Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 featured a cosmic link to the upcoming Thor movie—and it wasn’t just Jeff Goldblum’s funky dance moves in the end credits.
Spoilers aheads for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Toward the end of the film, Rocket, Yondu, Baby Groot, and Kraglin make an epic escape from Yondu’s ship following a deadly mutiny. As they head off into the cosmos, the motley crew decide to save Peter Quill from Ego, who we find out is an egomaniac hellbent on taking over the universe.
(It’s actually one of the movie’s darker revelations. Can we talk about how dark Guardians 2 was? Wow.)
In order to get to Ego’s planet, they’re required to perform several “jumps” across the universe—over 700 to be exact. This takes the crew on a trippy cosmic journey that sees their faces contort in hilarious ways.
As they’re jumping around the universe, they run across a gladiator-style match that will look familiar to those who watched the recent Thor: Ragnarok trailer.
It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse, and we’re not even entirely sure who we saw fighting. But it provides viewers with a cosmic link between the two properties, which we know will collide in next year’s Avengers: Infinity War.
In addition to the run-in with the gladiator match, Guardians 2 also featured an Easter egg that saw Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster dancing in the credits.
At first, his inclusion in the credits seemed unnecessary and shoe-horned in. But it makes sense when you consider we visited the Grandmaster’s world of Sakaar in that brief sequence of Rocket and his crew jumping around the universe.
We’ll see if any Guardians references show up when Thor: Ragnarok comes out in November. My guess is there will be a nod or two.
