To be fair, it was about relationships in general, not just daddy issues. Peter had daddy issues, Gammora and Nebula have sister issues related to their abuse, Rocket has friendship issues related to be unable to relate to others because of his traumatic past, and Drax has trouble connecting with people since the death of his family.

@Renovatio said:

Isn't this trope getting old? Does every major movie have to be about daddy issues?

I was so bored with this movie... went with friends who are fans of the first one... glad we went to an early show so the evening wasnt ruined and we still gad time to go out...

I enjoyed the movie, but agree and it's not just movies - it's far too common in many TV shows. Are all American fathers that bad?

I think everyone who goes into show business and politics has daddy issues.

@M. LeMarchand said:

I enjoyed the movie, but agree and it's not just movies - it's far too common in many TV shows. Are all American fathers that bad?

Sorry but nobody on TV has this kind of Daddy Issues. Is your dad a murderous intergalactic space monster.

P.S. Actually the Space Monster daddy should probably happen on TV more often. TV bores me.

I think it's more tying family drama throughout the story, with an emphasis on the team themselves becoming a family in itself.

Cheap sappy ways of pulling at the audiences heartstrings and slapping that over a pretty mindless action flick? Probably... But does it work??? It does on me. I see every cheap sappy moment of it, and still enjoy the cheap sappy story.

"I don't use my head to fly the arrow, boy!"

@Nygma-0999 said:

Sorry but nobody on TV has this kind of Daddy Issues. Is your dad a murderous intergalactic space monster.

Lucifer? "My Daddy was God and cast me out of heaven and into hell for millennia".

I think it's indicative of the times... such a small scale movie revolving around family drama rather than any larger theme... such deminished expectations and ambitions... audiences have gotten used to it...

Frankly most people who's fathers abandoned them at a young age. Usually do have Daddy Issues. So Peter Quill having Daddy Issues should not be surprising.

Family struggles are unfortunately a common thing in real life, and various stages of struggle with interpersonal relationships in general aren't necessarily unheard of either. It would be strange if these themes were rare in media. I think you dismissively using the phrase "daddy issues" says a lot in and of itself.

As long as an individual movie does an okay job with it, I don't see the problem. It's when it's used in a cheap, overly plastic manner that it becomes eye roll worthy, and that's not a problem of the theme itself. It's clear from the first film that struggles with relationships are a big theme within the characters and story and it's not some last-minute addition. Whether or not one likes the overall style of Guardians of the Galaxy is a different issue... Anyway, from the way it left off, it would be odd if they didn't explore the father-child aspect.

Yeah, but should every movie revolve around this? Should all major male characters in every movie and tv show define themselves by the faults in their paternal relationship?

It seems that whenever a major movie nowadays has a male protagonist, he also has daddy issues...

I dont know if its lazy writing, or if its someting the marketibg guys use to target the very young audience of these big movies nowadays, who probably see that as the single life defining issue... or maybe it has become cultural thing, as with pop psychoanalysis, we blame all of our ills on papa..

Batman, superman, X-men collectively, etc... all have daddy issues... hell, they even gave james bond daddy/mommy issues in skyfall, basically explaining that daddy was never there for him and thats why he is the way he is..

@homergreg said:

I think it's more tying family drama throughout the story, with an emphasis on the team themselves becoming a family in itself.

Cheap sappy ways of pulling at the audiences heartstrings and slapping that over a pretty mindless action flick? Probably... But does it work??? It does on me. I see every cheap sappy moment of it, and still enjoy the cheap sappy story.

"I don't use my head to fly the arrow, boy!"

MILD SPOILERS...

I have to say while the dad\son bantering got boring quick, the last thing I expected from the film was for a racoon to make me cry! "I can't lose another friend today". And then by the time Cat Stevens "Father and Son" started playing I in full blubbering mode. Over all not as much of a fun ride as the first.