Fridge / Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

---

Fridge Brilliance

• Fridge Heartwarming. In the first film, Rocket was the only one who could understand Groot, and across the other films, the rest of the Guardians gradually learned to do so as a sign of their growing attachment. In this film's epilogue, Groot isn't speaking English when he says "I love you guys", we as the viewer have just grown so attached that we can finally understand him. We are Groot, indeed.
  • Also consider that the Gamora of this installment is constantly surprised at how easily the other characters understand Groot even though she only hears the same three words, to the point where she thinks they're only pretending to understand him. At the end, as she bids them farewell it seems she can finally understand him as well, signifying how close she's gotten to the Guardians.
• The High Evolutionary reveals that his experiment, Counter-Earth, was heavily inspired by Earth after he paid a visit to the planet a long time ago, and outright states that his aim is to create a perfected version of its society that doesn't have violence or bigotry. Given that the High Evolutionary looks like (and is portrayed by) a black man, it's likely that he experienced this sort of treatment firsthand.
  • Given that Counter-Earth is populated by practically every shape of creature, it can be surmised that the High Evolutionary succeeded in expunging racism by making sure no animal existed in a majority.
  • While this may be true, it's worth noting that the Sovereign are quite willing to look down on any life forms they consider inferior, and Counter-Earth had clearly been going on for a while before the High Evolutionary decided to destroy it on a whim. His security forces, from deformed experiments to paid mooks, are also pretty cool with violence and bigotry. His experiments on creatures like Rocket and behavior towards other beings are also described as worse than Thanos from Nebula, someone who knows firsthand how bad Thanos was. As Rocket and Quill pointed out, aptly, the High Evolutionary is more full of shit than a decade old diaper. He's fine with bigotry, injustice and cruelty—as long as he is the ultimate arbiter deciding who "deserves" it.
• Jokes made at Rocket's expense in past movies (such as getting called a "rabbit" by Thor or being referred to as a Build-A-Bear) come out Harsher in Hindsight now after discovering his origins. Those jokes were, rather tellingly, the ones he reacted to with bitterness and resignation rather than anger.
• Nebula tells Peter she can drive an Earth car better than him, which makes sense considering she did spend 5 years on Earth at a more appropriate age to learn how to drive, unlike Peter.
  • Her trouble with the door can be explained by there being very few modern cars with the separate push-button latch.
    • In all likelihood, it was probably Tony that taught her how to drive at some point. His high-tech, state of the art cars definitely wouldn't have looked like that.
• Unlike Nebula, Groot manages to open the car door easily, because Groot actually watches how Quill opens his door and follows his example.
• The end credits feature photos of scenes from the past Guardians movies. It also includes Infinity War and Endgame, but only when members of the Guardians are together without the Avengers. The sole exception seems to be the scene where Thor arrives in Wakanda alongside Rocket and Groot—except Thor was a Guardian of the Galaxy, albeit briefly.
• The special enhancements that Rocket added to Nebula's arm were most likely done as a thank you for getting him Bucky's arm for Christmas.
  • Some of the upgrades, like the repulsor-like hover technology and her arm being able to turn into a blade, are notably similar to Stark's nano tech suits. Considering that they were friends with Tony for five years, it's likely that Rocket picked up a few of his tinkering methods.
• The High Evolutionary's lab is called Arete Labs. Arete is the Greek term for "excellence", which was applied both to the concept of fulfilling one's earthly "function" or achieving an ideal state (for instance, a Greek hero could express their arete by defeating an enemy army or dying gloriously in battle), and to developing one's moral virtues. The High Evolutionary is concerned with physically perfecting the species he experiments on (and having them, in turn, fulfill their "function" of being obedient to his will), but is utterly deficient in the moral sense of arete.
• Drax offering Peter a zargnut in front of Mantis, claiming there are none left when she asks for one, then eating the last one right in front of her is almost certainly payback for Mantis eating a whole bowl of them in the holiday special.
• Gamora choosing to return to the Ravagers at the end makes sense in-universe, but out-of-universe as well: it shows that the original Gamora's death in Avengers: Infinity War still has lasting stakes.
