James Gunn wants to *undo* one thing in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1” for “Vol. 3”
Forget Peter Quill, James Gunn is, by all standards, the heart of Guardians of the Galaxy. The writer and directer of the first two installments has wasted no time and despite GotG Vol 2 still playing in theaters, he’s already working on GotG Vol 3.
But being master of GotG is a *big* job and the director just revealed that he might to have to break his own Marvel Cinematic Universe canon for the sake of storytelling in the upcoming third installment. Aside from the fact that GotG Vol. 3 takes place AFTER Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 — meaning Gunn’s story will have to accommodate the Guardians’ involvement in Avengers — Gunn may have to change something he established in GotG 1 for the upcoming third film.
Buckle up, GotG fans, because this might get a little confusing.
While talking at the World Builders panel at E3, Gunn had this to say:
“I’m writing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and I finished the first draft of the treatment yesterday [and] there’s one little thing that I had in the first movie. Now, Marvel Canon – MCU – is crazy," Gunn explained to the crowd. "I did something in the first movie of Guardians where it was in the background but it was distinctly there, and people know that it’s there. And I’m like, 'Goddammit.' Because I have a really good storytelling reason for breaking the canon, and I stayed up last night figuring out if I’m gonna do it or not. I still don’t know.
Essentially, Gunn is saying that despite the intensely crazy and vast MCU, he also masterminded a large portion of the GotG canon, so much so, that he imbedded something in the background of the first that could potentially have to be altered. Honestly, we already have a THOUSAND questions about MCU so we’ll just add this to the mix.
Now, before we spend hours speculating what the scene was, he’s gifted us with a slightly more specific explanation.
"In the first movie there is the mugshot sequence where the characters go through and they’re going through the mugshots and having their picture taken. And the Nova Corps has information about each of the characters coming up on their machinery," Gunn said. "Those things are something that your average viewer doesn’t see at all. But there’s a lot of background I put into those things about who they’ve worked with, where they are from, what’s going on. And it’s one of those things that I’m thinking about changing.
So, the long and the short of it is that Gunn added details to the information provided with the Guardians’ mugshots and at least one of the details will need to be changed in order to make Gunn’s third installment everything he wants AND MORE. For most casual fans of GotG, this isn’t breaking news because chances are, we missed the info *anyway* but the info is probably significant for GotG canon scholars.
On behalf of myself and maybe others, I’m going to say, go for it, James Gunn. You should be living your best life, and if living you best life is breaking MCU for storytelling purposes, do it!