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Mandalorian and Grogu VFX Veteran on Rotta's Redesign

Hal Hickel, an Industrial Light and Magic animation supervisor, tells Variety how a puppet-legend question shaped the film's creature work; the plan sounds suspiciously like improvisation.

Photo: Hal Hickel
Photo: Boungawa · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · altered by BBN, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0

At a glance

The real story

The reporting behind this segment. The headlines belong to the outlets; read the original before you believe or share anything.

What BBN said about it

  1. Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorOn October sixteenth, twenty twenty-six, Variety reports that Industrial Light and Magic animation supervisor Hal Hickel approached The Mandalorian and Grogu with one question: what would Phil do?

  2. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorPhil is Phil Tippett, the creature legend. Hundreds of artists, a giant budget, and the plan is to guess what one man would do. Marvellous.

  3. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorIt's all going to fall apart.

  4. Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorGuess?

  5. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorDecades of craft, Hank, reduced to a sticky note on a monitor. Somebody will lose it by Tuesday and the film will be doomed.

  6. Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorI've never actually watched a movie in my entire life. I thought Grogu was some kind of soup.

  7. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorNot one? Not even the one with the boat?

  8. Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThere was a boat?

  9. Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorVariety also says the story covers a redesign of Rotta, and Jon Favreau's approach, which the headline calls less James Bond, more Jackass.

  10. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorLess Bond, more Jackass. That is the most honest mission statement I have heard since two thousand nine, and it ends in a hospital.

  11. Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorSo what would Phil do about my never having seen any of these films?

  12. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorPhil would watch them, Hank. Slowly, one frame at a time.

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