Asked to comment on a seemingly-innocuous Easter egg in Guardians of the Galaxy, filmmaker James Gunn revealed that he had in fact written a Marvel One-Shot-style short film featuring Groot and Rocket, and that while the short never got made, there was a vestigial remnant of it in Groot’s in-universe rap sheet, in the form of a known associate named “Tibius Lark.” On Instagram’s Threads app, a user asked Gunn to clarify who Lark was, and instead of just saying “an old friend of Groot’s from before he met Rocket,” Gunn laid out the whole story of the aborted short.
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For fans who loved Gunn’s take on the Guardians of the Galaxy — and who thought there would be no more of it after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, this isn’t exactly more content…but it’s pretty cool. And given that it’s Groot and Rocket, two characters done with visual effects, there’s always the outside chance that at some point years from now, Gunn might bring it back to life.
Here’s how he broke it down in a thread on Threads:
I wrote a short film explaining the origin of how Rocket & Groot met. It was even storyboarded & location scouted & we did test footage for it (it was seen at SDCC in the “trailer” we cut together after 12 days of shooting). But I didn’t have time to do it as Vol 1 amped iup. In it Tibius Lark, Groot, and Rocket were all imprisoned in a a deep well in the ground. Tibius was on the verge of dying. He explained to Rocket he had been caring for Groot for years.
He was a former zookeeper in a shitty galactic-side zoo. He explained he had saved Groot, who was on exhibit there, & that Groot was a loyal friend. He asked Rocket to please take care of him, & then he died. As he died Rocket looked down in the dark cell & noticed he was a robot, the lower body of his body smashed open and mechanical.
The guards above ground heard something rumbling & they turned & saw Rocket & Groot bursting up from the ground, Rocket on Groot’s shoulder, & in Rocket’s hands was a machine gun made from Tibius Lark’s body, & he shot all the guards & they escaped & were together until they met the Guardians. That’s who Tibius Lark was.💜
In Marvel Studios‘ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 our beloved band of misfits are settling into life on Knowhere. But it isn’t long before their lives are upended by the echoes of Rocket’s turbulent past,” the synopsis reads. “Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him on a dangerous mission to save Rocket’s life-a mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.
The movie now in theaters, and is available now on digital video on demand platforms. It comes to Blu-ray and DVD in August.
