Guardians Of The Galaxy is back in the news. Covering this movie’s progress for the website has made me more of a fanboy than I could have imagined. I check the twitters and instagrams of the cast and crew EVERY DAMN DAY (James Gunn has a particularly excellent social media presence). One of the things that intrigued me most of all has been the character of Rocket Raccoon (and Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of the cybernetically enhanced rodent), A character that Chris Pratt has recently described as possibly best character in the film.

“You think it’s a cartoon character, but it’s not, it’s a very real creature. [Rocket Raccoon has been] tortured his whole life and no one else likes him, so he’s lonely and he’s angry and it’s like, [there are] all these elements [to the character]. You sort of forget about that, you wouldn’t think about, [and] hopefully will come to life. I think it will and that’s why they hired a really good actor to do the role. I could not be more excited that Bradley Cooper is voicing Rocket Raccoon. It’s a great character. It’s probably the best character in the movie, just because it’s not what you would expect.”

Pretty high praise from someone who also plays a character in the movie. You’d think Pratt would be talking our ears off about Star Lord. Instead, we get this.

Gunn has made similar claims about Rocket Raccoon

“It’s not about creating Bugs Bunny in the middle of The Avengers. It’s about creating a character that’s a little animal that’s taken and experimented on, pulled apart and put back together again and implanted with cybernetics. He’s half machine and half raccoon and he’s a little gnarled, miserable pretty angry creature because there’s nothing else like him and that’s not easy to be.”

It seems like the exact right play with Rocket Raccoon. The image of a gun toting robo-varmint is funny on its own. You don’t need to play that up. The joke is already there. Not lingering on it will allow the film to construct a character there. Decisions like that give me high hopes that this movie will provide enough depth to produce a truly excellent Marvel film.

Source: SlashFilm