Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show! I’m your host Paul, aka the guy who’s always got those ho ho hoes, and in this video, we’re breaking down the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. The 40 minute entry is packed with easter eggs, a big twist and also lots of hidden details that set up Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3.
James Gunn has said that this is something you need to see before checking out the upcoming movie and whether that’s true or not, there are still some things here that will likely be picked up down the line.
We’re gonna be theorising it all and there’ll also be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to check it out then check out now. Hit the thumbs up button to spread that Christmas cheer and make sure you subscribe to get gifts from my sack. giveaway at the end of the video as usual, and with that out of the way, let’s get into the video.
The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special Breakdown
Ok, so the holiday special starts off with us hearing Fairytale of New York by the Pogues. The Marvel studios logo then fades in and we see several panels from Christmas themed comics.
We see The Thing wearing a Santa hat, Thor flying up, and Doctor Strange turning a venus fly trap into a Christmas tree. This is from the Christmas is strange comic and it’s accompanied by the time Carol Danvers met santa.
In this story, she was captured by Grace Valentine and Toxie Doxie, who’d kidnapped her along with a homeless man. They were carrying out human experiments, and Carol broke free to take them on. The homeless man was revealed to be Santa, and he aided Carol in taking down the bad guys. In the Marvel Universe Santa is actually a mutant and this was confirmed further here.
Next we get some turkey and a storefront window followed by the time that She Hulk met Santa.
She Hulk was told that she needed to find evidence in order to convict a killer, and she went to private investigator Nick St. Christopher, which is the name that Santa was going under.
Next, we get what I believe is the cover of Hulk issue 378. Hulk looks green here, whereas there he’s grayer than a Christmas day in England. However, the jaw shape is exactly the same as that of Santa.
On top of this, we also get a quick cut of X-men Holiday Special 1, which is accompanied by Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Issue 37.
Devil Dinosaur, huh? Wait, you don’t think so.
Now there are some other flashes before we pull out the typical Marvel Studios character pop-ins, which are now covered in snow.
Every time there’s a new show or film, these get updated, and She-Hulk has now been added to the A. I think this is the first time she’s appeared in the titles, as the one for Wakanda Forever was of course dedicated to Chadwick Boseman.
She carries out a thunderclap, and we see that the Marvel Studios logo now has Christmas lights surrounding it.
I also love the way they’ve darkened parts of the red to give it a real night time feel and there’s shadows and lighter bits reflecting the kind of light that a christmas tree gives off.
From here, we cut to the Eclector, aka Yondu’s ship.
Used by the Ravagers this became a home for Peter when he was younger and along with Craglin he held a Terran Christmas.
These flashback scenes are animated to look like a 70s and 80s cartoon show and by the looks of it they’re using a technique called Rotoscoping. This involved the scenes actually being filmed for real using actors and then animators would trace over the top of them. It helped to give a more fluid style of animation to the characters and because of this they move more like real people would than if they’d been drawn.
Wyatt Oleff played the Young Quill in the Guardians Movies but here he’s voiced by Luke Klein. I love how the star on the tree is basically an alarm light and we see that Yondu doesnt take too kindly to handouts and gifts.
He thinks Christmas is mushy and that sentimentality will get you killed out in space.
Gef is someone you’ll recognise from guardians two and dear me, what a disgusting hobbie you have.
Yondu smashes the tree like it’s the like button and we learn that Craglin telling the story.
Which I think might be a play on the title how the grinch stole christmas.
He also brings up the multi calendar which is something we haven’t heard about before. He says that it’s almost christmas time on Earth so my guess is that this works as a calendar across multiple planets…see…figured it out. A year on earth is of course a different lenght to a year on another planet so they would need something that can keep this all in check.
As of making this video which is like Wednesday morning cos we got sent it early whilst Feige has you blocked.
The timeline is a bit unclear.
Hawkeye and the end of No Way Home both took place during the same week of Christmas and it is possible that this is a similar situation too with it happening roughly around those events. However it could be Christmas of the following year but let me know below if they’ve come out and specified when it is.
