The Parks & Recreation Finale Prepared Chris Pratt For The End Of Guardians Of The Galaxy

Chris Pratt has been a big movie star for the better part of a decade now, but he's getting ready to conclude a long journey that helped make him a movie star in the first place. With the release of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," his journey as Star-Lord is coming to an end. Well, at the very least, the franchise as we know it is over as the trilogy is done, and that will wrap up what James Gunn had envisioned for Star-Lord and the rest of the Guardians. Fortunately for Pratt, his experience saying goodbye to the NBC sitcom "Parks & Recreation" some years ago helped him to prepare for this emotional rollercoaster.

Pratt recently spoke with IGN in anticipation of the release of Marvel's latest blockbuster. During the conversation, the actor explained that he felt this "end of a journey" thing once before when "Parks & Recreation" was wrapping up its seven-season run on NBC. Pratt played the lovable but dimwitted Andy Dwyer on the series, which ultimately propelled him to stardom in the first place. Here's what Pratt had to say about that experience coming to an end:

"I knew how important it was to me to be present in that moment and I also knew, because I have had the experience of being part of things that have come and gone. I remember on 'Parks & Rec,' it felt that after seven years, on TV shows that I've done, it was like the last day of school before summer, and you're not gonna be coming back to school together. It's that summer camp vibe of, 'Am I ever gonna see these people again?' It's an emotional feeling and having gone through that, it was important that I A) be present, but also, that I coerce other people into being present as well. So that was sort of a responsibility that I felt like I had, just checking in with everybody."

Prior to his star-making turn on "Parks & Recreation," Pratt was a relative unknown in Hollywood. But things truly changed for him just as that show started wrapping up. The first "Guardians of the Galaxy" opened in the summer of 2014 and went on to become one of the biggest movies of that year, taking everyone by surprise given that those characters were total unknowns before that movie came out. The following year, just after he said goodbye to Andy, Pratt starred in "Jurassic World," which remains one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.

From that moment on, Pratt was a big movie star. To that end, he also currently voices Mario in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," which is now by far the biggest video game movie of all time, having recently crossed the $1 billion mark. 

Though Pratt is clearly finding new franchises to latch onto, it must be emotional for the actor to say goodbye to the franchise that helped make him a movie star in the first place. Whether it will be as emotional for moviegoers or not is the big question (read our review here), but it's clearly a big deal for the cast.

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