Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

I wouldn't call deleted scenes more or less canon than Word Of God. If it's not in the movie, it's not in the movie.

Yeah. General rule of thumb is deleted scenes didn't happen unless referenced by another work or confirmed by the creators.

I thought the Word of God was less "the HE survived" and more "who knows? Maybe he survived, maybe he didn't," which implies to me that they no longer want it to be a definite thing.

I watched the Guardians 3 in May, and I feel... pretty good.

I see the woman who got attacked by the monkey during the rescue got followed up on. She got off pretty lightly compared to the High Evolutionary, all things considered.

Edited by Lambda77 on Jul 6th 2023 at 5:57:48 PM

I think this is one of those situations that doesn't demand a canonical answer at present.

Ultimately the question of whether or not he canonically did is going to be up to whoever makes the next entry in the MCU where his survival or lack thereof is in any way relevant. And that entry will make the choice that best suits the story it's trying to tell.

Deleted scenes aren't authoritative since they were deleted for a reason.

About deleted scenes, I find it weird that they leave the SFX unfinished.

Although, given the stories about how marvel treats the sfx industry, isn’t it better they didn’t force them to crunch to do a scene that wouldn’t be used in the theatrical?

True, unless they confirm the canonicity with a dialogue (Example: Bruce Banner's suicide attempt), the deleted scenes are not canon.

Deleted scenes are pretty much Schrödinger's Canon; i.e., they're both are and are not canon.

In other words, unless a sequel explicitly makes it non-canon, it entirely depends on whether you want to accept it as your head-canon or not.

Most deleted scenes are for pacing issues only, which makes putting them into the story at most an interesting thought experiment but nothing that really impacts the end result (some sequels have put in deleted scenes of the previous film intentionally as something that just wasn't witnessed at the time). Others are alternate versions of scenes or outright absent subplots, which makes it redundant or contradictory with elements of the existing story. In this particular case it feels like High Evolutionarys' survival was intentionally edited out, audiences didn't "miss the clues" but the information given was that he was left behind. In that situation saying a deleted scene remains canon would be an outright fault of the production, a mistake in the final edit. Basically the same thing as a "Greedo Always Shot First" claim, it might have been part of the conversation behind the scenes but was not evident in the visual narrative given.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Jul 7th 2023 at 4:57:50 AM

My thoughts on the whole mid credits thing: The monsters they were fighting were attacking other creatures, and the guards in the hall were going to kill the Guardians. The animals in the lab were victims. And honestly, the Guardians saving them was probably the most heroic thing I’ve seen in the theatre in a long time.

Vol. 3 is coming to Disney Plus on August 2nd.

If you think about it, Peacemaker foreshadowed this moment:

The only real difference being that Peacemaker getting mauled by a raccoon while tying his helmet to its tail was played for comedy, while Rocket mutilating the High Evolutionary's face was played for drama and horror.

Edited by dmcreif on Aug 5th 2023 at 11:15:36 AM

Man, I was not expecting to pity the Sovereigns.

Honestly, I wonder now if Rocket's obsession with getting people's prosthetic limbs (the Kyln guard, and Bucky) is so he can guilt-trip himself because all of his friends in Batch 89 had prosthetics.

I just saw a video on youtube about that a few days ago.

Considering Rocket's backstory was something Gunn likely had in mind for a while (we learned everything about every other character through their other appearances), I would bet that is the case.

Certain puts those jokes in a much sadder light.

A lot of scenes involving Rocket take on a different light now that we know more about his backstory.

One moment is the scene where Rocket is mourning Groot at the end of the first movie. Notice how he visibly tenses up and stops briefly when Drax approaches before he breaks down again. On a subconscious level, he remembers the last time he lost someone he cared about, he was mocked and belittled for crying over them. When Drax starts petting him, Rocket calms down because it's probably the first time in his life someone has shown him empathy after losing someone.

Having watched the film again on Disney Plus I have to admit I was wrong about the helmet/boots thing. I'd misremembered the order of things and thought they diagnose Rocket on Knowhere grabbed some stuff on the way to the ship.

But Quill grabs his guns to blast Warlock, then they all rush to medbay on the ship, diagnose him and finding out his condition launch the ship with no further ado.

It's still very contrived to make the end of the scene work, but it technically does it a way that makes sense.

It does fit with (MCU) Quill's characterisation to be fair. He's a good leader but still sometimes too impulsive and has attachment issues- when someone close to him is in danger he acts a lot more recklessly.

It's still bad planning/preparation but it's in character.

I wouldn't be surprised. Just look at what he says in this behind the scenes video from the first film:

"What if they broke his sternum and stretched it out? Because a raccoon doesn't really have a chest (like a human's)?"