Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is “a movie about joy and compassion and learning to see beyond the rim of our own worlds and having empathy for all living things,” director James Gunn said of his Marvel trilogy capper. At the heart of that is the origin story of Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), whose life begins as Subject 89P13, one of the High Evolutionary’s (Chukwudi Iwuji) abused animal experiments with the mutated and mutilated otter Lylla (Linda Cardellini), the walrus Teefs (Asim Chaudhry), and the rabbit Floor (Mikaela Hoover).
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The animal rights organization — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — honored Gunn with its “Not a Number” Award for “showing audiences that Rocket Raccoon’s origin story isn’t out of Knowhere: cruel, callous, and cold-blooded experiments on animals are real, and they’re happening right now.”
PETA called Vol. 3 “an animal rights masterpiece” for depicting the High Evolutionary’s inhumane treatment towards animals and praised the film for — SPOILER warning — showing Rocket and the Guardians rescuing other animals from a similar fate. “PETA wants everyone to know that we can all do the same, simply by speaking out against animal experimentation and demanding that corporations, universities, and government agencies switch to cutting-edge, non-animal research methods,” the organization said.
“Through Rocket, James Gunn has put a face, a name, and a personality on the millions of vulnerable animals being cycled through laboratories as we speak,” said PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange in a statement. “PETA is celebrating this as the best animal rights film of the year for helping audiences see animals as individuals and suggesting that just because we can experiment on them doesn’t mean that we should.”
PETA — whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” — also highlighted how Vol. 3 brings attention to the animals who suffer fates like Lylla, Teefs, and Floor, who are victims of the High Evolutionary’s crusade to create the “perfect society.”
“Most animals used in laboratories are killed after enduring a lifetime of suffering. They’re held in cramped cages, often alone, and mutilated, infected with diseases, purposely bred to suffer from debilitating conditions, forced to endure multiple painful procedures, locked into restraint devices, bombarded with stimuli for prolonged periods, and frequently denied adequate food, water, and pain relief,” PETA said. “And even though the National Institutes of Health spends nearly $20 billion per year in taxpayer funding on animal testing, studies have shown that 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials because they don’t work or are dangerous.”
The film also earned the American Humane Association’s end-credits stamp of approval assuring audiences that “No Animals Were Harmed” during the making of the movie.
“What was helpful was that I was working with [Rocket’s on-set actor] Sean Gunn a lot asopposed to any animals, so I was interacting with another actor,” Iwujitold ComicBook of his character’s cruelty to animals. “But I have to say, the first time Isaw — I was doing an ADR or something and I saw a scene with Rocket’seyes, I literally saw my dog’s eyes…I saw his face, and I was like, ‘Iam going to hell,’ when I saw that. It really helped that when I wasdealing with the animals, I wasn’t really dealing with any animals,becuase it would have been much harder that way. My agent couldn’t talkto me properly for like two days after a screening. She went home andhugged her dog, and was like, ‘I don’t know how I can talk to you.’”
Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in theaters.
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