Warning: The following story is not actually a spoiler, even if you think it is, because the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 says so. While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. was one of the Marvel films that did not release its footage from San Diego Comic-Con, the details of what was seen and said certainly did come out. As such, we now know exactly which character Kurt Russell is playing, and we know that character will be revealed as the father of Chris Pratt's Star-Lord. While large parts of the internet are now shouting "SPOILER" at director James Gunn, he says that's not the case. This information was never meant to be a shocking twist and there's much more going on in Guardians 2 that will hopefully surprise the audience.
On the off chance that you didn't already know, and if you didn't stop reading now, we learned last weekend that the father of Peter Quill will turn out to be Ego the Living Planet, as played by Kurt Russell. This really was just the putting together of several pieces that we already knew. We knew that Ego was in the film. We knew that Kurt Russell had a role, and we were fairly certain that he was playing Star-Lord's dad. SDCC just connected the dots for us. While trailers often give away spoilers that filmmakers don't approve of, James Gunn took to Facebook to say he doesn't have an issue with this info getting out. Mostly, because that's just not what the movie is about.
[K]nowing who Quill's father is will not diminish your enjoyment of the film in any way. The story is not built to be a shocking twist in the same way Luke's father was Darth, Soylent Green was people, Rosebud was a sled, or that that pretty woman from Crying Game had a penis (I guess I should have said spoilers before all that). Ego the emotional center of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 from the beginning to the end, and is not a twist. And believe me -- there are many, many more surprises we still have in store for you from Vol. 2 -- hopefully the biggest of which is how much you'll love the movie itself. Because, to me, that's the only twist that matters.
What we can surmise from James Gunn's comments here is that we'll likely learn the truth about Star-Lord and Ego fairly early in the film. All of the examples the director gives here are from late film reveals. If Ego is the emotional center of the film then we can guess the part is a large one. And if Star-Lord and Ego are going to spend a lot of time together, they probably won't wait to give us that major detail. More likely, we'd guess that the fact that the two are related is the thing that makes Ego the emotional center of the film, so we have to have that knowledge for scenes to work.
What do you think? Would you have rather made it all the way to the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 without this information? Do you think it will ultimately change how you view the film? Let us know in the comments.
