Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Breakdown: Rocket's Origin, the Moving Nowhere and the Sovereign Twist

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 absolutely floored me. I have seen it three times in theaters, once at a press screening and twice in the past 48 hours, and I think it is a really successful conclusion to the Guardians saga. Here I go through it scene by scene: the things James Gunn did really well, and a few things I wish had been clearer or more refined. I'm really going to miss hanging out with these characters.

Vol. 3 Gives Every Guardian, Even Kraglin and Cosmo, a Complete Arc

The Marvel Studios title card gets Guardiansified, and every image and quote on it is a Guardians callback. I think we forget. The first film arrived in 2014 and this one nine years later, and by my count this is the eighth title the Guardians appear in: Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Infinity War, Endgame, Thor: Love and Thunder, I Am Groot, the Holiday Special and now this. I might have skipped one.

One of the many things this film does well is give each character a complete arc. They even snuck in arcs for Kraglin and Cosmo. I don't even know if I needed an arc for them, but I appreciated getting one. They also paid off Drax's dancer and non dancer line from Vol. 2. Back then he said he knew he loved his wife Ovette because she was not a dancer, and neither is he. Now he has finally moved on from Ovette and found a new reason to join the dance circle, and I thought that was beautiful.

Rocket Steps Forward in the Cage, and I Think His Brain Explains Why

The film opens on Counter-Earth with a cage of baby raccoons. When the High Evolutionary reaches in, the other kits scurry to the back, but Rocket, whether out of fear, bravery or a bit of both, leans toward him. The hand comes in palm down, which I learned in dog obedience classes animals often read as aggression, especially abused animals, because that is how the hit would come. James Gunn is obviously a dog lover, so I believe this was intentional.

I think something unique about Rocket's brain chemistry caused him to step forward. A big theme is Lylla's line that it is not the hands that make us but the hands that guide the hands. It confused me the first time, and it took a third viewing to understand. It implies intelligent design, and the designer is not Herbert Wyndham. He is basically plagiarizing the work of the real higher powers and claiming it as his own, and I think that guilt is his inner anxiety: he cannot replicate it. Rocket's gift was there from conception, not done to him in the operations.

A Painful Morph, Radiohead's Creep and Peter's Zune

As the camera pushes in on young Rocket, his fur visibly shifts and his skull changes shape. In the trailer it was a simple cross dissolve, but here it looks painful. It reminded me of Animorphs, where transformation is not supposed to be pretty and you hear bones crunching. My problem with the Nickelodeon show was that it made everything look beautiful, because making something ugly takes a lot of effort and VFX budget.

We land on Nowhere with an acoustic version of Radiohead's Creep, which I think is one of the most misunderstood and arguably overrated songs. To me it is about someone who hates himself so much, "it's hating yourself for hating yourself which is the epitome of depression and anxiety." Rocket plays it on Peter's Zune, the one Yondu got for him, which replaced the Walkman Ego broke. Losing Meredith's mixtape was even more upsetting to me than Yondu dying. Peter still misses Gamora, but Rocket is in an even darker state, still not fully knowing what he is.

Nowhere Has Become a Mobile Battleship

Resettling the Guardians on a Celestial skull brings things full circle, and I love love love that Nowhere is now a battleship. The music stays diegetic, and Rocket hums along to what I think is an Alice Cooper song. I imagine it was Sean Gunn humming on set, since Bradley Cooper would have been in an ADR booth. I also wondered where Peter's helmet was at the end, when he almost died. Maybe it is a plot hole.

Gunn's long hidden Easter egg is encoded in location coordinates, and this film adds three new ones. The most fascinating detail so far is that Nowhere's coordinates changed from Vol. 1, with numbers moved around, which foreshadows that it can now move. Counter-Earth and OrgoCorp get coordinates too. Decoders are still stuck nine years on because Gunn did not use a consistent substitution method, sometimes numbers for letters, sometimes leet speak. I think he is just going to have to tell us.

Adam Warlock Felt Trimmed, While Nebula Shines

Adam Warlock is one of my issues. Casting Will Poulter and paying off the end of Vol. 2, "it seemed honestly that he was edited down," as if there were takes where he had more of an arc. I don't mean more screen time, I mean more depth. In the comics he is kind of a space Jesus, very wise, and "he just seemed like a big baby in the movie."

Nebula, by contrast, felt very Iron Man to me, from her pose to amplifying her voice. Her new nanotech arm was designed by Rocket, according to James Gunn, to return the favor for giving him Bucky's arm in the Holiday Special. Rocket's kill switch horrified me. Like a tech company protecting its hardware, it probably also destroys evidence of what was done to him, and the team has to go back to the manufacturer, echoing his Endgame line when Tony thought he was a Build-A-Bear.

Batch 89, the Sovereign Reveal and OrgoCorp

89P13 is tattooed on Rocket's chest, and Lylla is 89Q12. As a musical theater fan it feels like Javert saying 24601; I think Rocket is very much a Jean Valjean type. Floor reminded me of Baby Face from Toy Story, terrifying at first and the sweetest of them. Lylla, voiced by Linda Cardellini, appeared on Rocket's Xandar booking screen in 2014, implying Wyndham may have casually mentioned her in his bulletin. Then comes the big reveal: the High Evolutionary created the Sovereign, which explains their artificial planet chain. I do think Ayesha and Adam got a little nerfed.

OrgoCorp chills me, because anyone with a cybernetic implant is implied to get it here. It is living matter powered by yellow fluid that I still think could be Celestial. The Abilisk were his creations too, feeding on the Sovereign's batteries, so he cannot even create peaceful coexistence. I could have spent an entire film there. Its logo recalls House Bolton's flayed man and the Vitruvian Man, and it reminds us of Rocket strung up in those stirrups.

