Star-Lord Is Searching For The Real Peter Quill In Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3

What sets James Gunn's superhero movies apart from the rest is his attention to character. His heroes always begin anything but; rather, they're selfish people broken by the past who find new purpose together. This, plus the right blend of humor and earnestness that most of his contemporaries can never strike, means that Gunn's movies do the "found family" trope much better than other blockbusters.

Aside from some detours in "Avengers" movies (and writing decisions that Gunn contests), the Guardians of the Galaxy have been Gunn's sole purview. That means he's crafted their character arcs as arcs, rather than just whatever characterization the shared universe demands. So where does that leave his lead, Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3?"

/Film's Jenna Busch attended a press conference headlined by the "Guardians" cast. There, Pratt spoke about where Quill is at in this comic trilogy capper. Asked if his character is "sad" after the rough ride he's been through across these films, Pratt answered:

"He's lost. He's definitely lost. He's a guy, and there's a wonderful monologue that Bautista gives that comes from Mantis, that Quill is the guy who needs to learn how to swim. He's been hopping from lily pad to lily pad, woman to woman, relationship to relationship. That's a pretty human condition I think. Oftentimes we find ourselves in a relationship or the affiliations we have with a team or a family [...] so he's a guy who's searching for who he is."

In explaining Quill's arc, Pratt emphasized that each movie featuring Star-Lord has been about him trying on a new identity.

In the first "Guardians of the Galaxy," Quill is a boy who never grew up. He was abducted by the alien Ravagers after the death of his mother Meredith (Laura Haddock). As a child, Quill couldn't hold his dying mother's hand as she reached out for him. So, his new life gave him the chance to run away from his grief by being someone else.

The film emphasized that "Star-Lord" was a name that Quill chose for himself — lots of '80s kids pretended to be Han Solo, but Quill got to take his fantasy a step further. At the end of the film, he's still playing the fantasy of Star-Lord, only now he's a Guardian of the Galaxy instead of an outlaw. It's easy to let your job subsume your identity, especially when it's a job as fun as a galactic adventurer.

In "Vol. 2," Quill finally meets his father, the (literally) planet-sized Celestial Ego (Kurt Russell). As Pratt noted, Peter starts to reorient his identity around his father. When he learns Ego actually has designs to destroy the universe, Quill rejects him: he chooses humanity over godhood and even accepts the late Ravager Yondu (Michael Rooker) as his real father.

Then Peter and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) get together, but she dies in "Avengers: Infinity War." Worse, she's been replaced by an alternate-timeline duplicate who doesn't know Peter, which only reminds him of what he lost. So where does Star-Lord stand now? "He's realizing that all of these various people that he's found that are Quill," Pratt said, "None of them are the real Quill." Who is the real Quill? We'll just have to find out alongside Peter himself in "Vol. 3."

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" arrives in theaters on May 5, 2023.