Dumb Things In Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 That Everyone Ignores

The buzzed-about sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy delivered on pretty much all the things fans loved about the first film and managed to move the story forward in a wild and imaginative way. The movie was pretty great, and stands as one of Marvel's most fun movies to date, but it still wasn't perfect.

There are some weird plot holes, quirky easter eggs, and continuity questions that still left us scratching our heads. Sure, we were having a blast and scratching our heads, but still — the dumb things remain.

So here are all the dumb things in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 that everyone ignores.

Looking back to the comics, the character of Mantis has a long and storied history with the Guardians of the Galaxy. She's been an ally and team member at different times, and, with this sequel, director James Gunn looked to bring in some comic players that didn't make the cut the first time around. Fans were certainly pumped to see Mantis show up, but Gunn tweaked the continuity quite a bit to fit her in. In the movie, Mantis is basically working as an indentured adopted daughter to Ego, and her main function seems to be using her empathic powers to help him sleep at night. 

But when you start pulling at the seams, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Ego is a celestial being, meaning he's been around for millennia. He's one of the most powerful beings in existence, and he needs an empath to help him sleep at night? Ego is basically a god. He can manifest bodies and an entire planet. We're supposed to believe he somehow lacks the ability to get a bit of shut eye along the way? Besides, how did he sleep in the thousands and thousands of years before Mantis came around? Then there's the fact that she's the only person who knows his nefarious plans, but he keeps her around anyway and lets her hang out with the Guardians to potentially spill the beans. It seems like a matter of Gunn just wanting to get the character into the film — and simply fitting her wherever he could find a slot.

It's made clear that Ego never returned to Earth after he left Peter's mother, and Peter's only memories of his home planet date back to the Walkman-rocking era of when he left. So why did Ego appear as old man, modern-day David Hasselhoff during the actor's brief cameo when Ego was shuffling through avatars while talking to Quill? A subplot in the film reveals Quill keeps a pic of Knight Rider-era Hasselhoff in his pocket, because he used to tell kids Hasselhoff was his secret father, because he grew up without a father figure. So wouldn't he appear as 1980s Hasselhoff instead of modern-day, old man Hasselhoff? The obvious answer is because they scored the former heartthrob for the cameo, but why not de-age him a bit? They clearly have the technology, made clear by the younger version of Kurt Russell in the early part of the film. 

Ego is still making his hard pitch for Quill to join him when he reveals he is the reason Quill's mother died so young, and so tragically, due to cancer. Ego gave her cancer — and then proceeded to tell Quill about it while still trying to woo him over to the dark side. But why on Earth would he actually come clean with this reveal? If he's seriously trying to gain Quill's trust, revealing he's the cause of one of the most traumatic moments in his life doesn't feel like the smartest strategy. More than that, why give her cancer at all? He alludes to it being so he wouldn't be tempted to return to Earth and see her again, but the more we learn about Ego, he seems like a raging sociopath. Also, if he's planning to kidnap Quill anyway and bring him to space, why bother going to the trouble to kill his mother at all? Nobody's going back to Earth anyway.

From a storytelling point of view, the decision seems to be driven more as a galvanizing moment to fully turn Quill against Ego, and establish Ego as a cut-and-dried bad guy, more than something that makes total narrative sense. Up to that point, Ego had proven smart enough not to do something so dumb. 

The timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been a bit on the fuzzy side, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 throws a few more kinks into the mix. Namely: We get a glimpse of Ego's expansion and how it affects modern-day Earth, but the film is set just a couple of months after the first Guardians of the Galaxy, meaning this would've happened within the timeline of films like Captain America: Civil War and the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. So why didn't anyone bother to mention a giant alien goo engulfing half of Missouri? Sure, it's possible it might've gone unmentioned, but that certainly seems like the type of incident that would've garnered the attention of whatever is left of the Avengers, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or someone. Even mentioning it offhand as an easter egg would've been a nice nod to continuity. It's all supposed to be connected, right? This one seems like an obvious oversight.

The first Guardians of the Galaxy film was positively loaded with easter eggs, and keen-eyed fans took their time parsing through all the little details. One of those tiny nuggets? A man-sized cocoon in the Collector's collection of intergalactic loot full of space goodies. For comic fans, it was the spitting image of the one from Marvel Comics that birthed galactic player Adam Warlock. Well, when Gunn decided to actually introduce the idea of Adam Warlock in one of Vol. 2's several post-credit scenes, he had to retcon that easter egg — and he did. When answering fan questions, Gunn noted the cocoon spotted in the first film is an early version of the ones used by the Sovereign, which makes a lot of sense once they formally introduce the tech in the second film. So that cocoon was just a random one. It's that fancy gold one that holds the promise of Adam Warlock.

The big action set piece that pits the Guardians against the space monster known as an Abelisk was an amazing scene. It featured a huge battle, a lot of dancing Groot, and one heck of a cool creature. But why were the Guardians there in the first place? We're told the Sovereign hired the Guardians to fend off the creature, because they didn't want to risk any of their own people's lives in the battle. Which makes some sense. They seem to think a lot of themselves, and it jibes they would farm out any dangerous jobs. What makes less sense is when Rocket steals their batteries and they set out on pursuit with their remote-controlled ships. If they have an entire fleet that doesn't put any of their people at risk, why not just use them to mow down the Abelisk, instead of risking the job to a shady group of misfits like the Guardians? 

Rocket and Yondu make a whole lot of "jumps" to track down Quill and the team on Ego's planet, apparently hopping across the galaxy in a matter of face-bending minutes. We get a chance to see these interstellar gates open up, and for the first time, we finally received some explanation as to how interstellar travel works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the Guardians poised to visit Earth and team up with Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Avengers: Infinity War, it makes sense Marvel would want to establish the basics of how all this works. The website Inverse posits the ships in the MCU are likely using wormholes to jump between different points, which will likely be used to explain how the Guardians show up to lend a hand when Thanos attacks. How long do you think until Tony Stark builds some comic-inspired deep space armor and taps into that jump tech himself?