'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Easter egg production took one year; Kylo Ren almost looked like Captain Phasma

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has several Easter eggs that remind the audience about the scenes in the original trilogy. A new report reveals how the scene involving a holographic board game known as Dejarik took one year to produce.

Director J.J. Abrams had approached special effects specialist Phil Tippett with the idea of recreating the classic board game for a scene. Abrams wanted to use the stop-motion technique to make the scene, Wired reports.

Tippett would have rejected the idea of using the stop motion technique, if not for the “Mad God” project that he and his team were working on at that time. The project allowed them to use the stop motion technique, instead of going with digital.

The team then went about locating the actual clay figures that were used in the original trilogy. They were able to locate four of them at the Lucasfilm archives, but they were all in bad condition. The other two figures were purchased by Peter Jackson and were in New Zealand. The last two figures were not found.

Tippett and his team managed to create the figures for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” using photogrammetry, 3D scans and production photos of the original trilogy. The eight alien creature figures were 3D-printed by the production team of the movie.

Meanwhile, costume designer Michael Kaplan revealed in an interview with Clothes on Film that the costume of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) initially looked like that of Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie). Abrams apparently rejected the design by saying that it was not right for the villainous character.

“When I was trying to ‘tackle’ Kylo Ren’s character, I thought, what if he were The Lord of the Stormtroopers, in bright shining silver armour?” Kaplan said. Eventually, it was producer Kathleen Kennedy who liked the design and the costume was adapted for Captain Phasma in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”