Rocket's Coma Was Undercut By Marketing, Not The Script

one viewer said Rocket coming out of his coma felt anticlimactic. I see it differently: I think Rocket's biggest moments happened after he woke up. A lot of people were set up to think Rocket was going to die, and I think that was an unfortunate thing in the marketing. If they had skipped the shots suggesting Rocket might be dead, I don't think we would have had those expectations.

Peter Quill recapping Infinity War and Endgame reads to me as meta commentary by Gunn. I think James Gunn has said in an interview that he's kind of annoyed with the way other Marvel directors took his characters and killed some off or put them in impossible situations. You feel that weight here. Bringing Gamora back does feel like a strain, and I think the weakest parts of the film structurally are Gunn doing the math to clean up the universe after Endgame and Thor: Love and Thunder. Still, he did it in a fun way, with humor.

There's a little thing Chris Pratt does that I love: he tosses a sphere. He did the same with the orb in Vol. 1, and I believe that's just business he does with his hands on set that had to be left in. Here, as Peter takes responsibility for punching Thanos, he remembers almost dropping the Power Stone and basically admits he has learned nothing. It's very good character development.

How Old Is The High Evolutionary, And Is He Tied To Kang?

The welcome screens at OrgoCorp say the High Evolutionary has been at this for 300 years. We still don't really know his origin. I personally think he could be linked with Kang, maybe through a deal. He has something 5,000 years old that I believe he translated from Latin, but Latin was not spoken 5,000 years ago. By 3,000 BC we're talking about the Egyptians. The dates felt a little weird, and it made me wonder what periods of history he's pulling from.

He also says he visited our planet at some point, which makes me think he's not originally from Earth. He may come from some other planet, or maybe some other reality. Counter Earth reflects the Earth he last visited, which is why everything is 1980s clothes and cars. That suggests to me that Rocket was probably taken from Earth as a kit in the 1980s, a timeline similar to Peter's abduction.

Rocket's Name, Lylla's Death And The Hands That Guide The Hands

Rocket got his name from looking out from the lab at Counter Earth under construction and seeing a rocket leave the planet. I find that fascinating, because his dream is not to settle on Counter Earth. His greatest dream is to leave that atmosphere. His line about escaping into the forever and beautiful sky to build flying machines with his friends comes true with his found family, the Guardians. Like Natasha, he loses his first family and has to find a second.

Lylla's death, right after Rocket uses his key card to free her and the others, is the saddest moment of the film to me. It was really hard to sit through every time. The High Evolutionary clearly only values Rocket for his brain, something he did not design himself. The rest of Batch 89 are disposable to him. I think that whole escape sequence is one of my favorite sequences in the MCU.

The limbo scene is the one I have the most questions about. Lylla tells Rocket to stay behind, so it's not his own subconscious saying his job isn't done; forces from beyond are telling him he has a purpose. I think that's a big step forward in MCU mythology. When she says there are the hands that made us and the hands that guide the hands, I take that as the implication of a higher power. I think Rocket's brain was blessed before the High Evolutionary ever laid a finger on him, which is why he didn't cower like the others.

The Chukwudi Iwuji Performance And Counter Earth's Fate

What horrifies me most is how quickly Peter convinces the High Evolutionary that Counter Earth failed, and how he simply cancels it. It makes me think about how many times he has done this. I think Chukwudi Iwuji is so good in the film. He starts in control with a little screw loose and becomes more unhinged as it goes, which is hard for an actor when scenes are shot out of order. Compared to his controlled character in Peacemaker, I thought his acting was brilliant.

I do think Ayesha dies very fast, and I think Gunn might have had more plans for these characters and had to dial them back.

The No Sleep Till Brooklyn Hallway Fight Is About Teamwork

I think unbroken long takes are a little overrated, because every director wants to show off. They only work for me when they're subtle or when they showcase character in a way editing couldn't. This one works because, in every beat, we see the Guardians connecting in a way they haven't before. Rocket jumps on Groot's shoulder, calling back to the Kiln shootout, then runs down Groot's extended arm, and Mantis swings off it to clothesline a guard.

Staying in one shot lets us see in real time how these characters become more than the sum of their parts. It's not really the music; it could have been any song and I would have loved it. The value is that we never cut away from it. I cheered at the end all three times I saw it.

Rocket Spares The High Evolutionary, And Nobody Has To Die

Rocket chooses to spare the High Evolutionary, so he may still be alive in the MCU, and I think that's awesome. I think Rocket is remembering what Lylla told him and wants to be the hands that guide the hands, giving him a second chance the way the team gave Adam Warlock one.

Someone asked me whether it was disappointing that nobody died. I don't think that makes you evil, but I think expectations were set that the only way to conclude a character is to kill them off. Nebula leaving to stay on her own journey, Peter leaving: characters can simply move on to another part of their life. I'm not saying the film is perfect. I think Adam Warlock and Ayesha were underwritten, some jokes go on too long and some song choices feel random, but overall I think it's a masterpiece in terms of an emotional journey to close out this franchise.

When Groot says "I love you guys," I believe it's because we are now part of the Guardians family, and our ears have adjusted to understand him. Dog Days Are Over also hit me personally. It was the song of the summer when I'd moved from Florida to Los Angeles, and hearing it on the way to meet new friends was the first time the city felt like home.

Do you think a character needs to die to get a satisfying ending, or did Vol. 3 prove otherwise?