Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; or, The Modern Prometheus
How a devastating backstory cements a trilogy in the MCU hall of fame.
The Short Take:
A more mature, violent, and emotional ride that deftly retains all the quirky humor and heart that sets this branch of the MCU apart. The third act suffers from stereotypical Marvel bloat, but the character work prevented that from dampening my enjoyment. We are Rocket. (And Rocket is Frankenstein’s monster?)
Image Credit: Rolling Stone
[The first half of this review will be SPOILER FREE for those who have not yet had a chance to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. When I need to discuss the events of this film in more detail, I will issue a spoiler warning.]
The Long Take:
Before Guardians of the Galaxy came out in 2014, I had no idea who The Guardians were and as such had no attachment to them at all. And yet, while many other Marvel films get hazy with the passage of time, this film has been seared into my memory because it felt so fresh and new to me at the time. It opens with Peter Quill bopping around an ancient cosmic ruin while listening to Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” on a Walkman, like a space Indiana Jones from the 80s. He’s kicking rat lizards to the beat and even uses one as a microphone. The irreverence and swagger combined with goofy earnestness was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
If you ask MCU experts or film critics, they’ll point to Guardians of the Galaxy as peak Marvel precisely for this reason: because James Gunn and Kevin Feige took relatively obscure characters and turned them into superheroes that audiences cared about and would want to see standing beside heavy hitters like Thor in Infinity War. The “pirate angel” bit still gets me every time.
Why go through such lengths to discuss the inaugural Guardians film when I’m supposed to be reviewing Vol. 3? I asked that very question of myself while writing, but I kept coming back to the spark of the first film because Vol. 3 so cunningly and heartfully concludes James Gunn’s run with these characters. There is even an explicit callback to “Come and Get Your Love” within this final film. We come full circle, once more, with feeling (as marketing materials pithily remind us). If you’ve ever cared at all about the Guardians, I’m fairly confident you will be satisfied with how this film wraps up their stories.
Image Credit: LA Times
But it’s not just about franchise closure. Vol. 3 showcases how far these characters have come since this whole wacky endeavor started. A lot of what bothered me about Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania became even more apparent when watching Guardians 3 because Gunn’s screenplay excels at what Quantumania does so poorly: long term character development that builds from previous films. Scott Lang is the same Scott Lang at the end of Quantumania. The premise of going on an adventure in the quantum realm with his daughter had so much potential to show how he had progressed as a father and as a hero. That story never clicks into place. Instead, he shrugs and goes back to business as usual.
In Guardians Vol. 3, on the other hand, I can pick out every single member of the Guardians and track their psychological baggage and how they have tried — often successfully — to confront and overcome it. And these aren’t hang-ups that have come out of nowhere; they’ve developed over time. Drax grieves his wife and daughter. Peter Quill lost his mother to cancer as a child. Being Thanos’ second favorite daughter has hardened Nebula’s heart. Mantis is in search of a new family and sense of self after breaking ties with her father, Ego. These clear-eyed character arcs are why this films works. Without them, it might just be an outlandish action spectacle in space and nothing more. (Which, to be clear, would be fine, just not as special.)
While all the Guardians grow and change, Rocket’s arc clearly takes center stage in this final film. In previous MCU entries, we’ve gotten hints at why Rocket is ornery, putting up walls with sarcasm and kleptomania. Back in the original film, he drunkenly lets his guard down and shares some of his inner turmoil with the rest of the team, tearfully yelling, “Well, I didn’t ask to get made! I didn’t ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over again, and turned into…some little monster!” This hinted at a traumatic past; Rocket wasn’t just painlessly made in a lab, someone repeatedly tortured him to make him into what he himself perceives as a “monster.”
It isn’t until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I think, when we get a more explicit reference to the psychological fallout of that traumatic past. Peter’s adoptive father, Yondu, has a grand monologue towards the end of that film. Within the film the monologue serves to create a kinship between the two characters, as Yondu says “I know who you are…Because you’re me!” But sandwiched in that identification is a calling out of Rocket’s prickly, mischievous exterior: “I know you steal batteries you don’t need and you push away anyone who’s willing to put up with you ‘cause just a little bit of love reminds you of how big and empty that hole inside you actually is. I know them scientists what made you, never gave a rat’s ass about you!” This continues to provide depth and complexity to a character we love, not only by alluding to a traumatic past, but by drawing a line from that past to his personality and choices in the present.
The plot of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 visualizes in full what these two scenes only reference in dialogue. We meet the geneticist who tore Rocket apart over and over again: The High Evolutionary. He learns that Rocket is still out there and sends Adam Warlock — one of the Sovereign, the race of gold people featured in Vol. 2 — to retrieve him. As The Guardians face off against The High Evolutionary to defend their friend, we witness flashbacks to Rocket’s childhood. And we get to see just how “big and empty that hole inside” him actually is. It’s devastating. But also very satisfying because it allows us to understand the totality of Rocket Raccoon, all while a high stakes mission and subsequent battle rage on.
