GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Anonymous
Young Peter Quill sits in the waiting room of a hospital, listening to the “Awesome Mix” tape on his Walkman as his grandpa comes out and gets him so he can say goodbye to his mom.
His dying mom gives him a present and tells him he’s just like his father. She asks for his hand, but he’s too scared to take it. Just then, she dies. Peter runs outside and is abducted by a spaceship.
26 years later on the planet Morag, an adult Peter Quill AKA The Starlord (Chris Pratt) is searching for a mysterious Orb. He finds it as Korath (Djimon Hounsou) and his henchmen find Peter. After a shootout, Peter escapes and returns to his ship, the Milano.
His partner/mentor Yondu (Michael Rooker) calls and tells him to give him the orb. Peter decides he’s going to sell it on his own.
On the Kree Warship, the Dark Aster, Korath reports to Ronan (Lee Pace) that he failed in getting the Orb and that it’s in the hands of Quill. Ronan sends Nebula (Karen Gillan) after him, but before she can go, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) volunteers instead.
On the planet Xandar, Quill takes the Orb to a buyer and asks what it is because Ronan’s goons were after it too. The buyer suddenly doesn’t want anything to do with it and kicks Peter out of his shop. Outside, Gamora jumps Peter and tries to retrieve the Orb herself. Nearby, Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) see there’s a bounty on Quill’s head, so they join in the fight. It’s not too long before they’re all arrested by Nova HQ and sent to a space prison called The Kyln. Oh yeah, Stan Lee is on Xandar as well, chatting up a young lady.
Pretty much everyone in prison wants to kill Gamora because she’s the “daughter” of Thanos. Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) has a personal vendetta against her because Ronin killed his wife and daughter, so he wants to avenge them by taking the life of one of his family members in return. Gamora explains that she’s also against Ronin and was planning on double crossing him. Quill steps in and helps argue in Gamora’s favor.
At Sanctuary, Ronin reports to Thanos (Josh Brolin) that Gamora is a traitor. Thanos tells him to take care of her and get the Orb. He also notes that Gamora is his favorite daughter, which pisses of Nebula (his other daughter).
Gamora has a plan to sell the Orb to someone else. Quill, Rocket and Groot agree to help and split the reward. Rocket has a plan to escape the prison. He needs one of the guard’s wrist devices, a prisoner’s prosthetic leg and a battery from a tall column in the prison. As he explains that it’s very important to take the battery last, Groot grabs it first. The alarms go off and security droids fly in. Gamora goes to get a wrist device as Quill negotiates the prisoner’s leg. Drax decides to join in the escape too realizing that eventually Ronin will go after Gamora and then he can kill Ronin himself.
Everyone gets the stuff they need and make it to a guard station near the top of the prison. Rocket is surprised that Quill actually got the leg and says he didn’t really need it. It was a joke. Rocket rigs up the stuff to turn off the gravity in the prison and to use the security droids as jets to fly the guard station out of the prison.
They escape, but Quill goes back and gets his walkman from one of the guards.
Yondu goes to his broker and finds out Quill still has the Orb.
Everyone on Quill’s ship gets to know one another better. They don’t like each other at all. Soon they arrive at Nowhere (the head of a giant being) to meet with the collector. While they wait for their appointment, Drax, Rocket and Groot get drunk and gamble. Gamora and Quill bond over music. He explains that his mom made him the mix tape of her favorite songs. She listens and likes it. He asks her to dance, but she doesn’t. He says it reminds him of an old fable about other people who didn’t dance. It was called Footloose. He makes a pass at her, but she says she’s not one of the doe eyed girls he’s used to and she won’t fall for his “pelvic scorcery.”
Before they can meet with the collector, Drax, Rocket and Groot (all drunk) get into a big fight. Drax thinks Groot is dumb and Rocket is tired of people calling him a rodent. The Collector’s assistant fetches them and they all go to meet him. Drax goes off on his own and makes a call.
The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) opens up the Orb to reveal and Infinity Stone. He explains that it’s an all-powerful thing. There are more of them. They can destroy planets. His assistant is fed up with him and grabs the stone to destroy him. She and everything in the area blows up. Everyone manages to escape, with the Infinity Stone. They decide the safest place to take it is Nova Headquarters. It’s too dangerous to be anywhere else.
