Rocket Is the Secret Protagonist of Guardians of the Galaxy, and His Rap Sheet Proves It

According to director James Gunn, Rocket is the secret protagonist of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and a close rewatch of the first movie shows why. Rocket crying over being "torn apart and put back together over and over" is "the single most impactful moment of the film," because hidden in his monstrosity is his humanity and his heroism.

Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite MCU film. My wife and I loved the soundtrack so much that it was our go-to playlist to get through Covid, and we featured both Ain't No Mountain High Enough and Come and Get Your Love at our wedding. With Volume 3, Gunn doubled down on the whole trilogy actually being Rocket's story. Even though I have covered this movie quite a bit, I found dozens of new details on this rewatch, and my guide here is Rocket's rap sheet: the counts that should go on his record, so we can get a full assessment of who this secret protagonist is.

Peter Quill's 1988 opening hides his fear of saying goodbye to Meredith

The film opens on Earth in 1988 with a close-up of young Peter's Walkman playing Awesome Mix Vol. 1, already foreshadowing a Volume 2. I never noticed before that Peter's thumb is cranking the volume up to block out the hospital. His mother Meredith made this mixtape, so he is shielding himself from her reality with the version of her she wanted him to hear. The music in this movie is always diegetic, coming from a source within the scene. The opening song, 10cc's I'm Not in Love, is about fearing that saying I love you might degrade the words, reflecting Peter's fear of telling his mother goodbye. Rocket similarly struggles with explicit loving words and gestures, which is why Drax petting him at the end is an initial shock followed by an exhale of gratitude, and why he bites Mantis when she tries it in Volume 2.

Gunn writes his song choices into the screenplay and plays them on set so the actors can react. Awesome Mix Vol. 1 became the first soundtrack to hit number one on the Billboard chart without any original song composed for the film. Gunn said he chose the Volume 1 and 2 playlists from Meredith's point of view, so everything we hear is her message to her son. The summer camp shirt Peter wears will later be worn by his hookup, and the Missouri flag on his desk nods to Gunn's home state.

Meredith says Peter's father was an angel, setting up Ego, a Celestial whose light, we learned in Volume 2, left her with that tumor. In this movie, her ongoing presence is represented through light. Meredith is played by Laura Haddock, who met Steve Rogers in the first Captain America film, which led some to speculate that fan girl might be Peter's grandmother, though Gunn has denied a connection. When Peter is abducted, we can read his scream as a kid hoping he is being taken where the angels just took his mom. Literal biblical descriptions of angels are terrifying, which gives a different meaning to Yondu's later line about being as pretty as an angel but not being one.

A camera shutter in the Marvel title card and coordinates that are still being decoded

There is an odd detail in the opening Marvel title card I had never heard before: a little camera shutter sound on the flash by the word Studios. It is not there for Winter Soldier before this film or Age of Ultron after it. So is this whole movie a snapshot, something seen behind a lens? I have an idea that ties it to Rocket, which I come to below.

The Morag coordinates, starting M31B, are real coordinates in the Andromeda galaxy, as are Xandar's. The other four, for the Dark Aster, the Kyln, Thanos's sanctuary and Knowhere, are more or less confirmed to be part of the big Easter egg Gunn said remains not fully uncovered. Various people online have tirelessly tried to decode them. The latest is that the Dark Aster coordinates translate to this is Mom's cancer and the Kyln ones to this isn't real, with Knowhere maybe translating to Meredith Quill ex and the sanctuary possibly to nexus of alien cancer, a 2014 clue to the 2017 twist that Ego gave Meredith her cancer. Volume 2's coordinates have given us halfworld, cage, Wyndham, builds Earth, medical clinic and 89P13.

When presented with decodings like my 2020 analysis that Guardians is a diegetic musical love letter from Meredith, Gunn has said things like ha ha nice work, and that 70 percent of the Easter egg had been uncovered. That shutter sound plus this isn't real had my mind buzzing with theories of simulated realities and artificial worlds by Herbert Wyndham, like maybe he groomed Rocket in an Earthside Truman Show community. Whatever the exact translation, Peter's connection with his mother is clearly important. Gunn has confirmed the first movie is about the mother, the second about the father and the third about the self.

On Morag, Meredith lights Peter's path to love

Chris Pratt was cast for both a smug energy and a sincerity. The character was conceived as a womanizer and returned to the spotlight in the 2006 Annihilation storyline, which led to the 2008 Abnett and Lanning reboot that gave us today's lineup. When the movie was confirmed at Comic-Con 2012, the first concept art singled out Rocket and his cybernetic arm, meaning Rocket and his brokenness were at the heart of these films from their conception. Peter's scanner includes a cameo of Gunn's old dog, Dr. Wesley Von Spears. The planet is normally covered in oceans that recede once every 300 years, making this a rare window.

