The Child (a.k.a. Baby Yoda) is a technological marvel that absolutely captivated audiences when he made his surprise debut at the end of The Mandalorian‘s first episode. Heck, even the actors and crew were mesmerized by the animatronic puppet. Werner Herzog cooed at it like a real, live baby in between takes, and Taika Waititi couldn’t stop holding the little guy. When it came time to punch the tiny alien during a scene in the season finale, Adam Pally, who was playing the part of a scout trooper, actually got nervous. Then again, showrunner Jon Favreau also informed him that the puppet is a $5 million piece of equipment. No wonder he looks so adorable.
While the vast majority of Baby Yoda’s scenes feature the impressive puppet, the special effects team admitted during Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian that a few shots were CGI, but they never specified which ones, and they noted it’d be hard for audiences to spot them. Until now. In a new interview with Variety, animation supervisor Hal Hickel opened up about the major scene where Baby Yoda uses his Force powers for the first time, and it turns out, it’s one of those rare CGI moments.
Of course, the puppet does the heavy lifting in the show — the puppet is the baseline — but at that moment in time we were still figuring out what the puppet could do and how to get the best out of it. That particular shot of the baby using the Force to pick up the Mudhorn was the hardest from a CG perspective because it was such a big performance moment — its face was so concentrated. We were trying to make sure we didn’t do more than the puppet could do, and that we didn’t break what’s awesome and charming and perfect about the puppet.
Using the CGI for that early scene tracks with Werner Herzog’s account that The Mandalorian team was leaning towards going full CGI for Baby Yoda instead of the animatronic until he called the filmmakers “cowards” for not having faith in the puppet. Like we mentioned earlier, Herzog loved that little guy. Like a lot.
(Via Variety)