The Wired cover story with JJ Abrams touches on many great elements of the film including his use of real props and locations:
'Being able to use CG to remove things such as puppeteers, arms and controls and strings and legs of people that were under creatures, instead of adding things, was priceless. We were in a desert in Abu Dhabi with five guys inside a Hopabor costume – in between takes they would shove an air conditioning unit up its a** to cool the guys down so they didn’t die in 50°C heat. But you had this physical, tangible creature right there that John Boyega could interact with. Could it have worked otherwise? Of course. We’ve all seen movies that have done that. But by making it physical and real, I would argue it made that scene better. None of this makes it a good movie, but some of it can prevent it from being a bad one.'
Look for the January/February 2016 edition of Wired on UK newsstands this month.
