LOS ANGELES -- There's no better way to ruin a joke than to explain it, so we'll let this slide as a "confirmation": Baby Groot didn't want Drax to see him dancing at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy because Drax the Destroyer isn't really down with dancing.
Which ... we kind of assumed. But that little shade of ambiguity was in part why the scene worked; like Guardians itself, it was kooky, random and you just went with it.
But for what it's worth, director James Gunn revealed on comedian Doug Benson's podcast that the Dancing Baby Groot moment actually had an antecedent scene, which didn't make the final cut. In it, still-full-grown Groot is awkwardly dancing to "Livin' Thing" by ELO, and Drax clearly disapproves.
"Dancing is ludicrous to Drax," Gunn said. "I don't think he understands it. If Drax owned a town, if he was a mayor, the first law would be no dancing."
How the final scene made it past studio notes stage without a terribly on-the-nose definition, we'll never know. But credit to all involved for letting it be.
The takeaway here is dance like no one's watching, until a murderous, humorless maniac with a knife is watching, whereupon you should probably stop. (Oh, and also? If the joke worked? No need to explain it.)
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