Anyway here we find the team on Nowhere and learn that the group bought it from the Collector. This was announced in the build up to the project and you can even see the eye hole in the top left corner giving away the location. The collector loves rare and mysterious gifts and it makes sense that he’d collect a celestial head and use it as his home. This would mean he’s surrounded in his own collection and it’s a really nice touch.. This was destroyed in Infinity War and the collectors home was blown up beforte that in Guardians. That freed Cosmo the spacedog who appeared at the end in the post credits scene. Having his home and Knowhere destroyed clearly made the Collector up sticks and we actually saw his ship at the start of the Loki finale.
As we travelled through space it flew past the camera showing that he’s out there somewhere we just dont know where…ey don’t know where.
Thanks I’m here all week.
The Guardians are fixing it up to make the place liveable once more and Nebula agrees that Yondu was right. They don’t have time for firvalities like Christmas at this point we get a little joke from Drax.
Guy’s nipples must have hardened over the years as he of course used to complain about how sensitive they were.
Anyway back on the ground we see Cosmo levitating panels. In real life space dogs were used by the soviets in the 50s and 60s to see if it was possible for life to travel in space. On November 3rd 1957 Sputnik 2 was launched and onboard was the dog Laika. They became the first animal to orbit the earth but sadly she died within five to seven hours of the flight from overheating.
The actual cause of death wasnt made public until 2002 with officials saying beforehand that she died due to lack of oxygen. In 1998 Oleg Gazenko expressed remorse saying that they didn’t learn enough from the mission to justify Laikas death. The soviets launched several of these missions into space with most of the dogs returning.
Cosmo pulls from the comics and in those the dog has telekinetic abilities which we see being demonstrated here.
Voiced by Maria Bakalova you might recognise her voice for playing Borats daughter Back all over Borat 2.
F**king hell that was a bad one.
Anyway nice little scene with Rocket and another Earth animal interacting. Well I say Earth Animal, we don’t know whats going on with him fully but rumours surrounding Guardians 3 have said that we will see his backstory play out along with what happened before he was taken and experimented on. This will be by the High Evolutionary who was unveiled to the public at comic con earlier this year.
The teaser trailer was shown there too and though we can’t play it here a young rocket was shown in it so maybe he discovers his past with Cosmo. Both were experimented on and I’m expecting them to realise they’ve got a lot of things in common next time we see them.
Peter walks around and he meets Rhett Miller, a guitarist who’s trying to write a song about Christmas without knowing what it’s actually about.
This band is actually The Old 97s and we can even seen band member Murray Hammond wearing his glasses.
This starts off a christmas jig with us getting the classic sort of title style that comes with christmas specials.
We also see Groot who’s grown up a lot since we last saw him.
He was a teen but now he’s bulked up to be a bit of a meathead.
Also you can see a head symbol on Peter’s t shirt which is also on a stand by the side. Guessing this represents Knowhere but let me know if it has a different meaning.
The song bombs pretty badly with it talking about how Mrs Claus works the pole and how the elves will rise up and stab out Santas eyes.
I quite like the song mind and specials like this were of course littered with songs like this. Jon Bon Jovi even wrote a Star Wars themed Christmas album with songs like R2D2 we wish you a merry christmas on and s**t like that.
Now at this point we get a big reveal by Mantis.
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So Zarg Nuts are what Drax ate when trying to remain invisible but beyond that Mantis being Peter’s sister is a pretty big deal. As we know from Guardians 2, Ego had lots of children and thus this makes Mantis his half sister.
Now there was actually a lot of things floating around in the lead up to and aftermath of Guardians 2 that actually spoiled this twist.
In 2017, actress Jennifer Sharp posted out a picture of her working with Kurt Russell whilst she was wearing a Mantis costume. This is because she was actually playing her mother foreshadowing this reveal. Jennifers scene was cut from the movie but there were remnants of it left behind when Ego walks Peter through his true plan. Amongst all the other people he had kids with we can see at the back that Manti’s mother and Ego are stood there setting this reveal up a while back.
