Star Wars fans will recall that when 1999's Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace was initially released it utilized practical effects to realize Jedi Grandmaster Yoda, but for the 2002 sequel Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones the character was realized using groundbreaking performance capture and CGI visual effects. This decision was made by creator/director George Lucas and Lucasfilm because of the inherent limitations when using practical effects that would have made Yoda's lightsaber duel with the late, great Christopher Lee's Count Dooku almost certainly impossible.
Courtesy of Making Star Wars, whom seem to be reporting from inside sources close to production of 2017's Star Wars Episode VIII, we could see a similar turnaround of character realization with The Force Awakens mysterious antagonist Supreme Leader Snoke, with the reliable site claiming that Snoke will be realized in the forthcoming sequel using a combination of Practical visual effects, puppetry, performance capture and CGI...
For Star Wars: Episode VIII it appears, at least in part, that Snoke will not be a character generated in a computer. Instead he will be a huge puppet around seven to eight feet tall, taking several people to operate and a man inside a suit to make him walk. Stylistically, it seems as if Snoke may be CGI generated for the holographic communication sequences, but when he has scenes in Episode VIII next to real flesh-and-blood humans like Kylo Ren he will be a practical puppet with facial features operated by the crew.
We don’t know exactly how much screen time Snoke has in Episode VIII and that makes it impossible to say he’s almost always a puppet in the film or CGI. But we do know the puppet is pretty impressive and appears to be articulated in such a way it seems it is more than an elaborate stand-in.
We suspect that the film may show us some of Kylo Ren, General Hux, and Phasma meeting with Snoke after the destruction of Starkiller Base. It has been confirmed that the film begins mere moments after Star Wars: The Force Awakens. With a lot of the film taking place on Anch-To where Rey and Luke are, it seems as if we might get the juxtaposition of Luke and Rey between Snoke and Kylo. It would seem the puppet Snoke would be more powerful and interesting to look at than a CGI character, of which audiences are continually critiquing the visuals.
While I do agree with Making Star Wars that the use of practical effects is more effective, allowing the crew to keep costs down, honoring the practical effects tradition of the original trilogy and allowing the cast something to react to, I also believe that for a character such as Supreme Leader Snoke the facial expressions need to be those of the performance capture actor Andy Serkis. This could be done by superimposing Serkis' digitally captured performance onto the face of the proposed puppet. Rather than utilizing one method of visual effects or another, using a combination of all suitable techniques can be used to create the best possible performance by utilizing the advantages of each.
