Avengers: Endgame gave Star-Lord the opportunity to set foot on Earth after so many years, but Peter didn’t stick around any longer than he needed to.
While the last movie in the Infinity Saga served as a love letter to the original six Avengers from the humble beginnings of this band of superheroes in 2012, the Russo brothers also made sure to include the rest of the MCU characters in a meaningful way and give them as much screentime as possible. In a sense, Endgame was much more than the end of an era, employing time travel to go through the history of the cinematic universe and revisit some of the greatest characters and set pieces created by the masterminds behind the most successful movie franchise in history.
Additionally, the fact that the Guardians of the Galaxy series has contributed a lot to the success of Marvel, especially in its most pivotal time after the first Avengers movie, meant that the writers had to incorporate them into the story in a seamless way, which is exactly what they did in Infinity War and continued in the last film through Rocket Raccoon. But fans have always wondered about how Peter Quill felt when the dust settled and he found himself walking on Earth again after he was kidnapped from there as a teenager.
Of course, if you watch Endgame, you’ll realize that the character is in a rush to fly off and look for Gamora, but according to director James Gunn, there’s a little bit more to it than that.
Answering a fan question on Twitter in the #QuarantineWatchParty of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, the filmmaker had the following to say about why Peter didn’t stick around to catch up with ‘grandpa Quill.’
“Peter despised being back on earth and got off that planet as fast as he freaking could. He associates it completely with his mother dying.”
Well, that’s obviously a shame. But even if it weren’t for that, I don’t suppose Avengers: Endgame‘s runtime would allow for such luxurious reunions, or otherwise they’d have ended up with more concluding scenes than The Return of the King.