit starship weapons probably aren't really designed to fire on human-sized targets.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: When Peter is apologizing to Gamora about appearing to flirt with Ayesha, Drax suddenly appears at his side to pronounce "Gamora is not the one for you, Quill" causing Peter to freak out.
  • Stealth Insult: Rocket attempts to be "polite" to the Sovereign by telling them "You know, they told me you people were conceited douchebags, but that isn't true at all!" (with a wink to Peter afterwards to signal that the insult was intentional). The "stealth" part fails, partly because he messes up the winking and does it in full view of everyone instead of hiding it.
  • Stealth Pun: In the climax, the Guardians kill Ego by detonating a bomb in his brain — i.e. they literally blow his mind.
  • The Stinger: Taken to extremes — even by MCU standards! — as the movie has no less than five scenes during and after the credits. (Many of these are just throwaway gags.) In order of appearance:
    • Kraglin, now the owner of Yondu's Yaka Arrow, practices how to use it, only to stab Drax in the neck.
    • In the aftermath of Yondu's death, Stakar assembles several other Ravager captains, the original Guardians of the Galaxy.
    • Ayesha is met by a Sovereign who watches her overseeing the creation of the Sovereign's "next step" of evolution of her people, and decides to christen said creation "Adam".
    • Groot, now having grown to be a teenager, is scolded by Peter for letting his room on the Ravager dropship become filthy and ignores Peter while playing a video game.
    • The Watchers from Stan Lee's cameo depart while he tries to keep their company.
  • Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: The simple line "But it broke my heart to put that tumor in her head..." spoken by Ego is so impactful to Quill it abruptly stops his More than Mind Control, with just a Flat "What" driving home the utter fury he feels.
  • Strolling Through the Chaos: During the opening fight with the Abilisk, Baby Groot remains unharmed while chaos unfolds left and right.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Played for laughs when Drax says he always thought Yondu was Peter's birth father because "they look just like each other." Rocket points out that Yondu is blue.
  • Suddenly Shouting: While Ego is trying to get Peter to stop attacking him and terraform the entire universe:
    Ego: Soon, Peter, we will be all there is, so STOP PISSING ME OFF!
  • Superhero Speciation: This is discussed early in the film. Peter has qualms when Gamora uses a gun instead of her trademark sword, stating that guns are his main specialty.
  • Superpowers for a Day: Peter, thanks to his Celestial heritage, has the ability to manipulate and shape matter as long as Ego's planet is intact. While he experiments with it a few times, nothing comes of it as Ego's death means his planet goes with him, and by extension, Peter loses the power for good and he's back to being a Badass Normal hero again.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: When Yondu uses his Yaka Arrow to slow down his descent, Peter laughs because it make him look like Mary Poppins. Yondu, not knowing that the character in question is a female British nanny, asks if he's a cool character and Peter decides to tell him he is.
    Yondu: I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Nebula's general attitude towards the Dysfunction Junction that is the Guardians of the Galaxy is that they're all morons who are completely out of their minds.
    Nebula: Idiots!
  • Swallowed Whole: Drax intentionally leaps into the Abilisk's mouth to get inside of it with the belief that it's easier to cut than the outside skin. He's wrong.
  • Swirling Dust: When Peter finally taps into his powers, dust and wind envelop him in a vortex.
  • Tagline: "Obviously."
  • Team Power Walk: Rocket, Groot and Yondu when leaving their prison cell after Yondu reacquires control of his yaka arrow. Thanks to Yondu's yaka arrow slaughtering Ravagers left and right without him sparing them so much as a look, the group can walk up to the surveillance room without a hitch to finish off the rest of the crew.
  • Team Shot: After winning a battle, the camera pulls out to show all 8 members of the main characters' team with the Guardians standing and watching as stuff blows up around them... and then Mantis gets hit with a piece of debris.
  • Team Title: Much like the first film, the title refers to The Team.
  • Teen Rebellion: Parodied at the end of the movie where the reincarnated Groot has a growth spurt and immediately behaves like a sullen, slovenly teenager.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Lampshaded by Nebula, who points out after having to hang out with the Guardians "All you do is yell at each other. You are not friends."
  • Theme Music Power-Up: "The Chain", having enjoyed prominent airtime in the trailers, gets used as this when Peter gets his Heroic Second Wind.
  • There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: Dropped by Drax as "There are two types of beings in the universe" when he tries to explain to Peter why his attempts to woo Gamora never work out.
  • This Is Gonna Suck:
    • Yondu when he realizes Rocket has set them on a direct course for Ego's planet.
      Yondu: It ain't healthy for a mammalian body to hop more than fifty jumps at a time!
      Rocket: I know that!
      Yondu: We're about to do seven-hundred!
    • Yondu's cunning plan to send Baby Groot to get his prototype fin from the bridge of the Ravager ship leaves him grinning at Rocket, and Rocket (seemingly apologetically) looking back at him like this.
    • Rocket's reaction when he realizes Groot has run away with the bomb but seems intent on pressing the wrong button.
      Rocket: ...We're all gonna die.
  • This Is Unforgivable!:
    • Ayesha considers the Guardians stealing batteries that they were hired to guard to be "heresy of the highest order" and authorizes lethal force when hunting them down.
    • Yondu is seen to have crossed the line by the other Ravager captains, having broken the code by "trading in kids." He is considered redeemed at the end for saving his adopted son and helping to defeat Ego, at the cost of his own life.
    • Understandably, Peter has this reaction when Ego reveals he gave Peter's mother the brain tumor that killed her.
