From the very beginning of filming Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams had a mandate: Don't go nuts with the special effects. And after the disaster that was the CGI fest of George Lucas' prequel trilogy, Abrams promised that for the next movie in the saga, he'd retain the feeling of the originals. As he told Esquire last November:
"When you look at creatures on the set—I have scenes where we might have used a little bit of CG, but it was more likely to remove something, not to add something, like to remove the puppeteer. There are a couple scenes in this movie where you might think, 'Oh, I bet that's CG,' which is fine, but you're never gonna look at it and go, 'That doesn't look real.' "
And that feeling was there while watching The Force Awakens. The film had that dusty look of a bunch of grimy robots and dented space ships sitting around in the hot desert sun.
But to truly understand how well Abrams delivered on his promise, one must watch this special effects reel. The video, in four minutes, shows many of The Force Awakens' most stunning scenes before they get a visual makeover. Sure, there was a lot of CGI, there were a lot of green screens, but it's amazing how many sets there were, how many actual vehicles and droids were buzzing around.
Even those snowy woods where Rey and Kylo Ren had their big lightsaber fight was a pretty convincing alien planet.
Plus, the actual visual effects that went into this visual effects reel are actually pretty impressive. If that makes any sense.