• Seeing Rocket's backstory in this movie gives new perspective to when he chewed out Drax in the first film for deciding to pick a fight with Ronan, shouting, "Everybody's got dead people! That's no excuse to get everyone else dead along the way!" Rocket lost everyone he ever cared about before he met Groot and then the other Guardians, but he didn't let it affect him in quite the same way it affected Drax.
  • Although this isn't necessarily true; Rocket just hid his trauma better, maybe because he was (re)wired to default to logic and intelligence in a way Drax... wasn't. He hid it so well, in fact, that his Family of Choice had no idea about the details of his past, meaning he couldn't reach out to them for support, emotional or otherwise. In fact, if the Guardians had known about the particular quirks of Rocket's physiology that resulted from the High Evolutionary's experiments, they could have had a contingency plan for Rocket getting gravely injured and the movie would have gone very differently.
  • His anger also makes sense when one considers that, as mentioned below, arguably Rocket making this very mistake is what got Floor and Teefs killed; taking his anger at Lylla's death out on the High Evolutionary delays them enough for the guards to arrive, and they are killed in the resulting shootout. As such, Drax drawing Ronan in and getting the people of Knowhere hurt, hits Rocket harder because it reminds him of his own past mistakes.
• The High Evolutionary's A God Am I's behavior reaches its conclusion when his ship battles a ship that is literally the dead head of an actual god.
• Peter's Shut Up, Hannibal! and unwillingness to hear anything the High Evolutionary has to say makes a lot of sense considering his history with supervillains. He already heard a bunch of the same kind of "reasoning" from his jackass dad who wanted to remake the universe in his own image. Plus, y'know, the whole thing with Thanos. The High Evolutionary is the more of the same old shit: a maniac with a god complex and the blood of Peter's loved ones on their hands. Given a big issue with Peter is that he's pushed to the brink over the losses he's taken, he's hell bent on not losing again.
• Gamora's comment about how the original Gamora sounds more like Nebula is further supported by her objecting to going to Counter-Earth to get the code to save Rocket. This is extremely similar to Nebula objecting to staying on Ego's planet to save Peter in the previous film, with both of them being overruled because the member most in danger from the Big Bad is family.
• After Counter-Earth has been destroyed, a horrified Gamora wonders aloud about what kind of person would do such a thing, which might seem odd given that she was raised by Thanos. But, while Thanos ended lives on a massive scale, he did so with the misguided intent of bettering the societies he ravaged, and he usually only killed half of the population. The High Evolutionary, on the other hand, annihilated Counter-Earth entirely; while Gamora could understand Thanos's reasoning, even if she considered him insane, the High Evolutionary's crime seems totally senseless, especially since she didn't hear the "justification" he gave Quill.
• Why does Drax make robot noises when supposedly pretending to be a monkey for the kids on the High Evolutionary's ship? Well, what small child wouldn't laugh at an adult acting out as the wrong thing?
• Why does Quill stop to retrieve the Zune when trying to escape the exploding High Evolutionary's ship? Just like the Walkman before it, the Zune is the last tangible representation of his relationship with a deceased parental figure: Yondu.
  • Additionally, him gifting the Zune to Rocket at the end isn't just Passing the Torch. Music was previously a coping mechanism for dealing with his mother's death. Handing it over represents Quill no longer running from his past, but moving onto a new stage of acceptance and healing.
  • It could also be that Rocket is the one who needs a coping mechanism more. He began the movie listening to "Freak," and his horrific Dark and Troubled Past is finally revealed to Quill in detail during the middle.
• The ending where Quill hands over the position of leadership of the Guardians to Rocket is explained rather nicely in how they exacted revenge in the last half of the film. Quill let his emotions get the best of him and killed one of the scientists responsible for hurting Rocket in the most brutal fashion possible, which, while it is cathartic and well-deserved, was also completely unnecessary. Rocket not blasting the High Evolutionary to death and presumably letting him die in the ship's explosion shows he could keep his emotions in check and focus on more important tasks, like saving the other animal subjects, a level of maturity Quill likely saw as well, which is why he told him that he would make a better leader than he ever would.
