What a strange little creature inspiration is; one moment you’re watching Gangs of New York, and the next moment you’re ankle-deep in an idea for a BoJack Horseman spinoff.
Enough about my fan fiction back-burner, let’s talk about the eldritch beast that is James Gunn‘s brain. With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 having been effectively chalked up as home-run number six at this point, the world is watching as the rebooted DC Universe prepares to unfold, and if Gunn’s own capacity for self-awareness is any indication, we can probably go ahead and erase “derivative” from our internal dictionaries.
Why? Because only he would stare down the then-still-in-progress script for Vol. 3 and think to himself “I’m going to channel John Carpenter’s The Thing,” before immediately writing a scene for Groot, the galaxy’s most lovable tree.
After Adam Warlock’s attack on Knowhere left Groot temporarily decapitated, the lexiconically-challenged Guardian resorted to a rather disturbing method of getting around, and one Twitter user was immediately reminded of a certain monster that laid waste to an Antarctica research station back in 1982.
The best part? The user happened to be totally in sync with Gunn’s own thought process.
Between this and Groot’s kaiju form, Gunn certainly had a lot of fun channeling the character’s capacity for horror during Vol. 3. Since he’s granted James Mangold the writing and directing duties for Swamp Thing, maybe this is just how he chose to scratch that particular itch.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently playing in theaters.