The die-hard fans of Star Wars and Star Trek had always been mortal enemies. Moreover, unlike the masked role Duke had prepared for Simon Pegg, Benedict Cumberbatch was competing for the male lead. Doing something that severely contradicted the opinions of the core fanbase—without enough benefit—was something Duke would never do casually.
Besides, he planned to cast Daniel Wu, a Chinese actor, as the second lead, and a Latino actor for the third lead. Benedict Cumberbatch simply didn't fit these requirements.
Although Benedict Cumberbatch showed strong enthusiasm for the role, and his popularity and fame were much higher, Duke still chose to refuse him.
Duke wasn't particularly familiar with the Star Trek series. During his spare time in the preparation phase, he watched several of the most classic Star Trek films. After all, any series that could be produced for so many years and receive such strong fan support must have its merits—perhaps he could learn something from it.
However, after watching several Star Trek movies, Duke found that they were of no help to Star Wars at all.
Though Star Wars and Star Trek were both science fiction films about interstellar wars, they had essential differences. The two series emphasized completely different things.
In Star Wars, as with other typical Hollywood blockbusters, the most important thing was to promote good and punish evil—everything else took a back seat. Evil forces could never defeat the light side, or it would be politically incorrect. In Star Trek, the most important thing was scientific progress and the spirit of exploration; good and evil were unimportant—strength was the foundation for survival in the universe.
Therefore, Star Wars was pseudo–science fiction—merely a drama blockbuster wrapped in a sci-fi shell.
In Star Wars, whether technology was advanced or not didn't matter. As long as one possessed the Force, one could overcome everything. The Force transcended physical laws and created supernatural phenomena. Such a setting greatly reduced the sci-fi nature of Star Wars, making it more like a fantasy story.
To a certain extent, the Star Wars series belonged to the "space opera" category—very epic, with grand scenes and a clear story flow; Star Trek, on the other hand, could be considered a "space western," with its film versions often emphasizing its narrative core: exploring the unknown and boldly moving forward.
While Duke was preparing for the film, Lucasfilm also signed promotional partnership agreements with several companies.
In February, virtual reality enthusiasts and Star Wars fans received the news they had long been waiting for—Star Wars was about to fully enter the realm of virtual reality experiences. Lucasfilm and Google had formed a strategic partnership to develop it, officially launching the production of a full VR experience, opening a brand-new Star Wars universe.
This complete VR experience would include a convincing story and exclusive, never-before-seen content directly tied to the beginning of the new Star Wars series. Fans would be able to access it through the official Star Wars app on iOS and Android.
Google wasn't just making a VR experience for Star Wars: Episode VII—they were bundling every related application, requiring users to choose between the Light Side and the Dark Side. A dedicated team would closely track the related data.
That spring, news about Star Wars: Episode VII dominated the front pages of most entertainment media. Whenever the buzz slightly cooled down, Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. would release new updates to capture fans' attention.
However, since it was still awards season, Oscar-related news stole quite a bit of attention. So, when the Oscar nomination list was announced and media attention shifted, Duke, Lucasfilm, and Warner Bros. jointly held a press conference to officially announce the film's title—Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
This news instantly drew fans' focus back again.
Three months remained before Star Wars: The Force Awakens would start filming, and the special effects work had already begun. One of the key tasks was designing a brand-new droid. In the concept drafts Duke submitted to Industrial Light & Magic, the droid—named BB-8—would not fight enemies in the film like R2-D2. Its main job was to be cute.
BB-8 would shoulder the responsibilities of promotion and driving merchandise sales.
Although his drawing skills were limited, Duke had already created BB-8's prototype sketch the previous year. On a sheet of paper, he drew the first rough sketch of BB-8.
Considering the Star Wars series' tradition of lively, handcrafted design and the tone of The Force Awakens, Duke's hand-drawn concept featured BB-8 made of two stacked spheres, with a small dot on the upper sphere representing its eye. This sketch became the core concept behind BB-8's design.
Duke's idea inspired Industrial Light & Magic designer Christian Alzmann to complete BB-8's final design.
To achieve the design of this rolling, spherical droid, Christian Alzmann tried many different methods—balancing Duke's vision while introducing new characteristics.