• The High Evolutionary's enjoyment of "Dido's Lament", intentionally or unintentionally, echoes aspects of his relationship with Rocket. Aeneas, Dido's lover, seeks to go to a new land and found the city of Rome, however, he has no intention of bringing Dido with him. At the realization that her loving relationship with Aeneas was all lies, she sings "Dido's Lament" and then commits suicide by immolating herself on a funeral pyre. The High Evolutionary seeks to create a utopian society on Counter-Earth, but he has no intention of having Rocket or his friends in Batch 89 be part of it. Instead he plans to kill them all by incineration once they're no longer of use to him. It is not a coincidence therefore that "Dido's Lament" is the song that is playing when the High Evolutionary reveals this to Rocket.
• Groot deciding to save Adam Warlock even after he tried to kill Rocket makes much more sense when you realize that the two of them are very similar. Groot knows exactly what it's like to be born in an unusual way, and be raised by people who care deeply for you despite being flawed people themselves.
• The High Evolutionary's forces infiltrate Knowhere by burrowing through its skull. Kinda looks like a horrific brain surgery—perfect for the henchman of a Mad Scientist who experiments on innocent animals to turn them into humanoid abominations.
• The High Evolutionary is obsessed with dissecting Rocket's brain to find the cause of his creative genius, but neglects that he's not the only one of his batch to show that unique intelligence. While Teefs and Floor's name seem rather obvious, Lylla makes hers up out of nowhere because it sounds pretty. He was so focused on Batch 89's basic intellect upgrades and perfecting the cybernetics (Rocket, the last one of his batch, is clearly more advanced than any of them, with his enhancements seeming graceful in comparison) that he completely ignored the creativity that was always there.
• Rocket's somewhat offbeat goofy love of prosthetics takes a new approach after seeing this film. One interpretation is that bodily prosthetics remind him of his friends, given how cybernetically enhanced they were, and could bring back fond memories he had as a child. Additionally, given that the High Evolutionary was bent on "perfecting" animals to the point of dismemberment, his enjoyment at seeing specifically human prosthetics could be a therapeutic reminder that the "self-proclaimed, all powerful humans" aren't actually as high and powerful as they think.
• The parallels between the High Evolutionary and, of all people, Kraglin. Both are plagued by insecurities; The High Evolutionary's repeated failures to create a "perfect society" vs. Kraglin's inability to master Yondu's arrow and choking in battle. Both end up taking it out on a talking animal that bested them (Rocket, Cosmo). However, the High Evolutionary takes things to an ever escalating series of atrocities, while Kraglin never gets above a silly tiff that their friends are more exasperated about than anything. Ultimately, Kraglin is able to let go of his grudge and reconcile with Cosmo, while the High Evolutionary is humiliated and sees his craft go up in flames, with the victim of his abuse not even considering him worth a wasted bullet.
• Star-Lord keeps referring to the Guardians attacking the High Evolutionary's lair as a "face-off," not a trap. What happens to the High Evolutionary?
• It's fitting that just as Peter is leaving the team, Adam Warlock takes his open spot in the Guardians, as much like Peter (immense power notwithstanding), Adam is just a scared kid who lost his mother in a traumatic fashion and is all alone in the reaches of space.
  • Also like Adam Warlock, Star-Lord used to have immensely powerful cosmic powers himself, being half-Celestial (though he would give up these powers after defeating his father Ego).
• After Peter summarizes his history with Gamora, Nebula responds by clarifying to their hostage, "He left out some important details, but that's the gist of it, yes." Given that she was one of the survivors of the Snap and Peter wasn't, of course she would be aware that the Avengers went through much more than that to bring everyone back.
• Rocket's breakdown after Lylla's death mirrors Peter's breakdown in Infinity War in many ways: Both were poorly timed and caused by the death of a loved one. In both instances, they had allies trying to get them to stop so that they could succeed at the task at hand, to no avail. The attack also got others killed as collateral damage. In Peter's case, Thanos was able to get back the gauntlet because he inadvertently struck Mantis, who was keeping him subdued, allowing him to snap later in the film. In Rocket's case, he was mauling the High Evolutionary's face till the guards came in and gunned down Teefs and Floor.
