{
  "id": 14918151,
  "title": "‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ VFX Veteran Hal Hickel on Rotta’s Redesign, Phil Tippett and Jon Favreau’s ‘Less James Bond, More Jackass’ Approach",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/16/the-mandalorian-and-grogu-vfx-veteran-hal-hickel-on-rottas-redesign",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-16T09:08:16.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Variety",
    "slug": "variety",
    "url": "https://variety.com/2026/film/global/the-mandalorian-and-grogu-vfx-hal-hickel-phil-tippett-1236913822/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Industrial Light & Magic animation supervisor Hal Hickel approached Jon Favreau’s “The Mandalorian and Grogu” with a deceptively simple question: “What would Phil do?” The Phil in question was stop-motion pioneer Phil Tippett, whose work on the original “Star Wars” trilogy provided a template for everything from lumbering AT-AT walkers to a spectacular battle involving […]",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}