Following the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is shaping up to be a significantly different movie than we all might have expected following Vol. 2. The Gamora that appears to be part of Vol. 3 will not be the same woman and she won't have the same relationships with the rest of our heroes. However, as one Marvel fan recently pointed out, that won't be the only character dynamic that will have potentially drastically changed in the next movie.
Specifically, things have the potential to be quite different between Peter Quill and Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. While normally Peter Quill has been the character full of Earth pop culture references. Since Peter was turned to dust in Avengers: Infinity War and Rocket wasn't, the alien has now been exposed to Earth's pop culture as well, and Rocket's frame of reference is significantly more up to date and potentially far reaching.
from r/marvelstudios
Peter Quill was kidnapped from Earth in the 1980s and he had a love of 1970s pop music instilled in him thanks to his mother. For whatever reason, the space-travelling Star-Lord never visited home, so his knowledge of Earth always stopped there. However, Rocket spent the five year gap after "the snap" either on Earth, or working alongside a number of humans from the planet. Even if he spent most of his time in space with Nebula, where we first see him after the time jump in Avengers: Endgame, then, as Reddit user StarkReactor4 suggests, he almost certainly would have picked things up.
While none of this necessarily has to mean anything for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the possibility exists that it could. If Rocket spent time listening to modern Earth music, maybe he'll bring some of it with him on the next adventure. We could end up with a soundtrack that isn't exclusively 1970s pop hits.
When Peter Quill would make references to 1980s television, he would either have to explain everything in depth or nobody would understand what the hell he was talking about. It would be interesting to see Rocket make a circa 2018 television reference and watch Quill be the one who's confused.
Of course, Peter himself did spend some amount of time on Earth at the end of Endgame, so it's possibly that he also did some checking out of modern music. Although, it might not have worked out well for him, since he was almost certainly unable to download anything new to his Zune,
In the end, this probably won't mean anything significant to the future Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The unique soundtrack is one of the franchise true charms and any drastic change to it would likely hit a sour note with fans. And James Gunn has made it clear that the music for the new movie will still be Peter's not Rocket's, Still, some sort of brief reference to this idea wouldn't be out of place, and would be quite funny.
Even if we don't get more modern references, Rocket may understand Quill better simply by being on Earth, and if Rocket ran into any pop culture that Peter is familiar with then Rocket may, at the very least, understand him better than the rest of the characters. We'll find out when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 finally arrives, although, at this point, we still have no idea exactly when that will be.
