While J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” resulted in many reactions, quite a lot of them not good, one of the few elements that was unanimously well-received was the tiny alien mechanic character Babu Frik.
Frik makes adjustments C-3P0 in a key scene in the film which ends with a big shoot out. Now, creature effects creative supervisor Neal Scanlan has revealed to Empire that the character might have died off in the finale were it not for the eagle eyes of one Steven Spielberg.
Scanlan tells the British mag: “It could be a rumour, but I believe J.J. screened the movie for Steven Spielberg, and at the end Spielberg said, ‘What happened to Babu?’. Everybody thought, ‘Oh God, what did happen to Babu?’. I think he was going to die originally – I think the AD shot that. When the planet [Kijimi] was blown up, he was on it.”
In the film, Frik turns up on Zorii’s ship alive and well, and it turns out that wasn’t planned but a bit of digital trickery by ILM: “We shot several other sequences. The ILM guys found one, lifted out Babu and put him into Zorii’s ship at the end.”
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is now available on digital.
