When you think of the look of ‘The Mandalorian,’ the last thing you would expect is that any of the shots were over 40 years old. However, several in the Disney+ series were exactly that! VFX supervisor Richard Bluff recently shared that multiple shots of the movie that kicked off the “Star Wars” universe were repurposed by Industrial Light and Magic.
In an interview with ICG Magazine about his work on ‘The Mandalorian,’ Bluff revealed a couple of times how footage from ‘A New Hope’ was incorporated into the series.
“For example, there’s a scene in Episode Five when Mando sees two Banthas off in the distance. I was adamant we shouldn’t build a fully animated and rigged furry Bantha for just two shots and suggested we pull out the plates from A New Hope’s dailies. I knew I could come up with a shot design to leverage the Banthas from that”
This scene wasn’t the only example of a scene that ‘The Mandalorian’ borrowed from ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ either. Another major one came from when Pedro Pascal‘s character was on his way to Tattooine.
“When Mando flies toward Tatooine, we are actually seeing the [Ralph McQuarrie] matte painting seen early in the original film. We reused another painting of Mos Eisley for a fly-in; in that case, I sent a photographer out to the exact spot George [Lucas] shot his original plate, capturing high-res elements so we could up-res as necessary.”
I love that they used original shots with slight updates so as not to have to entirely create this iconic setting, which likely was a significant saver on both the show’s time and budget.
Are you thrilled that ‘The Mandalorian’ was able to use footage from the iconic feature that started it all? Do you feel that the series would have looked better had they not gone this route? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Source: Heroic Hollywood
