Avengers: Endgame had to live up to some extremely high expectations. With Infinity War providing a ludicrous amount of superhero action, it felt impossible to truly top it. But, the finale of Endgame, where every MCU hero to date teams up to battle Thanos’ army, caused jaws to drop in theaters around the world. Well, almost every hero.
One absence from the movie was Sean Gunn’s Kraglin, first mate in Yondu’s Ravager unit. We know that he was supposed to participate in the finale, but it appears that he got left on the cutting room floor and now, a deep dive into the effects that went into creating that epic battle has finally revealed his fate.
At about 2:45 in the video below, we see the tracking shot across the gathered heroes that ends with a close-up on Captain America announcing: “Avengers, assemble.” In the green screen version of the shot, we can clearly see Kraglin standing behind the Wasp and next to Spider-Man. However, in the final movie, it appears he was CGI’d out and replaced with Groot.
Avengers, assemble! See what went into creating the iconic final battle from Marvel Studios' #AvengersEndgame: https://t.co/bRSCxYXvhK #EarthsMightiestShow pic.twitter.com/xFHYWIRtFX
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) August 26, 2019
Fortunately, this wasn’t the only appearance from Sean Gunn in the film, as he also provides the motion capture for Rocket Raccoon. Interestingly, Gunn has explained that his performance as Rocket isn’t technically motion capture, but more motion reference – as the animators are just watching what Gunn does and animating that (regular human motion capture just wouldn’t work for a raccoon sized character).
In any case, while Kraglin and his Ravagers are an interesting corner of the MCU, they’re hardly the most crucial elements in the fight, and if it came down to a choice between having Kraglin and Groot in the scene, I’d choose Groot any day. Besides, we can probably expect to see the former in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which will be part of Marvel’s Phase 5 lineup and will likely hit cinemas sometime in 2022.