When director J.J. Abrams offered Anthony Daniels to reprise his role as the fussy, golden droid, C-3PO for the new Disney produced Star Wars VII, he asked the actor what he thought of the possibility of only providing his voice for the new films -- a prospect that Daniels absolutely rejected.
Fortunately, Abrams also could not envision a Star Wars with a completely CG rendered Threepio. Instead, he tasked his team to design a new suit for Daniels. One which would, on the outside, look exactly like the classic droid fans have come to love, but on the inside be a completely redesigned to make Daniel's more comfortable and control the droid better to enhance his performance.
As per Daniels, he thinks being able to perform in a suit as C-3PO is absolutely essential to the character:
"One of the difficulties is with a character that you know and love so well is that, as a member of the audience, you go, 'Oh no, that's not right. No, he doesn't move like that,'" Daniels said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "With me [in the suit], he's always going to move the same way and have the same reactions, timing, and so on. With CG, you're working with some brilliant person on the keyboard who is trying to pretend to be me."
He said that the rendering of Threepio in the prequels in CG was done in instances wherein an actor in a suit would have been too dangerous to film and the result was horrible.
However, he added that the use of CG was successful in Disney's Star Tours: The Adventures Continues theme park ride where bits of the pre-show were a digital C-3PO rather than Daniels and the performance was seamless.
He also had praise for the animators of Star Wars: Rebels where he lends only his voice to the performance. He explained that the animated series, as an extension and exaggeration of the droid, was acceptable because the characterization was spot on.
As for the new, old Threepio, fans will have to wait to see him when the new Star Wars Episode VII opens in Dec. 2015.
