‘The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special’ is more important to MCU canon than you might think

As a festive spectacular that runs for less than an hour and features a self-aware storyline that finds Kevin Bacon being hunted by intergalactic interlopers, it would be fairly easy to write off The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special as a fairly inconsequential addition to the never-ending churn of Marvel Cinematic Universe content.

However, James Gunn has made it clear that the second Marvel Studios Special Presentation is a lot more integral to the complexion of both next summer’s Vol. 3 and the mythology at large, as he revealed to Entertainment Tonight.

“I also think it was kind of necessary because, you know, I’m actually working in a lot of mythology that’s going to be important in Vol. 3. The fact that we had Cosmo the dog, the fact that they have this amazing spaceship called the Bowie that’s four stories tall in real life… They’ve bought Nowhere from The Collector, that’s their home base now – all of those things are important to Vol. 3.”

Beyond Vol. 3, which is poised to mark the end of the road for the current lineup of the team, Gunn explained that the grand finale to his association with the MCU is poised to look both backwards and forwards at the same time.

“It’s got the fun that we expect from the Guardians. But it’s also an incredibly serious story in some ways, where we tell the end of the story of the Guardians and the end of the story of Rocket and where he came from. We need to go back to the beginning to tell the ending. I think at the heart of it, it’s always been emotional.

The Guardians journey started with a boy watching his mother die in front of him and going away, you know, running off to another place… I think that many of us, in different ways, we’ve escaped our childhood traumas, and gone to someplace else. And that’s at the core of the Guardians story.”

As enthusiastic as the reviews and responses have been to the one-off festive frolics heading our way this coming Friday, it sounds as if The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is also going to lay down a marker not just for Vol. 3, but the potential futures (or lack thereof) of the entire roster once the credits roll on their third feature-length outing.