'Guardians of the Galaxy' First Look: Cast Pic and Synopsis for Upcoming Marvel Movie Revealed

With just hours left in 2013, Marvel had one final surprise for fans: Our first official look at Guardians of the Galaxy. On Tuesday, the studio released a still featuring the five members of the Guardians team. The lineup includes Zoe Saldana as the green-skinned Gamora, Chris Pratt as the half-human Peter Quill, the Bradley Cooper-voice Rocket Raccoon, Dave Bautista as the also-green-skinned Drax, and the Vin Diesel-voiced talking tree alien Groot.

Marvel also released an official synopsis for Guardians of the Galaxy:

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 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 Peter 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. Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” is presented by Marvel Studios. The film releases August 1, 2014, and is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

I'm glad Marvel has finally released something for this movie. Many of the other big summer movies for 2014 — Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — already have trailers. I know that Marvel usually holds on releasing the first trailer for one of its Cinematic Universe movies until it can pair it with the opening of the movie before it, but with Captain America: The Winter Solider not opening until April 4, 2014, that doesn't leave much time to promote Guardians of the Galaxy.