Karen Gillan’s Nebula may have started as a full-on villain, but since her first appearance in “Guardians of the Galaxy” back in 2014, she’s gone on to have one of the most satisfying character arcs in the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. She’s now an integral part of the Guardians family in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” James Gunn’s final installment in his trilogy before he leaves Marvel behind to tackle the new slate of DC movies as head of DC Studios.
Gunn departs having crafted three of the best MCU movies, even though the threequel was a bit of a rushed, uneven, yet sporadically emotional finale. At the very least, “Vol. 3” brought us our first ever f-bomb in MCU history. And it’s none other than Nebula herself who’s on the receiving end of Peter Quill (Chris Pratt)’s cursing in the scene that has everybody talking about this hugely consequential moment in film history. But what might be even more consequential is the fact that Nebula has now become almost the opposite of what she started as. And according to Gillan, the alien mercenary has now evolved to a point where she’s almost unrecognizable as her former self.
Is Nebula the new Gamora?
Nebula is one of the most interesting “Guardians of the Galaxy” characters. She grew up being forced by her adoptive father, Thanos, to battle her own sister Gamora — herself an erstwhile member of the Guardians who is resurrected for “Vol. 3” using some deus ex machina plot device. As she puts it in the first “Guardians” movie:
“As a child, my father would have Gamora and me battle one another in training. Every time my sister prevailed, my father would replace a piece of me with machinery. But she won again and again, never once refraining.”
It’s a pretty grim origin, but not one that defines her story, as she eventually finds the family she’s looking for in the Guardians and reconciles with Gamora in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” Then, while helping the Avengers take down Thanos in “Avengers: Endgame,” she can be seen killing an alternate timeline version of her old self, symbolically completing her transformation from unfeeling assassin to compassionate hero. Oh, and she even got Rocket a pretty special Christmas present in “The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.”
Now, with the existing Gamora in “Vol. 3” being an older version of herself from a different timeline, Nebula is arguably the more emotionally evolved of the two sisters. All of which moved Karen Gillan to comment to The Wrap:
“It was kind of interesting to play because it’s almost like [Gamora] and Nebula have switched places and now Nebula is the more evolved character with more compassion and Gamora is like the old Nebula […] That was interesting to play around with, and Nebula in general is different this time around. She’s got much more of a sense of humor.”
Nebula and Gillan’s shared journey
While the MCU continues to struggle in the age of superhero movie fatigue and its own obvious drop in quality, Nebula’s more complex character development is a gift to us all. With “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” she completes her evolution just as Gunn departs to fight for the other side, making it a neat little way to wrap up this part of the character’s story.
It’s also nice that Nebula’s evolution has coincided with Gunn’s final “Guardians” movie because there’s a real parallel between Gillan’s experience and her character’s own. Her journey as Nebula started with the actor struggling with some hugely uncomfortable makeup, prosthetics, and contact lenses, and ended with her considering the cast and crew “family.” Gillan maintains that “Vol. 3” wouldn’t have been the same without James Gunn, and told The Hollywood Reporter, “I think everybody was so excited to be back together. The feeling was giddy excitement. The whole family was back together and we truly do feel like a family.”
Perhaps we’ll get a Nebula movie or series in the near future, which might just help drag the MCU out of its mediocrity slump by highlighting some of the more developed, emotionally complex characters. Either that or Kevin Feige will hand over all writing duties to AI language models in the future, turning the human race to dust as we take in the latest godforsaken machine-made MCU dross, à la half the MCU population after The Snap. We just don’t know.
