See how they Created Maz Kanata in new Star Wars: The Force Awakens Featurette

Lupita Nyong’o’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens character, Maz Kanata, is a pivotal player in the new saga. She delivers Luke Skywalker's lightsaber to Finn (John Boyega) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) after Rey (Daisy Ridley) initially rejects it. It has already been reported that Nyong'o's diminutive, ancient Maz had a few of her scenes cut, including one in which she makes a ceiling collapse on some Stormtroopers (despite her telling Han, Rey and Finn she's no Jedi). SFX Supervisor Chris Corbould told Collider: "There was a particular part of a scene that never made it, where they go underneath the castle and they’re going into the underground passageways, and stormtroopers are coming down the stairs and Maz uses her powers to collapse the ceiling. From my point of view, [that] worked absolutely brilliantly because you had all the main actors running up and then Maz does her bit and then the whole ceiling collapses in front of them, but that never made it. That was a shot I was quite proud of, actually, it worked really, really well."

Regardless of losing a few cool Maz moments in the editing room, the little alien is still quite a force in The Force Awakens, and will no doubt play a big role in the two remaining Star Wars films in the new trilogy. With The Force Awakens coming out on Blu-Ray, new details are emerging about the creation of J.J. Abrams film, including this great behind-the-scenes feautertte which shows how performance-capture technology allowed the other actors to work with the Academy Award-winning Nyong'o, who was then turned into Maz Kanata by the folks at Industrial Light & Magic. 

Check it out below:

Happy #MazMonday! @StarWars #TheForceAwakenshttps://t.co/xheclUDQFs

— Lupita Nyong'o (@Lupita_Nyongo) March 21, 2016