MacGuffins! Get your MacGuffins!

As much as I enjoy watching the Marvel films, there is no denying that a big crutch they’ve leaned on in their films is the use of MacGuffins. For those unfamiliar, a MacGuffin is described as follows from Wikipedia:

“In fiction, a MacGuffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot.”

While not every Marvel film has a MacGuffin, there is no denying they’re quite common in the MCU.

The Tesseract was a huge MacGuffin in both CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER and THE AVENGERS, the Aether was a MacGuffin in THOR: THE DARK WORLD, and the Infinity Stone was the MacGuffin in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. Essentially, when you have the plot revolving around the characters chasing a specific object, there’s a good chance that object could be classified as a MacGuffin. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It’s a useful story tactic, and it gives a reason for these awesome team-up films, but if they’re used too often, it can begin to feel trite, as it’s started to feel with Marvel flicks.

What does this have to do with anything, you ask? In a recent answer to a fan, James Gunn revealed that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 will not feature any Infinity Stones. This is pretty big news, as the presence of the Infinity Stones were pretty much the main thing that connected the Guardians to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the absence of these stones may make for looser threads connecting the series to the MCU proper, this could be an amazing thing from a story-telling perspective.

As stated above, the Infinity Stones were nothing more than a MacGuffin in the first GUARDIANS, and in getting rid of them altogether, you open up the storytelling possibilities to be more character-focused. We know that this entry in the series will see Star-Lord coming to terms with his parentage, and if that story is free from any connections to a contrived plot device, it has the possibility of being that much more powerful.

Granted, there is a possibility for another item to be used in the same way as the stones, but let’s hope that this new sees the continuation of Marvel moving away from the MacGuffin trend.

What are your thoughts about there being now Infinity Stones in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2? Let us know in the comments down below!

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 hits theaters on May 5, 2017.

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SOURCE: James Gunn