However, it\u2019s not the first time we\u2019ve seen a Dragonsnake on-screen. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back<\/a> (1980), R2-D2 is swallowed and quickly regurgitated by a Dagobah Dragonsnake, while Star Wars: The Clone Wars<\/a> episode \u2018The Hunt For Ziro\u2019 (2010) gave us another species of Dragonsnake, one that attacks Obi-Wan Kenobi and pays dearly for that ill-advised decision.<\/p>\n With a lineage that reaches back over 45 years and a reputation for being an untameable beast, ILM was tasked with the job of bringing this unstoppable reptile to life in Jon Favreau\u2019s Mandalorian adventure, and ILM.com had the pleasure of sitting down with five members of the team behind its digital creation to discuss the Dragonsnake\u2019s journey from imagination to reality.<\/p>\n Drawing Venom<\/p>\n \u201cWe had beautiful artwork from [production designer] Doug Chiang\u2019s<\/a> team to follow,\u201d explains associate visual effects supervisor Tania Richard<\/a>, \u201cand once we got into shot work, that\u2019s when our Vancouver team owned the sequences. The Dragonsnake was Vancouver\u2019s main asset, and much of it was developed closely with [production visual effects supervisor] John Knoll<\/a> and the San Francisco team early on during the project.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not your average garter snake,\u201d says associate animation supervisor Michael Dharney. But where does ILM look for inspiration when building a snake the length of a football field? \u201cWe used real reference with snakes of varying scale to lock down both physicality and behavioral elements,\u201d Dharney notes, \u201cwhich was really helpful to ground us. There can be a temptation to break away from the basics when you\u2019re working at this massive scale. That size was a piece of the puzzle that we constantly needed to be conscious of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Scale was a primary consideration, but the creature needed to retain its snake-like qualities, as Dharney continues. \u201cThe twitchy nature of a real snake needed to be conveyed, while maintaining convincing weight and mass for our creature. We looked at how larger creatures move, the momentum they carry, and how their mass restricts their movement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Lighting department supervisor Michael Goddard agrees, revealing a healthy dash of movie magic. \u201cThe animation team added extra coils to create different shapes and profiles in the water as it broke the surface,\u201d he explains, \u201cand those additional features really help define the water around the snake. We pushed different areas of the simulation around to create the feel of a much larger creature in the water. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s spoiling the secret sauce,\u201d Goddard adds with a smile, \u201cbut if you look under the hood, you\u2019ll see all sorts of weird stuff going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Lead digital artist Jason Madigan notes that \u201cIt was an interesting challenge because it\u2019s a big snake, but the pit isn\u2019t a very big room, so there were challenges with trying to get so much activity and action with such a large creature in such a small space and still have it make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe trickiest part was managing the sheer scale of that massive creature in the relatively small pit environment,\u201d adds Dharney. \u201cIt\u2019s so large that we never see the end of it, yet it coils around endlessly and thrashes around in a very destructive manner, so we had to be very creative about how we maneuvered through the pit, making sure the Dragonsnake felt comfortable in its own environment while keeping the energy level high.\u201d<\/p>\n There was also another element for the team to factor in, one that throws back to ILM creatures of the past. \u201cBeyond this,\u201d explains Dharney, \u201cwe needed to keep in mind that our director wanted the audience to believe that the Dragonsnake could have been conceived in the creature shop. That gave us the opportunity to lean on the aspects that animatronics would bring to the table, had this creature been sculpted around a robotic armature.\u201d<\/p>\n The Snake Pit<\/p>\n While the Dragonsnake is the primary focus of the team\u2019s work, the pit where the snake resides is every bit as important as Tania Richard explains. \u201cWe built the full environment, but we also had to modify how we rendered the background in relation to the Dragonsnake in situations where realistically the snake would intersect with the wall. The environment team came up with some clever tricks to allow the animation team the freedom to pose and move the snake as they needed. [Department supervisor] Andy Proctor led the team in the build, and we had our beautiful designs from Doug Chiang\u2019s team, so we had a good sense of what it would look like above water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey shot a lot on set, but it wasn\u2019t always exactly what they wanted, and from a comp perspective, being underwater is always a challenge,\u201d says Madigan. \u201cWe had so many different circumstances throughout the underwater sequences. It\u2019s above, below, above, below, above, below, and the plates were quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n ILM is world-renowned for rising to such challenges. \u201cThe activity was changing, the location was changing, you\u2019ve got the snake wrapped around Mando, and the snake head was filmed with a large on-set animatronic,\u201d Madigan continues. