The Digital Tech of 'Attack of the Clones'

May 16, 2002 -- The good news for Star Wars fans: Yoda, the diminutive Jedi Master, makes a return performance in the latest George Lucas movie, Attack of the Clones. The even better news: He kicks butt — literally.

In the previous Star Wars episodes, the mythical 800-year old imp did little more than just spout off mystical ramblings about "the Force." That's because the only way to create the character for the 1980 movie Star Wars: Episode 5 — The Empire Strikes Back was to use complex immovable puppet models.

But in Clones, the wizen 2-foot tall creature jumps, twirls, and duels with dynamically smooth and powerful moves that would make any kung fu martial artist turn green with envy.

And the "secret" to Yoda's magical transformation? Not surprisingly, it's through the use of powerful digital effects computers.

By using 3-D imaging software and computers, Lucas' own special effects team, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), created a virtual version of the Yoda puppet. "We made him the perfect copy of the puppet," says Lucas. "Only he's a little bit better. He fights, he does all kinds of things."

The Age-Old Quest for the Perfect Effect

And getting a special effect "just right," isn't something that's the alien to Lucas.

In 1977, the technology to produce some of the visual effects in the original Star Wars was fairly rudimentary. If Lucas needed to show a spaceship getting destroyed in battle, it was as simple as, well, blowing up a plastic model.

"On the first trilogy, I was always bumping into this 'I can't do this,' 'I can't do this,' 'I can't do this,'" Lucas told ABCNEWS' Joel Siegel. So, for the most visually compelling scenes, Lucas had to create some of the most revolutionary special effects processes at that time.

For example, Lucas helped develop "motion-controlled cameras" — a computer-controlled system to help match the flying spacecraft against the background of the Death Star in the final battle scene of Star Wars.

"And then in the process of that, I started to get more involved in just pure computer graphics and realized that we could do more things if we could really get to be a more sophisticated medium," says Lucas.

Is It Real or… ?

And it's no surprise then, that the computer graphic technology used the current Star Wars episode isn't just limited to creating artificial characters such as Yoda or other imaginary characters.

In fact, "Every single frame in our movie has a digital effect in it," says Rick McCallum, the executive producer of Attack of the Clones.

And in some cases, the effects are quite noticeable. Aside from Yoda, other creatures, such as the flying insect-like Geonosians were obviously made on computer.

But in most scenes, moviegoers would be hard pressed to determine what was real and what was fake.

In the climatic battle scenes between the clone soldiers in white armor and the evil android robots, some of the soldiers were actual humans, while others were virtual actors created on computer. And both blended seamlessly with the various flying and walking fighting vehicles that also dotted the battleground.

Green Screen Video Game

Much of the visual effects used in Clones sprung from previous ILM staples — namely, a variation of the "blue screen" technique that was developed over the years since their first use in Star Wars in 1977.

In this effect, a camera records the actors in front of a large green screen. The computer systems that help edit the film are keyed to that specific green color and can be digitally "switched" with whatever digital "background" created by the digital effects team.

The process allowed Lucas and his team to blend the live action with virtually anything — from the dark and stormy atmosphere of a distant planet to a fully-animated mythical beast.

But in Clones, Lucas and his team took the digital process yet one more step further.

The company shot the entire motion picture using six new high-definition video cameras from Sony.

By switching to high-quality digital video, each scene could be reviewed — and redone — almost immediately. And Lucas says such tricks were invaluable to scenes that required real actors to interact with the virtual ones.

In such cases, the ILM team might create a rough digital video of what creature a real actor had to face. And by playing it on a large digital monitor on the acting stage, Lucas could give his human actors an idea of what — and how — his stars should react.

"Its like being in a video game," says Lucas. "It allowed them to really play the part and know where they were and see the action in front of them so they could react to it."

And the results are truly seamless action sequences.

For instance, in one scene Samuel L. Jackson's character, Jedi Knight Mace Windu, must duel against an elephant-sized six-legged beast. And the way Windu ducks and weaves to avoid the creature's attack makes it seem as if the beast is actually going to spear the warrior should he take a miscalculated step.

Saving Time

But by switching over to digital recording technology, adding such complex visual effects was much easier says Jody Duncan, the editor for Cinefex, a trade magazine for the visual effects industry.

"They didn't have to create the special effect in the computer, then wait for the two or three day process of converting them to film to be added to the [live motion] action," says Duncan, who is also writing a "behind-the-scenes" book for Del Rey, a unit of Random House Publishing. "The digital team just added them in as they got the [digital] footage."

And by saving on that time-consuming process, Duncan says that the digital effects team at ILM were able to add two or three digital effect shots per day — more than double the rate used in the previous movie, The Phantom Menace

Human Performance Still Counts

But while the time- and cost-saving benefits of digital effects technology has certainly helped Lucas make Attack of the Clones a visually compelling motion picture, many doubt that movies will become completely digital.

Even the great Lucas himself notes that computer technology isn't the be all to end all.

"We've pushed the boundaries of the technology," says Lucas. "But ultimately, the technology is really a tool for the craftsman, the artist to tell their stories."

"It's not about replacing the puppet or replicating Ewan [McGregor] or Natalie [Portman] or Hayden [Christensen]," Lucas says. "It's about the performance. And that [is something] the computer can't do without a lot of work from a lot of animators and the actor doing the voice and helping and everything else."

"So actors are never, ever, ever going to go away," he says.

At least not in this galaxy. ABCNEWS' Fred Dorn, Peter Ember, and Joel Siegel contributed to this report.