‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Effects Artists On The Epic Crait Battle

The Star Wars movies have always been at the forefront of cutting edge special effects, and that won’t change with the latest film in the Skywalker Saga.

Supervising Technical Director David Weitzberg spoke about his role in the production of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and how Industrial Light & Magic is pushing the new film’s epic battle scenes.

“I worked on several shots in the Battle of Crait,” Weitzberg said to StarWars.com. “You can see Crait in the trailer but I didn’t work directly on any of those shots. There’s one shot, kind of from behind that’s very similar to a shot that I worked on. My team did the speeder trails and the explosions whenever anything hits the ground.”

Weitzberg also worked on those same scenes for Disney Parks‘ Star Tours: The Adventure Continues. They recently received an update which takes visitors to the surface of Crait during the ride, inspired by Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

“I actually worked on Last Jedi on the same sequences we visit in Star Tours, so it really is bringing everything together,” Weitzberg said. “I like working on the ride, it’s a different medium. Putting it in that ride experience adds a new dimension to it. It’s also different where, when you work on a shot in a movie, you might spend months working on something that’s gone in a second. But when you work on the ride, you work more on the whole ride and it’s great to work on every part of it.”

The effects director, who interned for the company while they were working on the Special Editions of the movie, also worked on all of the prequel films. He spoke about how the technology has become more advanced for the new movies.

“Back then, the tools weren’t as refined as they are now and so we really were creating what we needed on the fly. As the technology has evolved, we’re able to do much more complicated simulations now,” Weitzberg said. “There can still be a lot of programming but there has also been a lot of software developed that lets artists focus on making their work look good without worrying so much about the technical aspects of how do you do it.”

But no matter how much the tools change, other aspects stay the same.

“A lot of the processes are the same. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but part of the fun, I think, of working in this industry is every project has its own challenges,” Weitzberg said.

Fans will be able to see his hard work when Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres in theaters on December 15.