Trailer:

Movie comes out in August 2014. Here's everything you need to know:

http://io9.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-that-guardians-of-the-1525743960

Charlie Jane Anders writes:

They're one of Marvel's main cosmic superhero teams, saving worlds from aliens and massive threats from space. Originally, they were from an alternate future, in the 31st century, saving Earth from reptilian invaders — but the new version is in the present day, and they're a rag-tag group of misfits who came together in the wake of the brilliant Annihilation storyline. Basically all you need to know is that they're a motley bunch, and they joined together sort of by accident.

And as you can see from the lineup, they're in space prison, imprisoned by the Nova Corps, who are basically space cops.

In the recent comics, Peter Quill was born on Earth, to a human mother — but his father is J'son of Spartax, an alien and a member of the royal family of Spartax. J'son crash-landed on Earth and had an affair with Peter's mother, who was later killed by alien assassins. (In the comics, anyway.)

Notice that Peter's "known associates" include Yondu, who appears not to be in the trailer. Yondu is one of the original Guardians of the Galaxy from back in the 1960s, and he's played in this film by Michael Rooker — he's a big blue guy with a mohawk.

As the trailer begins, Star Lord is going inside what looks like an ancient tomb.

And he's grabbing what looks like a precious artifact. Is this one of the Infinity Gems? The Tesseract (in Captain America and Avengers) and the Aether (in Thor: The Dark World) are two of the six Infinity Gems, which grant power to the user.

In the first Thor movie, we glimpsed the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin's vault — and if you put all six Gems inside the Gauntlet, you get infinite power. Thanos, the villain we saw at the very end of Avengers, has been known to seek that power in the comics. So if this is one of the Gems, it's important. Or maybe it's just a cool orb? Either way, Thanos probably wants it.

...

We've already seen the Collector (Benicio Del Toro) on screen — he appears at the end of Thor: The Dark World, taking possession of the Aether, which is (as we mentioned) one of the six Infinity Gems. The Collector is up to no good, and probably wants to get hold of all of the Gems.

Reminds me of Firefly.

tsmith944 made this Peter Quill (Star-Lord) downvote: http://gfycat.com/PoorClearcutHypacrosaurus

And shadowst17 made this version:

Reddit comments:

http://reddit.com/r/HighQualityGifs/comments/1ybkfy/aww_im_sorry_guardians_of_the_galaxy/

cherryfizz made an album: http://imgur.com/a/Hu8O1

Reddit comments:

http://reddit.com/r/HighQualityGifs/comments/1ybvtg/just_my_lil_ol_guardians_of_the_galaxy_gif/

Charlie Jane Anders writes:

In the comics, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is described as the "most dangerous woman in the Universe." She's a ruthless killer who is constantly looking for an excuse to murder people.

You might have noticed in the readout above, Gamora is described as the last survivor of the Zenwhoberi race — her people were all wiped out by the Badoon, a nasty group of aliens who also killed Star Lord's mother. In the comics, she was adopted by the mega-villain Thanos, who trained her as an assassin.

And here she is having a sword fight — based on the way this is cut and the scenery, it looks as though she's fighting Nebula, whom we'll meet soon.

Charlie Jane Anders writes:

If you've read any of the Annihilation comics, then Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) is already one of your favorite characters. He's a big powerhouse, whose abilities usually include Hulk-level strength and stamina — but he's got a heart of gold. He's smarter than the Hulk, but not by much. In most versions of the comics, he started out as a human but has been reborn as a kind of alien berserker.

Charlie Jane Anders writes:

As the read-out says, Rocket Raccoon is a cybernetic/generic experiment on a lower life form. He originally appeared back in the 1970s. I highly recommend picking up the Incredible Hulk collection Pardoned, which includes an early Rocket Raccoon story, as well as some of the best Hulk tales ever.

In the original comics, Rocket lives on a planet full of talking animals, crewing a spaceship called the Rack 'n' Ruin, along with his first mate Wal Russ, a talking Walrus, and they protect an all-powerful Gideon Bible from space marauders. (This is roughly the same era of Marvel that gave us Howard the Duck.)

You'll notice that in addition to Groot, whom we're getting to in a moment, Rocket's main associate is Lylla. She's not in this trailer, and possibly not in the movie at all, but she's a talking otter, Rocket Raccoon's soulmate.

Charlie Jane Anders writes:

Groot is basically an extraterrestrial plant monster, who's almost impossible to kill. In the recent comics, he and Rocket Raccoon are a duo, with Rocket risking death to go back for Groot on a few occasions. Groot can only say "I am Groot!", but he conveys a lot of different meanings with that one phrase.

Director James Gunn tells Total Film, "I love Groot so much I get teary eyed when I think of him sometimes. Essentially, all the Guardians start out the movie as bastards - except Groot. He's an innocent. He's a hundred percent deadly and a hundred percent sweet. He's caught up in Rocket's life, really." 

More Guardians of the Galaxy gifs:

http://pandawhale.com/post/43890/guardians-of-the-galaxy-trailer-2-gifs