Guardians Of The Galaxy Nearly Featured A Darth Vader Easter Egg

Nowadays, both Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios fall under the umbrella of the Walt Disney Company so, in theory, it’s possible for both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars universe to crossover. Though we’re unlikely to see, say, Han Solo meeting Iron Man, Darth Vader did nearly turn up in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, at least his action figure did.

Speaking to Mashable, Marvel president Kevin Feige talked about how his early vision for the movie included a scene where Peter Quill’s Earthly origins would have been revealed via his Star Wars toy.

“Always, we wanted to reveal at a certain point in the movie that Peter Quill was a human from Earth. And for a long time, I really thought it was going to be the greatest thing in the world that you’re in a spaceship and he’s talking to one of the alien characters and he knocks over his bag and one of the alien characters bends down and picks up and it was a Darth Vader action figure, goes, ‘What’s this?’

“To make a long story short, James Gunn was basically like, ‘I got a better idea. What if he had a Walkman and listened to music?’ And it was like, ‘Oh, that’s a million times better.’ Because the Star Wars thing was just a nerdy reference in a single moment, and obviously, the conceit of the music redefined the entire movie.”

While we agree with Feige that it would be a lot of fun to have the iconic villain turn up in the movie – even in action figure form – Gunn’s idea was definitely the better one. The addition of Peter’s Walkman ended up giving the film its famous, beloved soundtrack, which went on to become one of the movie’s most defining features.

Even though the Vader toy was cut from Guardians, there’s still lots of Star Wars love in the MCU. In fact, there’s now another superhero named Peter who has a collection of memorabilia from that galaxy far, far away. As the trailers have revealed, Spider-Man: Homecoming will see Peter Parker owning a LEGO version of the Death Star. He also, of course, previously referenced The Empire Strikes Back in Captain America: Civil War. The Sith Lord himself, however, is still waiting to appear in a Marvel movie.

Who knows, though? Perhaps they’ll find a way to sneak him into the next Guardians film? We’ll have to wait and see.