Now they decide to travel to Earth to kidnap Kevin Bacon who Quill is of course obsessed with.
He brought up the legend of Footloose to Gamora in Guardians One and used a dance off as the way to defeat Ronan.
In Infinity War he asked if Footloose was still the greatest movie ever and he’s looked up to Bacon since he was a kid.
Now at this point we see Drax and Mantis travelling out in a new ship.
This wasn’t in Thor Love and Thunder so my guess is that they picked it up from Knowhere. It has lots of seats for them so who knows whats going on. Guardians 3 was meant to release before Thor so maybe they had something mess up in production but that’s highly unlikely as they were still in the scripting process.
We watch as they fly through a hex point and these have of course appeared in several other MCU movies as ways for characters to quickly travel through space.
Now over at our t-shirt website we’re having a big black friday sale where you can buy any heavy spoilers item and get an additional 25% off something else. Incase you dont know I made this company with Reel Rejects and Screen Crush to bring you a nerdy way to support our channels and also get some sick merchandise out of it. We’ve taken a load of time to make sure the material on the shirts and hats are top quality and have a tonne of different designs. We’re just launched this size matters ant-man one and you can get stuff for house of the dragon, see ya chump and even a theory time theory time theory time one. It’ll be linked as the top comment and I really appreciate the suport, thanks.
Anyway, back to the special we get a quick scene with Kevin Bacon who is listening to dead by christmas by Hanoi Rocks. We watch as Drantis jump across multiple Hex points and also get another niche song.
James Gunn is flexing his full musical knowledge here and whilst some specials would just go with the more cliche hits he uses I wish it was Christmas by Julian Casablancas here. This is actually a cover song and you might recognise the original from SNL.
Also nice to Mantis flying, might come up in the next film but just something that’s probably throwaway. They talk about how Quill has hyped Kevin Bacon up and to them he must be the leader of all people on Earth due to all the stories Peter told.
I love how there’s that woman panicking as she sees the ship roll in and after all the stuff that people in the MCU have gone through you can totally see why there’d be this reaction.
Drax forgot to put the cloaking device on and in the trailer they must have too as we actually saw the ship landing at the Hollywood sign without the effect on. Now obviously this was so we could see the ship in the teaser due to us not having the context of him not turning it on.
It shows that Marvel are still putting different CGI in the trailer and we watch as they hit up LA. In the background we can also hear the song Is This Christmas by The Wombats.
They go to the Chinese Theatre which has popped up in the MCU before. During Iron Man 3 this is where an extremis explosion went off and it put Happy in Hospital.
It’s a far more happy occasion today though and we watch as they go on the hollywood walk of fame.
The public seem unaware of who Drax and Mantis are but they had people cosplaying as them at Avengers Con in Ms Marvel so what the hell is going on Kevin. WTF Bro, cant even keep stupid pedantic details like that consistent across 36 f**king films and shows.
The f**k.
Anyway we see someone dressed as Zorro, Jack Sparrow and someone dressed as Cykill from Transformers.
Theres also a living statue and if you look above him you’ll see a poster for Haxan 3. Haxan 2 was actually movie in the marvel universe starring Simon Williams. He’s played by Nathan Fillion but unfortunately Kingo ended up replacing him for Haxan 2.
Drax ends up beating this guy up as Mantis says that Gobots killed his cousin. Gobots exist in the transformers universe and…does this mean…it’s all connected.
There’s also some of the Avengers too along with Ant-Man, Captain Marvel and Captain America.
There’s Black Widow too and in the background we can see a movie poster for Kingo. If you cast your mind back to Eternals then you’ll probably remember he had a full spy film franchise making him basically a Bollywood Bond. This is what we see here too with the poster advertising a spy adventure for him. Later on we catch another bit of promo for the character only this time it’s advertising a Christmas movie. Kingo of course had an apparent acting dynasty even though it was just him pretending to be his own son so that he could live forever without drawing too much suspicion.
Who Is Kevin Bacon In The Guardians Holiday Special?
