Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 3 opened in theaters on May 5th to huge acclaim and huge box office numbers, already grossing over $531 million worldwide. James Gunn’s finale to the much-beloved series is a hit with fans, too. I’ve personally heard several fans say it is their favorite Marvel movie of all-time. But with all these rave reviews also comes a caution: parts of this movie can be particularly difficult to watch or even traumatizing for younger viewers, animal lovers, or anyone who is particularly sensitive to animal violence.
The movie delves deep into the beloved character Rocket Raccoon’s back story, and it is full of things that are not great, to say the least. In explaining how we got a raccoon that walks, talks, and acts like a human, we learn of many terrible experiments performed on Rocket and other animals. Needless to say, trauma abounds in this storyline.
To be fair, the movie clearly and unequivocally portrays the animal violence as tragic and wrong, and that is important to note up front. Also, all the animals in the film are CGI – not real animals at all, whatsoever – so no actual animals were harmed in any way. But for some people, watching scenes of intense and graphic violence against animals may not be worth the payoff of enjoying an otherwise fantastic movie.