Portillo made it a point to really highlight all of the elements of production that stand out as major enhancements to how Lucasfilm Animation was producing work previously, particularly the “the animation, the lighting, the effects, the matte paintings, the lighting concepts, the assets.”
“When Filoni kicked off the Maul show, which was after Covid, people were getting back into the swing of coming back to work, but he said, ‘You all need to pull yourself out of complacency, you all need to pull yourself out of your comfort level. Being uncomfortable is a good feeling, and it leads you to greater things. So, create something that is an upgrade of what we're used to doing,’ both in the animation style such as the body mechanics, facial animation, we updated all of our body rigs, and then all the lighting, everything,” she explained. “When Filoni watched one of our episodes last week, his comment was, ‘Wow, you guys, you are actually creating cinema’. He was proud of what Lucasfilm Animation has achieved with this show.”
Portillo added, “All of it is an upgrade from what we've done, and even from the
Bad Batch, even from Tales of the Underworld, it's an upgrade, and we just completed Tales of the Underworld. We're releasing Maul in 2026, but we're still working on it.”