How 'The Mandalorian' Brought This Famous Character Back To Life

Star Wars fans went nuts and celebrated about the final episode of The Mandalorian season 2 as, a long time fan favorite and famous Star Wars character came back at the end of the episode. It gave all the Star Wars and non Star Wars fans the unexpected goosebumps, as the character appeared and surprised everyone with the bad ass significant moves.

This article contains major SPOILERS on The Mandalorian final episode of season 2.

Lucasfilm and Jon Favreau, the executive producer and showrunner of The Mandalorian, gave the Star Wars fans one more trick up his sleeve as the episode treated fans around the globe with the nostalgic return of Luke Skywalker, portrayed by Mark Hamill himself with the aid of body double Max Lloyd-Jones. Using the same de-aging CGI that was reintroduced the A New Hope depictions of Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia and Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story back in 2016, as well as younger versions of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker last year. This type of technology was also used in 2015’s Marvel’s Ant-Man (directed by Peyton Reed, who also directed this finale), with Michael Douglas playing his younger self in the beginning of the film.

Mark Hamill reprised his iconic role as Luke Skywalker, this time as as the younger version in the final episode in The Mandalorian season 2 courtesy of Lucasfilm’s VFX house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which has produced the VFX magic on all Star Wars since 1977. Although the details on how to bring the character back have been kept under wraps, there are several techniques that may have been used to bring the Jedi master back on screen.

As we see in the end credits, Mark Hamill did get credit as Luke Skywalker, but Max Lloyd Jones is also named as a body double for the Jedi. This could be the same technique they used in Rogue One with Grand Moff Tarkin, by using Guy Henry, a 56-year-old British actor, as a body double whose other credits include Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2. This is the exact same technique that was used with Arnold Schwarzenegger in two Terminator films, Terminator: Salvation and Terminator: Dark Fate. In Terminator: Salvation, they used a body builder to come out from the chamber and replaced his head with the digital version of a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger for his so-called cameo. This was also done in the beginning of Terminator: Dark Fate during the beach scene, where they used a body builder and replace his head with a digital version of younger Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as a different kid to play John Connor whose head was replaced with a digital version of 12-year-old Edward Furlong. Another possibility is that the creative team could have incorporated some found footage from the production of Return of the Jedi into the shots to create a young Leia and Luke on lightsaber training in The Rise of Skywalker.

In this case, it seems like Mark Hamill himself was de-aged through the use of a three-camera rig with a main camera and two witness cameras, which allowed Hamill to perform on set without a mo-cap suit and tracking markers, which are the exact techniques that were used by ILM in last year’s The Irishman on Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, who all had decades removed from their faces. With Mark Hamill in his late 60s, some of the physical work before his face reveal may have been a bit difficult. Max Lloyd Jones, who is credited as the body double, appears to have done the physical work as the Jedi slashing the lightsaber all around the room.

Again, this is just our speculation as Lucasfilm and the filmmakers keep this sort of thing under wraps. But who knows? In the future, they may reveal the process in something like Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, which comes out with a season 2-focused episode this Friday.

The Mandalorian season 2 is now available, with all episodes streaming on Disney+.

Written By Pat Kusnadi

Syndicated From Culture Slate