20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
7. Maz Kanata Was Entirely Animatronic
Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong'o) briefly reappeared in the film, and while you'd be understood for assuming that the character was once again achieved through state-of-the-art VFX as in the two previous films, she was actually entirely practical this time around.
J.J. Abrams preferred to use tangible effects wherever possible, and so insisted upon an animatronic puppet for Maz in The Rise of Skywalker. And so for the film, Industrial Light & Magic's creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan went about creating one of the most complex puppets in cinema history:
"In this case, we used a data suit that was worn by a puppeteer and as that person would move, Maz would mimic it. There was a puppeteer who was responsible for the dialogue, and there was a puppeteer responsible for the eye line and the expressions. Those puppeteers could be right next to J.J., and they could see Maz and they could be in the scene."
Considering most everyone who saw the film assumed Maz was once again a digital creation, this was most certainly a job well done.