Witness the Skinless Horror of Rocket Raccoon in the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ VFX Breakdown

With a movie as CGI-heavy as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, it’s fascinating to see how all those effects are created and worked under, around, behind, and sometimes into the characters onscreen. Rocket, for example, the adorable yet foul-mouthed sentient raccoon, is made of the same skin, bones, and muscle tissue as any other small mammalian beast, it’s just all digital. And boy, do we get to see it in the VFX breakdown.

The visual effects company Framestore rolled out their behind-the-scenes reel of some of the big setpieces in the movie, such as the opening battle montage of all the Guardians fighting against an interdimensional tentacled beast while Groot dances in the foreground. You can see a couple of shots of James Gunn, who did a lot of Groot’s movements — especially the dancing — cutting a rug in a green-screened studio. You can also see more than you’ve ever wanted to see of what Rocket’s innards are composed of.

I’ve always enjoyed getting to see the work animators put into making characters and objects that move around realistically, and there are times when you can almost forget that Rocket isn’t actually a real talking raccoon engineered in a basement by Marvel Studios’ captive geneticists (…right?). To make something look real, you have to start from scratch, building the skeleton and musculature before adding the hair and personality. Fortunately for Marvel (and unfortunately for my nightmares), Rocket’s insides look upsettingly real. Maybe Rocket’s skeleton can be the villain of the next Guardians movie?