New Avengers: Endgame Footage Reveals Kraglin Deleted From Final Battle Scene

Avengers, assemble! See what went into creating the iconic final battle from Marvel Studios' [...]

By Jamie Lovett

The final battle in Avengers: Endgame assembled almost every Marvel Cinematic Universe hero to Earth to fight Thanos's force. Kraglin and the Ravagers were left out of that battle, but it seems Kraglin at least once was had a role to play.

Marvel Entertainment tweeted out a video interview with Dan DeLeeuw, a visual effects supervisor on the film. The video includes a behind-the-scenes look at the digital editing that went into making that epic battle happen. One of those behind-the-scenes shots shows Sean Gunn as Kraglin standing with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

It seems Kraglin was replaced with Groot in the final cut. You can take a look for yourself in the video above. The shot comes around the 2:45 mark.

Kraglin seems to have been written out of the film to streamline the story. These things happen, as even Hulk's rematch with Thanos was conceived of but never shot.

Gunn's work can still be seen in Avengers: Endgame, as he did the motion capture for Rocket. ComicBook.com spoke to Gunn earlier this year and he explained how playing Rocket ended up being more engrossing than he expected at first. "In the first movie I wore the, you know, whatever you call it, but the nylon onesie," Gunn said. "But then in the second movie and in the two Avengers movies, I just wore a gray sweatsuit, which was a lot more comfortable and I wear some knee pads and things like that. The thing that was unusual is that the motion capture part of it, which is technically motion reference, not motion capture because it's not, they're not doing it through a computer. The animators are literally watching what I do and animating that rather than sending it through an algorithm the way that you would do it with the way you would do it with a more humanoid character. That doesn't work for a raccoon. It just doesn't, the technology isn't there. It doesn't look good enough. So the animators actually watch what I do and animate that.

"But that part of that, we didn't even know that that part was essential when we started it. The main reason that I was there was so that I could read the lines with the other actors and be an actor in the scene with them and I got down low because I knew for sightlines and things like that, that you'd want to be looking at a pair of eyes when you're looking at the character's eyes, so we did it like that really for the other actors. It wasn't until we had been shooting for a week or two that the visual effects team said, 'You know, these shots that we have of Sean in there are incredibly helpful to us as we start to animate Rocket and we start to know where he's looking and where his hands are moving and what his, you know, what his shoulders are doing and that kind of thing.' And so then we started making sure that we got at least one really strong reference shot with me in it for the animators, and then I would step out and do it through the subsequent takes from behind the camera and I'd be just doing my same vocal performance but feeding the actors the lines."

What do you think of Kraglin being cut from Avengers: Endgame? Let us know in the comments.

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in fall 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in spring 2021, Loki in spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If? In summer 2021, Hawkeye in fall 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021, and Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022. Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk are also in the works for Disney+.

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