  • Three-Point Landing: Played with. After bounding through the trees in full Running on All Fours mode, Rocket leaps to the ground solidly landing on all fours. However, he then immediately shifts into the classic three-point pose as he surveys his surroundings.
  • Thrown Out the Airlock: When the Ravagers under Yondu's command commit mutiny, the crewmembers still loyal to Yondu get thrown into the void for their trouble, leaving a gruesome trail of frozen corpses in the Ravager ship's wake.
  • Tinman Typist: The robot courtesan Yondu sleeps with switches herself off afterwards by pressing a button on the side of her own head.
  • Title In: Used to announce the current planet the action is taking place. As well as the year in the Distant Prologue, which takes place on Earth.
  • Toilet Humor: Rocket threatening to put one of Drax's turds in Peter's pillowcase. Drax furthers the joke by remarking that he has famously huge turds.
  • Toon Physics: Apparently a consequence of repeatedly jumping in and out of hyperspace, juding from Rocket, Yondu, Baby Groot and Kraglin's faces during their 700-jump journey to Ego's planet. They're all fine afterwards (well, Groot throws up, but he's undamaged).
  • Tragic Keepsake: Two for the price of one. Peter gets a Zune that Yondu had been holding on to, and Kraglin gets his Yaka Arrow.
  • Tranquillizer Dart: Among the traps that Rocket has set up around the crashed Milano, there are tranquillizer dart shooters that take out a few of the Ravagers.
  • Trash the Set: The Milano gets trashed even harder in this movie. It doesn't even make it past the first half of the movie, and is never repaired.
  • Understatement:
    • Peter can only gripe that's it's been a hell of a day as things fall to chaos as usual.
    • A retroactive one: In the first movie, Yondu called Peter's dad "a jackass"; after learning that Peter's father sired many children for the sole purpose of helping him terraform the universe and killed the ones who proved useless for said purpose, that word just doesn't quite cover it.
  • Unflinching Walk: Yondu calmly walking through the Ravager vessel, killing all the mutineers with his Yaka Arrow, without breaking stride.
  • Unpleasant Parent Reveal: At first it is seen as a positive thing when Ego shows up. However, when the Guardians discover his secret it invokes this trope.
  • Unreliable Expositor: The only character calling Ego a Celestial is Ego himself. Considering the Celestials from the comics outclass Thanos (but not Thanos with the Gauntlet), it is entirely possible that he's lying.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: Discussed numerous times to summarize the relationship that Peter has with Gamora. He uses Will They or Won't They? and other relationship tropes to try and convince Gamora that she really does have feelings for him. It's also Played for Laughs earlier in the film when Mantis reveals Peter's deepest secret that he wants to have sex with her right to her face.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Ego is one of the most powerful beings in the universe (even Thanos would likely have trouble facing The Living Planet on his home turf) but he falters when he meets someone that is his equal, his son Peter. While he was holding back during the initial phase of the fight because he needed Peter to power his plan to destroy the known universe, once Peter figures out how to control his Celestial powers he gets thrashed. It's possible that being a Physical God for so long and never meeting a lifeform he found "worthy", he never bothered to learn how to fight as he could overwhelm any opposition with his power.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
    • Kraglin just wanted to voice his exasperation at Yondu always favoring Peter all the time. He didn't mean to instigate a mutiny. His inadvertent hand in that shocks him to his core, leading to his active part in Yondu's escape/revenge.
    • A rare positive example that works to undermine Ego. Had Drax not had his bonding moment with Mantis, she would not have had the opportunity to experience the genuine love Drax felt for his family as a husband and more importantly, a father. Having learned the difference between Drax's love, and Ego's lack thereof pushes Mantis to help the Guardians.
  • Values Dissonance: In-Universe, Drax's culture apparently does not have many hang-ups about parental sexuality. When talking to Peter, he fondly recalls how his father would tell Drax the story of his conception every winter solstice. Naturally, Peter is mortified, but Drax is offended, insisting that it was a beautiful bonding experience which he remembers very fondly.
  • Vertigo Effect: Used to highlight Peter's shock when he learns that Ego caused the brain tumor that killed his mother.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Once Ego's true nature is revealed, he's quickly established as one of the most vile villains in a Marvel film to date; he's killed thousands of his own children, murdered a woman he claimed to love by giving her cancer, and his ultimate goal is to wipe out all other life in the universe so that the only remaining life will be extensions of him. All this, in a series that has been... well, not exactly saccharine, but certainly not as serious as the DC films or other MCU films and shows.
  • Villain Ball: Ego might have been successful... if he hadn't decided to tell Peter about the fact he killed his mother just as he was on the verge of victory. It is justified as Peter was still resisting, which is why the topic of his mother even came up, and Ego didn't really have any options for how to answer that wouldn't cause problems.
  • Villainous Breakdown:
    • Ego gets more desperate as Peter continues to rebel against him, after Peter defeats him in battle, he's reduced to begging Peter to not destroy everything and stay as a god. When Peter tells him off, he breaks down completely.
    • Ayesha basically throws a temper tantrum when yet another drone fleet fails to get revenge on the Guardians.
  • Villain Team-Up:
    • Ayesha and the Ravagers are allied against the Guardians.
    • Nebula helps the Ravagers take down Yondu but may have been playing for time for them.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds:
    • Baby Groot has a more turbulent relationship with Drax than the other Guardians, getting angry enough to physically attack him at least twice, although Drax, being Drax, barely notices. For his part, Drax is largely dismissive of Groot, at one point referring to him as "smaller, dumber Groot." Their volatile interactions are all Played for Laughs. However, Groot is happy to cuddle up and sleep on Drax's shoulder, too.