Drax of course is bald and he has red marks on his face making him look similar to Kratos. God Of War Ragnarok is a game in which you fight Thor and Thor Ragnarok showed that ….it’s all connected…like I’ve been saying.
They take several photos there with people and it’s similar to the selfie scene in Ms Marvel at Avengers Con.
At one point we can atually see the arm of Thor behind Drax as he takes a pic with a Hen Party and my mans looking more jacked than Chris Hemsworth goddam.
Next theres a guy with elf ears who takes a photo with them and Captain Marvel. He’s got ears like that and is still taking the photo so I’m thinking that he might even be an elf from New Asgard who’s on vacation here. We’ve had a light elf in Runa who too travelled out to LA in She Hulk.
Drax’s face is hilarious throughout with him just standing there looking completley expressionless as people pine around him.
They clean up and head to the bar Yarvos. This is a possible reference to Yarvo who directed the inferno music video for Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2.
Here the Bartender is played by Flua Borg who also worked with Gunn on Suicide Squad. He played Javelin and we get some other cameos when we get the star maps that Mantis takes after she robs someone.
Legit robbed all their money.
This includes Margot Robbie and also John Cena who too worked with Gunn on Suicide Squad…or is it the Suicide Squad…I can never remember…bit stupid calling the two movies the same thing basically but moving on.
There’s also Queen Latifah, Arnie, someone, got no idea who that is we at the kevin spoilers office thought it might be zack from saved by the bell.
Don’t cancel me if it’s not and lastly we go to Kevin Bacons.
In a little bit of meta commentary we see that he’s watching the 1964 film Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. This was about Santa meeting aliens much like whats going on here. When they enter the house we also hear the Song I want an Alien For Christmas by Fountains of Wayne. They of course sang the song Ryans Mom has got it going on and it too ties in with the aliens chasing bacon through the house.
Now Bacons house number is 1988 which is the same year that Quill was kidnapped and it’s also the year that I was born.
Quill throws Mantis over the gate and they knock on the door directly. Also Bacon has a guitar in his living room, sort of, sort of sets up the end.
Bacon goes on the run and we watch Mantis jump through the house after him similar to how a praying Mantis moves. Bacon makes it to the street where the police show up. This is the first time I’ve seen the Pigs protecting Bacon and we actually get some similar music to Danny Elfmans Batman Returns score.
Mantis puts the officers to sleep and this is a similar move to what she carried out on Ego in Guardians 2 to help him quiet his mind.
They mess the police up as badly as Riri Williams and Mantis uses her powers to make Bacon want to go with them.
They ask about the Fonz who quill has also told them about and mention his character in Friday The 13th.
Quill said that he killed Jason Vorhees but in reality he was killed by Jasons Mother Pamela who stabbed him through the neck with an arrow.
Slowly they come to realise that Kevin Bacon is actually an actor which f**king sucks.
Worst people of all time after Influencers and Youtubers.
I am kinda wondering how Kevin Bacon being in the MCU works cos he played Sebastian Shaw in X-Men First Class. X-men First Class had a young professor X and professor X popped up in Multiverse Of Madness. Wolverine and Deadpool are coming in too so maybe this is like a Ralph Bohner situation where they’re different people with the same face in different universe.
Look I dunno…shut up for a second cos they mention this.
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Batman and Bruce Wayne are both mentioned coupling this with the Eternals in which there was also a namedrop alongside Superman.
I think that in the MCU DC Comics might be the comics that they read and this is why theyre superheroes there in pop culture.
Back on Knowhere we see Peter in a bar by himself and he’s lured outside by Drax who along with the others has thrown a surprise party for him.
Knowhere lights up covered in christmas lights and we also hear the song Christmas Time Has Come by The Smashing Pumpkins over the top.
Fake snow is created to make it feel like a Terran Christmas. Everyone is wearing Christmas jumpers and I love how Drax has a Cat shooting lasers out of it’s eyes. They sort of create a Time Square and have a big concert there with Kevin Bacon taking to the stage.
