20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

7. Some Scenes Blended Multiple Takes Together Digitally

Lucas' innovative and controversial VFX-heavy approach didn't merely extend to compositing his actors into digital backgrounds, and he often took advantage of blue screen's ability to effectively create new performances from the raw takes of his performers.

Many scenes across the trilogy were reportedly created from as many as six individual takes being layered together in post-production, splicing actors into shots where they weren't present for filming, and stitching both dialogue and reactions together from separate takes to generate Lucas' desired results that weren't achieved during shooting.

This became an increasingly common trick across Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, presumably as Lucas became more accustomed to the technology and felt more emboldened by it. At least in The Phantom Menace it's deployed with a (comparative) level of subtlety.