    • Rocket and Peter bicker quite a bit, but Rocket still tries to stay behind to protect him during the final battle.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Groot, following far too many star-jumps. Being a baby, he doesn't even notice.
  • Wacky Sound Effect: In the brief panoramic space view of the Quadrant performing the sequence of 700 jumps, some pinball-like ricochet sound effects are audible.
  • Wait, What?: Rocket has this response when Yondu tells them they're a bout to go "fight a planet".
    Rocket: All right, okay! Good! Wait. Fight a what?
  • Wasn't That Fun?: Drax's response to being slammed into innumerable trees while hanging on a cable out the back of a crashing spaceship is utter glee, as if it were an amusement park ride.
  • Weapon Specialization: Lampshaded, when Peter gets insecure when he sees Gamora using a rifle instead of her usual sword, as he thinks "guns were my thing." Gamora herself points out they're about to fight a Starfish Alien, and so she's going to stick with a gun this time. Then justified when Gamora's gun runs out of ammunition, so she switches back to her trademark sword which is the only weapon she has left to exploit a wound in its neck to gut the beast.
  • We Can Rule Together: Ego wants Peter to willingly join him in his plan to convert every planet into an extension of himself. When Peter realizes what Ego has done to reach this point he refuses.
  • We Used to Be Friends: The other Ravager leaders want nothing to do with Yondu because he broke the Ravager Code, which is a point of contention for him.
  • Weird Moon: A shot of Berhert's night sky reveals at least four moons in its orbit, all in close proximity which makes you wonder why they haven't collided with another yet.
  • Wham Line:
    • Ego reveals the answer to a major question in the last film on his first appearance.
      Ego: I'm your dad, Peter.
    • A second from Ego, with far darker implications, where he reveals the real reason he never came back to Earth.
      Ego: I returned to Earth three times [to see Meredith], and knew that if I ever returned a fourth, I'd never leave. (...) So I did what I had to do. But, man... it broke my heart to put that tumor in her head.
    • Ayesha gets one in her mid-credit scene, finally answering the question of where, how and why a certain much-anticipated character will be joining the MCU by telling an underling about her new genetic creation.
      Ayesha: I think I shall call him... Adam.
    • Shortly after the first wham shot listed below, Mantis has one that puts it into context:
      Mantis: The bodies are [Ego's] children.
    • Nebula reveals the source of all her resentment against Gamora and puts their history in a totally new light:
      Nebula: You're the one who always wanted to win, but I just wanted a sister!
  • Wham Shot:
    • Nebula and Gamora suddenly realizing the cave they've fallen into is filled with thousands of skeletal remains.
    • The shot of Kraglin finding Groot as he looks for the fin. Until we find out Kraglin is still loyal to Yondu.
  • What Does This Button Do?: Rocket shows Groot an explosive device and gives him specific instructions not to press the Big Red Button, that would set it off immediately, killing them all. Groot has trouble understanding. Fortunately, when Groot has to press the button, he nearly presses the wrong one, but stops at the last second and makes the right choice.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Rocket and Groot stay behind to repair the Milano, but are abducted before they finish. That's the last we see of the team's ship.
  • Who Are You?:
    • Asked by Peter to his dad as "And who the hell are you?"
    • Later on, after Ego reveals that he killed Meredith, causing Peter to turn on him and shoot his avatar to pieces:
      Ego: Whew—who...in the HELL...do you think you are?!
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: James Gunn has said the film will explore the loneliness and sorrow that would come with being an eon-old living planet. Ego admits that being an immortal is deeply lonely and depressing, having no one to relate to, and even the mortals he meets and forms bonds with will fade and die. When he reminds Peter that he's immortal as well, Peter realizes that eventually he could outlive his friends and be completely beyond human attachments, and is conflicted between choosing his current life and immortality. But this is ultimately subverted, as Ego admits that he just needs to have a purpose and does not wish to die. Unfortunately, his chosen purpose is an Assimilation Plot to wipe out the rest of the universe. Peter, after realizing that Ego killed his mother and more or less lied to him about his existence, promptly decides to destroy his father and in the end, willingly gives up immortality and godhood to instead save the universe.
  • Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: Yondu opts to leave Taserface to die a slow and painful death via ship explosion instead of just killing him outright like the other mutineers. This comes back to bite him big time when Taserface survives just long enough to send Yondu's ship's coordinates to the Sovereign, leading to them arriving at Ego's planet and distracting the Guardians from destroying Ego's brain at the worst possible time.
  • Womb Level: The Final Battle occurs in Ego's core; while it looks like a vast cavern, it's the inside of a living creature, who can manipulate his body completely.
  • The World Is Always Doomed: This time it's the entire universe that's doomed and not only one planet, for the second time in the MCU after Thor: The Dark World. Possibly the third, after the original Guardians of the Galaxy, if Ronan actually intended to "purify" (i.e. destroy) a thousand worlds after Xandar and Thanos, as Nebula suggested.
  • X-Ray Sparks: Rocket's slap-on tasers briefly illuminate the skulls and rib cages of the Ravagers he uses them on.
  • You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Gamora angrily yells "Are you kidding me?!" while Nebula is still trying to kill her, right after Gamora had just saved her from the burning wreck of her ship.
  • You Killed My Father: When Peter learns that Ego gave his mother the brain tumor that killed her, it inspires Peter to return the favor.

