Star-Lord’s Infinity War Mistake Happened Before (Except He Wasn’t Wrong)

Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) previously had a catastrophic meltdown before the one with Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War, but when it happened in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, he was correct. In the aftermath of the Avengers’ failure to defeat Thanos in Joe and Anthony Russo’s 2018 film, Peter Quill received an enormous backlash for his meltdown. However, letting his emotions get the best of him is actually one of his prominent characteristics – something that fans have seen him do prior to the race for the Infinity Stones.

Infinity War brought together the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy in the hopes of stopping Thanos from wiping half of life in the galaxy. While Teenage Groot (Vin Diesel) and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) teamed up with Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the rest of the cosmic team sought the Mad Titan after their encounter on Knowhere resulted in him abducting Gamora (Zoe Saldana). It wouldn’t be until they met with Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) on Titan that they would once again come face-to-face with Thanos. The ragtag team hatched an elaborate plan to swipe the Gauntlet from the villain, but just when they were on the verge of pulling it out of his hand, Star-Lord realized that Thanos somehow murdered his own (adopted) daughter. This led to Quill letting his emotions get the best of him with an epic meltdown that gave the villain the opportunity to escape from the trance that Mantis (Pom Klementieff) put him in, resulting in the crew failing to secure the Infinity Gauntlet from him.

Star-Lord’s outburst wasn’t uncharacteristic of him, however. Fans have already seen this type of breakdown from him in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – albeit a justified one. After meeting his biological father, Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), Quill was quickly enamored by him – thrilled at the idea that his dad is a powerful being. Despite the red flags pointed out by his fellow Guardians of the Galaxy members, he was blindly in love with Ego. Fortunately, Star-Lord slowly realized what his father was really about leading to their one-on-one battle wherein Ego admitted to implanting Meredith Quill (Laura Haddock) with cancer, essentially killing her. This set off Quill. He immediately started shooting at his father without really thinking much of strategy or consequences –  reminiscent of his actions in Infinity War, only at that point in time, there was so much more at stake.

While Star-Lord’s breakdown against Thanos in Infinity War contributed to the Avengers’ failure to stop the Mad Titan from snapping half of life in the universe, it’s difficult to argue that his action wasn’t uncharacteristic of him. He’s known to be a pretty emotional guy, potentially because he’d been harboring a lot of grief over the tragic death of his mother – masking it with humor and sarcasm. Considering that both instances involved the women he loved the most, his outburst against Ego was pretty much the same as his meltdown against Thanos. The only difference is, the former was called for – Ego even provoked him by dropping the devastating confession about him killing Meredith, while the latter just couldn’t come at a worse time.

Overall, while Star-Lord’s breakdown definitely played a significant part in the Avengers losing to Thanos, there were other factors that contributed to their defeat. One can argue that Thor also let his emotions get the best of him when he decided to gloat over the Mad Titan, opting to slowly kill him which gave him enough time to snap his fingers. In any case, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in the pipeline, fans can expect some sort of redemption arc for Quill so as to make up for his Avengers: Infinity War blunder.