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t use that, so we had to remove it.\u201d Additionally, the water itself became a key focus of their work. \u201cEach shot had to be approached differently. It wasn\u2019t something we could set up and say, \u2018This is how we do the underwater stuff.\u2019 Every shot was a puzzle to decipher.\u201d<\/p>\n Bringing these elements together meant some creative thinking was required, as Goddard explains. \u201cThe water was murky when we looked down from above, but from a storytelling standpoint, you need to \u2018de-murk\u2019 it when you\u2019re underwater, otherwise you can\u2019t see anything, so a lot of the underwater roots weren\u2019t necessary for the above water shots. That gave the animation team the freedom to do whatever they wanted to with the snake and not worry about it crashing through stuff, because you couldn\u2019t see it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The murky water was also laced with some additional texture. \u201cWe had a comp treatment that added a bit of surface texture and dirt, which was pretty simple, but it only worked in certain circumstances,\u201d says Madigan, \u201cbut the more you have to play with underwater, the easier it\u2019s going to be to sell it as actually having content in the water volume between you and other objects. The amount of layered murky components that we put in some of those underwater shots was pretty high.\u201d<\/p>\n Hiss and Boo<\/p>\n As the sequence progresses, the game of cat and mouse between the Dragonsnake and Mando intensifies as Din Djarin has to not only avoid the huge reptile but also mind his footing, a tricky task to conceptualize and execute.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the trickiest things to figure out was Mando as he\u2019s trying to navigate the root system just under the surface of the water,\u201d explains Richard. \u201cWe can\u2019t necessarily see that from above, but once we go below, we need to be able to sell enough root structure that he\u2019s able to walk on without completely obscuring the view, so finding the balance of just the right amount of roots under the water to sell that story point required a bit of exploration. Andy Proctor\u2019s team essentially extended the set, but there were also some additional roots added for interaction with the snake.\u201d With the Dragonsnake truly riled up, the pit, the water, and the snake interact in a dynamic fashion. \u201cYou see the Dragonsnake plowing into the root wall and snapping the roots,\u201d adds Richard, \u201cso we had to strategically figure out how to add that to the plate environment without breaking continuity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of our reference was from above the water,\u201d says department supervisor Ken Beauchamp. \u201cWe had steam coming from the surface and interacting with the Dragonsnake so they could layer in some depth and add to the murkiness to make it look more like a dirty swamp. When we got underwater, the effects team were generating multiple layers of interactive bubbles, and we were referencing a couple of shots, like Mando diving underwater, which were fantastically filmed on set. They looked beautiful, so we took that and created all these layers of bubbles wrapping around his arm, his legs, his back, and we had aeration bubbles that were coming up from the ground, that were moving around roots, and interacting with everything. We had rays of light coming down and peeking through, so you got a sense that there was something above. Jason and his team had to then layer in all these elements together.\u201d<\/p>\n Deep down in a water-filled pit with limited light, the Dragonsnake waits for its next meal, but as the audience watches, it\u2019s clear that the only light is cast down from the small holes in the floor of the audience chamber. As the floor opens and the Hutts look down from their dais, light pours in, a task that fell to Michael Goddard and his team.<\/p>\n \u201cWe start with a key light that matches where that hole is on the set,\u201d explains Goddard. \u201cBecause that\u2019s where most of the light\u2019s coming from. It was hitting a large amount of atmosphere, so we used a diffused version of that light, which contributed to a softer version of the key light. On a shot-to-shot basis, we would nudge that light around just to find the right visual aesthetic. In many of the shots where we\u2019re looking straight down, the Dragonsnake would be very top-lit, but that\u2019s not satisfying as an image, so we would nudge it over to introduce some shadowing.\u201d<\/p>\n Boa Constructors<\/p>\n One of the many selling points of The Mandalorian and Grogu is the use of numerous visual effects techniques, from miniatures to CG, stop-motion to animatronics, puppetry to mask work. This blend of classic Star Wars skills makes for a visually engaging palette of effects. That eclectic approach has always been at the heart of ILM\u2019s creative methodology, who used every tool at their disposal to bring the Dragonsnake and its lair to life.