GUARDIANS Film Speculation: The Collector and Rocket Raccoon

The Collector and Rocket Raccoon

Next August, the long-awaited Guardians of the Galaxy film will be hitting cinemas all over the world. With the help of millions of dollars of promotion, many people who know nothing about the Guardians will finally become familiar with the characters we all know and love. But there's just one tiny problem. Most people can't fathom how a talking raccoon can...well, talk. No matter how you slice it, there will be detractors from the film, calling it "stupid" or "childish" due to its talking mammal. Such cynicism doesn't belong in the world of comics. That being said, the world of movies is a lot broader. General audiences (which Marvel is trying to attract) usually demand logical explanations for everything. So, how will director James Gunn and Marvel Studios explain Rocket Raccoon?

If Marvel Studios decides to keep Rocket's comic origin (featured here), most "Guardians Virgins" will leave the theater stratching their head. Rocket's origin is long, complex, and if explained in the film, would take up at least one third of the movie. What I'm trying to say is that there may be a better origin for the cinematic version of our furry friend (sacrilige!).

Here's my theory:

The Collector's Zoo

We know that A-List actor Benicio Del Toro is playing a character named The Collector (although some still believe him to be Thanos). In the comics, The Collector lives up to his name. I mean, this dude collects everything. He even tried to collect his own friend after Thanos turned his friend into a baby. So wouldn't it only make sense that The Collector would have visited Earth at some point. If your goal in life is to collect things, Earth has rougly 8.7 million species for the taking.

Now let's say that The Collector came to Earth, and was freaking out because he had just hit the jackpot. He's got a deer, he's got an elephant, he's got a human (Adam Warlock?), he's got one of everything loaded up on his "Noah's Ark Space-ship."But before he takes off into outerspace, he notices a furry little creature running up a tree, with a piece of garbage in his mouth. "What is it?" you ask. It's a freakin' raccoon, of course! The Collector uses his beam ray (or whatever alien-tech he uses) to get the raccoon on his ship and in a cage. Thus, Rocket Raccoon is now in space. This is further enforced by Benicio Del Toro's quote that The Collector "has his own personal zoo" in the film. Also, director James Gunn has been hanging out with many differnt furry creatures (via Oreo and Friends) while studying raccoon movements during the film's shoot.

You may be saying to yourself "Yeah, but how does he talk?" I'll tell you! At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, director James Gunn was quoted as saying the following:

"It’s really about taking, ‘Okay there’s a talking raccoon,’ well how does that exist?  And you really take it backwards from there and say, ‘Well how would that exist?’  It’s not about creating Bugs Bunny in the middle of The Avengers, it’s about creating a character that’s a little animal that was taken and experimented on and pulled apart and put back together again and implanted with cybernetics, and he’s half-machine and half-raccoon and he’s a little gnarled, miserable, pretty angry creature because there’s nothing else like him and it’s not easy to be.”

Love at first capture.

Judging from this quote, I would definitely say that James Gunn has come up with his own origin for Rocket Raccoon and will not be following Rocket's origin from the comics. In fact, this quote fits in perfectly with my theories. First, he describes Rocket as "...a little animal that was taken..." Who was he taken by? The Collector. Then he goes on to say that Rocket was, "...experimented on and pulled apart and put back together again and implanted with cybernetics..." From my research, I have found that raccoons can live up to 20 years, but I'm sure the stress of being captured by a psychopath may subtract a few years. The Collector would most likely have to experiment on his captives to increase their life expectancy. During these experiments, it is likely that The Collector increased Rocket's intelligence, as well as gave him the ability to speak through "cybernetics."

This could also be how Rocket and Groot meet. It would only be logical for The Collector to want something as awesome as Groot for his collection. After all, Groot is the last of his kind from Planet X. Groot and Rocket may have met in captivity and grown fond of each other, eventually helping each other break free.

Regardless of whether any of this turns out to be true, it would definitely be a simpler way to explain how Rocket can talk and how he got into space. Drop your comments below and let me know what you think of these speculations. Also, feel free to post your own speculations!