James Gunn Solves Two Big Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Mysteries

This article contains spoilers for the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

Not only does The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special give us an entertaining forty-four minutes of Guardians holiday hijinx, it also gives valuable insight into what the squad has been up to after Thor (Chris Hemsworth) left them at the beginning of Thor: Love and Thunder. Groot (Vin Diesel) is now a young adult, Kraglin (Sean Gunn) still doesn’t know how to use the arrow Yondu (Michael Rooker) left him, and Mantis (Pom Klemintiff) is Peter’s (Chris Pratt) sister. For everything that the special revealed, however, it also still left us with plenty of questions. Thankfully, James Gunn recently took to Twitter to answer a couple of them.

The first mystery relates to Knowhere, a former mining colony owned by the Collector (Benicio del Toro). It’s where the Guardians go to try and sell the Power stone in Guardians of the Galaxy and where the Asgardians leave the Aether in the post-credit scene of Thor: The Dark World. During Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) hunt for the infinity stones in Avengers: Infinity War, he leaves the floating Celestial skull in ruins after obtaining the reality stone from the Collector. When we return to Knowhere in the GOTG Holiday Special, the Guardians seem to have finally found a place to call home. We see Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Cosmo (Maria Bakalova) trying to repair a building, and the Guardians appear to be well-known and respected by most of the citizens we see. But that begs the question – why and how did the Guardians come to settle on Knowhere?

According to James Gunn himself, the Guardians surprisingly make quite a bit of money doing mercenary work and were able to buy Knowhere from the Collector. Since then, they’ve been doing what they can to help the colony rebuild. 

Although the Guardians are sometimes heroes, they work as mercenaries & it brings in a fair amount of money. So after Thanos attacked Knowhere they bought it from the Collector. It was a burnt out husk & they’ve been rebuilding it. https://t.co/hEugttfW26

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) November 28, 2022

This change in ownership makes sense considering how much lighter Knowhere feels in the Holiday Special. Rather than the seedy underworld we see in Guardians of the Galaxy, it feels more like a true haven for the galaxy’s outcasts and the perfect place for the team to call home (even if it’s only temporary). 

The second mystery that James Gunn addressed is how Nebula (Karen Gillan) got Bucky’s arm for Rocket. Considering that Nebula and Bucky are both highly-skilled, trained killers, it likely wasn’t an easy task. However, according to Gunn, Nebula sees Bucky as “wet crepe paper” or the complete opposite of a threat to her skill set. For her, it seems like going to get Bucky’s arm was just as logical and simple as going to a store to buy a present. You can read Gunn’s full response below.

I’m so sorry, but it already happened. Nebula thinks of Bucky as wet crepe paper. That said, she couldn’t help tearing off the arm because she was just feeling so freaking Christmasy! 🎄🦾 PS No one forced me to include alien cyborgs. https://t.co/SgLKAe7BpJ

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) November 28, 2022

While there are still plenty of other questions regarding what the Guardians have been up to for the last few years, at least we have some answers to tide us over until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comes out next year. It will be interesting to see how Knowhere changes between the GOTG Holiday Special and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – and if Rocket still has Bucky’s arm – but for now, at least, things seem hopeful for the Guardians of the Galaxy.