(Note: This post contains major spoilers for the ending of “Avengers: Infinity War.”)
“Avengers: Infinity War” doesn’t just bring together almost all of the storylines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the past 10 years — it also shakes everything up, changing everything we know about the MCU in the process.
The story concerns Thanos (Josh Brolin), a massively powerful super-bad guy whose arrival the MCU has been teasing since 2012’s “The Avengers.” Thanos has one big goal: Wipe out half the life in the universe, in order to allow the other half to thrive with abundant resources. It’s kind of a genocidal approach to garden pruning, and all the heroes of the MCU are fighting against it.
Thanos is looking to do that by gathering the six all-powerful Infinity Stones, which, when united, allow him to wish half the universe’s life out of existence — including half of the heroes in the MCU. At the end of the movie, he succeeds. Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy are wiped out, including everybody’s favorite sentient tree, Groot (Vin Diesel). Only Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) remains.
The disappearance of half the universe isn’t immediate though. Groot and Rocket have one last moment together, but since Groot can only speak one sentence — “I am Groot” — we rely on Rocket and the other characters to give the context for what he said.
In the case of Groot’s final line, though, we only knew that it had a big affect on Rocket. That is, until now. Thanks to “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn and Twitter, we know just how much of a gut punch that final moment between Rocket and Groot really was, as Heroic Hollywood pointed out.
Gunn revealed on Twitter that Groot’s last words to Rocket weren’t “I am Groot,” they were “Dad.”
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/993265674616221696
This isn’t the first time Gunn hit fans in the feels when it comes to Groot. He previously revealed that, in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Groot died sacrificing himself to save the rest of the team. At the end of the movie, Rocket saves a twig of Groot that soon grows into another version of the creature. Gunn explained that the new Baby Groot in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” isn’t the same as the original — more like his son. The original Groot is definitely dead, and now, officially, so is his son.
So Rocket has essentially been raising Groot ever since, and in “Infinity War,” Groot is in his teen years. He was mouthy and apathetic, but when it counted in the battle against Thanos, Groot stepped up to join the fight. And while he seemed like an angry teen fed up with the other Guardians and their parental ways, it’s clear Groot really cared.
As if the ending of “Avengers: Infinity War” wasn’t sad enough already.
We’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks digging through the details to try to figure out what’s coming not just in “Avengers 4” but also “Captain Marvel” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” We have come up with a pretty solid guess about what is involved in the one future Doctor Strange saw in which the Avengers defeat Thanos. Click here for our deeper look into how “Captain Marvel” might impact that distressing plot twist at the end of “Infinity War.” Click here for our look at what “Ant-Man and the Wasp” might have to do with all this. Click here for our discussion of the whole Vision situation and whether he’s really dead. And right here is our discussion of what “Infinity War” could mean for the future of The Hulk. Here’s a rundown of how “Infinity War” could actually be a giant, elaborate test. If that’s not weird enough for you, here are some other wild fan theories. And, finally, here’s our run-down on how the comic book version of these events played out.