UPDATE! Pic of the Day: The Creatures from Star Wars: The Force Awakens! Interview with Neal Scanlan.

Neal ScanlanStar Wars: The Force Awakens chief of creature and droid effects Neal Scanlan poses with the creatures from the movie.

 

Lots of familiar faces including Rey’s head!?! 🙂

 

I can’t help but think of this image from the Original Trilogy:

puppets1

 

Thanks to StarWarsJunk for spotting the image.

 

 

UPDATE!

 

You can check BBC’s Brenda Emmanus interview with Neal Scanlan HERE.

 

Website | + posts

Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.

Born on April 24, 1980.

Val Trichkov (Viral Hide)

Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.Born on April 24, 1980.

68 thoughts on “UPDATE! Pic of the Day: The Creatures from Star Wars: The Force Awakens! Interview with Neal Scanlan.

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:25 am
    Permalink

    best part about that pic is how many new creatures there are. love that they are expanding the universe more, i mean its a huge galaxy after all!

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:27 am
    Permalink

    why is there a dummy head of Daisy Ridley in that pic ?

    • December 11, 2015 at 1:29 am
      Permalink

      Second Comment!

    • December 11, 2015 at 1:48 am
      Permalink

      Maybe a reedition of that scene at the Dagobah cave?
      Rey fights Kylo and sees her face under his mask?
      I’m hoping not, but I see no other usage for a severed head of Rey.

    • December 11, 2015 at 2:23 am
      Permalink

      I want one but not saying why

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:36 am
    Permalink

    I can’t wait to see that creepy alien in the blue shirt in the center of the picture.

    • December 11, 2015 at 1:47 am
      Permalink

      Lol yes.

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:40 am
    Permalink

    Rey head is creepy as fuck

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:41 am
    Permalink

    They did promise plenty of surprises. Severing Rey’s head would certainly qualify.

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:47 am
    Permalink

    Noice.

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:50 am
    Permalink

    Is that a Lasat (Zeb’s species) to the right of Ackbar?!

    • December 11, 2015 at 1:56 am
      Permalink

      I was gonna say it looks a lot like them.

    • December 11, 2015 at 2:03 am
      Permalink

      Zeb is the last of his species

      • December 11, 2015 at 2:22 am
        Permalink

        or almost the last…

    • December 11, 2015 at 2:22 am
      Permalink

      that’s a Hassk I believe

      • December 11, 2015 at 5:18 am
        Permalink

        Very funny.

        • December 11, 2015 at 3:52 pm
          Permalink

          what’s funny?

    • December 11, 2015 at 2:58 am
      Permalink

      Could be. It looks like an old one though so maybe…? Naaahhhh

    • December 11, 2015 at 8:12 am
      Permalink

      That actually appears to be based on, if not exactly like, one of Ralph McQuarrie’s original designs for Chewbacca…which is easily the inspiration for Zeb.
      I never tire of seeing these old and unused concepts from McQuarrie and Lucas pop up in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and now a few instances in TFA.

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:58 am
    Permalink

    i do know sometimes they use dummy’s of actors in scenes where another actor needs to carry this actors ( so was Sigourney Weaver mostly walking around with a Newt dummy in Aliens) Maybe its for the scene when Kylo Ren abducts Rey ?

    • December 11, 2015 at 4:41 am
      Permalink

      Hayden carried a dummy of Ewan at the during the ship escape scene at the beginning of ROTS.

      • December 11, 2015 at 3:32 pm
        Permalink

        Yeah, and ewan carried a dummy called hayden for the rest of the movie!!!

        • December 12, 2015 at 12:18 am
          Permalink

          Oh snap…

  • December 11, 2015 at 2:12 am
    Permalink

    Poor 3PO always gets left out.

    “How typical”

  • December 11, 2015 at 2:34 am
    Permalink

    I spy Ackbar…

  • December 11, 2015 at 2:56 am
    Permalink

    Is that Momaw Nadon on Neal Scalan’s right side!?!?

    • December 11, 2015 at 4:30 am
      Permalink

      No. It’s a little hard to tell because it’s a profile shot, but it’s a new creature from Maz Kanata’s castle. He’s on the left side of the picture below.

  • December 11, 2015 at 3:06 am
    Permalink

    Look at R2 then move your eyes along to left of pic. looks like Rey’s face!

  • December 11, 2015 at 3:21 am
    Permalink

    very back next to chewbacca…is that plageuis…i mean snoke 😉

  • December 11, 2015 at 3:24 am
    Permalink

    Anyone notice the Maz model between the big sitting guy’s legs (the one Neal is beside)?

    • December 11, 2015 at 3:42 am
      Permalink

      Anyone else think Maz’s goggles look like Anakin’s from the pod race? She has his pod race flag… Why not the goggles?

      Maybe light side users worship relics of Anakin Skywalker like his goggles and lightsaber while dark side users worship relics of Vader (melted helmet).

    • December 11, 2015 at 8:00 am
      Permalink

      Yes she seems more blusih though. Perhaps the concepts aren’t wrong perhaps she changes color.

  • December 11, 2015 at 4:46 am
    Permalink

    My favorite is the large hammer-head dude to the left-center bent over Neal, rocking a tattered robe.

  • December 11, 2015 at 5:21 am
    Permalink

    In front of the big creature in the middle’s left leg (our right), there seems to be yoda species bust

    • December 11, 2015 at 7:59 am
      Permalink

      I found out on closer inspection he has a blie beard and in the vanity fair

  • December 11, 2015 at 5:44 am
    Permalink

    My only, very minor complaint about the creature shot is that aside from Ackbar ad Nien Nunb, we don’t see returning background aliens. I would have liked a background alien or two from the PT or OT for fluidity purposes.

