Maz Kanata was brought to life as an animatronic( rather than a CGI character) in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Partway through The Force Awakens, Han, Chewbacca, Rey, and Finn make their way to Maz’s tavern on Takodana, aiming the assistance provided by the former smuggler and pirate. The reference was brought to life via motion-capture by Lupita Nyong’o and proved to be an invaluable beginning to the movie’s heroes, providing them with much-needed guidance and an important tool in the form of Luke’s old lightsaber. She also introduced the biggest plot hole in the sequel trilogy by doing so but, well , nobody’s perfect.

After simply making a brief appearance in The Last Jedi as a hologram( furnish key information to Poe, Finn, and Rose ), Maz returned in the flesh for The Rise of Skywalker. There, she cured the Resistance – explaining Leia’s actions to the other rebels and mourning her after her extinction – and, following their defeat of Emperor Palpatine and the First and Final Order, gave Chewbacca Han’s old-fashioned award( which he received via the original Star Wars ). As it turns out, Maz was a little different when she came back for the concluding entry in the Skywalker saga – namely, she was no longer a digital effect.

Related: Rise of Skywalker: Billie Lourd Played Young Leia in Flashback

While interviewing the effects artists behind The Rise of Skywalker, Cinema Blend learned Maz was brought to life in the film with an animatronic, rather than CGI. The marionette was designed by Creature And Special Make-Up Effects Creative Supervisor Neal Scanlan, who describing him as “the most advanced animatronic that I conceive, certainly, that we’ve ever made”. He went on to explain why director J.J. Abrams wanted to bring Maz to life through practical means in the movie, rather than digitally like in The Force Awakens and Last Jedi.

She represented more to us than simply an animatronic. She represented fetching the animatronic very much more intimately into the scene. And undoubtedly because it was involved with the Leia sequences, that was something that J.J. had propagandized us to try and do as well. He wanted those which participated in those cycles to be intimately involved, and that included the animatronics.

People were quick to notice the incredible detail on Maz in The Rise of Skywalker when the first image of her was were used for the movie. What they didn’t know, of course, is that( save for a few cases digital touch-ups) it’s because she’s not actually CGI at all. If anything, it’s a testament to how far computer animation has come that people can’t ever tell the difference between a digital and practical formation anymore. Old-school puppetry has only continued to improve and progress along the way, allowing narrators to mix the best of both macrocosms when creating aliens and other non-humans. The Rise of Skywalker’s Maz attaches references like Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian and the Gelflings from The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance in manifest just how sophisticated modern animatronics( with a touch of CGI) truly can be.

That said, there are still benefits to using practical effects like animatronics over CGI and even motion-capture initiations. It does allow for a certain intimacy that digital courages don’t offer, uttering it easier for flesh-and-blood cast members to interact with them during key emotional moments. This would’ve been all the more important during Maz’s large-scale panoramas with Leia in The Rise of Skywalker, considering Leia herself was brought to life using prerecorded footage of the late Carrie Fisher. That few people( if someone) noticed Maz was actually “real” during those strings is still affecting on its own.

NEXT: Rise of Skywalker Wasn’t Brave Enough to Kill Its Legacy Characters

Source: Cinema Blend

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