New Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 TV Spot Rocks to David Bowie
No musician on the planet would have been a better fit for a cameo in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise than David Bowie. The icon was, of course, a great actor himself, and one of his many personas was that of the alien rock god Ziggy Stardust. Rolling Stone’s Alan Light wrote about the creation of Bowie’s alter ego last year, diving into Bowie's fascination with space travel and science fiction, which was already present in his work in songs like “Life on Mars?” and “Space Oddity.” He began developing a character based on British Rocker Vince Taylor (Taylor eventually joined a cult and claimed he was an alien god), a "psychobilly" singer named Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto. Light writes: “Bowie dubbed this new creation "Ziggy Stardust" (first name taken from a tailor's shop that he saw from a train). As he fleshed out the concept further, Ziggy became an omnisexual alien rock star, sent to Earth as a messenger. Bowie's plot, loosely, was that humanity was in its final five years of existence, and Ziggy was dispatched to deliver a message of hope.”
When Bowie passed away last January, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn revealed that there was once a notion to get Bowie into Vol. 2, but unfortunately Bowie’s health kept him from doing it. This doesn’t mean, of course, that Gunn couldn’t pay tribute to the legendary musician and actor, as the first film already featured “Moonage Daydream.” This new TV spot gives us our first taste of Bowie’s influence on Vol. 2, as the spot is set to one of the great songs from “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.”
Whether Bowie’s song makes it into the finished film is another matter. As Gunn has previously said, he’s going to try and figure out a way to keep Bowie in his film, and make him the only artist who is featured in both films:
"Bowie was an idol of mine, huge and omnipresent. Few artists in any field have had as an indelible impression upon me as he has. To my mind, Ziggy Stardust is perhaps the greatest rock and roll album of all time. We featured “Moonage Daydream” in Guardians, but I always thought the album’s character was felt far beyond that, in the aesthetics, in the integral and seemingly-natural linking in popular culture of ’70’s rock and space opera. I’ve been trying to work another song from Ziggy into the sequel, which would make Bowie the only artist to have a song on both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. I thought this was fair and appropriate. Although I cut the scene it was used in from the script, we have the rights. Who knows. Maybe I can figure a way out."
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 hits theaters on May 5.
Featured image: Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) and Star-lord (Chris Pratt) in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2. Courtesy Marvel/Walt Disney Studios
