During a chat with Vulture, James Gunn has been speaking about the challenges of bringing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy to the screen, and in particular the scene he found most difficult to write – the one featuring the Mad Titan Thanos…
“There’s pressure with Thanos because you’re setting up this gigantic character that, in one way, isn’t really a part of your movie,” states Gunn. “His presence doesn’t really serve being in Guardians, and having Thanos be in that scene was more helpful to the Marvel Universe than it was to Guardians of the Galaxy. I always wanted to have Thanos in there, but from a structural standpoint, you don’t need him. So that’s part of it, and then part of it is the fact that you’re setting up this incredibly powerful character, but you don’t want to belittle the actual antagonist of the film, which is Ronan. You don’t want him to seem like a big wussy. So how do you make that work?”
“That’s why Ronan kills T=the Other,” he continues. “I thought that was interesting, because we’ve had the Other, who’s obviously very powerful even in comparison to Loki, and then we see Ronan wipe his ass with him. So that I liked, but even that was sort of difficult, because it played as funnier when I first wrote it, and the humor didn’t work so much. But the scene does have what’s probably my favorite Nebula moment in the movie, when she’s strutting out of there saying, ‘Thanks, Dad.’ And she’s also saving Ronan’s ass, because she knows that Ronan’s a hothead. This scene does set up the later scene between Thanos and Ronan — which I like! That scene, to me, makes Ronan kick ass. He tells Thanos, ‘Fuck you! I’m coming for you!’ That makes Ronan not admirable, but … well, sort of admirable! It’s the one really great Ronan moment in there, along with some of the ritualistic stuff he’s doing at the beginning. So I liked that moment, but the middle scene was one of the tougher things I wrote.”
Guardians of the Galaxy is out now on DVD and Blu Ray. The films was directed by James Gunn and stars Chris Pratt (The LEGO Movie) as Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana (Star Trek Into Darkness) as Gamora, Dave Bautista (Riddick) as Drax the Destroyer, Bradley Cooper (American Hustle) as Rocket Raccoon, Vin Diesel (Fast & Furious 6) as Groot, Benicio Del Toro (Sin City) as The Collector, Lee Pace (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) as Ronan the Accuser, Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) as Nebula, Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond) as Korath, John C. Reilly (Step Brothers) as Rhomman Dey, Michael Rooker (The Walking Dead) as Yondu, Glenn Close (Damages) as Nova Prime Rael and Josh Brolin (Men in Black 3) as Thanos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszH_jfuJoo8HCG1-lGjvfH2F&v=ZqEqJ-QNmio&feature=player_embedded
Originally published December 19, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
