While engaging with fans on Twitter Tuesday, “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn revealed a major plot point from the films — Groot is dead, and Baby Groot is his son.
What started out as a debate over who to save between Groot and porgs from “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” led one fan to point out that Groot can grow back, while porgs cannot. The fan was presumably referencing the end of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which showed Groot sacrifice himself for the rest of the group. An after-credits scene showed a tiny dancing Groot, leading most fans to assume that Groot had rgegrown.
In response, Gunn tweeted that the first Groot actually did die. The Groot who appears in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” then, is his son, which was not specified in the film, showing Rocket Raccoon plant a destroyed part of Groot’s body to grow Baby Groot.
This isn’t the first time that Gunn has taken to social media to clarify the character’s fate, as he wrote on Facebook in September that Groot was dead.
“I also mentioned to folks who…kept throwing the Groot revival in my face, that that example doesn’t really work because Groot is dead,” Gunn wrote in a Facebook post. “Although I don’t necessarily think it’s obvious in Vol. 1, it’s important to say that if you exploded and a little glob of you started growing into a baby, I would not assume that baby was you.”
Groot will pop up next appear in “Avengers: Infinity War” in an older teenage form when the film hits theaters May 4.