Spoilers Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - Grading & Discussion

I saw him right away and broke out into laughter. It was pure Jeff Goldblum. I can't wait to see him in action in Ragnarok.

 

With all of the publicity and stuff I didn't even realize he wasn't actually in this movie until I thought about it later. It just seemed so natural to see him there.

 

Was that Hela in the post-credit sequences as well?

 

No, it was just the Grandmaster. He dances in one of the bubbles like the rest of cast does during the credits.

 

Ah, well there was a woman seen in the post-credits moments (or in the ending sequences) who looked a lot like Hela from Ragnarok.

 

You think he'll talk normally or will he inject some of his usual Goldblum-isms into it?

 

I think that was one of the Ravagers/OG Guardians.

 

I didn't quite catch the reason, but why did Yondu's ship had to make 700 space jumps?

 

because that was the amount of Jumps needed to get to Ego. [IE Rocket Racoon just typed in the coordinates to the autopilot without bothering to look at how many jumps it would take - even though he and Yondu knew more than 50 in a row could have detremental effects] <--- That's the 'in Universe explanation.

As for why (in terms of the writers and film itself) - because (given the dialogue setup) it was (hopefully) funny.

 

More than that, it gets at something the movie handles very slyly. Cosmic Marvel is weird, even in the MCU. Stuff Happens, as they say. The Guardians do and see stuff everyday that should inspire awe and fill hearts with wonder. But it's just the everyday for them. The galaxy is kind of a small place. Even flying around in fancy ships is kind of like driving down the street to the mall. Going from system to system if so simple that the movie never dwells on distances or times. Even in Vol 1, with the trip to Knowhere, or from there to Xandar, you get the sense of it being swift. Very nearly immediate. Everything in the universe, even what seems so strange and wonderful to us mere Earthlings, is nearby, and known, and familiar.

Except Ego. Ego is really, really far away. He's new. He's different. He's something completely out of the ordinary even for a place where the ordinary is beyond extraordinary.

It's a similar trick to what Gunn pulled with the Power Stone back in Volume 1. Weapons, species, and places that defy the imagination don't get any explanation, or any sense that they're anything but normal and mundane to our characters. But that Stone, damn it's something to be afraid of. And now Ego gets similar treatment. He's noteworthy in being something the Guardians can't just take in stride.

 

Ah, you're right...Trekker is probably thinking of Michelle Yeoh's character. She, Hela, and Bucky all share a stylist.

 

You gotta admit, it's a cool look!

 

Stallone's character was Starhawk, Michelle Yeoh was playing his adopted sister/wife Aleta Starhawk (yes, you heard that right), Miley Cyrus was the talking Robot, Ving Rhames was the big guy, Michael Rosenbaum was Stallone's crystal sidekick.

 

I would be very surprised if we don't get some Goldblum-isms. You can't have him without any Goldblum-isms!

 

Maybe film product placement for 'Apartments.com'?

 

Ego's ship seemed to operate on some-kind-of "propulsion" a drive that moved the ship through space in some manner. (Whether action/reaction able to push the ship vastly faster than light through mass manipulation by the ship's drive, or through warping space.) Starlord's and Yondu's ship, and pretty much all the other ships we see in the movie, seem to operate on something like a "stargate" or localized wormhole method that depended on established "jump points" between destinations.

I guess it could be reasoned that all ships have both drives and the wormhole-based drive is used in explored or "developed" areas of space, like using the interstate. The drive we see Ego's ship use is used to get to areas of space not yet reached and/or the "wormhole" network hasn't been expanded that far out yet so the only way to get there is through propulsion. Sort of like, I dunno, having to take the state-highways or back roads. It takes longer and is less developed due to interstellar network not expanded yet.

 

Who I just read earlier today were all members of the original 31st century Guardians of the Galaxy in the comics.

It sounds most of his dialogue was improvised, so we probably will.

 

He already gave director Taika Waititi a rating of "10 Goldblums out of 10 Goldblums" which is a pretty good sign.

 

Undermined somewhat by the fact that you absolutely could use the jump point method to get to Ego's planet.

I rather took it as a measure of distance.

It looks like gates can't just be opened any old place, because the Milano had to fly to a gate to escape the Sovereign, and it was a fixed distance away. Gates can also clearly be traversed in rapid succession. There is no delay between passing from one to the next, assuming they are near enough to do so, as we see when Yondu and Rocket travel to Ego. The movie explicitly calls out the fact that too many jumps in succession can be dangerous for mammalian life.

The limiting factor to the jump gates appears to be distance. Each gate only lets you traverse so much space at any given time. When Quill asks for the nearest habitable planet, Gamora tells him it's only one jump away, implying that it could have been more, and they are lucky it so close. Thus, to traverse suitably vast distances would require a great many jumps. Like, say, 700. The timing limitation inherent in such a system is merely the wait between each group of safe traversals.

Ego's ship uses something else. It made the same trip safely and without comment from the characters. But it's unclear how the timing worked. Was Ego's way faster? Or just safer? Or hell, just different? No reason that there couldn't be multiple competing technologies out there. I think it's just more shorthand for how radically different Ego and everything about him are. To further drive home how strange he is, relative to the normalcy of the galaxy at large.