Video Essayist Lindsey Ellis recently released a video titled ‘The Complex Feels of Guardians V.2’. In in Ellis sharply articulates the emotional depth of the film’s ending and why it, unlike many Marvel movies, had such a profound, personal impact on her. Ellis is not alone however, judging by the critical and commercial success of Guardians Vol. 2 and the sheer number of people claiming to have left theatres in tears. I’ve made no secret of mentioning on the podcast that this is not a sentiment I share, which I honestly feel says more about me than the film. I’m in the minority, having liked Guardians Vol. 2 well enough but not thinking it’s the superior of its predecessor. When I first viewed the ending it was emotional to be sure, but to my mind it was flawed in much of the same way the rest of the film was flawed (Spoilers follow obviously).
At the end of the film Ego the Living Planet is destroyed. Peter is left on a collapsing world but at the last minute is rescued by Yondu, his surrogate father. At they leave the atmosphere Yondu, with only one spacesuit, forces the suit on Peter. Sacrificing himself to save Peter’s life. There is Yondu’s devastating death scene, then a eulogy delivered by Peter before the body is cremated, then each character reflects on the films events to Cat Stevens’ ‘Father & Son’. Finally, as Yondu’s ashes float into space the various members of Yondu’s Ravager family arrive and bid him farewell, each with a single line. The film ends with a glorious firework display as tribute to Yondu’s life.
At the time I, perhaps callously, felt like this was an excessive amount of screen time to dedicate to a character who had only ever played a supporting role in the series. Over the years I’ve witnessed many dramatic deaths and subsequent tributes impact far better with more brevity. Only a few weeks earlier I witnessed the Death of Hugh Jackman’s Logan, a character I have known for seventeen years, executed in a few minutes. What I did not realise until watching Ellis’s video was that Yondu’s farewell wasn’t really about Yondu, it was about Peter. Peter is a character defined by immaturity. He lives life in a carefree manner, refuses to acknowledge the reality of his life on Earth and preserves the archaic pop culture of his childhood. Even in Yondu’s eulogy he uses David Hassehoff to contrast his idealised father with the man he now truly considers his dad. In that scene though Peter makes a few big steps away from an overgrown 12-year-old playing space pirates to a whole and mature person. The fireworks are not just in celebration of Yondu’s life but of Peter’s growth in reaching this point.
When reflected on this is the obvious interpretation. At the time though I wasn’t in a position to make the obvious interpretation. At the time I expected Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 to just keep on giving me too much. Too much comedy, too much emotion, too much science fiction weirdness. And not the good kind of excess either, the kind that only serves to undermine the film. Make no mistake Guardians Vol. 2 has everything you loved about the first Guardians just frequently cranked up to an obnoxious degree. This excess consistently ruins many of the films best moments and left me too soured to appreciate the ending by the time it came. It might help to provide a few examples of where this occurs so let’s start with the thing many people like most about the series; the comedy.
Several of the jokes in Guardians Vol. 2 are built off incredibly funny ideas that are overdone in their execution. The first example that comes to mind is the fight with Abilisk in the beginning (and no, I’m not talking about the full-length Baby Groot sequence, that was awesome). The joke comes when Drax decides he can only kill the Abilisk by leaping into it’s mouth. It doesn’t work and instead he spends the fight uselessly stabbing its stomach while Peter and Gamora work together to destroy it. When they do, Drax bursts out of its stomach, laughing and cheering triumphantly, believing he’s single-handedly vanquished the beast. Which he then undercuts by declaring “I have single-handedly vanquished the beast!”. Now I recognise the need to punctuate the joke but there are ways to do this without straight-up explaining the premise of the joke. Hell, if Drax just said ‘You’re welcome’ it would’ve worked just as well.
Roughly twenty minutes later we get another example of this, even as the creative team clearly works hard to follow the basic rules of storytelling. In executing a story point, particularly a comedic one, there’s something called The Rule of Three; introduction, build up and finally payoff. This occurs when Nebula, Gamora’s rogue sister, is taken prisoner on the Guardians’ ship. She’s hungry so tries to grab some fruit which Gamora keeps away saying ‘it’s not ripe…’, that’s our introduction. The build-up comes during the fight with the Sovereign, in the confusion Nebula again tries to grab the fruit, this time Drax knocks it away, reminding us of its cruel lack of ripe. The payoff is then complete when Nebula gains the upper hand and rubs her victory in our faces by eating the fruit and...it’s not ripe. Disgusted, she winces and spits it out and declares ’It’s not ripe.’ once again over-punctuating a joke with information we already know. The reason this, to me, doesn’t work is because the punchline is not that the fruit is unripe. We know the fruit isn’t ripe. The punchline is that Nebula’s stubbornness has brought an unpleasant experience, undermining what should be a moment of badassery. Instead the only thing the line undermines is the joke itself.
