Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is undoubtedly one of the darkest films to ever grace the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's hard to imagine that anyone expected the third Guardians of the Galaxy film to take a page from the Deadpool franchise and drop an F-bomb. Just when it seemed like writer/director James Gunn left the raunchy language over at DC with The Suicide Squad, his third and final Marvel film showcases the franchise's lead character of Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) making MCU history as the first character in the franchise to say the F-word.

While the use of swearing in Marvel films is certainly nothing new, the use of the F-word is a surprising development for the primarily suitable-for-all-ages franchise. The word's usage is made even more surprising when you remember that Marvel Studios is under the ownership of The Walt Disney Company — an organization well-known for fiercely protecting its family-friendly brand for years. Perhaps this was a way for Gunn to give a cheeky farewell to Marvel before moving to DC to work on Superman: Legacy or maybe was just a way to generate shock value. Either way, the knowledge that Marvel is now seemingly open to using harsher language is a very good sign for one of their most anticipated projects, Deadpool 3.

RELATED: Chris Pratt Has Been Trying to Get an F-Bomb into the MCU

When Does 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' Drop the MCU's Historic F-Bomb?

Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Image via Marvel Studios

About mid-way through Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the titular heroes realize that the critically injured Rocket (Bradley Cooper) is quickly running out of time. They discover that The High Evolutionary has the technology needed to save their friend's life, so the Guardians chart a course to the synthetic planet of Counter-Earth. The world they find is eerily similar to Earth, only the denizens there are anthropomorphic animals rather than humans. Here, the Guardians meet a friendly suburban bat family, who informs them they'll find The High Evolutionary in his red pyramid at the center of town.

The High Evolutionary's base is a ways away, so Star-Lord, Groot (Vin Diesel), and Nebula (Karen Gillan) borrow the bat family's car to get there as fast as possible. Peter and Groot quickly get in the car, but Nebula is having trouble figuring out how the vehicle's door works. Peter explains to Nebula that she needs to push the button below the car handle. When she does that, Nebula asks what to do next, only for Peter to respond by saying, "Open the fucking door."

Thus, the first F-bomb in MCU history is uttered, only for Nebula to tell Peter that his instructions were incredibly unclear and the design of the door handle is stupid.

The Use of the F-Word Shows that the Guardians of the Galaxy (and the MCU) Have Grown Up

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The Guardians have grown up and matured significantly throughout their decade-long tenure in the MCU. For example, when we first met Rocket, he was a callous bounty hunter, and we've seen him blossom into a devoted team player and now into a responsible leader for the Guardians. Even the soundtrack for Vol. 3 indicates the team's maturity, featuring more recent songs rather than just exclusively the hits from the 1970s that we hear in the first two films.

For the past few years, the MCU has largely been considered more family-centric than most competing superhero franchises. Not so much to the point where it necessarily feels sanitized or that the eye of Disney is looming over its shoulder, but the MCU occasionally does feel like it's more geared to younger audiences than adult Marvel fans. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and admittedly, Marvel did try branching out into darker territory with the Netflix shows (though they're now in a state of canonical limbo). However, the general vibe of most of Marvel's storylines is that the stories they wish to tell are primarily ones that don't involve edgier and more serious topics. With the use of a single naughty word in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, we can see that Marvel may be finally willing to venture into new territory with slightly more risqué content.

'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' Being Allowed to Curse Should Help Put 'Deadpool 3' Skeptics at Ease

Deadpool and X Force about to jump from a plane in Deadpool 2.

The third installment of the Deadpool series marks a major turning point for the MCU, and there are certainly many expectations for the beloved Merc with a Mouth's MCU debut. It's already confirmed to bring both Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to the mainline Marvel universe, so the hype and anticipation for the upcoming project are now sky-high. However, there has also been a decent amount of skepticism, with Disney now inheriting the Deadpool series after merging with 20th Century Studios.

There have been several confirmations from both Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige that Deadpool 3 will remain true to the previous acclaimed films and be rated R. This presumably means that gratuitous violence and all manner of swearing would be fair game. Not to mention, this would mark the first time that Marvel Studios has produced an R-rated feature, so should the film be a success, this potentially means that this would "open the fucking door" for other Marvel characters to get R-rated feature films as well. Perhaps there's even a chance that the upcoming Blade reboot will beat Deadpool 3 to the punch if more mature films are now seemingly on the table.

Even with the multiple promises that Deadpool 3 would retain an R-rating, there's still been concern that the third film in the trilogy would not retain the raunchy atmosphere and tone that the first two films are so well-known for. Now that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has made it abundantly clear that the use of the F-word (or at the very least, one F-Word) is allowed, an R-rated Deadpool movie should be dropping F-bombs like Deadpool drops severed appendages.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is available in theaters now.

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