It’s quite a task for movie franchises to strike a delicate balance of keeping audiences’ interests three movies in. They’re either rehashing many ideas and fall into a trap of repeating themselves or do something so bold that it deviates too far from the core soul of the previous entries. Many times, it’s the third film in a trilogy that usually falls short and becomes viewed as the black sheep of the series.
James Gunn aims to break the alleged curse that bestows upon many third parts in a trilogy. Gunn sits with Entertainment Weekly along with his cast to talk up his upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. “The amount of good third episodes in a trilogy, I can count them on one hand. Basically, there’s the Before Sunrise series. Lord of the Rings. Maybe Spider-Man. But there’s just not too many good third ones.” The former Troma director explains how hard he worked to make the third movie as best he could. He states that he took longer to write the script for Vol. 3 than he did the first two and even The Suicide Squad.
Gunn knew that despite the Guardians appearing in other Marvel films beyond their own series, he thought of this movie as the culmination of these character arcs and felt the need to deliver big time for a finale. “This is the big one. This is where things really happen. This is where we get to know the truth about who these characters are, and we face the biggest stakes.”
Even though there was much development of the characters throughout all their appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Gunn felt that their stories were unfinished. “One of the reasons why I came back to [make] this movie was because I felt like I needed to tell Rocket’s story. I would’ve been very sad not to complete the trilogy for many reasons, but I just feel very connected to Rocket. I feel like nobody would be able to tell his full story if it wasn’t me.”
Gunn adds, “To me, Rocket has always been the secret protagonist of the Guardians movies. From the beginning, it has been rooted in who he is as a character. I think he exemplifies a lot of the traits of all the Guardians. They’ve had all these traumas, and it brings them together. I just think that his is more extreme than others.”