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used plates wherever we could,\u201d says Madigan. \u201cSometimes plates had water motion filmed on set. If we could make that work with the FX team\u2019s awesome effects and the surrounding shots, and hold onto some of the water for the Mando-based shots, which were almost completely plate water, then we would.\u201d Retaining as much of the original on-set shoot was vital to grounding the scenes, but for a sequence like the Dragonsnake\u2019s, it required some additional expertise from the Vancouver team. \u201cThe plate shots would be sandwiched around totally CG-created shots, so it was a case of figuring out where we could hold on to the work and effort they\u2019d done on set.\u201d<\/p>\n Richard agrees, adding, \u201cThe plates were beautifully shot, but one of the things that blew my mind \u2013 as simple as it sounds \u2013 were the shots where Mando and the Amani jump out of the water and you get this big spray splash event. We then extended the top of the frame, and the FX team created simulations of these splash events to marry into the on-set plate splashes. We had beautiful lighting from Michael\u2019s team, and every time we gave Jason and our compositing team a challenging recipe, he came up with something really stunning.\u201d<\/p>\n Teamwork is the key ingredient for success, as Michael Dharney explains. \u201cWorking intimately with all the other departments was crucial to the Dragonsnake sequences. There was a lot of cross-departmental pre-planning and bespoke problem-solving for each shot, with plenty of back-and-forth to get things just right. The added element of plate-based shots when Mando faces Dragonsnake added a whole other level of complexity. We actually had to redesign several shots in animation to get all these elements to work together, but thankfully, we had a lot of very clever folks piecing this together, and despite our Dragonsnake interacting with plate-based elements, the environment, the water, and other creatures, the crew really succeeded in delivering an incredibly convincing marriage of all these elements.\u201d<\/p>\n Technology is ever-evolving in the world of Industrial Light & Magic, but something that hasn\u2019t changed in half a century is looking at challenges from a different perspective. With the lighting team taking on rendering water rather than the effects crew, Goddard and his team were able to focus on the water\u2019s look and movement. \u201cWe leaned on some of the tech that ILM has developed for water lately and adopted some of that to make it work for us,\u201d notes Goddard. \u201cILM\u2019s London studio has led the charge on that, most notably in Jurassic World: Rebirth [2025]. We decided early on that the close interaction of the characters and the water would be best rendered together, because then you get true refractions and reflections. This way we get volumetrics that distinguish and contaminate light values, and things like that look really pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n In the spirit of another ILM classic, The Abyss<\/a> (1989), \u201cThe surface of the water essentially became a character,\u201d as Goddard adds. \u201cWe would light it the way we would a character, and it would respond. Sometimes we\u2019d add in these creative decisions to beautify the water, maybe a bit more backlight to make it bloom a bit here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mambalorian<\/p>\n The power of the Dragonsnake is evident from the moment it looms out of the darkness, rising from the water, ready to strike. But bringing that coiled, muscular threat to life required plenty of work and consideration.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly on, the effects team looked at how fast the snake moved in water,\u201d says Beauchamp, \u201cand then we\u2019d think about the realism of water, and sometimes both things don\u2019t work together because one is moving too fast, or maybe one is moving too slow, so we were able to develop ways to mute some of that water to get a more realistic-looking splash that works with the scale and speed of this enormous creature. Sometimes we wanted to push the water a little bit more in order to enhance some of that movement, so there was a lot of work being done to find a balance that created a satisfying visual look that didn\u2019t make the Dragonsnake look too small or too big.