So, the themes of GotG3 are fairly plain:
Obviously anti-animal-experimentation/abuse.
Clearly Rocket and the Sovereign and the Counter-Earth 1980s Humanoid Animals are all creations of the High Evolutionary – and thus equal pawns of a cruel and sadistic Human god.
I also think the story intends to show that Rocket and Adam are more similar than different, both suffering because they appear to have been a “mistake”…which High Evolutionary (the really, really bad guy played by black, Nigerian-British actor Chukwudi Iwuji. BTW, Nigeria was a British colony for 110 years) wanted to use for his own purposes. It turns out that Counter-Earth is also a mistake and the High Evolutionary blasts the entire world into oblivion…In fact, the High Evolutionary appears to have created nothing but mistakes…
The first thing that bothers me is that people appear to be COMPLETELY DISCOMBOBULATED about the “animal abuse” that takes place when the High Evolutionary and his minions remove parts and replace parts on the animals (who have been pre-selected for the MAXIMUM cuteness-effect and likely chosen strictly because the movie makers knew that people would be far more horrified when surgery was performed on an adorable otter – than they would have been if the exact same surgery had been performed on say, an alligator snapper or an anaconda or a Komodo dragon.
As mammals, are we are predisposed to feel warm and fuzzy thoughts (you knew what I meant there, didn’t you? What if I’d written “we a predisposed to feel cold and scaled thoughts? on an adorable…cockroach”) about other mammals? Or can we have broader sympathies?
Most people aren’t going to feel the same ways about the chickens that are slaughtered by equally heinous methods…so we can have our Chicken Nugget Meal™ at MacDonald’s.
The Marvel Universe producers and writers and directors made another clearly hyper-emotional choice. That they chose a hold full of adorable children to tug at our heartstrings instead of a hold full of surly, angsty adolescents is telling as well. How many people would have wept if the TEENS were to be victims of nefarious machinations (and you can, with me, imagine what kind of things enslaved teenagers might be “used” for…)
Marvel…ous Manipulations, eh?
Another thing that worries me, commenters who expressed horror and strong revulsion over the animal mutilations implied by the story line seemed to have no problem at all with the “animal-humanoids” whose entire WORLD was vaporized because some of them deal with drugs and were violent…
Not a single horrified voice about the “animal-humanoid” drug dealers or thugs. Not a peep about Marvel’s depiction of the monstrous High Evolutionary villain being a Black man…whose face was torn off at the end after he destroyed Counter Earth (which was ALSO oddly void of any dark-skinned/furred denizens…not a single objection that I could read.
A couple reviewers also pointed out that “The obvious thematic parallel between Rocket and Adam – that they are both creations of the High Evolutionary – isn’t even used in Adam’s redemption, since Groot is the one who offers him a second chance, not Rocket. All this adds up to make Adam feel like a tangent in a film that already had too much going on.”; “But turning Adam Warlock into just another generic doofus so he could fit in with the pre-established tone of the Guardians films feels like a missed opportunity to make him distinct from the rest of the cast.”
Couple of comments here: As I pointed out above, the people of Counter-Earth, the Sovereignty, and an implied a universe of other creatures made by High Evolutionary: “High Evolutionary presented himself…as a harbinger of the perfect society and species…[with] no compassion for the lifeforms he created and had no problem with killing them if they didn't meet up to his expectations. Killing Lylla and the inhabitants of Counter-Earth without a second thought and committing…genocide every time his ‘perfect’ society didn't meet his expectations.”
Most people thought that Adam Warlock was pretty much a toss-off character in the movie, yet I found him sadly sympathetic…almost a bridge linking the Guardians to the Sovereignty, Counter-Earth, and even Antman and some of the other genetically-manipulated Avengers (Spiderman; the Black Panthers (which are not only the result of genetic engineering, but have a spiritual aspect that hasn’t been explored most of the Marvel Universe); Captain Marvel; I would include Dr. Strange in there as well (though that’s more by implication rather than explicitly); Vision has an odd spirituality as well…who knows, maybe I could explore that, too…)
Even in GotG3, Adam Warlock, while his changes appear mostly off-stage, he goes from clumsy, unaware kid trying to please his “mom”, to making some difficult choices to stand against his entire civilization. Invisible, but imaginable, he’s clearly been indoctrinated against the Guardians and everything they stand for. I don’t think he’s aware until the very end, that he has more in common with Rocket – who, by the way has the spiritual avatar of Groot as a counterbalance to his rigid (justifiably so in his case) prejudice against the rest of the universe. I believe it’s not only why he keeps Groot close beside him, it’s why he literally trains Groot-Twig to be the same as their progenitor. He acts like the gruff “father” to Twig (not unlike my own dad.) Adam needs that same guidance; Groot-Twig sees that; and that’s why it’s HIM who saves Adam…Too bad we’ll never see a Adam Warlock movie. I rather like his vulnerable attempts at becoming Sovereign-Human…
References: https://www.ign.com/articles/why-is-adam-warlock-even-in-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-3; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_Vol._3; https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy;
Image: https://preview.redd.it/wbrrjk33sc081.jpg?auto=webp&s=4d49cab72129f75cbf68c8c5b66b9bb5605af203
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