10 Most Unnecessary Times Star Wars Used CGI
8. Maz Kanata - Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong'o) was first introduced in The Force Awakens and realised as a fully CGI creation through performance capture - a move which ran counter to the sequel trilogy's general mission to deliver as many of its characters as possible through practical effects.
And in fact, when Maz returned in threequel The Rise of Skywalker, her appearance was indeed achieved through extremely complex animatronics, with multiple puppeteers working in unison to control her mouth, eyes, and facial expressions.
As for why Maz was digital in The Force Awakens? This was apparently due to J.J. Abrams simply running out of time and not settling on a concrete design for Maz during pre-production, such that producing a suitable animatronic in time was impossible.
That's no shade at all on the VFX team, who did a fantastic job bringing Maz to life in The Force Awakens, yet The Rise of Skywalker proved that with some added prep time, it would've been entirely possible to give Maz a more tactile practical treatment throughout the entire sequel trilogy.