Now this isn’t true of every joke in the film (I’m Mary Poppins y’all!) but it is true of enough of them. From the extended, ostentatious laughter at the name ‘Taserface’ to the cartoonish level of disgust Drax holds for Mantis. And yes I am using ‘cartoonish’ to negatively describe a film in which one of the main characters is a walking houseplant. See, comedy is often cartoonish and outlandish and unrepresentative of reality. However at it’s best comedy does occupies an internal reality in which the character’s behaviour is consistent. We don’t believe that the Ancient Romans really behaved as portrayed in Monty Python and the Life of Brian but we do believe that’s the way the characters in the film’s world behave. When Guardians forces its characters to behave inconsistently for the sake of comedy it reminds us that these are not remarks that the characters would come to organically. They are lines in a script to be performed by actors on a set.
If this only occurred during the films comedic moments it wouldn’t be too awful. However we see the same on-the-nose writing during the films big, emotional beats too. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 really deserves praise for the amount of emotional weight it’s cramming into a goofy, summer blockbuster. Peter’s discovery of the father he never knew. Gamora and Nebula reconciling their mutual abuse at the hands of Thanos. And Rocket finally confronting the fact that he’s pushing away the only family he’s known out of fear that they’ll abandon him. However, this is also ruined by the film attempting to force the core engagement of these moments.
When Ego first begins teaching Peter how to use his powers he has him summon a ball of energy that they then pass to each other. Endearing himself to his son by affecting the fatherhood tradition of playing catch. On its own this is a very contrived moment, Ego’s actions are clearly deliberate and his motivations support this. However as he purposefully walks just far away enough for Peter to throw the ball the music swells with this big, orchestral beat. Transparently calling at it to recognise what an epic, emotional moment this is for Peter. Even though once again, we already know this.
There are other examples. Nebula and Gamora pitched fist fight ending with “You wanted to win and I just wanted a sister!” or Yondu forcing Rocket to acknowledge that he’s just like him. Character after character plainly saying how they feel and undercutting any emotional impact these statements might actually have. The most egregious though is at the end when Yondu saves Peter, declaring to him “He may have been your father but he wasn’t your Daddy.”. That moment made me stop. Throughout the entire film Michael Rooker has been acting his ass off, trying to hide the fact that Yondu cares for Peter. Letting it only slip just enough so that by the end of the film we know it, Yondu knows it and, in those final moments, Peter knows it.
I’m willing to accept this might be a personal thing. I’m pretty guarded even by British standards. But to me, emotions have the most impact when they’re arrived at organically. When characters don’t need to articulate them bluntly. When the music doesn’t have to give obvious clues to their presence. Going back to the catch scene, I think it would have worked much better if it was less obvious that Ego was setting up the whole thing. If he acted like he was really just trying to teach Peter to make a ball and it spontaneously became a game of catch from there. That might have given a better sense that Peter is genuinely endeared to Ego and thus might have some reservations about destroying him later. Instead, a lot of the emotional conflict that’s been slowly built-up is hand waved away in the final act because Peter’s motivation boils down to ‘I don’t care, he killed my Mom’.
This is probably the approach Gunn wanted to take though. As Ellis deftly explains sometimes an abusive parent can be forgiven, and sometimes they cannot. The moment reveals that he killed Peter’s mother Ego is officially beyond any sort of redemption. It’s just a shame that this sense of absolutism extends to Peter’s emotional development. Especially since a lot of victims of abusive parents never achieve this kind of moral certainty. At the end of the day this rush robbed Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2 of the emotional highs of its predecessor. Nothing in the film came close to the gentle tragedy of Groot’s Cocoon or the intensity of finally destroying Ronan.
Again though this is not to say that the film is not sweet, funny or heartfelt in places. As I said at the beginning, Guardians vol. 2 still has everything good about the first film. For most people it has more, for me it has less. But at least on re-examination I can say it’s gone up a few notches in my estimation. Thanks in no small part to the wisdom of Lindsey Ellis.