• The High Evolutionary being unable to understand how Rocket fixed his life-creating technology makes a lot of sense when you realize he is incapable of creativity. Rocket essentially solved the issue using an analogy to basic engineering: the rage-inducing proteins in High Evolutionary's creations were building up because there wasn't enough filtration in their cell membranes, similar to dust building up in a poorly filtered air-vent. This is one of the ways an original idea is made, through combining two ideas to solve a single problem. Rocket even tries to explain this to High Evolutionary when he's getting interrogated, but he still can't grasp how Rocket could have figured it out. The fact that all of his creations are manipulated copies of something that already exists means that High Evolutionary doesn't have any original ideas, and can't understand how someone could. This also explains why he can't recognize creativity when he sees it (the girls making a video game), and why he can't evaluate things properly.
• The High Evolutionary considers himself a god because of his belief that there are no existent gods. What was the name of the sword Gamora used to stab him and defeat him for good? The Godslayer.
• The High Evolutionary's defeat is extra-humiliating in that his seemingly indomitable gravity manipulation abilities, a measure he took after being mauled by Rocket, are overcome with simple anti-gravity boots that Rocket invented on a whim to pass the time.
  • Did Rocket know about the High Evolutionary's gravitational powers? If so, the boots may have been a deliberate countermeasure.
• Rocket calling himself “Rocket Raccoon” has several potential meanings, beyond the obvious recognition of his species. It could be a symbol of his acknowledging what he started as, a raccoon, and what he chose to become, the inventor and pilot Rocket. Moreover, it’s potentially his way of saying that, while he is an animal (or at least started as one), he is not just a number or a rodent, but a self-made being with his own identity beyond just a lab rat. And, finally, it is him accepting who and what he is, compared to his frequent denials over the very idea of him being a raccoon.
• Fridge Funny: Out of all the Guardians, the members most likely to use technology are Peter, Nebula, and Rocket. Considering that Peter didn’t know about the buttons and Nebula doesn’t seem like the type...it’s entirely possible that it was Rocket who set up the button channels in such a way, most likely to mess with the other Guardians, and Peter in particular.
• Of course Gamora would end up with the Ravagers. They were the only off-worlders present during the Battle of Earth: whom else could she slip away with unnoticed by anyone else?
• Quill's monologue including how he botched his own plan to stop Thanos, which allowed the Mad Titan to win, perfectly explains his downbeat mood aside from losing Gamora. Thanks to the Avengers, everyone who died in the Snap came back. From the victim's perspective, everything happened in the blink of an eye. To Quill, Thanos getting away with the Time Stone and everyone going to Earth for a big battle against him happened practically within seconds. Tony Stark, whom had pleaded with Quill to think rationally, was the one who rid the universe of Thanos at the cost of his life. Doctor Strange didn’t explain that Iron Man sacrificing himself was the only way to defeat Thanos. Quill saw Pepper and Morgan at Tony’s funeral. It’s more than likely that he assumed Stark was married and had a daughter prior to meeting him. Although unmentioned, Tony was another person who died because of Quill.
• Compared to the first film, Peter Quill seems to have succumbed to the vacuum of space much faster in this film. This is because back in the first film, Ego was still alive and Peter was still part-Celestial, which explains his enhanced durability. Come the third film, Ego is dead and Peter doesn't have a shred of Celestial power within him anymore, making him much more vulnerable to the vacuum of space.
• In the Holiday Special, Drax says out loud that "dancing is for people who are pathetic." At the end of this movie, Drax joins in the Dance Party Ending, because he's learned to embrace what is pathetic about himself.
• You can clearly track the progression of the High Evolutionary's experiments through Batch 89 as each new result becomes more advanced:
  • Floor was clearly the High Evolutionary's first and crudest attempt at cybernetically uplifting an animal. He was able to make her sapient and able to speak, but her mind was still childlike and he was unable to modify her mouthparts and vocal chords to produce proper speech, requiring him to graft a voice synthesiser onto her face instead. He also crippled her body, which is little more than a meat sack carried around on crude spiderlike legs.