    Previews and Trailers 

Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots

  • Badass Boast: Ayesha in a TV spot:
    Ayesha: The Guardians can't protect the galaxy... from us.
  • I Like Those Odds: Subverted; upon being told that there are a thousand Sovereign against the five Guardians, Drax says that those are terrible odds.
    Drax: These odds are terrible... we need new odds!
    Peter: What?
  • Mondegreen Gag: Nebula calls Gamora a "Garden of the Galaxy". Gamora corrects her that they're "Guardians" — why would they be the "Gardens of the Galaxy"?
  • "No" Means "Yes": Drax asks if Peter needs a hug, then after being told "No. No I do not," goes ahead and hugs Peter anyway.
    Peter: Oh, I thought I said no...
    Drax: You're welcome.
  • Skyward Scream: Drax has a rather comical shout at the skies after an actual ship in the air attacks them.
    Drax: Screw you, spaceship!
  • Who Are You?: Asked by Ayesha, who as with most of the universe has no clue who Peter and his friends are. Unlike the first film, Peter seems to take it much better.
    Ayesha: Just who in the hell do you think you are?

Home Video Advertisement
  • '80s Hair: The female host, naturally, has a big head of curly hair straight out of the '80s.
  • Logo Joke: The ad begins with the old "Buena Vista Home Video" logo.
  • Record Needle Scratch: The background music screeches to a halt when the female host mentions that she loves "The Hoff".
  • Stylistic Suck: The video looks exactly like a VHS ad from the '70s or '80s, with crappy video quality and 4:3 display ratio, and the hosts are indistinguishable from those of some home-shopping TV program of the same period.

"Guardians Inferno" Music Video

"Hey, fellows... Hey wait, where are you going? Hey, you were supposed to be my lift home! How will I get outta here? Hey! Aw, gee, I've got so many more stories to tell... Aw, guys... Oh, gee..."

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Died Getting Laughed At

If your final moments has you getting laughed at by a near heart-of-stone alien because of dumb your name sounds, pray that your next life gives you a name that isn't nearly as stupid.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (42 votes)

Example of:

Main / UndignifiedDeath

Media sources:

Report