The Guardians of the Galaxy have become huge parts of the Marvel universe both in the movies and on television with their animated series, but now the series is crossing over with another part of Marvel's multimedia empire. During the Marvel Animation panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, it was announced that the upcoming Season 3 of Disney XD's Guardians of the Galaxy animated series would share the same storyline as the theme park attraction that recently opened at Disneyland, titled Mission: Breakout. According to Marvel Animation's Senior VP of Production Marsha Griffin...
Season 3 is going to be Mission Breakout. It's going to follow the adventures of the Guardians they are captured by the Collector. Rocket is going to rescue them, little spoiler there, and the rest of the season we're going to be dealing with the Collector chasing the Guardians across the galaxy on various adventures.
Marvel got their first Disney theme park ride in North America back in May when Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout opened at Disney's California Adventure. The ride sees the Guardians, played in their big screen versions, captured by The Collector and put on display. Guests on the ride are there under the auspices of viewing Taneleer Tivan's collection, but then Rocket escapes from his display case and enlists the tourists in helping him break out the other Guardians. Apparently, the next season of the Guardians of the Galaxy animated series will follow a similar plot, though likely without an excess of plastic mouse ears.
Most of Disneyland's classic rides are designed to tell the story of the movie they were based on. We've also seen original Disneyland attractions inspire movies, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. In this case, we have some sort of weird cross of the two concepts. The Guardians of the Galaxy inspired the attraction, while the original storyline of the attraction is also being used to tell a longer more involved story via the television series.
While there is clearly an element of marketing here, Disney knows that using their theme park as an inspiration will put a Southern California vacation on the minds of some viewers, it doesn't mean that it won't make for a decent storyline. Clearly, the escape from the Collector will only take up the early part of the season. From there the animated version will deal with elements the ride does not, creating a story as original as any other.
It does make one wonder though. Is this the beginning of a new trend? We know that the planet that's being created for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World is one that has never been seen in Star Wars before, but now we start to become curious if that will always be the case.
A couple more elements of Season 3 of Guardians of the Galaxy were revealed during the panel. First, Marsha Griffen announced that a few episodes of the series later in the season would actually use different art styles. No specific details were given but it certainly sounds like an interesting way to shake things up. In addition, Stan Lee, the master of a million cameos within the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be making the jump to animation. According to Griffin...
Stan Lee will be making a cameo, he's going to be playing a character, Stan, he's an elevator operator in the Collector's museum.
Clearly, the next season of Guardians of the Galaxy will have some interesting surprises in store. Season 2 is airing on Disney XD right now.