    Still, nice to see real puppets nonetheless.

    • December 11, 2015 at 5:53 am
      Permalink

      I was waiting for a comment like yours, but if it was all rehashed aliens someone would have commented why don’t we have any new ones, and would have claimed just fanservice of the OT. I guess it depends on which planets we go to and the moment in time that we are there.

      Like I said, they just can’t win. In every SW movie there are aliens we didn’t see in some of the other movies.

      • December 11, 2015 at 6:27 am
        Permalink

        It could be more than two without getting anywhere near ‘all’.

      • December 11, 2015 at 8:29 am
        Permalink

        Not talking about rehashed. I want mostly new ones as much of the rest feels derivative. But I was just hoping for one or two familiar background ones just for the sake of feeling continuity. At the moment, I’m beginning to feel that TFA happens in a different saga from the prequels. One of the few constants between the PT and OT were some of the familiar background aliens.

        • December 11, 2015 at 3:28 pm
          Permalink

          Could do with a few jawas. I love those little bastards!!!

    • December 11, 2015 at 6:35 am
      Permalink

      These aren’t ALL the creatures they made, so there’s still a chance of seeing some oldies. 7 days! 🙂

    • December 11, 2015 at 6:35 am
      Permalink

      Same, they could use huge variety of already existing aliens and add just few new ones in new Trilogy, I’ve don’t like this kind of ignorance, same with Prequels complete absence!…

  • December 11, 2015 at 6:32 am
    Permalink

    The furry black monster looks like the aliens from Attack The Block

  • December 11, 2015 at 6:36 am
    Permalink

    The furry black monster looks like the aliens from Attack The Block.

  • December 11, 2015 at 6:45 am
    Permalink

    Maz drawing in back and also a sculpt of her with bluer skin under the Fat type Bossk guys legs..also looks like a Yoda creatures head. Wonder if there’s half a Snoke or concept art of him in here…hope not the Yoda species one.

    • December 11, 2015 at 7:57 am
      Permalink

      Saw on the closeup the one I thought was a Yoda species is in the vanity fair pic too….has the blue beard so I was wrong.

  • December 11, 2015 at 6:46 am
    Permalink

    Looks like Chewie lost his shoes (lower left in front). 🙂

  • December 11, 2015 at 6:48 am
    Permalink

    I’m convinced now with the Rey head that Greg Nicotero is somehow involved with this film.

    • December 12, 2015 at 2:57 am
      Permalink

      Why?

  • December 11, 2015 at 8:05 am
    Permalink

    Upon re looking at the photo too…I notice that woman has long hair not pulled back like Rey and it appears to be on the same set of shoulders as the gorilla head. Two headed creature maybe?

  • December 11, 2015 at 8:20 am
    Permalink

    I LOVE this photo and could look at all these fantastic creatures for hours.
    I think It’s save to say STAR WARS is back with a bang!

  • December 11, 2015 at 10:58 am
    Permalink

    There’s a lasat like Zeb from Rebels 😀 since the show started I was wondering how would that old McQuarrie design translate to reality. Really like it.

    • December 11, 2015 at 2:46 pm
      Permalink

      It’s actually a new creature to Star Wars called a Hassk. The species was first introduced in the Crimson Corsair short story I think. There is a TFA action figure for a Hassk Thug (below). You can tell this is the same species as the head in the photo above.

      • December 11, 2015 at 4:46 pm
        Permalink

        They’re ugly. Large hair gremlins.

        I like.

      • December 12, 2015 at 2:53 am
        Permalink

        My favorite TFA alien so far.

    • December 11, 2015 at 1:52 pm
      Permalink

      Thankyou for that link..lovely interview

  • December 11, 2015 at 1:35 pm
    Permalink

    that 1 photo (top) looks more star wars than the combined run time of the PT

    • December 11, 2015 at 3:07 pm
      Permalink

      Oh snap.

    • December 11, 2015 at 6:00 pm
      Permalink

      Nope.
      PT has great looking creatures.
      These are just meh..

      • December 11, 2015 at 8:41 pm
        Permalink

        i concur. these new creatures feel too much Del Toro-esque to me.. they’d fit Hellboy, but SW? i dunno..

      • December 12, 2015 at 12:17 am
        Permalink

        Yes, it has great looking animated cartoo–I mean, um, creatures.

  • December 11, 2015 at 9:03 pm
    Permalink

    Possible tie-in with the Star Wars Uprising Game. The creature in the bottom left sitting on the floor was just introduced to the game with this weeks update. He’s referred to as a “Data Broker” and you trade items to him for info and gear.

    • December 12, 2015 at 12:16 am
      Permalink

      he looks like the same species as Ello Asty.

  • December 12, 2015 at 12:53 am
    Permalink

    These creatures are kinda boring looking. They all the same skin tone. The OT had better looking ones. Rodians and duros are the coolest

  • December 12, 2015 at 2:56 am
    Permalink

    I – Boonta Eve Podracers
    II – Outlander Club Customers
    III – Galaxies Opera Patrons
    IV – Cantina Denizens
    V – Uhhh, Cloud City Citizens?
    VI – Jabba’s Palace Court
    VII – Maz’s Castle Pirates
    Curious to see what they do for the next too and if they do any alien scenes for the spinoffs.

  • December 12, 2015 at 9:00 pm
    Permalink

    Seeing that Rey head, I’m wondering how it’s going to be used. Perhaps Rey’s face could be damaged while fighting Kylo Ren… hmmmm. Would be a shame though, she’s flawless.

Comments are closed.

LATEST POSTS ON MOVIE NEWS NET