In the words of the legendary Star-Lord himself… Finally!
Upon watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 on its opening night, and after climbing out of my glass case of emotion, I was struck by a shocking truth — James Gunn’s MCU farewell is actually a bizarro version of Thor: Love and Thunder. Bizarro in the sense that it basically follows the exact same plot as the Taika Waititi offering, except it does it all so much better. Seriously, the two films share so much in common, bar their overall level of quality, that it makes you wonder if Gunn and Waititi had a sneaky peek at each other’s scripts.
So, like Thanos after he accurately predicted what would happen to Titan, I’m now feeling a sense of vindication as the inevitable is finally playing out. Yes, the MCU fandom at large is belatedly cottoning on to the movies’ surprising similarities.
Specifically, their almost mirror-image endings. While Love and Thunder concludes with a final scene showing Thor jumping into battle with his new protege, Love, Guardians 3 wraps up with a post-credits sequence featuring… the New Guardians jumping into battle, along with their new protege Phyla-Vell. Like @Pollos_Hernandy aptly put it, “they literally have the same ending.”
While this may be the most striking similarity between these productions, it’s by no means the only one. Both begin with a despondent hero, who’s previously lost both his parents and discovered he has a secret sister, missing the love of his life — only to re-encounter her after a new villain has attacked his homebase. Someone was copying someone’s homework here, but considering Gunn’s screenplay was written long before LAT‘s, it’s unclear who. Or maybe this is just one of those weird cosmic coincidences the MCU sometimes spits out.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is playing in theaters while Thor: Love and Thunder can be streamed on Disney Plus.