I had the honor of spending a lot of time talking to Tim Rose at a local convention last year, and I felt like we could've talked all day! What a great guy. I was too disgusted to ask any questions about VIII, but we did talk about TFA a lot because he was describing all the differences in the new & old costumes to me. (The new headpiece had 36 servo-motoros buzzing the whole time he is trying to hear and see, out of the nostril!) This lead to an interesting story about what an ass Abrams is:
Originally, Ackbar's introduction was going to go like this: when Finn is brought to the Resistance base, Leia was to storm over angrily, saying "why did they bring him here, all he had to do was tell his friends where the base was". At this point, a 6 foot, 7 inch Ackbar was revealed, towering over them, and extending his hand ("everyone was little; Carrie was little, Boyega is little..." he said.)
One reason it probably wasn't used was that there was a loud "CUT!" followed by somebody stomping over toward them. Rose said he peered out of the nostril-hole, only to see "it was the director...I wonder what he wants?" It was an angry Jar Jar, growling "you keep missing your cue!" Rose said he kindly tried to explain to Abrams that he could hear and see nothing, but he wasn't listening. "He just did NOT like me," he said, and gave me an even better example:
At the end of filming, all of the actors lined up to shake hands with the director, which I guess is customary. Everyone was in full costume, and Abrams went down the line and skipped right by Rose, whose hand was out. Rose wasn't having it. When the line broke up, he circled around the set, and came back in front of Abrams, again putting his large Ackbar hand out once more..........and Abrams turned and went the other way, AGAIN (wow). Finally, he actually followed Abrams outside the building, and somehow got in front of him a third time...this time, Abrams took his hand!
He's nicer than me...I would've lobster bitch-slapped him at that point.
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