Often, when I tell people that one of my favorite characters in the Marvel canon is Rocket Raccoon, they laugh. Why? Probably because they view him as a “talking raccoon” and ignore the layers to the character, but the reality is that he has consistently been one of the more fascinating aspects of not only The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy but the franchise as a whole. Voiced by Bradley Cooper and played on set by Sean Gunn, Rocket is a character who has started to let his past be revealed.
In a new clip for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, we get to see more of who Rocket was before he became a “weapon” and how he ended up becoming the tortured Rocket that we know and love. And the scene, while sweet, was something that did cause me to instantly start sobbing because of the sheer hopefulness in Rocket Raccoon that started back when he first met Lyla and how that changed into what we know of Rocket Raccoon in other adventures with the Guardians.
But one thing has always been abundantly clear—that Rocket Raccoon is more than just a furry ball of one-liners who loves to steal things. He’s complicated, messy, distraught, and someone who struggles to tell others how he feels. He has layers, and I love that Vol. 3 is clearly going to explore that part of Rocket even if it is going to emotionally scar me—because one thing we’re learning, the more we see from the movie, is that Rocket Raccoon once had dreams of flying the ones he loves to safety.
Lyla and Floor and Teefs and me, Rocket
We’ve never known why Rocket’s name is Rocket. In fact, we’ve never known anything about him other than that he was experimented on and there was pain there. What we learn in this clip, though, is that through that experimentation, Rocket found a family. To be honest, I fear for Teefs and Floor, but at least we know that Lyla did make it out in some capacity, and we’ll see his reunion with her, but there is still that upset in Rocket.
He was left alone and turned into this “thing” that he didn’t want to be, but that struggle is what made him want to be with the Guardians in the first place. He wanted that love and attention that he never got before, and this scene really just drives home the layers that have always existed in Rocket. He’s not just one thing. He never was, even if people did think that he was just a prop in the story.
Rocket Raccoon has, in my opinion, always been one of the deeper characters in the Marvel canon as a whole because he doesn’t hide his pain once he lashes out, and while we don’t know much about what happened to him, we know that it hurt. And you know what’s going to hurt me? This movie.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
