Tuesday night, James Gunn engaged with fans over Twitter who were arguing over who to save between Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy) and porgs (Star Wars: The Last Jedi). Fans leaned towards saving porgs as most people pointed out that Groot can grow back, just like he did at the end of the first movie after the heartbreaking moment we thought he was gone forever. This was when James Gunn decided to step in and drop a bombshell on us by tweeting:
“First Groot is dead. Baby Groot is his son.”
First Groot is dead. Baby Groot is his son.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) February 27, 2018
Fans aren’t sure how to take the news. We thought that Baby Groot was something of a reincarnation of First Groot and so we never mourned First Groot properly. Rewatching the first movie will now be tainted with this new knowledge.
Can we not just pretend that it’s still the same Groot? According to James Gunn, character revivals in movies takes away from the story. Groot died in Guardians of the Galaxy in a beautiful moment of self-sacrifice. To revive Groot just because the character is popular, according to Gunn, would detract from his meaningful death. A character quite reasonably cannot survive being exploded into a thousand pieces. Well, thanks for clearing that up, we suppose.
