alt Hacker NewsAhhh! When he said staffs I assumed he meant people, not staves! Yeah, that's 100% CG. Here [1] you can see where the kids take a stance where it was to be edited in, and if you pause at the exact moment - it looks pretty bad, with something like a lightsaber just popping in the kid's hand.
Hmmm. Not sure what to make of this. I wish it was possible to see the raw unedited footage. It makes me question everything else.
If you watch at 0.25 speed, you can see the staff is actually a magician's cane. It's a coiled up bit of plastic that springs open when you release the ends. You can see similar tricks on YouTube, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-j6G4sPwWU