James Gunn breaks down the ‘hardest thing’ to write in Guardians of the Galaxy

Though Guardians of the Galaxy is one of James Gunn’s best Marvel movies built, the process wasn’t easy.

James Gunn wrote and discussed to Vulture about the script-writing process, talking specifically about the hardest scene he had to write. Not surprisingly, it’s the scene that will probably be part of the half-decade of Marvel’s upcoming films: Thanos’s introduction. This is a huge part because Thanos is pinpointed as the Avengers‘ future mega-villain of the two-part film.

The scene, if you haven’t seen it, is where Ronan is coming to meet Thanos. Gunn states that the balance between Thanos and Ronan was hard to strike, as Thanos still needed to be intimidating, but Ronan still needed to be shown as the main villain of the Guardians. To make this all work, Gunn had Ronan kill “The Other,” which was Thanos’s assistant who carried Loki’s interactions in space in The Avengers. 

Here’s an excerpt from Gunn’s explanation below:

“The hardest scenes to crack were all the character introductions. Those were really difficult, whether it was the introduction to Ronan, the introduction to Thanos, the introduction to Rocket and Groot … those scenes changed a lot throughout the writing process, the shooting process, and even the post-production process. I wrote those scenes again and again and again in different ways. The Groot/Rocket introduction, I’m okay with that one now, but the first thing that comes to mind as the hardest thing to write is the Thanos scene. That was really difficult.

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. 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?

And that’s why Ronan kills The Other. 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.”

Do you think Thanos did good from the script, or was it a bit strange?

Thanos

For more information, go to: http://www.blastr.com/2014-12-18/james-gunn-breaks-down-hardest-thing-write-guardians-galaxy