Already a meme across the Internet, and a hot item for Etsy craft makers, Marvel has now (legally) made one of the most endearing and popular scenes from Guardians of the Galaxy available online. Proceed with caution if you haven’t seen the film, as it contains some pretty ket SPOILERS.
Set to the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”, we see a tiny little Groot shaking his groove thing while Drax (Dave Bautista) continues to polish his knives almost completely unaware. Fun fact: that’s director James Gunn providing the reference for the dancing sequence:
“Baby Groot dancing is 100 percent me. I was too embarrassed for anyone to be there, so I made everyone leave the room and I set up a camera and I videotaped myself dancing. Then I sent the video to the animators and had them animate over that. I begged them not to leak the video! Two of my closest friends came to an early screening and said ‘Hey, I recognize those moves! That’s you dancing isn’t it?!’”
Not to be mistaken for merely pandering to the kawaii market, the scene does have some precedent in the comics. Groot’s ability to regrow himself from a twig was established all the way back in Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord, Keith Giffen and Timothy Green II’s mini-series that formed the first version of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy.
When Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s Guardians of the Galaxy team launched (or “Groot and Branches”, as Groot would prefer them to be known) in 2008, Groot began as a potted plant until he was sufficiently regrown enough to be the muscle for the team again.
Guardians of the Galaxy is now in cinemas around the world. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is due out on 28 July 2017.