James Gunn’s decision to make the story of this final film revolve around Rocket is clever for a multiple reasons. As I’ve just discussed, it grounds the action-heavy plot in an emotionally potent character arc. More cynically, though, it helps many fans who have grown tired of Peter Quill after his blunder with Thanos and Gamora at the end of Infinity War. I personally remember being really mad at him for making such a foolish, selfish choice. Meanwhile, the public at large has also grown a little tired of Chris Pratt, deeming him “the worst Chris” compared to Chris Evans, Chris Pine, and Chris Hemsworth. I’m happy to report that this film and Chris Pratt’s performance in it made me forget about all that for a brief time.
Image Credit: Slash Film
A line said by Lylla the otter, Rocket’s childhood friend, makes me think that the decision to shift from Peter to Rocket wasn’t reactive, as other franchise film trajectories have been (looking at you, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy). She says, “This story has been yours all along. You just didn’t know it.” As I mentioned on our podcast review with
and , this struck me as a very meta line because it sounds like James Gunn speaking directly to the audience. We may have thought that this was Star-Lord’s story, but it was actually Rocket’s from the start. James Gunn has said that Rocket is his favorite character, so this isn’t all that surprising. But what does this revelation about the sub-saga of The Guardians of the Galaxy actually mean? What has changed now that we know whose story it really is?Since I saw this movie nearly a week ago, I’ve been mulling over this very question: of what the larger significance of Rocket’s story might be, beyond being well-told. Beyond being the glue that has held this part of the MCU together, across three films and a holiday special.
Countless critics, regardless of how they feel about this film as a whole, consistently cite The High Evolutionary, played brilliantly by Chukwudi Iwuji, as one of the best MCU villains we’ve seen to date. And I think that’s the key to understanding what The Guardians trilogy re-centering on Rocket means for the larger story James Gunn has told here.
[SPOILER WARNING: To continue, I must delve more deeply into the events of The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. If you have not seen this film and do not wish to be spoiled, here’s your extraction point. Go see this film — preferably with a box of tissues and your best friends — and then come back for the rest of this review after you’ve taken one last flight into this forever and beautiful sky.]
Image Credit: Variety
The relationship between The High Evolutionary and Rocket, between creator and creation, is a twisted paternal link. In one of the flashbacks, we see them sitting together, The High Evolutionary working with Rocket; to him, he’s experimenting on him to see what he’s capable of, but to Rocket, he’s teaching him how to be in the world. The H.E. is both father figure and cruel, uncaring god.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of warped relationship. Throughout the history of literature, art, and culture, there have been narratives of scientists who create life, craft beings who then become sentient and potentially autonomous, exceeding the control of their creator. In the 21st century this usually takes the form of a cautionary tale about A.I. like Ex Machina, but, at least in my recollection, it all begins with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818 and, of course, adapted many times thereafter.
If I place The High Evolutionary in a broader lineage of mad scientists, he doesn’t quite align with what I see in many of them. Especially around the turn of the 20th century, popular fiction featured many scientist figures who were challenging the fabric of reality itself, whether it was through invisibility in H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man or time travel in Wells’ The Time Machine. Sherlock Holmes stories highlighted the fallibility of the human senses, and through Dr. Van Helsing, Bram Stoker’s Dracula presents vampires as more science fiction than fantasy. (Apologies, this is what my dissertation was about so it was bound to come up at some point.) Many of these scientists are eccentric, obsessive characters who are so focused on breaking reality and making new discoveries that they ignore the rest of the world (and often the people they love) around them.
The High Evolutionary, however, seems much more sinister than an absent-minded professor who gets in over their head. It becomes clear over the course of this film that he does not nobly chase scientific discovery for science’s sake. He has no grand aspirations for moving scientific knowledge forward in any way. For him, it’s all about his own ego, power, and control through creation. His control over other bodies and control over life itself. He claims to strive to create a perfect world with perfect lifeforms living in it, and there’s an interpretation of this that could seems altruistic, like he wants to make a world that is peaceful and happy for everyone else. That’s obviously not the case, though. He’s a straight-up villain.
After Rocket finally confronts The High Evolutionary and watches his tormenter die, he says, “He didn’t want to make things perfect. He just hated things the way they are.” This positions the High Evolutionary as not misguided yet well-intentioned, but as rotten at his core with bigotry and an unwillingness to accept lifeforms as they are, and to accept life as it naturally is, with all its flaws.
Image Credit: The Guardian
And that’s what brings me back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which, incidentally, did not make it into my dissertation because it was written decades earlier than the other works I discussed, but, more importantly, because it also did not fit in with the more common mad scientist trope. There’s something much darker and more dangerous about Victor Frankenstein. He does love the prospect of scientific discovery — I’m not saying he doesn’t — but he also has a megalomaniac’s way of talking bout his own work.
