WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
In a recent interview, Sean Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy actor who provides the motion capture performance for Rocket Raccoon that guides the CGI animators on the character, gave credence to a fan theory that retcons a running joke across the trilogy as a tragic expression of trauma avoidance.
The joke involves Rocket’s fascination with artificial limbs. During a prison break in the first Guardians film, he demands a prosthetic limb from an inmate as a gag. In Avengers: Infinity War, rocket tries to give Thor a false eye, and later tries to buy Bucky Barnes’ vibranium arm. While it seemed to be an obvious riff on raccoons’ known tendency to steal shiny objects, with the recent release of Volume 3, fans think there’s a darker motive for Rocket’s limb collection.
James Gunn (brother of Sean)’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy has consistently struck a chord with audiences because while the titular Guardians fight outsized battles with superpowered villains in space, they’re also fighting inner battles with childhood trauma centered around father figures who were abusive, when they were present at all.
In Volume 1 we saw Gamora and Nebula get a chance to confront their abusive father, Thanos. In Vol. 2, Peter Quill confronted his absentee biological father while giving a proper funeral to his adoptive dad. In the new Vol. 3, a mortally-wounded Rocket Racoon finally confronts his childhood as a test animal seeing his fellow subjects tortured and killed by a mad scientist trying to create a perfect world.
In the film, Rocket funds himself trapped in a cage with several test animals who had had metal spiders’ legs, fangs, and various other accessories surgically implanted. In the ComicBook.com interview with Sean Gunn, ComicBook.com posited this theory to the actor, who responded:
“You’re springing that one on me. I have not heard that yet. I like the theory. It is not something that I can say was consciously discussed or talked about in the creation of the movies, but it does add up. It makes some sense, right?”
“I’ve always thought of Rocket’s fascination with those things more just an overall fascination with technology. If there’s a gadget that can do something that he doesn’t quite understand, he needs to understand it and consume it and see what it is, how it all works, which is always kind of how I thought of it.”
So there you have it from the Rocket actor himself: It’s a good theory, but also it’s probably not true. And thus this article ends, as Guardians Vol. 3 did, on a bittersweet note.
