I’ve finally gotten around to watching the TFA special features disc. Wow. The demonstration of practical prop, character (creature), and set building displayed in it of itself shows why this movie was better than the prequels by every metric. Both plain aesthetics and also just the amount of care and attention to detail that obviously carried over to other aspects of the movie. I say this in particular watching the making of the snow fight. A far cry for the spartan blue-screen ‘sets’ you see watching "making of"s of the prequels.