When describing his initial success, he says “No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their belong to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.” Notice that the first half of this quote has the requisite “for science!” explanation, but then the last two sentences shift into something more selfish and power-hungry. He’s thinking about a “new species” worshipping him. And it’s not just about being responsible for “happy and excellent natures”; rather, it’s about people would “owe” him for it. He is interested in fatherhood for power, not love.
Remind you of anyone?
At another point, Frankenstein even admits he “tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay.” The more I dug back into Shelley’s text, the more alike the two figures seemed. At least Dr. Frankenstein is remorseful as he tells his own tale; we never get that from the High Evolutionary and as such he remains more narcissistic and evil. We’ll never know if he would have regretted his actions if he had lived and Rocket had instead opted to terrorize him for the rest of his life.
Image Credit: Nerdist
Rocket and Frankenstein’s monster have much in common — they are both tormented by their own existences, resent their creators, and can be driven to rage by the way society reacts to them. Rocket’s story, however, resolves in a much more positive way. While Victor Frankenstein’s creation hunts down and kills his loved ones and generally wreaks havoc on the doctor’s life, Rocket chooses to spare the High Evolutionary, unwilling to kill him with his own hands even though he easily could have done so.
Most significantly, however, both Victor Frankenstein and the High Evolutionary refuse to give their creations names, thus dehumanizing them. Many people assume that Frankenstein refers to the monster in the story when in fact he is “Frankenstein’s monster” because the novel only refers to him with a series of derogatory nouns: monster, creature, devil, fiend, demon, etc. Similarly, many others, including The High Evolutionary, refer to Rocket by his experiment number, 89P13, or with a derogatory noun like monster, abomination, trash panda, and nearly every kind of rodent. During the drunken confessional scene from the first film that I discussed earlier, in fact, Star-Lord says, “Rocket, no one’s calling you a monster” and Rocket claps back, pointing at Drax and Gamora, saying, “He called me vermin! She called me rodent!” And they’re supposed to be the good guys (or, at least, anti-heroes for whom we Groot — I mean root.)
To take this to an even darker place, historians and literary critics speculate that either Mary Shelley thought of herself as the monster because she went unnamed as her book’s author, or that she left Frankenstein’s creation nameless because her first child died before she could name them. She would go on to lose multiple other children and nearly die during the birth of one. She too, it seems, had a big and empty hole inside from the trauma of 19th century motherhood.
Image Credit: Kotaku
The fact that in this final film, we see Rocket choose a name for himself alongside Lylla, Teefs, and Floor, already affords him more agency than Mary Shelley gave Frankenstein’s “monster.” Outside of the flashbacks and in the present timeline, the most cathartic/climactic moment for Rocket is when he finally calls himself Rocket RACCOON as opposed to just Rocket. Across multiple films, he consistently denies that he’s a raccoon, and only once he confronts his past in Vol. 3 can he accept himself for who he is. The High Evolutionary instilled in him that he was a monster, ever since he was a baby raccoon writing out mathematical equations on boards and repairing advanced machinery. This multi-film story cathartically concludes with his unlearning of that self-loathing. He got what Frankenstein’s monster never did: a chance to heal from his traumatic birth.
All this is to say that once I saw Rocket and The High Evolutionary through the lens of Frankenstein, so much more clicked into place about what the main theme of Rocket’s story is: tolerance, self-acceptance, and that no one should be a monster just because they’re different. One of the most heartbreaking stretches of Mary Shelley’s novel is the narrative told through The Creature’s perspective. Time and time and again he tries to help and make connections with others, only to be met with fear and repulsion. Both Victor Frankenstein and High Evolutionary failed to realize the ethical responsibility behind bringing unconventional, scientifically fabricated life into the world. To them, their creations are disposable commodities rather than people with their own thoughts and feelings. And people with their own thoughts and feelings, no matter how broken or strange they may seem to others, all deserve a chance to be themselves and reclaim their autonomy from the world.
And there it is. Why the Guardians of the Galaxy story, which concludes in this third volume, is about Rocket. His struggle to accept himself — both what he has made himself and what external forces have made him against his will — reflects the larger struggle of all the members of The Guardians of the Galaxy.
Image Credit: LA Times
They all have their quirks, their emotional baggage, and their flaws. Drax takes everything too literally and is far too comfortable with killing. Nebula puts everyone down and has little patience for weakness. Mantis bends to others’ desires too easily and hasn’t thought about what she wants. (Also she gets really uppity about zargnuts.) Gamora has trust issues. Star-Lord is insecure and thinks everything is all about Star-Lord. But over this series of stories they have learned to accept and embrace those flaws and help each other work through their issues.
Flaws do not mean that someone does not deserve to be loved.
(Yes, even if they lose their temper and nearly destroy half the universe.)
Image Credit: Variety
Could this be James Gunn’s way of warning us about our future with robots? About animal testing? About CRISPR? About designer babies? Maybe. But, for me, this message about accepting yourself and others, despite differences, mistakes, or foibles, is what rang out loudest and truest.