Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 9 Episode VII Problems It Must Avoid

9. Real Sets, Impractical Effects

When the hype machine for The Force Awakens started revving up, the party line was “Real sets, practical effects”, subtly needling the Prequels for a supposed overuse of CGI. This eventually turned to be a cheque that Lucasfilm failed to cash, with the film boasting 200 more digitally altered shots than Episode I, and close to no models or miniatures.

That’s not to say the film doesn’t include practical effects, but it was mostly kept to in-camera work, with everything else being heavily skewed in favour of CGI. The Star Destroyer hanger for Finn and Poe Dameron’s escape could have easily been a model with extras shot on green screen and a CGI TIE Fighter composited in, rather than everything apart from principal actors and a small section of the set being digital

When it came to making the Prequels, producer Rick McCallum talked George Lucas into using more miniatures than he originally planned because it would be cheaper and the quality would be better, and while that could no longer be the case with advances in CGI in the past twenty years, models and miniatures are a big part of the Star Wars formula.

Star Wars has always been a mix of the actual and the intangible, whether that intangible is absurdly detailed CGI, or a dodgy matte painting, so if The Last Jedi really wants to capture the aesthetic of the main Star Wars saga, it’s going to need to some practical effects work.

What The Last Jedi Should Do: Use a balanced mix of practical and digital effects rather than leaning too heavily towards one or the other.