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SYFY WIRE Star Wars

The Mandalorian VFX featurette reveals no real banthas were harmed in the making of the show

By Vanessa Armstrong
The Mandalorian

Season 2 of The Mandalorian may have ended in December, but there’s something new to watch while we wait (a long time, most likely) for the next season to drop.

ILM released a new behind-the-scenes video today that highlights the show’s more than 5,000 visual effects, which — according to the video description — “leveraged virtually every trick in the book, from miniatures and motion control to traditional puppeteering, advanced animatronics, spectacular special effects, and photo-real CG.”

The 3.5-minute video, edited by Brent Segura-Bowers, shows various scenes from Season 2’s eight episodes overlayed with preliminary visual effects and the final image, giving viewers the opportunity to see the amount of work that went into each jaw-dropping scene.

Check out the video here:

Wow! It makes you want to watch the whole season over again (assuming Disney+ doesn’t crash with everyone trying to watch the latest episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, of course)!

The featurette reveals what was CGI and what was practical, with the two often being pulled together seamlessly for a memorable shot. Remember that mountain-sized acid-spewing dragon who ate an entire bantha? Don’t worry — that bantha (along with the dragon) were entirely CGI.

The footage also shows a practical model of Moff Gideon’s Imperial Light Cruiser, which has a real glowing engine(!), as well as a breakdown of Ahsoka’s lightsaber battle in the dead forest of Corvus. Perhaps the most impressive footage, however, is when the video draws a line through the scene where Mayfield (Bill Burr) is extracted from his junk jailyard by Cara Dune (Gina Carano) to delineate what was the physical set and what was projected on the LED wall.

One of the last scenes in the video is another visual effects overlay of the fight/chase scene between the tank that Mayfield and Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) are driving, and the locals attacking them. It’s all very awesome, and very impressive, and it’ll be sure to make Mandalorian fans even more impatient for the next season to come out. No word on when Season 3 will begin production, although Lucasfilm has confirmed that The Book of Boba Fett is set to shoot first.