Bacon is put in a box like a supermarket ….f**k sake and he’s unveiled like he’s a stripper in a cake.
Mantis lifts her control and Bacon makes a mad dash for it and Craglin takes him to the ship.
At the end of Guardians 2 we saw him practicing trying to make Yondus fly. Seems like he hasn’t got the hang of it yet and I also wonder what happened to his wife. Love and Thunder had him coming off the back of getting hitched and he might have just humped and dumped like the genius he is.
He’s also the one who talks about how the hero that inspired the hero that is Peter Quill is Kevin Bacon.
He gets a call from his wife and he got reception cos he’s been using EE, the UKs number one network.
He decides to stay and teach people about Christmas.
This leads into Bacon singing a song about Christmas whulst the gifts are given out.
Groot gets a gameboy which takes me back to my Christmas as a kid.
Rocket gets given Buckys arm and he of course wanted it back in Infinity War and even asked him about it. No idea what my man is doing now or how Nebula even got this.
Cosmo brings Craglin a dead animal which…is a nice way to show they have a bond and I forgot to mention earlier that the dog is probably using a universal translator which is how it can talk.
The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special Ending Explained
Mantis gives Drax an elf and this ties back to him wanting to go back into Bacons house to get the one he took.
Now this song and…well the ones by the Old 97s in general remind me a lot of the SNL sketch I wish it was christmas today.
Similar sort of style and we see that Groot as created wooden diorahmas retelling the episode.
Theres the group standing on the balcony, chasing bacon and flipping the cop car along with Bacon in the box.
Lastly is cragling making his own craglin who’s making his own craglin.
Finally the people of Knowhere understand Christmas and there’s lots of similarities here to nightmare before Christmas. That was about the people of Halloweentown learning what Christmas was all about much in the same vein of with this special is too.
Lastly Mantis reveals that she is Quill’s sister which is the best Christmas gift of all.
The man who lost his mother and relaised his father was a f**king d**khead now has someone whos part of his actual family and it’s such a nice little tale.
Peter also tells Mantis how the Yondu story actually ended and we see him digging his own present out the trash. Here he has a little figure which actually showed up in guardians alongside the others in his collection.
Guardians also showed him getting a little troll from Peter as a alittle troll and now we understand why it meant so much to him.
We also see a present for….for taser face…best name ever and quill is given his iconic guns by Yondu. These are called Quad Blasters and Element Guns in the comics which are something the character has brandished in both.
The pair ride off into the skies together and they write merry chrismas and happy holidays to all.
From here we get the credits which are in red and green to hammer home that holiday wholesomeness.
The credits scene has Groot as a tree but he can’t keep his arms up and because he ruined Christmas they’re gonna have to have another special.
I’m not sure if that’s gonna happen though as Gunn is now over at DC running things so it’s unlikely that he’ll go back to Marvel.
Maybe they’ll have another character getting a special though which will tie in with the holiday next years.
So that ends the special and what a load of f**king s**t that was.
I’m just kidding, I actually had a lot of fun with it and though I doubt I’m gonna watch it again this was a nice little trip back to the MCU in the vein of classic Holiday specials. It’s always nice being back with the guardians and both Drax and Mantis are absolutely hilarious with Dave Bautista especially making me laugh outloud a couple of times.
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The whole inclusion of Kevin Bacon was great too and I loved the thing being built around his appearance. Six degrees of seperation just got a lot easier due to the MCU and the songs added a nice touch to it. I probably wont remember it this time tomorrow but it was a nice bit of content for the holidays to just keep us chugging along until the next thing.
I do kinda feel like all the projects the mcu are doing now have really oversaturated the brand and it’ll be interesting to see what viewership for this is. I dont think its necessary to see volume 3 and it’s just another stop gap to see what characters are doing rather than to see where the story is going.
So yeah fun little thing to watch on a morning with some nice little easter eggs in.
Anyway I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and if there’s anything we missed.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of House Of The Dragon Season 1 On The 15th Of December. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month and the winners of the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers if that’s you.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
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