Now, it seems impossible to imagine Grogu as anything other than the adorable little puppet he’s been since he was introduced to us as Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian. However, there was a time when Lucasfilm was considering making the character purely CGI, but they really were bullied into keeping the puppet by director Werner Herzog.

The report that Werner Herzog called the production team “cowards” for even thinking of replacing the Grogu puppet with CGI in post-production has been circulating for years, but it apparently had at least a partial impact on the decision to use practical effects for The Mandalorian character.

“Obviously, when The Mandalorian started in the first season, there was still talk that Grogu was going to be CG and that the puppet was going to be great reference,” explained Justin van der Lek, a VFX Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, on why Grogu didn’t make the jump to CGI. “And the infamous line from Werner Herzog, saying that we’re cowards for not considering him being a puppet the whole time, really resonated. And that basically became the foundation of Grogu’s character. The puppeteers at Legacy are basically his parents. The way that he looks. The way that he moves. The way that he anything. It is all because of those amazing puppeteers.”

Now, after multiple seasons and a movie under his belt, it is hard to imagine Grogu as a super-agile, slick-looking CGI character added to the show in post, but apparently we really do have Werner Herzog partially to thank for it.

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