Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 Uses Your Expectations Against You And That's What Makes It Special

The following article contains pretty major spoilers for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" so proceed with caution.

The predominant feeling leading into the release of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" was one of finality. We've heard from some of the actors, like Dave Bautista, that they're just done with Marvel, we know James Gunn has moved into the lead creative role at DC, and all the marketing was touting Vol. 3 as the final chapter of the "Guardians" series as we know it.

Movie fans have always been a little more in the know when it comes to the inner workings of the business side of show biz, but the modern age has brought all the industry nonsense into mainstream fandom. The average comic book movie viewer is actually aware that these actors signed multi-year deals, so even if Bautista wasn't telling every interviewer that he's done after the latest "Guardians" movie, we could still figure his contract was probably up about now.

Up to this point, Marvel has only recast when they had to (whether it was failed negotiations with Terrence Howard for "Iron Man 2" or not willing to secede the kind of creative control over a character that Edward Norton wanted), but what they typically do is kill off the character. Tony Stark is the biggest example, but they also recently made the decision to mirror T'Challa's fate with that of his actor, the late, great Chadwick Boseman instead of trying to find another actor for the role.

My point is we all walked into "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" expecting to cry. And cry we did, but not for the reasons we thought going in.

James Gunn did the most surprising thing he possibly could have: he didn't kill any of the legacy Guardians of the Galaxy. There were a couple of points throughout the movie where it looked like he was going to do just that. Rocket spends 2/3rds of the movie at death's door, and remember that moment when Drax gets shot while on that weird organic station? "Here we go," I thought. But no. Not even when Star-Lord misses his jump at the end and his body gets all bloated and frozen does Gunn take the obvious way out.

No, the final period on Gunn's trilogy isn't a tragic one, but rather a hopeful one built on the strong found family foundation Gunn has been putting together for three movies. And that's shocking in a day and age when we're conditioned to only accept finality in our media through death, and even then we start trying to figure out how these stories with multiverse timelines can bring said dead person back to life.

What's a better ending for Drax? One where he sacrifices himself to rejoin his lost family in the afterlife or one where he realizes that his true calling is as a dad, not destroyer? Definitely the latter and I found my biggest tears were seeing him accept that and dance with those orphaned children that need him.

When the Guardians split at the end of the movie, it's not a painful, forced separation. It's one that could only happen to people who know they have a loving, supportive family that can handle them heading off to explore themselves in other ways.

We may never see this version of The Guardians of the Galaxy on screen together ever again and that will be okay. They're leaving off in this movie fully formed, fully changed people surrounded by love and acceptance and it's quite a comforting thought that Mantis is out there finding out who she is as an individual person and that Drax is spending his days making those orphaned kids laugh and that Peter Quill reestablishing his bond with his grandfather.

This choice was not the obvious one and I think that may be why this movie is hitting people emotionally in ways they didn't expect. Yes, the reveal of Rocket's origins and the pain he had to endure, both physically and mentally, bring tears, but it's the emotional happiness we see at the end that really got the waterworks flying for me.

At my Thursday evening opening night IMAX screening there were two very chatty college-age dudes, real young alpha types, who went from being above everything as the trailers were rolling to wiping their faces during the credits, even admitting "I cried, like, six times during that movie, bro."

That's anecdotal, but it's supported by the CinemaScore and the franchise-high audience approval ratings. I think it's safe to say this gambit by Gunn to end on a surprisingly happy, if melancholic, note paid off.