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Every Hint and Clue We Found in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Teaser Trailer

We got our first good, long look at Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 last night, and while it was very short on details—and even characters—there were still a number of interesting things to pull out of it. As usual, we’ve done the work so you won’t have to spend the time straining your eyes.

Now, director James Gunn has specifically said that he didn’t want to give away very much in this trailer. And that “With Guardians, people really go through every single little shot and try to figure out what the movie’s about. And there’s a lot of mysteries in Guardians 2.” We’re going to consider that a challenge accepted.

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Even though this is almost entirely speculation:

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We’ve spotted three locations for sure: the planet with the giant squid beast, the tree planet, and the ship where the team talks to Mantis (Pom Klementieff). We think there might be another one hidden here, maybe even two. Let’s take a look.

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First up is this place, which looks like it’s almost an arena on a planet. It’s where the team fights a giant creature, which they’ve been hired to do by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki). In the comics, Ayesha is also known as Kismet, Paragon, and Her and was created to be super-powerful. She also once helped save a devastated planet. Her comics background is tied into Warlock’s, so we’ll see if he makes it into this movie at all.

When we spoke to Debicki and San Diego Comic-Con, she seemed to hint that just hiring the Guardians isn’t all she’s up to. “She finishes in a very different place than where we first see her,” Debicki said. “She shifts a lot. How she looks kind of shifts, and I don’t want to give anything away.”

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The rumors are that Ayesha is a villain in the movie, so maybe the job she hires the team for is a set-up.

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Note that it looks like Star-Lord’s (Chris Pratt) in the upper right of this shot and that someone else is shooting the thing from the left...who suspiciously looks a lot like him. That might be related to the fact that this is an Abilisk, a multi-dimensional monster, who we saw in concept art published earlier this year.

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This shot of a swarm of creatures looks like it’s the same group we see later in the trailer in the background of Star-Lord’s conversation about tape with Rocket (Bradley Cooper).

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See?

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I’d also note that this shot of Drax (Dave Bautista) leaping into the monster’s mouth:

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Seems to be the precursor of this later shot of Drax trying to stab his way out of somewhere very...slimy. Like he’s trying to cut his way out of the thing’s stomach, maybe?

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Usually I don’t put these things out of order, but I feel like in these two instances, it’s important to line up the evidence.

“Now whatever you do, don’t push this button. Because that will set off the bomb immediately and we’ll all be dead,” Rocket instructs Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), and we see the timer’s set for five minutes.

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It actually seems like Rocket’s briefing Groot to take the bomb somewhere only someone his size can fit.

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“Now repeat back what I just said,” says Rocket.

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“I am Groot” in this instance apparently means, “Push this button.” This shot of the blue planet looks really organic, like it’s full of trees.

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I think it’s the same planet that we saw the team land on in this trailer and in the first footage released two months ago—which looks more natural here. Also, the ship behind them looks like it didn’t have a smooth landing, which suggests they crashed.

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Maybe the blue filter is for night or underground. I say all that because this shot of Rocket using some sort of device to take out these guys shows us more of the planet and is very similar to the above shot, only bluer. It looks like that all happens in the same place.

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Also, I have no idea who this is, but it looks like it might be one of the Ravagers. It kind of looks like Oblo, one of the nine Ravagers Gunn identified on Instagram, but the face make-up wasn’t like this at all there. We do know from the footage shown at San Diego Comic-Con that the Ravagers want to turn over the team, plus Yondu (Michael Rooker), to the Kree. So maybe the team landed on this planet after they escaped.

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More footage of the Milano fighting a swarm of Ravagers.

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And more shots of the team fighting the giant monster.

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All of this looks like it’s from very early in the movie and more to establish the team than the larger plot.

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Back on the tree planet, Drax yells “Screw you, spaceship!” Could he be talking to the Milano, after it crashed on this planet? The embers suggest it. However, he also could be pissed at the ship the team was on with Mantis at the end. It seems possible, since we do know that Mantis is tied to Ego (Kurt Russell), with Pom Klementieff telling EW, “I’ve spent my life with [Ego], and then I meet the Guardians.”

Since Ego was revealed to be this version of Star-Lord’s father and we know this movie deals with their complicated relationship, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that the Guardians and Ego/Ego’s ship might have strained ties.

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This shot looks like it’s from the breakout after the Ravagers turn on Yondu. Which makes it the perfect place to recreate the Rocket/Groot team up from the first movie, only with the roles of who’s riding who reversed.

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Baby Groot’s a berserker badass.

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Even more interestingly, the last shot of the angry Baby Groot bit shows the Ravager falling past Rocket and someone I’m almost positive is Yondu. We might have even seen another angle on this in the last teaser:

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I wonder if they’re all the victims of Baby Groot. More likely, there’s a bunch being felled by the arrow Yondu’s fin is controlling.

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Rocket asks for tape to cover the instant death button, which leads to a nice bit of banter with Star-Lord, but mostly is for the reveal that there’s a giant battle going on outside.

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While Rocket and Star-Lord banter about how no one has tape and how Rocket should be the one carrying some, since he was the one who brought the nuclear weapon in the first place, Baby Groot grabs the bomb and runs off into this very small hole.

One of the reasons I think this might be part of a plan is because the Comic-Con footage featured Yondu and Rocket using Groot to go get them Yondu’s fin, which I’m betting he’s able to do because he’s so small. His size feels like an advantage that they’re going to use more than once.

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This looks like Gamora running from the Milano—or another Ravager ship of a similar design. It’s also a rocky/deserty kind of place, which doesn’t match any other location in this footage.

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I think this might be the same planet Gamora’s running on.

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This trailer gives us some significant time with Mantis, who was raised by (maybe fathered by?) Ego. The Kree were mentioned earlier in this movie—that’s who the Ravagers want to turn Yondu and everyone else over to—and the comics version of Mantis also has a relationship with the Kree.

In the comics, the Kree believe Mantis is the Celestial Madonna, who will mate with the a Cotati (psychic plants) and give birth to the Celestial Messiah. I can’t help but wonder if the planet covered in trees is related to that bit of her story.

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In the teaser trailer, Mantis says, “If I touch someone, I can feel their feelings.” She touches Star-Lord and says “You feel love.”

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Star-Lord responds, “Yeah, I guess I feel a general unselfish love for just about everybody.”

“No, sexual love. For her!” Mantis points at Gamorra.

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Gamorra gives a little smirk, smile hybrid, but the true hero here is Drax’s reaction.

It’s worth noting that this white and yellow place looks like the interior of a crafted space, probably a ship. I’m betting on Mantis and/or Ego’s place, since those two are connected.

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“Ahahaha, she just told everyone your deepest, darkest secret! You must be so embarrassed! Do me! Do me! Do me!” is Drax’s beautiful reaction.

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It should be noted that what wasn’t in this trailer is almost as interesting as what was. There’s no Yondu, even though we saw him in the last footage. Likewise, no Nebula (Karen Gillan). No Ego and no shot of Sylvester Stallone’s character, an “important” character and one who at some point wears a Nova Corps costume.

The song used in the trailer is “Fox on the Run” by The Sweet, which, incidentally, was released the same year as Blue Swede’s take on “Hooked on a Feeling.” We do know from a Q&A on Facebook that James Gunn has a place for every song in the new Awesome Mix Vol. 2, so here’s one. We’ve also heard that “Break the Chain” by Fleetwood Mac and “Come A Little Bit Closer” by Jay and the Americans “may or may not” be on the mix.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be out May 5, 2017.