Though her time on screen is short, Nebula stands out as a dominant and intriguing character among a cast of unique misfits. And we haven’t seen the last of her. James Gunn expressed his love for the character of Nebula and hinted at her return in the upcoming sequel.
In a recent interview with Yahoo UK, James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy, admitted he had big plans for the future of Nebula.
"I have so many plans for Nebula… I love Nebula. I fell in love with the design of Nebula. I cast around that design. I fell in love with Karen [Gillian] as a person, and I love the character of Nebula."
Nebula is an easy character to empathize with despite her evil, angry ways. We’ve all been there. Trying desperately to impress a parental figure. And on top of that, to be blatantly compared to your sister who is deemed the favorite. It could drive anyone mad. But what keeps us wanting more of Nebula is her unpredictability.
Gunn appropriately compared Nebula to Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett. He says:
"To me, she’s the Boba Fett of the movie… She’s the one that you really dig because she’s the cool one that we need to get more of. I hope to god that we get a chance to see a lot more of Nebula."
Boba Fett too reached a level of fan favorite status with little screen time. And both characters seem to fit in the ‘rebel with a cause’ category with motivations stemming from dead or alive father figures. It is an interesting comparison to make, but most importantly the two characters have many layers. Gunn goes into further detail about Nebula:
"She’s a layered character. She’s not good or bad. I think she... has a lot of things to learn. I mean I think one of the fun things about this movie is you have a lot of characters who are not straight down the middle good or bad. The Guardians themselves are sort of like that. And Nebula is like that, The Collector is like that, Yondu is like that, and to me those are a lot of the most interesting characters in the movie."
Though Gunn hasn’t officially confirmed whether we’ll see Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, it seems pretty hopeful. Last we saw Nebula, she literally ‘cut ties’ with her sister Gamora by cutting off her own hand to escape. Then we see her flying off in a spaceship, alive. And a recently released Guardians of the Galaxy deleted scene shows us even more depth to the relationship between Nebula and Gamora.
Though the first movie did a great job at exploring the sister’s relationship within the little screen time they had together, this scene could have helped foil the relationship further. If Nebula does return in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the sisters are bound to meet again. But, where will Nebula’s alliance lie this time around? Hopefully we find out when Guardians of the Galaxy 2 hits theaters on July 28, 2017.