  • With Teefs he was able to overcome Floor's failing, making him able to speak with his own mouth. His mind is also more advanced, capable of using a much more elaborate vocabulary (knowing words like "prominent"), but his actual mind was still childlike and simplistic. His cybernetics aren't as crippling (he still retains use of his flippers as actual limbs), but still crude, with the wheels barely serviceable to move him around.
  • With Lylla, he'd basically perfected the development of her personality, making her articulate, well-spoken, and startlingly emotionally mature, effectively on par with an average human. He also advanced her cybernetics to allow her to easily walk around upright on her hind legs, but the cybernetic manipulators she has for arms are still quite crude.
  • Finally Rocket, the last of the batch, was as advanced as cyber-augmented animals could get—not only was his mind made at least as advanced as Lylla's (with the addition of a genuine genius intellect that surpassed even that of the High Evolutionary himself) he no longer needed external cybernetic prostheses to have the same range of mobility and manipulation as a humanoid, with all his modifications being internal and the only visible traces being his scarring and a few external sockets.
• The High Evolutionary screams that "THERE IS NO GOD!" Not only does he live in a universe where gods for sure exist, Rocket's friends being in Heaven indicates the existence of the Big-G God rather than lowercase gods.
• The song used in the opening, "Creep" by Radiohead is by far one of the most poignantly poetic uses of music in the film. Not only do the lyrics reflect Rocket feeling out of place even among his Family of Choice, but to an extent, they also apply to The High Evolutionary, too. Specifically the second verse (I don't care if it hurts/I wanna have control/I want a perfect body/I want a perfect soul/(...)/You're so very specialI wish I was special.
  • The very opening of the song is also a heartbreaking foreshadowing of Rocket failing to save Lylla, as well as later meeting them in the afterlife during his Near-Death Experience: When you were here before/Couldn't look you in the eye/You're just like an angel/Your skin makes me cry/Float like a feather/In a beautiful world.
  • It's also notable that the filmmakers chose the acoustic version. In the original electric version of "Creep," guitarist Jonny Greenwood added his own "dead notes" shortly before the chorus (the iconic CHUNK-CHUNK sound) because he didn't like the song. The band later admitted that they ultimately ended up improving it by adding a darker edge. Acoustic instruments have no way to replicate that effect, so the band dropped it from the cover version. Like the High Evolutionary, the song evolved to a cleaner, more peaceful version, but stripped out its harsher and more creative element.
• "We Care a Lot" by Faith No More playing as the Guardians arrive at Counter-Earth for the first time makes a lot of sense if one understands what the song is about. It was written as a sarcastic parody of Live Aid charity events, mocking how many bands and popstars claim to care about the things they're singing about, but really only do it for performance value. A fitting way to describe Counter-Earth itself; created by an egotistical monster who claims to value the art, culture and inhabitants of the original Earth, but mostly just recreates a discount version of the planet without understanding what it's really like.
• With John Murphy taking over as composer from Tyler Bates, the Guardians theme doesn't appear often. However, it does get one triumphant reprise...when Rocket pulls off a barrel roll to kill some Hellspawn. Thus musically signifying him taking up the helm as leader of the Guardians.
• Crosses with Fridge Horror, considering how Rocket has a kill-switch it's not unlikely that Teefs and Floor's were activated while Rocket was scratching the High Evolutionary's face off, making them easier for the High Evolutionary's men to shoot once they arrived.
• Floor's choice of a name was perhaps because not only was she lying on the floor, but because she was close to her friends and that was where she felt happiest.
• Mantis facepalms by holding the sides of her head with both hands. Doing the standard "hand on forehead" version would certainly be uncomfortable because of her antennas.
• The song that's playing in the background when the Guardians visit the bat family's home is "Koinu no Carnival". At first glance, Vocaloid might seem a little out of place on Counter-Earth, considering the High Evolutionary's liking for classical music. But it's actually not...because it's a variation of classical music that the High Evolutionary likely listened to while appropriating human art to replicate on Counter-Earth: Chopin's Waltz Op. 64 No. 1, also known as the "Waltz of the Puppy".
