Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is building a huge head of steam behind it, as the movie is looking really, really good, right down to a rapping Hoff on the soundtrack. But, since the movie has started screening, that’s meant the cameos have come out. And a lot of them are really, really interesting not just in the context of the movie, but in a broader sense. Spoilers will be below. Big ones. So avoid if you want to be surprised.
No, seriously, we’ve got a lot of spoilers. If you’d like to go in pure and unsullied, take this gif with you to lift your spirits:
Awwww, dancing Groot is adorable. Anyway, so, yeah, Marvel is going to go full-on, all-out ’70s cosmic on the MCU, if the cameos are any indication.
To explain what we mean, we need to look at the lineage of the Guardians, for a second. The team that anchors Marvel’s movie franchise didn’t exist until 2008, when Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning teamed them up in a beloved cult-favorite run of comics. Before that the Guardians were a team in the far-flung 31st century, which, by the way, included Michael Rooker’s Yondu.
Which is what all these cameos are going to be. It turns out the rumors of Sylvester Stallone playing a fairly obscure Marvel hero named Starhawk are correct, and he’s being joined by Ving Rhames and Michelle Yeoh as other members of the original team. Keep in mind that both Stallone and Kurt Russell’s Ego The Living Planet have been hinted at showing up again. And don’t forget that the Avengers will be heading to space in their next movie, after Thor meets a buddy from work in space, and Carol Danvers will likely be heading to the stars in 2019.
It’s particularly interesting that Marvel is committing a lot of star power to relatively minor roles. Rhames and Yeoh may not be making $20 million a movie, but they’re recognizable names, much like Stallone. That’s not even getting into casting choices like Jeff Goldblum’s role in Thor: Ragnarok or Benicio Del Toro playing the Collector in the first Guardians. In other words, Marvel is laying the groundwork for a vast space-faring story, which might make sense as the Avengers are probably done, and possibly dead, after their run-in with Thanos. We’ll find out starting on May 5th, when Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 kicks off the summer movie season.
(via io9)
