Check Out a Revealing New VFX Video From The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was in many ways a return to the roots of the Star Wars franchise. There were fewer extravagantly choreographed lightsaber fights, fewer conversations about sand, and more practical effects. Even so, The Force Awakens still used its fair share of CGI, and now Industrial Light & Magic has pulled back the curtain, so to speak, and released a video with many of their best digital effects from the film.

The video moves chronologically through the film, and shows us how much work went into crafting this world after the cameras had stopped rolling. For example, one of the first images we saw from the film, that of a minuscule Rey speeding past an enormous star destroyer, was mostly visual effects. That Star Destroyer wasn’t a matte painting, it was constructed as a model, which created a more immersive experience for audiences.

The majority of the work done by the team involved filling in the background of a space, adding additional stormtroopers or creating additional scenery. On other occasions, the film relied on digital effects to tell its story. The Millennium Falcon is actually a green screen in its first appearance in the film as Finn and Rey sprint towards it.

This video gives you a sense of how much work went into creating The Force Awakens, and how many people were involved in doing the job. It’s not as if the film could have been released the second the last scene was shot. If that had happened, it might not have made such a ridiculous amount of money. Check out the full VFX video above, and watch the magic unfold before your eyes.