Before Kevin Feige’s Marvel multiverse, before blue Na’vi forests or digitally de-aged heroes, George Lucas had the Star Wars team making movie magic the old-fashioned way, with puppets, miniatures, matte paintings, and costumes that looked like they’d lived through galactic wars.
Now, nearly five decades later, those practical effects, praised by the American Society of Cinematographers, still hold up better than most CGI.
Back in 1977, Lucas didn’t just launch a franchise. He rewrote the rules of movie-making. Star Wars: A New Hope merged dogfight-inspired model battles, complex costume design, and groundbreaking practical effects into a cinematic experience that was arguably more immersive than any prior film.
My mom still talks about how incredible it was to “fly” onto Tatooine and see the twin suns for the first time during Star Wars’ initial theatrical run.
The Cantina scene alone featured dozens of alien species brought to life through latex masks, animatronics, and clever lighting. Stop-motion and model work from artists like Phil Tippett and Dennis Muren made this impossible world come to life.
Plus, the decision to have R2-D2 and C-3PO portrayed by Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels in full-body suits — not CGI — brought the droids to life in a way that no software ever could.
You can almost smell the grease on the Millennium Falcon while Chewbacca and Han are hard at work fixing the hyperdrive (again). To this day, you feel like you can reach out and touch the rust on the droids. The illusion worked – and holds up almost 50 years on – because of Lucas’s insistence that every component had to be grounded in physical reality.
Lucas continued his boundary-pushing special effects with the prequel trilogy in the early 2000s. This time, however, his experimentation didn’t land as well with fans. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones heavily relied on CGI backdrops, digital creatures, and green screen environments that, while cutting-edge at the time, now feel dated and less immersive.
Consider, for example, the rain-soaked landing platforms of Kamino, the over-animated droid factory on Geonosis, or characters like Dexter Jettster and the Boga lizard Obi-Wan rides in Revenge of the Sith. These sequences—ambitious though they were—simply don’t feel as real as the vast majority of the original trilogy.
The original Death Star was a meticulously crafted physical model. The Wampa and Jabba the Hutt were brought to life through practical effects and puppetry. Fans could feel the difference in 1999 and 2003, and they still can now. The shadows in the OG films fall naturally. The actors interact with the space in a natural way. The world looks lived in. There’s a grit and texture that even the best CGI simply can’t replicate, especially over 20 years ago.
Yoda’s swap from practical puppet to full CGI sparked one of the Skywalker Saga’s most infamous debates. Although many fans conceded that the fight choreography was better in the prequel trilogy, digital Yoda simply didn’t feel as real as the Frank Oz puppet – because he wasn’t.
In fact, Lucasfilm eventually replaced the original CGI Yoda in The Phantom Menace with a digital model more consistent with later films. This was the studio’s silent admission that they didn’t quite get it right the first time around.
Even Lucas acknowledged the CGI learning curve. In the 2004 Empire of Dreams documentary, he said, “Digital is great — when you use it sparingly. But you still need something for the actor to believe in.”
When J.J. Abrams took the reins for The Force Awakens, he famously promised a return to practical effects. BB-8 was a fully functioning puppet. Real sets were constructed for Jakku’s marketplaces and the Falcon’s interior. Characters like Unkar Plutt came to life with elaborate prosthetics reminiscent of Lucas’s original alien species.
Not everything was grounded in reality, though. The Rathtar sequence, for instance, was heavily computer-generated, and the fan base generally agrees that it looked oddly out of place in an otherwise practical-looking movie.
Nonetheless, to give credit where credit is due, Abrams did make an effort to reintroduce real creatures and on-set environments that gave the first sequel film some of the texture of the original trilogy.
Rian Johnson continued this blend in The Last Jedi, where practical and digital effects were fused – computer artists created the salt plains of Crait but actual animatronics were crafted for porgs and caretakers. Love it or hate it, TLJ does make an effort to balance its use of practical vs. CGI effects.
The Mandalorian and a new kind of practical effects
The Mandalorian took things a step further (or sideways, depending how you look at it). With the introduction of the Volume, a massive LED screen set that projects 360-degree digital environments in real-time, Lucasfilm found a new way to build the galaxy.
It’s not “practical” in the traditional sense, but it gives actors something to react to, and it gives directors natural lighting and camera angles. Combine this technology with puppetry (Grogu, obviously), and the result is the most immersive Star Wars in years.
Even Werner Herzog, a man not easily impressed, reportedly insisted that the Grogu puppet be used as often as possible. As director Dave Filoni shared, Herzog saw them prepping for a clean plate take and demanded, “You are cowards. Leave it. Leave it.”
Why practical effects still work for Star Wars
Fans’ passion for practical effects isn’t just about nostalgia for the original trilogy. There’s something tactile about practical effects that CGI often can’t replicate, even with the newest and best tech at ILM’s disposal.
The way light hits real surfaces, the way actors interact with the environment, and the weight and imperfections that make something believable all come into play onscreen. Audiences might not always know for a fact what’s practical and what’s digital, but they absolutely feel it.
Reddit fans agree. One user wrote about The Mandalorian, “These practical effects are phenomenal. The puppets, the sets — it all feels real in a way CGI just doesn’t.”
In the words of Rogue One creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan, “We try to trick the brain by offering it all these cues of reality — shadows, texture, the way things move… When it’s real, the brain stops questioning and just buys in.”
That’s why so many iconic Star Wars moments, from Chewbacca’s roar to Jabba’s slimy presence, are still the epitome of movie magic.
At its best, Star Wars doesn’t pit practical against CGI. It uses both well. The original trilogy didn’t succeed because it used practical effects. It succeeded because they were used thoughtfully. When modern projects like Andor or The Mandalorian return to that philosophy, they feel much more aligned with the franchise’s roots than pure CGI ever could.
When George Lucas reflected on effects in the early ’80s, during the original trilogy’s Special Editions era, he said, “A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.”
He’s right. However, if the tools happen to be rubber masks and rod puppets, even better.
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