The climactic duel on Mustafar shockingly broke a Star Wars record in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, paving the way for the technology used in The Mandalorian. Heavily criticized for the extreme use of CG, the Star Wars prequel trilogy actually makes use of more miniatures and models than the original trilogy. With the scope and scale of the prequels being drastically bigger, poorly-aged CG environments stick out like a sore thumb, while the practical elements of the trilogy are as convincing as anything made for the original films.
Many would naturally assume that Mustafar was a CG creation, and they’d partially be correct. Behind the scenes footage of the lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan shows mostly blue screen with markers used for the sets Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor worked on. The control room was entirely built, as were any other structures the actors had to interact with, and lava bursts were a mix of CG and real footage obtained by a crew sent to Mount Etna’s eruption. To truly accomplish the look and feel of Mustafar, however, ILM’s production team went old school – breaking a Star Wars record in the process.
Mustafar Is The Largest Model In Star Wars
What’s largely considered an entirely digital setting is actually Star Wars‘ biggest model in history. Clocking in at 18 feet wide, 33 feet long, and seven feet high, per Paul Duncan’s The Star Wars Archives: 1999 – 2005, Mustafar is far larger than the Death Star II model used for Return of the Jedi or a portion of the original Death Star’s trench made for explosion effects. At the time of Revenge of the Sith‘s release, the model of Mustafar was largest of its kind in film history. While it could have been accomplished entirely through CG, going practical was deemed the more realistic approach.
ILM deemed it easier to nail the flow of lava through practical means, tasking the modeling group with developing a scaled version of Mustafar’s full set. A special material was used for the rock formations, chipped away easily to create jagged incuts that looked like natural formations. Once complete, the model was tilted at 10 degrees, and ILM spent substantial time determining the mixtures of paint to use for the lava and crust. it was decided that the lava should flow quickly, making for the exciting sequence seen in the final version of the film.
Revenge Of The Sith Laid The Foundation For The Mandalorian’s Volume
Visual effects have progressed significantly since 2005, with quality CG work difficult to decipher from practical sets. The Mandalorian continued ILM’s tradition of trailblazing with the invention of the Volume, and LED soundstage with pre-created digital sets surrounding the practical elements. In an interview with Inverse, senior vice president of Lucasfilm Janet Lewin revealed that the Mustafar sequence in Revenge of the Sith paved the way for this work.
“We’re always trying to look for that blend between different mediums, but to still get that handcrafted, realistic result. If you have an over-reliance on computer graphics, and that’s where you get some of those unrealistic camera moves. We learned a lot on Revenge of the Sith, and now you see a kind of a full circle approach where visual effects are actually right at the beginning of the process.”
Perhaps no sequence in The Mandalorian better demonstrates this than the lava river on Nevarro. While slightly darker and lacking the volcanoes of Mustafar, the setting is a seamless merging of practical in the boat and the digitally created lava. The sequence appears natural, with the lava flowing at the same clip as Mustafar’s in Revenge of the Sith‘s groundbreaking model set.