Peter listens to Redbone's Come and Get Your Love as Meredith sets him on a path to love, and only now did I catch how the clouds clear into a beam of sunlight on him. As a boy he feared lights from the sky; now he cannot get enough of the spotlight. That song was also the final track listed on the Volume 3 soundtrack. Peter hops the temple steps like Indiana Jones in Raiders, a movie he references later, so even the film homages are diegetic: he is aping heroes from 80s movies. The temple mural shows Death, Entropy, Infinity and Eternity reaching toward the six stones, according to the art book, so whoever housed the orb knew it held a stone.

The holiday special revealed Yondu gave Peter his blasters as a Christmas present. By his tape deck sit his troll doll, Alf stickers and a trading card, and a ticket stub for a Philadelphia Eagles versus St. Louis Cardinals game, which I don't think anyone has spotted. The Cardinals played in St. Louis from 1960 to 1987, when young Peter could have seen them. The Raspberries' Go All the Way plays ironically as Peter swipes through photos of other women.

Sincere performances and more world building than any MCU film

Part of what makes this film work is that the actors play everything fully sincere: Lee Pace's Ronan, Michael Rooker's Yondu, Benicio del Toro's Collector, Josh Brolin's Thanos. Sometimes the MCU can feel like characters and actors are a little embarrassed to be there, but nobody in Guardians is that self aware. I like to think they all have Drax syndrome: sincere to a fault, devoid of irony.

Ronan's Dark Aster is a three mile wide, 9,509 year old ship, so in his religious zealotry he has essentially commandeered Noah's Ark. Guardians does more MCU world building in two hours than any other MCU film, and most later films cash in on what it created: the look of the Celestials, the history of the Infinity Stones, universal translators and Kree political drama.

On Xandar, Rocket's shutter sounds could mean the film is his view through a lens

Rocket's commentary on Xandar, mocking humanoids and a man who "thinks it's so cool" to get help walking, comes with camera scope shutter sounds that could connect to that title card mystery. Maybe this entire movie is Rocket's bitter perspective on the freakishness of the world, and you can imagine Gunn seeing himself as a bit of a monster, viewing the world through a lens to point out its monstrosity. Rocket had to learn to walk on two feet himself, and saying it is not cool to get help is the antithesis of his journey to find strength in numbers. That is the root myth of Guardians: freaks learn to dance together. Stan Lee's cameo carries blue text that, according to Gunn, translates to Excelsior.

On the Nova Corps booking screens, 89P13 appears in yellow, the number Volume 3 revealed Herbert Wyndham tattooed on Rocket. Rhomann Dey cannot get Star-Lord right, and the screen mislabels him Space Lord. This section nods to The Usual Suspects, another del Toro film where criminals join forces because cops jailed them together. Rocket's origin is listed as Halfworld, as in the comics, and his associates include Lylla, his otter-like girlfriend, whom we meet in Volume 3. The camera refuses to crane down, so Rocket pokes up from the bottom of the frame, pairing perfectly with Groot, too tall for the next shot.

Groot's fingerprints could only be scanned because his arms had started growing back. Peter's middle name, Jason, comes from his comics father, and while the others' DNA scans show blue, Peter's flashes red, a hint that his half Celestial DNA cannot be processed. A universal translator in his neck explains how he understands alien languages, though not Groot's, which is less a language than vocal utterances you learn over time.

The Kyln escape shows Rocket turning broken parts into freedom

Hooked on a Feeling plays as Peter gets to know Rocket and sees his implant scars where fur has not grown back, so maybe Peter is taking him seriously for the first time as a freak he might dance with. Prison barcodes are color coded, black for murder, and Gamora's is all black. The man yelling at Peter is Lloyd Kaufman, Troma's co-founder and Gunn's mentor. Groot notices a woman crying at a projection of her family; of all of them, he has the greatest empathy. Nathan Fillion cameos as a blue prisoner, Drax is revealed in a spotlight as if DJ Meredith is picking the last freak for the dance floor, and Peter's hand remains cut from Nebula's dagger on Xandar.

Gunn said Thanos's first appearance was tricky because Kevin Feige wanted the big bad established, but Gunn did not want to undercut Ronan, so he had Ronan brutally kill the Other. The backdrop is blood red, and for a man who seems to bathe in his enemies' blood, the idea of anyone bathing in his shakes him. When Rocket asks for a prisoner's prosthetic leg, Bradley Cooper is clearly holding back laughter, setting up that it was a joke; with the eye, he is worse at hiding it. I think Rocket's fixation on prosthetics, later including Bucky's arm, comes from the High Evolutionary's plugins leaving him with an endless appreciation of broken parts.

