Avengers Writers Defend Star-Lord’s Infinity War Screw Up: It Wasn’t “Out of Character”

Avengers: Infinity War screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are the latest to [...]

Avengers: Infinity War screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are the latest to defend Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), whose outburst on Titan that stirred Thanos (Josh Brolin) and prevented the Avengers from claiming the Infinity Gauntlet was "not out of character."

"We knew Thanos was going to walk out of there with the [Time Stone], so we were not going to write a victorious battle," Markus explained to Backstory Magazine.

"There's something to teaming up that we didn't just want it to be chaos when the Guardians and Strange and Tony and Spider-Man are clustered into a sort of new Avengers — that they could all work together."

Added McFeely, "We made sure they don't lose their personality in doing that. I saw, particularly in the aftermath of Infinity War, how many people were really angry at Peter Quill for f—ing the whole thing up, but it's completely in his character."

Star-Lord's outburst, a reaction to learning girlfriend Gamora (Zoe Saldana) was murdered by Thanos, had to happen: "He is gonna go nuts," Markus added, noting the hot-headed attack "is not out of character."

Because the writers wanted each scene to do multiple things and for all action to be dictated by the characters, Star-Lord reacting to news of Gamora's death was not just a character beat but a significant story beat.

"That's a good example of, okay, when Peter Quill gets the news that Gamora is dead, how will he react, and can he react in a way that is pivotal for the Titan sequence?" McFeely said. "We thought he could."

"It's not just rage that his girlfriend was killed. It's a very strange situation of, 'I should've killed her first, and I failed,'" Markus added of an earlier sequence set on Knowhere, where Star-Lord attempted to fulfill his promise to Gamora and kill her to keep her from falling into the hands of her adoptive father.

"We're proud of the several weird things through emotional beats that sort of crop up in this movie," said McFeely.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo also defended Star-Lord, telling ET in 2018, "He's a character who's gone through a lot of pain."

"He's lost a lot of people in his life. He was kidnapped by pirates when he was 10 years old, raised by pirates, lost his mother, had to kill his father, and in the movie, the love of his life is taken from him," Joe Russo said.

"So if you can't understand someone making a human choice like that, I don't know if you understand humanity very well. But he is a flawed character, and that's what's so compelling about him."

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