The weekend of May 5th will bring the third movie in the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ trilogy. Director James Gunn has moved to Warner Bros since he completed this movie, and the marketing leading to the film’s release is indicating he may not be the only one moving on. It does seem to be the end of this particular story.
The money to be made with future iterations of the Guardians, in whatever form the team takes, makes it unlikely this is really the end of their journey, though. Considering how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has stumbled so much since ‘Endgame’, just completely eradicating what has been a proven money-maker would be a foolish move. It doesn’t mean there won’t be significant changes and story beats, so it really does leave the movie as a big question mark in terms of what to expect. They also created a multi-verse that allows them to bring back any dead heroes (or villains) they want, something they’ve already done with one of the members of the Guardians.
Back in late 2019, I posted a Twitter thread relating to Star Wars and ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. It was written before I saw the movie for the first time and was kind of an ode to the series. Like many people anywhere close to my age, Star Wars was a formative experience for me, and it’s something that has followed me my whole life. The crux of that thread was this:
Regardless of the quality of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, the fact that I was in a theatre with two of my best friends watching something we’ve all liked (or loved) since childhood was a special experience. No amount of plot holes can take that away.
That brings us to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.
As a kid, probably until age-12 or age-13, I was a comic book reader. Not an avid one that would run to the comic book store every Thursday or Friday for new releases, but one that would read stories/arcs from my favourites at the time: Venom, The Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Deathlok. Like a lot of kids that age, I eventually developed other interests and stopped reading comic books for nearly 20 years.
That is another way of explaining that I did not get into the MCU at the start of its run. I can’t exactly remember what I watched and did not watch in that general timeframe, but I don’t remember watching any of the early MCU movies; none of the ‘Iron Man’ entries, none of the ‘Captain America’ movies, and not the original ‘Avengers’ team-up. What I do remember is being with family for Christmas of 2014 and one of my little cousins getting the first ‘Guardians’ movie on Blu-Ray as a present. We watched the movie on Christmas Day night, and I was blown away. I knew of the Guardians, but did not know anything about them, and could not get over how good the movie was. The performances were great, the writing was sharp, the story was unique, and the action was enjoyable. It was a movie enjoyed by my teenage cousin, myself in my late-20s, my aunts and uncle who were in their 50s and 60s, as well as my 88-year-old grandmother. Despite the overt silliness of it all, I really enjoyed the first Guardians film, and it was enjoyed by everyone in my family from age-18 to age-88. That is when a movie is something special.
Watching ‘Guardians’ at Christmas of 2014 is what got me into the MCU and from that point, I was hooked. I went back to watch the earlier entries from the series and couldn’t believe what I was missing. Not only were there really good movies here (and, sure, a couple bad ones), but it felt like some of the old comic books I used to read. Ones where Spider-Man would cross into a Punisher story or where Daredevil would show up in a Deathlok arc. It wasn’t an onslaught of cameos – though that did happen eventually – but it showed that these characters all inhabited the same realm, and you never knew who would appear next. There weren’t a lot of crossovers in the early films, outside of the Avengers movie itself, but you could see the threads starting to weave together.
All this led to a reignition in my comic book interest. As I got older, I read less fiction and more non-fiction. I still don’t read a lot of fiction, but I am reading comic books regularly again, and I’m happy for that. It has given me the reintegration of fiction stories I needed to mix up my reading diet. (Shout out to the Jason Aaron ‘God of Thunder’ Thor run.)
Not only am I back to reading comic books, but I’m still very invested in the MCU itself. It clearly has had a lot of problems after the Infinity Saga finished, but the possibilities they’ve shown us in the past is what keeps us tethered to it. It’s like that rookie that has a phenomenal first year and then goes through a sophomore slump – we have seen the highs that are possible and despite the current lows, just knowing a higher level is genuinely possible brings excitement.
That higher level in the MCU has movies like ‘The Winter Soldier’, ‘Ragnarok’, and ‘Infinity War’, but it also has the original ‘Guardians’ movie. Remember that in mid-2014, aside from the Avengers movie, the entire MCU was comprised of Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, or Iron Man. Thor had stumbles and Iron Man wasn’t a huge comic book figure like Wolverine or Spider-Man, but they did use a couple of their more notable characters in Captain America and Hulk. Robert Downey Jr. brought Iron Man to life and everyone kind of ignored Bruce Banner. In other words, almost everything to this point was A) recognizable to passive comic book audiences, B) ignored, or C) Downey Jr. giving an industry-shifting performance.
The first ‘Guardians’ movie fits none of those boxes. They were not popular comic book figures, and they had no historic performances like the depiction of Tony Stark. At that point, Chris Pratt was just coming off Zero Dark Thirty and was notable in Parks and Rec, but he was far from the Hollywood superstar he would turn into; Zoe Saldaña had been in Hollywood for a decade and had legit acting credits in Pirates of the Caribbean, Colombiana, and Star Trek but was also not a massive star (and was painted all in green anyway); Dave Bautista was not the name he is now. The two big names attached to the project were Vin Diesel, who says four words in his role as a tree, and Bradley Cooper, who plays an animated cybertronic raccoon. So, none of the live-action performers were A-List Hollywood stars and the characters themselves were virtually unknown to most people.
The movie made three-quarters of a billion dollars.
At this point, Marvel knew they could start getting weird with their future instalments. Even if that ‘Guardians’ movie is not successful, the MCU assuredly continues. It is fair to wonder, though, if movies like ‘Ragnarok’ or ‘Ant-Man’ see anywhere near the heights they did if ‘Guardians’ fails, or if Marvel even lets directors take the MCU in new directions at all. The first ‘Guardians’ allowed the next five years of the MCU to unfold as it did.
When we consider the impacts the movie had on the MCU, it’s hard to not put the first ‘Guardians’ movie among the most impactful of the franchise. Not necessarily the best, or the most profitable, but among the most impactful when we see the roads taken after its release. It might not quite be ‘Iron Man’ in those terms, but it’s certainly in the tier just below it.
Not only did this movie change the MCU and, as a result, the movie industry as a whole, but it brought me back to worlds I had abandoned decades prior. It brought me new stories and new experiences. It brought me fun with my family and, down the road, with my friends. It will be hard for any single movie to surpass the impact the original ‘Star Wars’ movie had on me, personally, but if the first ‘Guardians’ movie is just below ‘Iron Man’ in terms of impact on movies/the MCU in general, then it’s just below Star Wars on my personal tier list of movies that impacted my life. Whatever Gunn’s final ‘Guardians’ entry brings us this weekend, I’ll always be thankful that story entered my life, and root for Rocket to steal as many batteries as he wants.
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