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'Guardians of the Galaxy' trailer: Marvel's wacky space adventure fires up social media

Chris Pratt introduced the debut trailer Tuesday night on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

By Kate Stanton

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Until Chris Pratt debuted the first Guardians of the Galaxy trailer on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Wednesday night, his new six-pack seemed to be the most-talked-about development in the franchise.

But the film's trailer should go a long way in explaining one of Marvel's more obscure set of superheroes, which includes a "gun-toting" raccoon and a talking tree. Pratt described them as "badasses who go around shootin' people and bein' all tough and bad...in space!"

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The Guardians of the Galaxy comic books never came close to the popularity of, say, Captain America or The Hulk, so industry observers are already calling the film Marvel's "riskiest" project since the similarly low-profile Iron Man (which obviously turned out well).

The trailer also makes it clear that Marvel and director James Gunn have taken a goofy approach to the portrayal of its main characters as a ragtag, arrogant group of space goons. This, as Gothamist notes, should come as a welcome relief to comic-books fans who are tired of fashionably depressed superheroes.

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Not even real-life Marvel hero Stan Lee knows what it's about.

"This is the one group I didn't create," Lee said. "I didn't write 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' I'm not even sure who they all are!"

So far, the trailer's tone seems to have excited fans. The Wrap reported that the film's trailer far outpaced social-media mentions for other highly anticipated films, like Man of Steel and Amazing Spider-Man 2.

“The reaction was giddy,” Ben Carlson, the president of social-media research group Fizziology told The Wrap. "I think a lot of people didn’t know how the film was going to work, it’s five superheroes and one of them is a raccoon and another is a tree. But they nailed the tone. It was light and fun and full of action and you see that reflected in the social media reaction."

Here's the official synopsis:

From Marvel, the studio that brought you the global blockbuster franchises of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, comes a new team -- the Guardians of the Galaxy. 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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Guardians of the Galaxy hits theaters August 1.

[Gothamist, IndieWire, THR, CBS News, The Wrap]

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