‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3’ Proves Marvel Needs To Start Giving a Sh*t

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is bumming me out. I’ve logged 30 years as a hardcore Marvel fan, stretching all the way back to when the words “Marvel movie” meant “VHS of a cheap Captain America movie rented from the grocery store.” Up until 2022 I could claim to at least like everything Marvel Studios had released up to that point — and then Marvel Studios tried their hardest to ruin what’s arguably their most acclaimed post-Blip release (that would be WandaVision if you didn’t click the link). The streak was over and the MCU has been considerably more miss than hit since then.

Nowhere is that more evident than on Disney+. We’re coming off of Secret Invasion, a terribly reviewed shapeshifters vs. spies show with shockingly little shapeshifting and very few spies, and now Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is available to stream on Disney+. adding one of Marvel’s best movies in recent history a mere week after its worst TV show landed with a thud only underlines what’s wrong with the rest of the current MCU. Guardians of the Galaxy is donezo, at least for now, right when the MCU sorely needs what the Guardians can offer: premium shit-giving.

Let’s take it all the way back to 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, to the pivotal scene where Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) rallies a group of misfits and strained AF allies to stand together and try to do something bigger than all of them. There are no guarantees that they will win. In fact, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) is convinced they will all die. But Star-Lord wants all of them to stop running, stop losing, and start giving a shit. (Literally, Star-Lord tells them that this will give them a chance to “give a shit.”)

And for the next nine years — through five more movie appearances, one series of all-ages shorts, and one holiday special — the Guardians gave the most of a shit of any sub-franchise in the MCU. We watched these characters come together, grow together, suffer together, and celebrate together. We saw some of the most transformative character arcs in the MCU occur with Nebula and Mantis. We literally watched Baby Groot grow up to Swole Groot. We watched Gamora’s heart grow three sizes, uh, twice. Everything that we were promised with the Avengers franchise, namely a series of movies about a tight-knit superhero team that bonds and evolves over a great stretch of time, we instead got in the Guardians franchise.

All of this is because writer/director James Gunn gave a shit. He pitched on what was at the time one of Marvel’s least-known properties and grafted all of his quirks, fears, and personal pain onto… the franchise with a talking tree and gun-toting raccoon. There was no reason to make Guardians that personal of a movie, one with a soundtrack copied from his own memories, or to give that much of a shit. But Gunn did, and so did the band of obscure character actors, comedians, wrestlers, and TV supporting players that he drafted into the cause.

It’s this kind of DIY-vibe, heart-forward, underdog weirdness that so characterized the MCU from the jump, starting with washed-up Robert Downey Jr. teaming up with Elf director Jon Favreau to improvise a movie about Marvel’s most famous alcoholic superhero. Yeah, Iron Man was a weird place to start! But it’s that spirit that pervades the first decade of Marvel moviemaking. Left-field casting choices, unexpected genre detours, visionary young directors, obscure characters given the A-list treatment — you watch movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, Thor: Ragnarok, and Black Panther, and you are watching the product of people giving a shit about lots of different shit, but unified by the fact that they are giving the most sincere and committed of shits.

That comes through in every frame of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, a movie that feels like the completely exposed heart of the MCU, beating its last beats. It’s intensely personal, ambitious, stupid, and brilliant all at once, just like the best of what Marvel has ever offered. That is what’s missing from all of Marvel’s recent misfires; no one in charge seems to give a shit.

Secret Invasion had nothing to say, even though shapeshifters and aliens can be metaphors for pretty much anything. Messages aside, Secret Invasion wasn’t even interested in leaning into the pulpy, 1950s noir or Rod Serling flourishes that seemed inherent to the story. It felt quite literally like Marvel By Numbers. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was even worse, actively ignoring everything that made the first two Ant-Man movies such pleasingly lightweight romps in favor of a rote, world-building-because-we-have-to story. It’s like director Peytron Reed drew the short straw and was like, “Oh, I have to introduce the next Thanos-level bad guy? Okay, but I’m not gonna like it!” BTW, literally had to confirm that Reed directed the third Ant-Man because it is such a listless follow-up to the first two he did!

This is why the MCU needs the Guardians of the Galaxy‘s shit-giving ethos. Kevin Feige needs to listen to Peter Quill’s “Give a shit” speech a few dozen times and then make sure that it’s played for everyone involved in every MCU movie going forward (once the striking unions get what they are fighting for). And in this case, “giving a shit” doesn’t mean embarking on a suicide mission against an alien army led by an accomplice of Thanos. It just means, y’know, giving a shit — and we know that giving a shit leads to Marvel movies that we give a shit about, too.