Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 had its fair share of the weird and wonderful. From the mind of James Gunn, the film involved a bio-organic grown planet, tortured animals, mass genocide, and a main character almost freezing to death in space in a rather horrific way. For certain grotesque moments, the director used a number of rather creepy props, another of which he has shared on Twitter.
The final film of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy focused predominantly on Rocket Racoon and his past, with the villain of the film being the mad scientist the High Evolutionary. The High Evolutionary was after Rocket’s extraordinary mind and he didn’t care whether it was inside or outside of Rocket’s skull.
Of course, the High Evolutionary wasn’t acting alone, he had a whole corporation behind him along with his right-hand staff, Recorder Theel and Recorder Vim played by Nico Santos (Superstore, Crazy Rich Asians) and Miriam Shor (Younger) respectively. Of the two though, Theel was most certainly the one we despised the most, with his zealous devotion to the High Evolutionary and his cruelty towards the animals they were experimenting on, his demise was not mourned.
His death was rather a gruesome one, after plummeting to the earth with Star-Lord and Groot he is dragged along the ground upon impact. Even by MCU standards, it was a pretty gruesome way to go. Gunn shared a behind-the-scenes video of Chris Pratt riding a “Theel sled.” Luckily for Santos (or unlucky depending on your view) he did not have to actually deal with Pratt dragging him along to the ground, as a fake body was used in his stead.
Santos then posed next to his creepily realistic dead body for a photo, even the tongue slightly coming out the mouth just makes us cringe in discomfort. This scene really showed that the Guardians were not messing around when it came to rescuing their friend, and they didn’t care who they had to go through to accomplish that.
This was not the only fake body used during the film, with Pratt himself also having a fake body of his character that was light enough for Karen Gillain’s character, Nebula, to pick up and walk off with when Star-Lord rather overindulged in some liquid libation. The director kept this body in his office as a good scare prank for anyone entering, though during an interview Pratt got very confused by what the director was doing with it much to everyone’s amusement.