Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – Kevin Feige on Ayesha and Nebula’s Roles

This year will mark the first time Marvel Studios releases three films in a single year, kicking off with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in May. With the film’s release only a few months away, the actual plot of the movie has continued to be secretive. So far, Marvel has released a teaser trailer and a Super Bowl extended spot focusing on the Guardians themselves, while also slowly unveiling the mystery around some of the new characters.

Elizabeth Debicki’s Ayesha and her Sovereign race are said to be the major villains in the Guardians sequel, with the Ravagers also playing an important role. Now, Kevin Feige has revealed how exactly these two groups work together, and how Nebula factors into their plans.

We had the chance to speak to the President of Marvel Studios during our recent set visit for the film. During the interview, he was asked about why Ayesha is after the Guardians, and whether she can be seen as the main villain. The answer gave us the most information we’ve had about the plot yet.

“[Ayesha is] the one who hires the Ravagers to go after Quill, because after the opening that I already described, where they’re paid to protect these super-duper-expensive batteries, that run the entire Sovereign planet, Rocket reveals to Drax that he’s stolen like three of these batteries, because they’re really expensive and they’re not going to notice and who cares, and the Sovereign are kind of dicks anyway. They’re very pompous, and they’re gold and they’re easily offended, which we’re also told early in this sequence, and that there’s a very particular way you need to deal with them, and you need to speak with them and you need to be delicate, which is not easy for the Guardians, and certainly not easy when Rocket reveals that he’s snagged these things right out from under them, and that creates a bit of strife for them as the Sovereign end up chasing after them, less because they want those three batteries back, but more because how dare they insult the great Sovereign people.”

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – Kevin Feige on Ayesha and Nebula’s Roles

So how does Nebula fit into all this?

“She cut her own hand off, jumped onto a ship, and flew away. She comes back into the story relatively early on. In fact, we realize that the payment for the mission that the Guardians have done on Sovereign is to get Nebula. The Sovereign have captured Nebula, and are doing sort of a prisoner exchange for the services of the Guardians helping them. They want to take Nebula back to Xandar to have her arrested. Things go awry on that journey, and she becomes a much bigger player in the film than she was in the first one, and as James said in the sizzle and can talk more about today, you explore that dynamic between them as sisters, as adopted sisters who both clearly were raised in less than ideal circumstances by Thanos. It’s sort of Nebula’s deciding does she want to kill Gamora or is she going to set aside this sort of internal rage within her. And she does spend some time teaming up with Taserface for much of the movie too.”

Thanks to these remarks from Feige, how the movie opens up is much more clear. After their victorious efforts on Xandar, finding Nebula is one loose end left. With the movie taking place only a few months after the first, it makes sense for the Guardians to want to track her down and lock her up for the role she played. What should be interesting to see is how the characters’ priorities shift to working together with Nebula as a member of the team.

It is also a nice story point for the film to take that the Guardians themselves and more devious tendencies are ultimately what causes them to have two angry groups aiming to hunt them down. How exactly Ayesha and the Ravagers cross paths remains to be seen, but the quick note that Nebula too will team up with Taserface’s Ravagers shows just how different her character will be throughout the film. As the marketing continues to push forward, the trailers should start to show how this could play out and how Ego fits into it all, but for now, Feige’s comments do a great job at laying the foundation of the plot.