\u201d<\/p>\n That meant the team had to run simulations to find the sweet spot between the movement of the Dragonsnake and its interactions with the murky water of the Nal Hutta pit. \u201cWe\u2019d run variations to see if it created what we want, but in every single shot there would be water colliding with the environment,\u201d Beauchamp continues. \u201cYou\u2019d get waves that splashed up and made the environment wet. On some shots, we\u2019d simulate two to three versions just to get an idea of where we needed to balance the shot, as sometimes the water might push over top of the camera because the Dragonsnake was creating such big waves. That\u2019s why the water is its own character, because it needs to tell the story without taking over from the snake. The effects team started to understand that what needed to be done on the simulation side was secondary to the Dragonsnake and helping the snake tell the story and sit in its environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Simulations allow the team to vividly convey to the director what the sequence will look like, but as Michael Dharney illustrates, there\u2019s a method to the process. \u201cIt\u2019s a tricky balance, for sure,\u201d he explains. \u201cThere was a shot where the Dragonsnake emerges from the water,\u201d adds Richard, \u201cand the camera moves to the right. We see Mando in the background, but we had to be careful not to cover Mando entirely with that splash. Thankfully, Ken\u2019s team would be really proactive and offer three versions: one where the splash was massive, one where it\u2019s small, and something in the middle. That gave myself and John Knoll an opportunity to decide what worked best for the shot.\u201d<\/p>\n While technical and scientific accuracy is the goal, sometimes the requirement to serve the story in the best way possible outweighs those perfectly logical expectations, especially when dealing with a fictional creature like a Dragonsnake. \u201cIt comes down to balance,\u201d says Dharney. \u201cBy its very nature, this is a fantastical creature, so that leaves a lot of room for exploration. Playing with things like the speed in which the Dragonsnake can move are carefully considered against both its fantastical existence and the physical reality of the world it exists in. The ultimate goal is to create something that moves in an uncomfortably unfamiliar way but remains believable so that the audience isn\u2019t taken out of the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Scaling Back<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that\u2019s great about working with John Knoll is he doesn\u2019t overcook stuff,\u201d says Richard. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t need to be perfect as long as we\u2019re telling the story and we understand what\u2019s happening. For instance, one shot that came together really well was the sequence with the Hutts crashing into the water. We did that towards the end, and we had all of our techniques sorted out. When the Hutts fall through the ceiling, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to break that ceiling apart and make sure we obscured Rotta.\u201d<\/p>\n The battle between Rotta and the Hutt Twins saw the three Hutts tussle, roll, and attack each other so violently that the floor literally gives way, sending the three headfirst into the pit below, or at least that\u2019s what we\u2019re meant to think. Grogu uses the Force to suspend Rotta, saving him from certain doom while obscuring him from sight.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were partway through sorting out that simulation when we sent Jason and his team a work-in-progress version,\u201d explains Richard. \u201cHe put something really beautiful together with his compositor, and the director bought it right away, so rather than continuing to refine and make that simulation perfect, we embraced the fact that it worked and it looked beautiful, and we went with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The intuitive sensibilities of the team not only saved time and funds but also delivered a standout moment in the film. \u201cThat\u2019s something that we carry throughout all of our work,\u201d adds Richard, \u201cand it\u2019s something John Knoll inspires in the team: It doesn\u2019t need to be perfect; it just needs to tell the story.\u201d<\/p>\n That astute observation highlights the underappreciated skill of judging when the recipe is working rather than continuing to add more spices, as Jason Madigan explains. \u201cIt was one of the more complicated scenes because there were a lot of components with the atmospherics, the debris, and the water. We got some relatively early takes passed off, and the compositor put his head down for a couple of days and came back with something that looked better than anybody expected it to at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n With the scene working well, the requirement to keep tinkering was pared back. \u201cWhen things are so interactive, and the debris is driving the dust, major changes start to flow in,\u201d Madigan continues. \u201cWe might not easily be able to get something as coherent as what we already had, so we made a call on that because it was working so well that we pulled back on a bunch of work and refined where we were at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the magic of the initial takes: If you overwork it, you kind of lose it,\u201d adds Richard. It\u2019s an ethos that the whole production took on board. \u201cBroadly, that works across the show,\u201d says Goddard. \u201cBefore we were delivering, we had to do \u2018V1\u2019 deliveries of each shot, and it was a painful experience. The shots were not in a good shape to get through the render farm, but it forced us to do a lot of optimizations and a lot of assembly. We passed some of these shots to comp, and we realized that some that we thought were really difficult were maybe not as bad. Once comp got involved and started putting things together, they could take parts of the plate and obscure some of the problem areas that we were worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n Fangs for the Memories<\/p>\n As the film continues to thrill audiences around the world, the visual effects artists of The Mandalorian and Grogu move on to new projects, but with something very special on their resumes: an IMAX Star Wars adventure that can only happen when a team pulls in the same direction.