Not only was Furious 7 the most action-packed instalment in the franchise, it was also a beautiful tribute to the late Paul Walker. Many fans walked into theatres not knowing what to expect. How would the movie handle his absence? How did they continue Brian O’Conner’s storyline considering Paul tragically passed away halfway through filming? Even more intriguing, how was the film going to complete Paul’s unfinished scenes?

Following Paul’s untimely death, it was revealed that his two brothers, Caleb and Cody Walker would be standing in for him and helping with the production of the new enthralling movie. Since Furious 7‘s release on April 3rd, we’ve been given a deeper insight to how Paul Walker’s performance was accomplished.

Director, James Wan told Buzzfeed, “It became our obligation to finish this movie as a tribute to honor his (Paul’s) memories and his legacy,”

He revealed that the production team had to pick out “little nuances” such as facial expressions that Paul previously made in Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, and what he had shot in Furious 7 in order to help the visual animators bring his character to life in the latest instalment. Wan said, “We literally had to build a bible, so to speak, that we could reference. Oh, when Paul is happy, he does this. When he’s sad, he does this. It was so meticulous.”

Cody and Caleb Walker, John Brotherton and a combination of CGI helped recreate Paul Walker for his unfinished scenes. Visual effects artists then replaced their faces with Paul Walker’s face to create such impressive scenes.

Wan also disclosed that they pieced together different voices to complete Paul’s lines, “Sometimes, we would use the brothers to say certain lines, because we wouldn’t necessarily have ‘Archive Paul’ saying that. So we may have the brothers saying one or two lines here, and Paul would finish off the sentence. It was this incredible jigsaw puzzle that we had to put together. I mean, Paul had a very distinct way of speaking. [Cody and Caleb] have the mannerisms, but they don’t sound quite like Paul. So there’s a lot of tweakage that we had to do. It really is a combination of so many different techniques and different methods to make it work.”

Without a doubt, did they make it work! The final scene which was so perfectly brought together, tugged at our heartstrings. Paul’s face was obviously digitally animated, but it worked superbly. Wan done absolute justice to Paul’s character and his scenes were handled with great respect. Although a lot of visual effects were used, there’s no denying that Paul Walker’s presence was there throughout the movie.

What a beautiful way to send him off, we’re sure every fan of his and of this series will be pleased.

RIP Paul Walker