Director James Gunn Didn't Want GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 to End That Way
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is already off to a much better start at the box office than Vol. 1, but it didn't come without any sacrifice. Just a warning for those of you that have NOT seen Guardians yet, MAJOR SPOILERS lie ahead...
Director James Gunn struggled with the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. To be more specific, Gunn was talking about the death of the blue ravager Yondu. In the final act of the movie, Yondu rescues Peter Quill from his biological father/asshole Ego and sacrifices his own life before dropping the epic line: "He may have been your father, Quill, but he wasn't your daddy." Essentially claiming Quill as his son.
But all that almost didn't happen. Over the weekend Gunn told Uproxx:
"I didn’t want that to be the ending, and I kind of refused to put that in as the ending for a long time. It wasn’t how the movie ended… But, at the end of the day, I knew that’s where it needed to go. I knew that we need to have real stakes in these movies. We need to lose characters. And not everyone who sees Marvel movies loves that."
And he's absolutely right, even though Yondu is not part of the central team, his death did raise the stakes in this movie much higher than most films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have. Even the actor who played Yondu, said he was overall happy with the way Yondu met his demise, mostly because he ended up being the hero of the film, AND he got a pretty epic ravager funeral.
“The hero of the movie ends up being remembered,” says Rooker. “And the hero of the movie ends up being, well – you’re the hero of the movie! You know, they’ve done something! They’ve given up something that most of us would not even come close to having the balls to give up in real life, and in the movies as well.”
Gunn said even though he didn't want to kill Yondu off, that moment seemed to be calling to him, the whole movie leads up to that emotional moment.
“The whole movie led to that one moment. It seemed to be calling to me. And that’s what fulfills this true story. This is a story about a father’s love for his son, his ultimate love, so much love that he sacrifices himself for that, and that’s what Yondu is. He is 100 percent Peter Quill’s father. And Ego is 100 percent not his father. Just because Ego is biologically his father, that isn’t who he is.”
I, for one, LOVED the decision Gunn made, it really added a deeper sense of family and emotion to the Guardians series. Even though I have grown to love Yondu I felt that it was a necessary sacrifice and was the ultimate gesture of love for his "son" Peter Quill. What did you think about Yondu's death?