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had such a great team,\u201d says Richard. \u201cEverybody collaborated and worked as one unit, not as separate entities. And John Knoll \u2013 come on, he\u2019s a legend, right? Having Doug Chiang and his artwork, I can\u2019t say enough about how helpful that is, and having access to the art department and being able to have him in the room in our sessions meant that if we started to veer off target visually, we knew right away what they wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Vancouver team was brilliant,\u201d adds Richard. \u201cIt\u2019s been a highlight for me, and I think for a lot of the team.\u201d Beauchamp agrees. \u201cThe biggest thing I\u2019m going to take away from this project is the team that I had. If you look at a lot of sequences in movies, sometimes a few artists get to work on this sequence, and a few artists get to work on that sequence, but every artist that we have got to work on one of these sequences, so we all got to touch it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great team, and we had fun doing it, which makes a big difference,\u201d says Madigan. \u201cIt was hard work for sure, but it was also quite varied, like the challenges between the underwater and above water. It required very different approaches, so there was nothing about it that felt like rinse and repeat.\u201d<\/p>\n For Michael Goddard, the thrill was a visceral one. \u201cSeeing it on the big screen was amazing. We work on small monitors, and occasionally we see the dailies in the big theater, but seeing it on an IMAX screen is just like, wow.\u201d He laughs, \u201cMy only regret was that I delegated away the most beautiful shots!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe shots derived from the brilliant concept art are deeply satisfying, beautifully composed moments, and the animation team\u2019s contribution supports the original design,\u201d concludes Dharney. \u201cIt all built up to the satisfaction of the Dragonsnake eating the Hutt twins. Those shots pushed the rig to its limits in ways it didn\u2019t in any other shots, and frankly, it was so much fun animating something so absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013<\/p>\n Mark Newbold writes for ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, and daily news site FanthaTracks.com<\/a>, having previously contributed to Star Wars Insider magazine, StarWars.com and StarTrek.com. He is a 4-time Star Wars Celebration Podcast Stage host, podcasting for over 20 years, and has been involved in websites since 1996. You can find this Hoopy frood @Prefect_Timing.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n Read more about The Mandalorian and Grogu on ILM.com:<\/p>\n Something Old, Something New: John Knoll on the Visual Effects of \u2018Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Inside the ILM Art Department: \u2018The Mandalorian and Grogu\u2019![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mandalorian-grogu-star-wars-ilm-dragonsnake-vfx-9-1024x528.jpg\")
<\/a>(Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mandalorian-grogu-star-wars-ilm-dragonsnake-vfx-8-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/a>(Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mandalorian-grogu-star-wars-ilm-dragonsnake-vfx-1-1024x396.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mandalorian-grogu-star-wars-ilm-dragonsnake-vfx-2-1024x714.jpg\")
<\/a>(Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm).<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a different camera angle, something that may have been convincing in one shot doesn\u2019t always work in the next. It sounds like a clich\u00e9, but the best way to find the limit is to go too far. It\u2019s always easier to scale things back than to slowly dial it up. Smaller details like the muscles in the face and through the body were often hard to read, so applying the age-old tactic of taking it too far was the clearest way of finding our limits.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mandalorian-grogu-star-wars-ilm-dragonsnake-vfx-3-1024x396.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mandalorian-grogu-star-wars-ilm-dragonsnake-vfx-4-1024x720.jpg\")
<\/a>(Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm).<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tania Richard, Ken Beauchamp, Michael Dharney, Jason Madigan, and Michael Goddard from ILM\u2019s Vancouver studio take us behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-696046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}