That trait is valuable. Rocket turning a guard booth into a gravity bubble steered by security drones, repurposing instruments of their destruction into instruments of freedom, is the coolest thing anyone has done in the movie so far, and it is clear why Gunn sees him as the secret protagonist. Peter, meanwhile, goes back for his Walkman, worth far more to him than the orb, while the guard plays The Pina Colada Song: run from love and you end up right where you need to be.

Knowhere, the Collector and the freaks who dance

Moonage Daydream plays as they approach Knowhere, which might be why they called their ship the Bowie in Volume 3. Knowhere is a Celestial's severed head, telling us of a vicious conflict among Celestials, and the bar's name, Boot of Jemiah, could nod to Jemiah the Analyzer, seen in Eternals, having kicked the head off. The camera lingers on Tivan mining craft as Gunn always teases the exit strategy. Groot's flower for a girl is an homage to 1931's Frankenstein, and Gunn confirmed the hairless creature fighting the orloni is the same species as Blurp in Volume 3.

Peter telling Gamora about Footloose shows he inherited the magic of dance from his mother; his mission is to get these freaks dancing with him, starting with Gamora under raining sparks to Fooled Around and Fell in Love. Then Rocket's breakdown: he did not mind raccoon because he did not know what it was, but vermin and rodent remind him he was a cruel lab experiment. Fittingly, Gunn named his first DC era Gods and Monsters, because Guardians is the story of freakish monsters triumphing over those seeking to be gods.

The Collector's vault holds Cosmo, Howard the Duck, a Dark Elf and the slugs from Gunn's Slither. His history of the Power Stone describes eight people destroyed by it, foreshadowing four Guardians who join hands and live, which shows how powerful Peter's Celestial DNA is. I never noticed Rocket mimicking del Toro's gesture, which had to be animated from his performance; I am guessing Sean Gunn, Rocket's on set stand in, mimicked it. Behind Carina, the other servant pounds on the glass to warn her.

Losers, 12 percent and a dance off

The mining pods are industrial grade for drilling Celestial bone, which is why they can bumper car. On Rocket's 12 percent of a plan, Gunn has said 12 is the highest single syllable number, which helps a joke's pacing; I love the idea of a scientific code to comedy, and it makes me feel there is truth to his coordinates code. Peter redefines losers as people who have lost stuff, a new power in being broken. Gunn confirmed Rocket's shirt tug nods to the Picard meme, ad libbed by Sean Gunn, and Rocket likens their circle to the eight destroyed by the stone, though this stronger crew of freaks can do better.

In the final battle we glimpse Xandar's three suns, a reminder this is not Earth. Yondu's arrow takes out a dozen or so guys in a single whistle, and my favorite part is the timing of everyone collapsing at the same time. Groot's skewering is structured the same way, and what sells it is Groot turning around to smile at us: death, death, death, a pause, then a grace note. Nebula's severed fingers keep twitching. Groot's glowing spores are not needed for protection; he releases them so they can look into each other's eyes, echoing Rocket's Kyln bubble. Ooh Child survives on the tape deck, a parent comforting a child, and Peter's dance off teaches the world to dance, down to baby Groot, whose motion capture Gunn himself did. When Gamora finally takes Peter's hand, he sees Meredith, a second chance to say goodbye and hello to a new family.

Rocket completes the chain and is the obvious protagonist

I used to think Guardians was about found family versus the family you were born into, but now I think we could have both: for Gunn, Rocket is a creature voiced by Bradley Cooper representing his own monstrous tendencies, and a character brought to life on set by his brother. Family is defined by those who grab hold of us when we are most vulnerable, and after what Gunn went through in 2018, this group stood by him. Rocket being last to join the embrace is not an indictment but an affirmation: only when 89P13 joined did it sync and Peter control the stone. Baby Groot is technically Groot's son, not a clone.

Peter learns Meredith named him Star-Lord and opens her final gift because envisioning her gave him closure. The first song on Awesome Mix Vol. 2 is Ain't No Mountain High Enough, after Ooh Child closed Vol. 1. The Jackson 5's I Want You Back was performed while the group were under alleged abuse by their father, so a dark reading has Peter blasting off toward a violent father, much like Rocket, who is destined to face his own creator, Herbert Wyndham, again in Volume 3. The credits say no raccoons or tree creatures were harmed, which is perhaps the cruelest joke, because Groot and Rocket, you could say, were the most hurt.

Peter grabbing the stone was brave, but his Celestial privilege saved him. Rocket has none. He led the Kyln escape, was prepared to free Peter from the Ravagers, blasted a hole in the Dark Aster, downed necrocraft over water to save civilians, saved Dey's wife and daughter, kamikazed the Dark Aster, rebuilt the Hadron Enforcer to break Ronan's warhammer, completed the dance line and replanted Groot. I wouldn't say Rocket is the secret protagonist; he is the obvious protagonist, by far the most consequential freak on the team.

Do you see Rocket as the true hero of the first Guardians film, or is Peter Quill still the heart of it?