One of the more interesting characters introduced in 2015's THE FORCE AWAKENS was Maz Kanata. The diminutive, orange-skinned alien with abnormally large optical lenses was voiced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o. You may recall that the former pirate and smuggler helps Han, Rey, and Finn when the trio arrive on Takodana. Maz also introduced one of the most frustrating plot points of the sequel trilogy when it was revealed she had Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber stuck in a trunk. The story behind how Maz came into possession of Luke's lightsaber was ultimately never revealed, much to the annoyance of STAR WARS fans, myself included.
For J.J. Abrams' FORCE AWAKENS, Maz was brought to life via motion capture and CGI. At the time I thought the character looked virtually flawless and it was clear the actors were talking to an actual person rather than a tennis ball. Unfortunately for Maz fans, the character barely registered in Rian Johnson's THE LAST JEDI, showing up as a mere hologram to help John Boyega's Finn and Kelly Marie Tran's Rose locate a master codebreaker. However, Maz made a triumphant return in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER featuring much more prominently in a number of scenes.
One thing many audiences members pointed out was that the CGI aspect of Maz Kanata in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER looked even more detailed and lifelike than THE FORCE AWAKES. There's a simple reason for that. Maz wasn't CGI at all. In point of fact she was animatronic.
In a recent interview with Cinemablend, it was revealed that Creature And Special Make-Up Effects Supervisor Neal Scanlan created the animatronic for THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. When asked why Abrams and company went the practical route and not CGI, Scanlan indicated it had a lot of do with Maz's scenes with Leia:
"She represented more to us than just an animatronic. She represented bringing the animatronic very much more intimately into the scene. And obviously because it was involved with the Leia sequences, that was something that J.J. had pushed us to try and do as well. He wanted those that were involved in those sequences to be intimately involved, and that included the animatronics."
I have to say that intimately involved animatronics sounds creepy but I guess that's just the weird place my brain goes sometimes. Regardless, this news comes as a bit of a shock to me. I would have bet a metric ton of beskar metal that Maz Kanata was a CGI rendered character in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. Although I personally don't think having a CGI Maz in the Leia scenes would have made much of a difference, Abrams clearly felt otherwise. Guess that's why he's a big-time Hollywood director and I'm a movie news hound.
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER starring Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Keri Russell, Lupita Nyong'o, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Richard Grant, Anthony Daniels, Domhnall Gleeson, and Dominic Monaghan is currently in theaters.