Guardians Of The Galaxy: Alternate Rocket Raccoon And A Look At A Surprise Guest
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Marvel’s latest attempt to take over the cinematic world, the deep space adventure Guardians of the Galaxy is full to bursting with outlandish characters, diverse distant worlds, and Easter eggs and cameos galore. That’s a big part of what makes it such a damn fun time at the movies. A newly unveiled collection of concept art shows off what Rocket Raccoon, the summer’s breakout character voiced by Bradley Cooper, could have looked like, as well as some artist’s visions of the strange planets the heroes visit. And Marvel also released an official look at an unexpected character that pops up in one of the obligatory post credits scenes.
Rocket may be a heavily armed, interstellar bounty hunter who is the result of illegal genetic experiments—not to mention his foul mouth and penchant for violence—but he’s also totally adorable and a legitimately great character. When he takes off his shirt and you see the leftover scars, you feel for him, and during a big emotional scene late in the movie, you’ve already developed a tight connection with the fuzzy little bastard and share his grief.
It would be interesting to see if audiences made the same bond with him if he looked more like this alternate version. Though you see that Rocket has all sorts of wounds and battle scars—which make sense given his outlaw stance and line of work—they’re not super in your face, you don’t see them every time you look at him. The biggest difference between Movie Rocket and Concept Rocket is that he has big gashes on his face and is uglied up a few degrees. Would that be enough to put people off to him, or would it have gained him even more sympathy?
One of the things the sets Guardians apart from the rest of the MCU is the variety of new worlds and unique settings. Much of the action takes place the world of Xandar, which you get a peek at in these two images.
There’s also the general deep space setting to take into account…
…and this drawing depicts a much tougher, grim looking incarnation of the crew that includes Rocket, Groot (Vin Diesel), Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista). They look way more serious here than they do in the final product.
This next little bit might involves
Because this is a Marvel movie there are multiple scenes placed after the credits start to roll; that’s expected at this point. The first is a cute clip of miniature Groot dancing his plant ass off to a Jackson 5 song. At the very end of the credits you get a glimpse of a character most of us never expected to see on a movie screen ever again: Howard the Duck. You may have heard talk of this moment, or even seen a bootleg video or two. Now, however, Marvel has released an official picture of the much-maligned character for you to check out.
