David Yeh, writing and photographing over at the always informative Endor Express brings us this great interview with creature creator Neal Scanlan, discussing his time in the Star Wars galaxy, his work on The Last Jedi and much more besides.
Scanlan was asked whether there was a specific requirement to create so many new creatures for the film, steering away from the classic creatures of the previous films.
Neal: I wouldn’t say it’s as clinical as that but there is – one of the amazing things Rian has done is he’s taken the first step, I feel, and you’ll know when you see the movie what I’m talking about. There’s a point where we wave goodbye to the past a little and start to take those first steps in standing on our own two feet.
And what I mean by that is in Force Awakens, we very much look back on the legacy that George (Lucas) has created, what Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston and what those guys have done… in order to take the ego out of it and understand the brilliance of what these amazing people have achieved… There’s a point where we can’t keep going back and relying on that and Rian has forced us to visit some places we haven’t seen before and that then demands that you stand creatively.
We take the reassurances that you understand the genre implicity, but there’s never really a mandate that you have to have this many creatures. It’s totally story driven.