When it comes to anthropomorphized critters in the MCU, you’d be safe to assume they’re a simple product of CGI wizardry. Yet, as far as James Gunn is concerned, that’s not the only way to bring a computer-generated character to life.
Discussing an exclusive featurette for his upcoming opus, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Gunn spoke with Collider on all the innovative ways he was able to tackle its intensely emotional subject matter.
Check out the minute-and-a-half-long tear-jerker below.
We’re not crying, you’re crying. If this short clip is any indicator, this final installment in the Guardians franchise is going to blow our minds right back into the Quantum Realm. During the interview, James Gunn mentioned explicitly how his incredible VFX team Framestore was able to bring the third film’s animated animals to life — and how they used a lot less CGI than you think.
“Framestore just did this amazing, amazing, beautiful work. They’ve done all of the Rockets throughout, from the beginning of the series, and they’ve really killed it this time.”
Having to produce multiple versions of Rocket for the film (young and old), Framestore had their work cut out for themselves. Thankfully, it seems they’ve really outdone themselves on this one. Where things get a bit more complicated comes by way of the filmmaker’s use of motion capture.
“It gives it a very real feeling because of the way the camera is moving around. It’s not your typical animated movie where it’s very fake computer-moving camera. They’re real camera movements worked by real camera operators, but the world itself is completely CGI – except a lot of it’s real locations that we actually mapped and then put into that universe. So it’s pretty cool in that respect. and technologically really forward.”
That’s right, although the characters we’ll see onscreen might be CGI, their performances are very real. Actors in mo-cap suits were able to lend incredible, life-giving performances to characters that are sure to become fast fan favorites. Still, Gunn was very cautious when it came to their origin story — mainly because it centers around the film’s villain, the High Evolutionary, who experiments on animals in order to bring about their intelligence.
“And in fact, I was very, very careful about what we see in terms of animals being hurt because it is something I’m incredibly squeamish about, and people are squeamish about. So I think the difficult stuff to watch in the movie – and there is some difficult stuff at times – is because of the idea of what’s happening more than what you actually see. You don’t see very much, in terms of violence or harm to animals, but you do see these little animals, the results of which are not the most beautiful, but somehow they’re extraordinarily cute.”
If all of this is any indicator, it’s clear all involved in the making of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 treated the technicolor space saga as a true labor of love. As it should be. All we can do now is wait for May 5 and watch the Guardians face the music.
