BSA306, Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2, toys and animation review, 29 April, 2017

I LOVED Guardians of the Galaxy when it came out in 2014 and the sequel has been on my "Must Watch" list for months now.

Here's a  popular character who has been enormously popular in 4 version over 2 movies (there is a "teen" Groot, but only shows up in the end credits of GGv2 and no images are online yet).

Groot from GGv1

"Baby" Groot from GGv1 end credits

Baby Groot from GGv2

  Fans love him, he's great in the story AND he's a very popular toy.  

Merchandising brings in so much money for the studios and since this one is a fan fave, there are lots of toys to choose from.  Chibi (Japanese slang for "small person") toys have big heads and little bodies, even if they're of adult figures with normal proportions.  Star-Lord (top left) still looks like fun in his new proportions.  Choosing his battle mask for this over his human face was an interesting choice. 

Another example of the Chibi style toy, these Baby Groots are even cuter than the plushie versions and come in hard plastic/vinyl.

Chibi version of more the Guardians group.  Note the even smaller version of Baby Groot- his head is still big like the others but the small version brings him into line with his scale in the movie.

Groot (no matter his size) and Rocket the racoon are major pieces of the movie.  They're entirely CGI but they feel RIGHT and interact well with the human actors.  A great job of matching eyelines was done in GGv2 when the Yandoo character crouched low to talk to Baby Groot.  It's a credit to the actor and the FX team that there was chemistry and an emotional moment in that scene.

How a raccoon and a tree became the human heart of Guardians of the Galaxy

on set stand ins for groot (man in blue with groot head worn as a hat) and Rocket (man in blue crouching)

Another Rocket stand in, this time a stuffed Rocket sculpture.

Finished Rocket and Groot in action

“James Gunn instinctively had a gut feeling of what was right for Rocket,” said Spruce. “He often wanted to keep him casual and low-key, rather than over-acted. He was very big on the fact that when you shoot live action the actors don’t always look at each other when they’re talking, whereas there’s a tendency for animators to always make characters face who they’re talking to. The animation team worked hard to get all that observational detail into Rocket and became really intuitive to what he would do in any situation.”