Of course, since the robot's original sketch looked gentle and charming, he couldn't design it in a serious or aggressive direction. Each time a new BB-8 design was made, Duke provided detailed feedback, eventually leading to the complete BB-8 concept art.
Christian Alzmann admitted to Duke that, while seeking inspiration, he observed all kinds of round objects until, at one moment, he saw a soccer ball rolling in front of him. A flash of inspiration struck him—it was exactly the feeling he'd been looking for.
Once Alzmann finalized the basic design idea, the next challenge was combining the concept with practical implementation.
Designers from Industrial Light & Magic's creature department went through continuous trials and refinements, ultimately finalizing BB-8's look—a rotating spherical body with a half-spherical floating head. It appeared simple yet sophisticated, embodying the classic Star Wars aesthetic.
Moreover, for the convenience of actual filming, the designers made it possible to remotely control BB-8 to perform various movements.
Completing the concept design was only half the success; turning it into reality was the real key.
For that, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens crew hired Industrial Light & Magic legend Neal Scanlan as project supervisor.
At Duke's request, Neal Scanlan followed the design principles of the other two designers—but even so, bringing BB-8 to life remained an enormous challenge.
The model team under Neal Scanlan first began by creating several puppet versions of BB-8.
When concept design drawings are applied to real-world production, some changes are inevitably made. Duke knew this very well, so he specifically asked Neal Scanlan's model team to create multiple versions of BB-8 in order to find the most suitable one.
Neal Scanlan and Duke discussed many topics about how the BB-8 droid should move, such as whether it needed a retractable neck.
However, Duke believed that was unnecessary. To prove his point, he asked the model team to spend half a day building a movable puppet robot.
The flexibility of this puppet robot was astonishing—its head and arms could move freely at will. Everyone thought the robot was excellent, and this puppet version laid a solid foundation for the final physical realization of BB-8.
After creating the puppet, another thorny issue that Duke and Neal Scanlan's team faced was how to operate the puppet during actual filming.
The two staff members responsible for controlling BB-8 hid inside a soundstage at Warner Studios and spent two whole weeks mastering BB-8's movements and expressions.
At the same time, Duke asked John Schwartzman to send a camera assistant to record BB-8's various expressions in the studio. Through constant adjustments and practice, they finally made BB-8 capable of performing rich, smooth movements and expressions.
After going through the processes of model making and actual operation, Neal Scanlan's team presented their work to Duke. When Duke saw BB-8 displaying its agile movements and vivid expressions, he felt a great sense of relief, finally able to set down the long-standing burden on his shoulders.
BB-8's wonderful performance also won over the Star Wars: The Force Awakens crew. It seemed not like a puppet model, but like the real BB-8 within the movie.
Meanwhile, to better serve Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the following sequels, Lucasfilm specifically had Industrial Light & Magic establish a studio in Los Angeles. The studio was headed by the well-known ILM figure Russell Earl, and Duke also appointed him as the visual effects supervisor for The Force Awakens.
The current Industrial Light & Magic, with visual effects supervisors like Russell Earl, still carried on the tradition of "serving filmmakers," a tradition originally established by George Lucas back in the 1970s.
Russell Earl joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1994, when he was still a technical assistant. To date, he has overseen visual effects work for numerous major blockbusters, including Mission: Impossible II, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, the Transformers series, and The Avengers, making him highly experienced.
If a director wants to add a spaceship into a movie, or make Iron Man fly all over the sky, or stuff hundreds of animals into Noah's Ark, he definitely needs a visual effects supervisor to lead the entire VFX team—and Duke was, of course, no exception.
Directors like Duke always hoped that special effects could be taken one step further. In today's Hollywood, every bit of special effects needs to be upgraded, while production time keeps shrinking.
Therefore, in all of Duke's projects, VFX work always began as soon as the project was established—sometimes even before that.
Fortunately, over the years, Duke had always had Industrial Light & Magic by his side. Now that ILM had even become one of his assets, he had virtually no worries in the realm of special effects.
When these preparatory tasks came to an end, Duke received a phone call from Irene Lauder's cousin—a billionaire from New York who wanted to talk to him about the issue of the film's female lead.
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