Star Wars fans got to see Maz Kanata one last time in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and although her appearance was even more brief than in the previous films, many noticed that she looked different. Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy has come to an end with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which also marked the end of the Skywalker saga after over 40 years of adventures in a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker followed the Resistance’s final stand against the First Order, which was revealed to have been aided by the supposedly deceased Emperor Palpatine. Kylo Ren’s inner battle between both sides of the Force reached its peak, and Rey continued with her Jedi training with Leia as her master. All of this while also attempting to solve most of the plot holes left by the previous films. One of those involved Maz Kanata, and her appearance in the film made fans believe she was finally going to reveal how she got Luke Skywalker’s blue lightsaber – sadly, that never happened.

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Instead, Maz Kanata’s role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was even smaller than in the previous films, and she was left at the Resistance base to help Leia and the rest. However, many viewers noticed that Kanata’s looks were different.

Maz Kanata Wasn’t CGI In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Maz Kanata, a Force-sensitive humanoid known as a “pirate queen”, was introduced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where it was revealed that she had been keeping Luke’s blue lightsaber for a long time. That became the biggest question around her character, one that none of the following films decided to answer. Kanata was played by Lupita Nyong’o through motion capture in The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but the crew went with a different approach for The Rise of Skywalker.

Many fans noticed Kanata was looking incredibly detailed in one of the images shown at the global press conference for the film, and it’s because instead of a CGI character, an animatronic was built and operated by multiple puppeteers, allowing better attention to detail. Speaking to Cinemablend, Creature and Special Make-Up Effects Creative Supervisor Neal Scanlan shared Kanata was the most advanced animatronic they have ever made, as it was a highly mechanized one. During pre-production of The Force Awakens, Kanata was originally going to be a puppet or animatronic, as Abrams was leaning more towards practical effects, but due to time constraints, the character had to be CG.

The change in Maz Kanata’s physical appearance might not be noticeable to many on their first viewing of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but it’s an interesting detail as it not only shows the talent of the visual effects crew, but also how far both practical effects and CGI have come that viewers can’t tell the difference right away.

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Adrienne Tyler
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Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

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