Uh-oh, ambushed by Ronin and his crew. That’s the call Drax made. He was tired of waiting to face Ronin. Yondu shows up too. Gamora, Rocket and Quill take off in little mining ships while Nebula and soon goons chase after. Drax tries to fight Ronin, but gets his ass handed to him. Ronin says he doesn’t even remember killing his family, nor will he remember killing Drax.
Nebula chases Gamora’s ship above the atmosphere and blows it up. She gets the Infinity Stone and leaves Gamora floating in space to die. Quill calls Yondu to tell him where he is, then exits his ship, and gives Gamora his mask to keep her alive.
Yondu abducts Quill and Gamora right before they die. This is where we see that it’s the same ship that abducted Quill as a child.
Onboard the Dark Astor, Ronin tells Thanos that he decided to cut him out of the deal and will destroy Xandar himself…and then go after Thanos.
Yondu is going to kill Quill for double crossing him, but doesn’t when Quill says that he has a plan to get the Orb back. On board the Milano, the Guardians asks if he really has a plan or was lying. He says he has the start of a plan. 12% of a plan. Everyone scoffs. Quill points out that they’ve already lost so much, that at this point they have nothing to lose. Together they form a plan.
Quill warns Nova HQ on Xandar that Ronin is coming to destroy them and they should get ready. Rocket is going to blow a hole in Ronin’s ship so Quill, Groot, Drax and Gamora can board it. Gamora is going to cut the power for Ronin’s security and then they’re going to blow him up with a cannon that Rocket made.
They start the plan. Rocket blows a hole in the Dark Astor and then helps Yondu and his men defend Xandar against Ronin’s fighter ships. Yondu is shot down and uses his arrow weapon to take out an entire platoon of goons.
On the Dark Astor, Gamora and Nebula get into a big fight, while Drax, Quill and Groot go to the bridge of the ship.
The Nova ships form a giant net and slow the descent of the Dark Astor. Gamora finally beats Nebula, who falls, landing on a Ravager ship and commandeers it, throwing the Ravager out the window.
Ronin orders his ships to kamikaze into Xandar. Rocket and Yondu’s men shoot as many of the ships down as they can.
Almost to the bridge, Drax kills Korrath. Groot makes a shish-kebob out of a bunch of goons and whips them around taking out even more. Everyone makes it to the bridge to fight Ronin. Again, he’s too strong for them, but Quill manages to shoot him with Rocket’s super cannon. It does nothing. Rocket crashes the Milano into the bridge and seems to have destroyed Ronin. The entire ship is plummeting towards Xandar, so Groot forms a giant nest around the Guardians for safety. Rocket is upset because he knows that Groot is doing will end up killing Groot. Groot, who up to this point has only said, “I Am Groot” responds with, “We are Groot”.
The ship crashes. Everyone except Groot is okay. Groot is a pile of twigs strewn all about. It’s not over though, because Ronin is still fine. He sarcastically called Quill and his crew the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Quill stands up to him and starts to sing the song “Ooh-ooh Child”. Ronin asks what he’s doing, he responds, “distracting you” as Drax and Rocket shoot Ronin again. Quill grabs the Infinity Stone from Ronin. It’s going to kill him, but Gamora tells him to take her hand. He flashes back to when he didn’t have the courage to take his mom’s hand, so he grabs hers. Drax and Rocket grab him too and the power from it is spread between the four of them. They kill Ronin.
Yondu shows up and demands the Stone as per his original deal with Quill. Quill hands him the Orb. As Yondu and his men take off, one of them notes that he likes Quill ans they’re glad they didn’t take him back to his dad like they were supposed to all those years ago.
Gamora is upset the Quill gave up the stone, but he reveals that he still has the Orb with the stone.
At Nova HQ, Peter learns he’s only half human and half something else.
Yondu opens his Orb and sees the Quill tricked him. Inside is a Troll doll.
Quill finally opens the present his mom gave him as a kid. It’s a second “Awesome Mix” tape. He asks the Guardians where they want to go. Gamora says, “You lead, Starlord.” He asks if they want something good or something bad…then decides on both. Rocket holds a tiny Groot planted in a pot.
Credits
During the credits, a little bit larger version of Groot dances in the pot to Quill’s music, but stops when Drax looks at him.
After the credits...The Collector is sitting on the wreckage, drinking when the Russian dog comes up and licks his face. The scene cuts to Howard the Duck, sitting next to a broken cage, drinking as well.
(Thanks for the update, LT)
