Nobody talks about how Endgame also screwed over the Guardians (probably because Steve’s ‘arc’ was just so bad that it overshadowed a lot of the other terrible plot points and character decisions, which is is understandable), so I guess I’m going to take a shot at it.
1. Gamora was done. so. dirty. And by that vein, so was Nebula. How is it satisfying to see Tony Stark take down Thanos when the dude barely had any interaction with him before? Why were Nebula and Gamora (and most of the Guardians, honestly) pushed away from the forefront of the battle? I get that this is a move for the initial Avengers, to wrap up their stories and that phase of the MCU, but it’s still frustrating to see the characters who have been abused and tortured and lost their entire family to Thanos just kind of brushed aside. This isn’t your movie, Nebula, so you don’t get poetic justice. Also you have to kill your past self so, uh... have fun living with that trauma for the rest of your life.
2. What is the point of Vol. 2 now? As someone who is a huge Guardians Vol. 2 fan, I feel so cheated after Endgame. Every established relationship, every character arc that Gunn worked to build is gone. Gamora and Nebula’s beautiful familial love and bond? Gone. Quill and Gamora’s realization that there was something more between them after she saw him change and choose his found family over Ego? Gone. All of the Guardians working as a familial unit after being together for over 5+ years? Gone. Part of the reason why I love Guardians so much is because of the dynamic between the characters, and while I’m sure Gunn will do a fine job writing a mission to ‘find Gamora’ or whatever, I’d much rather see a continuation of Vol. 2 than backpedaling to get to place with the characters that had been extremely well-crafted and thought out over the course of two films.
3. Let’s also take into account the autonomy of 2014 Gamora and how her entire character will have changed because of when Thanos died, how Thanos died, how she interacted with present Nebula, etc. I really hate the idea of Quill chasing down someone who isn’t even ‘his’ Gamora and trying to win her back. The writers even said “Retrieving a still-living Black Widow from an earlier timeline would’ve been a weirdly selfish decision. Like, effectively, we’re going to kidnap a version of Black Widow who knows nothing about the current circumstances and bring her to the future just so we can have one. It’s not really asking her whether she wants to go.” BUT ISN’T THAT EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID TO GAMORA?
4. Just the way everyone was written... It started in Infinity War and continued on in Endgame. It’s like they were reverting back to the first volume’s tropes instead of taking into consideration the growth that the characters had gone through in Vol. 2. Why is Quill still referring to his relationship with Gamora as a ‘long term booty call’? Why is Rocket being blatantly insulting when he realized that pushing people away was a defense mechanism? Why is Mantis now walking like an actual praying mantis? Why do they have her condone violence for some stupid joke in the last part of Endgame when she’s always been an empath and relatively passive? I AM GROOT?! There were definitely character beats and dialogue that were well-written in IW, but some of it made me wonder if the writers even watched Vol. 2.
5. I’m still confused by the time travel thing, and I know I’m not meant to make sense of it, but... since 2014 Gamora came to the present, does that mean there’s another universe where Ronan got the power stone and destroyed the Xandarians? Or, if by some miracle of the gods, Quill and the rest of the team without Gamora managed to defeat Ronan, wouldn’t Ego just take over the galaxy anyway? Or would Ronan even do what he did considering 2014 Thanos isn’t around in his timeline anymore? IT’S SUCH A MESS, I CAN’T MAKE SENSE OF IT. Either way, alternative universes are just glossed over in one scene with The Ancient One, and no one really stops to think about their dopplegangers being like... brutally murdered or possibly enslaved in a different universe. I’m sorry, but that just seems so selfish and sloppy.