• When Quill goes back to Earth to see Jason, his grandfather, not only does he instantly recognise his grandson as an adult, but he's shocked and overjoyed to see that Quill's alive. It’s established in Ms. Marvel that Earth knows about the Guardians of the Galaxy, so why does Jason not know that Quill is alive and well? There are two reasons for this:
  • The first one is likely that Jason doesn’t really pay attention to the lives of superheroes. Kevin Bacon's alien abduction at Christmas is mentioned in a newspaper he's reading, but it’s probable that Jason dismisses such stories as sensationalism.
  • The second reason is that everyone outside of the superhero community knows about Thanos and the Battle of Earth through Scott Lang. The only members of the Guardians whom Lang got to know were Rocket and Nebula when they were in the Avengers. The only time Quill was with Lang was in a big battle and at Tony Stark's funeral, and Quill immediately made plans to leave after the ceremony. This is why Quill, Drax, Mantis and Groot have inaccurate names and merchandise.

Fridge Horror

• Near the end, we discover that the cage that the High Evolutionary took baby Rocket from was a batch kept on board his ship. Which means Rocket wasn't just unlucky to be in the spotlight when the rest of the kits ran away...It was a test. Whoever was brave enough to stand up to the threat on behalf of the herd was a promising sample.
• When Quill remarks that Counter Earth is no less imperfect than the planet it was based on, this revelation unintentionally prompts the High Evolutionary to completely destroy the planet and start over again. Since he casually remarks that he's done this before, just how many civilizations has the Evolutionary created and destroyed in the name of his experiments?
  • The High Evolutionary's experiments are an exercise in futility and insanity with more than a hint of sociopathic narcissism. No matter how hard he tries or how many worlds he creates and destroys, our basest animal instincts (human or otherwise) will still be there and anyone can give in to their vices. As demonstrated in the Nightmare Fuel page, Counter-Earth had the same problems as regular Earth: Drug dealers, homeless people, violence (despite The High Evolutionary's claims of ironing out all forms of aggression from the Ani-Men). If the Guardians hadn't stopped him, the High Evolutionary would likely have gone on creating and destroying societies for as long as he lived.
  • Adding to this, with the revelation Rocket never got to see what would’ve been his home, Counter-Earth due to being unconscious at the time, it was actually a blessing he was a failure in The High Evolutionary’s plans. Had Rocket been a successful candidate in going to the “new world”, he would’ve suffered a worse fate and perished just like every living being on the planet. Becoming a Guardian was the best thing to happen to him.
• What happens to Rocket at the start of the movie is this when you realize that if he had been less careful or lucky in any prior fight he could have been in need of urgent medical care and needed to have the kill code overridden. Except in those movies, the other characters also had the focus of saving the galaxy, not just saving their friend, making it more likely for him to die tragically.
• Rocket's previous assurance that "ain't no thing like me, 'cept me" takes on a heartbreaking new meaning with the revelation that he did have friends like him who were murdered in cold blood just as they were about to escape.
  • He also called out Drax using his family as an excuse with "Everybody's got dead people! That's no excuse to get everyone else dead along the way!" Now we know he was including himself in that.
• During Infinity War and Endgame, Rocket rarely, if at all, ever corrects Thor for calling him a rabbit. He never even gets mad, as the worst reaction he gave was just a confused "Rabbit?" from Rocket. With the reveal that one of Rocket's childhood friends was a rabbit named Floor, who is possibly the sweetest and most chidlike out of the four of them, perhaps Rocket both considered being called a rabbit a compliment, as the only rabbit he knew was the adorable Floor, and also was recalling Floor herself and could not muster the strength to retort.
  • That's if he knew Floor was a rabbit. He didn't seem to know he was a raccoon or at least think he was a raccoon until he read the plaque in his old cage on the High Evolutionary's ship.
