A huge puppet was originally in Mustafar footage from the opening sequence of TROS. The spider-like, Force-sensitive creature that helps guard Darth Vader"s old castle complex.
Indeed. One thing about Abrams which I don't find completely objectionable is that he has a preference for practical effects over CG wherever feasible.
Yeah, it is nice to see directors like him doing so much in camera these days. For me the combination of CGI and practical effects that we've seen in the current Star Wars and Star Treks is the best way to do things. Grogu is a puppet, isn't he? At least for some scenes? I'm pretty sure I've seen some behind the scenes pictures and videos of people looking at him and holding him.
It's difficult to tell from the outside. Even when he's animated, they try to stick with keeping his movement and facial expressions puppet-y, so it's not really obvious which shots are which. I don't remember seeing any VFX breakdowns incorporating Baby Yoda, it's possible that's the kind of thing they'd want to avoid to preserve the illusion of the character.
That's the kind of thing I was remembering with him. To take this back to Ahsoka, I'm still curious how the did the Howlers, and I haven't been able to find anything about them online anywhere. Were they mocapped horses or rigs more along the lines of the Ostrich horses in the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender?
Finally got around to watching AHSOKA season 1 this weekend. It's technically well produced, but my god I've never felt so lost watching a series. I'm a normie / casual Star Wars fan. I'm just not going to watch 10 years worth of YA animation homework to get up to speed on who all these supporting characters are. By the time I was finished watching I wanted an outside creator to come in and fridge all the characters that didn't get general introductions in response to Dave Filoni's excessive self importance. Bring in Michael Chabon for season 2!
Given the way they moved, especially the walking gait; my money is on them mostly being horses in a partial costume, and digital head & tail replacement. Some medium shots may have just been a fairly standard riding rig, and the wides and reaction shots are mostly going to be fully digital of course though.
So basically the same thing they did for the Orbaks in Rise of Skywalker, and the Urakis in Rebel Moon? I had the same thought.
Congratulations on discovering that a show who's titular character is from animation, continuing a storyline left hanging from animation, heavily featuring characters and locations from animation, would expect to attract an audience already largely familiar with said animation. Its almost as if it was made specifically for that specific subset of fans, no? Well, them and the newer fans that watched that one episode of Mandalorian *three and a half years ago* and chose to spend the time getting themselves up to date! If you chose not to get yourself up-to-date then that's entirely your choice, but you can hardly complain at feeling lost since you were given more than fair notice that this just might not be for you. Call me old fashioned, but when I hear about a show that doesn't interest me, or is clearly not made with my interests in mind, I tend not to bother watching it!
Was it wise to invest circa $13 million per episode on something with such limited appeal, especially considering the arc ties in with the whole Mandoverse plan? Otherwise just make a like for like YA animation continuation instead of crossing formats. At the very least, have more live action flashbacks or show previously on animated segments so people can catch up. This is a Star Trek board, so... consider all the reaction to the continuity tie ins in PICARD season 3. It would be the equivalent to having an expensive live action Star Trek series that required reading say 50 issues of a comic series or the whole Star Trek: New Frontier novel line to make sense of it. And Star Trek is a much more niche fanbase than Star Wars. I'm just surprised no one higher up in the production food chain pushed back to say cut half the memberberries and make it more accessible to the broader Star Wars audience.
I didn't really watch Clone Wars or much of Rebels and I followed it just fine. I really didn't follow Ahsoka's plot for the things that I did watch of Clone Wars.