The Last Jedi’s Throne Room Fight’s Surprising Digital Effect
Special effects supervisor Chris Corbould has revealed some surprising details about the throne room fight in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The second film in the new Star Wars trilogy opened to massive numbers with fans flocking to the theaters, but the film ultimately left viewers split either loving or hating the bold direction that director Rian Johnson took.
Most fans would agree that one aspect the film exceeded in was the special effects, which ranged from CGI for the epic space fight scenes to the use of animatronics and puppets for those adorable porgs. One of the most impressive scenes in the film is the climatic fight between Snoke’s Elite Praetorian Guards and Rey and Kylo Ren in the throne room. During the scene, Kylo decides who his real enemy is by slicing Snoke in half with Rey’s lightsaber. The unlikely allies then battle it out with Snoke’s Guards, with sparks and flames flying just before Kylo assumes his new role as Supreme Leader, much to Rey’s disappointment.
In Screen Rant‘s exclusive interview with Corbould, the special effects supervisor revealed some surprising details about the effects used the bring the throne room fight to life. When it comes to films like Star Wars, sometimes it can be hard to distinguish CGI from reality. During the fight there are sparks, flames, and material flying around when the walls ignites and begins to burn down. While it seems like there are flames and embers burning in the air around Rey and Kylo, it’s actually all CGI. Here is what Corbould said about the scene:
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“I think the fight in Snoke’s throne room is possibly one of those. We did a lot of fire effects, pieces of material, flames of material dropping around Rey as the whole fight was going, but in actual fact the whole background flames – you know, all the background alight was all CG. So, I’d like to take the credit for that, but that was them.”
It’s not surprising that the flames in the scene are entirely CGI when re-watching the scene. The background burns very quickly with large chunks of burning wall falling from the ceiling, landing around Rey and Kylo timed perfectly. It’s also a lot of fire, so for safety reasons it makes sense that the special effects experts would rather have the set burn down via CGI then use actual flames.
With The Last Jedi DVD/Blu-ray hitting shelves on March 27, fans will be able to watch behind-the-scenes featurettes and feature commentary from Johnson showing all the movie magic behind the film. There will also be 14 deleted scenes included, so fans will be able to see more of what Johnson envisioned for the movie before it was cut for theatrical release.