• After Rocket guns down the High Evolutionary's guards, he turns around to see that Teefs and Floor were caught in the crossfire. His reaction may not be just shock and sadness, but also the dawning realization that by attacking the High Evolutionary while Floor was begging him to leave, he may have cost them their lives. This puts a new meaning to him saying that he got his friends killed when he meets Lylla in the afterlife.
• On the way to the High Evolutionary's ship, Peter notices the inhabitants, despite supposedly being bred without the flaws of humans, are guilty of the same crimes as humans, like drug dealing and assault. Considering we only saw one neighborhood of a planet designed to resemble Earth, one wonders what other problems are plaguing Counter-Earth. For all we know, there's a Counter-Earth Third Reich or Khmer Rouge.
• The mutant Mantis frees is absolutely malformed and misshapen. While it's played for Black Comedy how Mantis struggles to tell white lies, one can only imagine the absolute hell her life must have been.
• During Rocket’s return to the High Evolutionary’s ship, he comes across the same cages where he was kept before his modifications, still full of animals ready for experimentation (which already leaves open many unpleasant implications). In particular, however, Rocket finds the cage full of baby raccoons he once lived in. Given the High Evolutionary’s clear distaste, if not outright hatred, for Rocket (for being more intelligent, for literally tearing off the Evolutionary’s face, etc.)….just how many of those Raccoons were experimented on and tortured just because of Rocket’s actions?
• Rocket’s friends of Batch 89 were very adorable, but very clearly altered in a variety of ways. Not only are they all cyborgs, but they are very clearly all sentient beings in their own right. Considering that they seem to be able to speak like Rocket, and are meant to be prototypes for him, it’s clear they had some alterations done to their brains (something hinted at with Rocket’s bare cranium shown after his augments. With that in mind….Teefs and Floor, the most childish of the group and the ones who seem the least intelligent of the group….very likely had their brains torn apart and put back together, and potentially were locked into a childlike mindset due to damage from such a procedure.
• Rocket came from Batch 89. This implies that there were at minimum 88 previous batches of animals suffering from crude experimentation who were executed for not fitting the High Evolutionary's vision.
• After Rocket solves the problem with High Evolutionary's evolution chamber, he orders the rest of Batch 89 killed. If you subscribe to the theory that Rocket's mind isn't unique among Batch 89, either because his bond with his cellmates allowing him to develop creativity or because the entire batch is that creative and Rocket just happened to be the first member to have the chamber explained to him, it would mean the High Evolutionary sentenced an entire group of perfectly intelligent animals to death on the simple assumption that Rocket was the only member worth keeping.
• Floor's speech patterns reflect a childlike understanding of the world, which is all the worse when you realize that her final words aren't simply her begging for her life, but an ordered list: Rocket should escape if he can, save Teefs if he can, and then save Floor if he can. Whatever had happened to Lylla terrified her, but she was willing to sacrifice herself to save her friends if that's what it took. It did.
• In an interview during the making of the first film, James Gunn said, regarding Rocket's body design, "What if they broke his sternum and stretched it out? Because a raccoon doesn't really have a chest (like a human's). So if we were gonna turn a racoon into a walking, talking raccoon with a gun, you have to break him apart and add metal structure in here, which is what we did to him." Raising the question: just what exactly did the High Evolutionary do to Rocket's body?
  • First there's the matter of the fact that Rocket can walk on two legs. A raccoon's shoulders are curved towards their chest so they can walk on all fours. For Rocket to walk on just his hind legs, he would've had to have his shoulders straightened out, his C-shaped spine replaced with an S-shaped one not unlike that of a human's, had his arms altered in length, and his entire pelvis deconstructed.
  • Then there's his brain. Rocket is clearly shown to have undergone a lot of brain surgeries.
  • The fact that we regularly see Rocket effortlessly lift and carry guns larger than himself with such small hands suggests that his bones and/or muscles were cybernetically augmented if not completely replaced.
  • The end result is that, whatever the High Evolutionary did to Rocket, it comes off less like the work of someone trying to make a "perfect creature" and more like the work of a child disassembling and reassembling his toys for no other reason than because he can.