Tonight I got to attend a special sneak peek of 17 minutes of footage from director James Gunn’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Marvel’s big summer box office film for 2014, and one of the more curious projects to come from the popular comic book company. Unlike the more traditional superheroes, these cosmic characters have strange appearances and odd settings. The movie stars Chris Pratt (as Peter Quill / Star-Lord), Zoe Saldana (as Gamora), Bradley Cooper (as the voice of Rocket Raccoon), Dave Bautista (as Drax the Destroyer), Vin Diesel (as the voice of Groot), Benicio Del Toro (The Collector), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Lee Pace (Ronan the Accuser), Djimon Hounsou (Korath the Pursuer), Michael Rooker (Yondu), John C. Reilly (Rhomann Dey) and Glenn Close (Nova Prime). Everyone who attended tonight was given a special collectible poster from the film, and the presentation itself was in IMAX 3D to boot.

James Gunn comes on at the start to introduce the footage, and essentially welcome the audience. The footage starts with THE USUAL SUSPECTS-like “lineup” of the Guardians as John C. Reilly goes through them one by one describing their origins and what they’ve done. It’s a great way to set up the characters for the audience. As Reilly describes them, holographic images overlap each character relating the their past exploits. When they show Gamora, we see images of Nebula and Ronan, but more importantly a head shot of Thanos! This all leads into the gang being cuffed and marched into prison, and we hear some small talk with our heroes, including Groot spouting off “I am Groot” a few times, prompting Peter Quill to question why that’s all he ever says. Rocket Raccoon also has some fun banter with Quill, and there’s some really good laughs here. They’re all being put in jail together, but just before Peter Quill confronts a guard who is listening to his confiscated music on headphones, telling him to not touch his stuff (this has been featured in a few of the trailers). The guard shocks Quill rather mercilessly. We then see him being hosed off with an orange liquid (this scene is an obvious excuse to get Chris Pratt’s shirt off), and there’s a great moment where Quill notices some cybernetic-looking implants on Rocket’s back. Cut to the gang, now in prison garb, walking in to where the other interstellar inmates are, and we see everyone yelling at Gamora (look for Troma King Lloyd Kaufman in a cameo here), as she’s got a pretty bad reputation. A tough guy alien tries to threaten the group, but Groot takes him out easily, by fingers in the nose no less. This establishes these guys are a force to be reckoned with. Rocket confabs with everyone scheming a way to break out, and tells them he needs various items around the prison. Groot jumps the gun a bit, grabbing one of the key items, causing the others to rush their respective missions before the prison guards can take them out. It’s here we see Drax be a bad-ass, Groot deflecting bullet blasts, and eventually Rocket wielding a machine gun. Through some creative work they eventually escape, and the clip ends by leading into a new trailer, which you can see below.

A few things worth noting. First, Rocket Raccoon’s fur is awesome, and in more than a few moments it looks pretty damn real. Bradley Cooper is pretty fun doing Rocket’s voice, even putting a sort of wiseguy spin on it so it doesn’t sound exactly like he normally would. His wisecracks work well, and I can tell his back and forth with Chris Pratt is going to be one of the best parts of the experience. Groot is also great, becoming the Chewbacca of the piece, and still managing to do some really funny and quirky things that are quiet and subtle. The blend of the CGI characters and the real life characters is pretty seamless. It’s also fun seeing Drax (Dave Bautista) played as an intellectual being, even looking like the smartest one of the group, but still capable of kicking butt when necessary. The only ones we don’t get enough of in this footage are Chris Pratt (with the exception of his interactions with Rocket) and Zoe Saldana, though I expect there’s plenty more with them in the full film. Ultimately what we saw was fun and fantastically put together. James Gunn has given the film a scope of epic greatness, while keeping it lighthearted and fun… and dark when it needs to be. Gunn even said it might feel like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and I can see parallels to both that and the STAR WARS films, which is good. Granted, only seeing 17 minutes of a full movie doesn’t exactly tell you what the final result will be, but if what we saw is any indicator of the end result, I think we’re all in for a fun ride. Tell us in the comments if you also think this looks insanely awesome. Oh, and did I mention how cool Michael Rooker looks as Yondu in the new trailer? Here’s a screen grab.

An action-packed, epic space adventure, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits—Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly and enigmatic Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand—with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.

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