Did Lucas deliberately make the Yoda puppet in TPM bad so people would accept the CG in AOTS?

Or am I just being paranoid?

 

You are being paranoid.

 

The Yoda puppet in TPM looks paranoid.

 

They were trying for a younger, more muscular look for Yoda. But 30 years is only 3% of Yodas lifespan, so I think they went too far overboard. A human, unless really sick, doesnt look all that much different at 100 than he did at 97, heh.
And a frog or pig doesnt look any different +/- 3% of their likespan after adolescence to me, as far as I can see.

 

Actually I read that TPM's creature FX supervisor Nick Dudman decided to make the new Yoda puppet in TPM out of a different, more transluscent silicon material instead of foam latex the way Stuart Freeborn did in TESB. It was supposed to be a more realistic-looking skin that he used for the aliens The Fifth Element. He made the new Yoda from original Yoda mold using this silicon skin. The problem was it just looked wrong on Yoda. He looked too different. Now my question is anybody with eyes could see that the new Yoda didn't match the one in TESB. George didn't say to Dudman "No this is wrong." He just put it in the film anyway. Did he do that knowing that he wanted to have CGI Yoda to fight in the next movie and that fans would never accept a computer animated Yoda? And that the only way they would, was to have the puppet Yoda look so bad in the TPM so that they would like the animated Yoda more in AOTS because it looked like the Yoda of TESB?

 

and that fans would never accept a computer animated Yoda?
I dont think that was ever a question, as long as Yoda looked and acted close like the Yoda of old.

The main problem was getting Yoda to fight without it looking ridiculous or funny.

 

I definitely think you're wrong, We accept the CG Yoda now because of how great his fight scenes were and that Rob Coleman did a great job with the animation. But if you told fans pre-TPM that they were going to make Yoda CG instead of a puppet there would have been a huge outcry. It wouldn't matter how good it looked or how well the acting was, they would have still demanded he be done the same way as in TESB.

Here's an old article before TPM where a blogger writes his concerns about Yoda.

 

I don't know anything about the Yoda puppet conspiracy, but I just wanted to chime in: The Yoda puppet on each SW movie looked worse with each movie. ESB was perfect. Return of the Jedi looked...off. TPM has HORRIBLE! It looked nothing like the OT Yodas, or Yoda at all for that matter. I still say that AOTC and ROTS should have used a GOOD puppet Yoda, except for the fight scenes.

 

I don't really see too much of a problem with the TPM puppet. When I was little I kinda liked the TPM puppet better than the ESB/ROTJ one. And when I saw Attack of the Clones,believe it or not, though I knew he was CG, the thought that he was "CG" never came into my head because I always felt Yoda was too real of a character to just think of in terms of "puppet" and "CG"

I think each film Yoda has appeared in has great dialogue and whatever is being used to represent him moves well enough to where he's not a "puppet" or a "CG model" but a real being. To me Yoda's not made of latex or pixels...he's real! lol


Edit: Looking at both puppets used to play Yoda, they move pretty much the same despite their different appearances.

 

This reply ended the thread.


You should really watch the AOTC extras. The sheer amount of work that went into making AOTC Yoda match TESB Yoda is mind-boggling. I mean, they didn't even start with AOTC scenes-they started with recreating TESB scenes in the computer that are a dead-on match for the original material, or at least so close a match I can't tell the difference.

 

That's how I have always felt about Yoda too.

Personally, I prefer the CGI Yoda over ANY of the puppets. CGI, too me, has more life to it. I really don't know what all the hubbub is for TPM puppet? I find the texture of that puppet, skin, eyes etc., to be more realistic than the puppets of the 70's and 80's. Although, I prefer Yoda's look from AOTC-ROTJ, I have always really liked how he looked in TPM. It was nice to see him look younger. He's a made up alien, who know's how they age, so the time period was never a factor for me.

Bottom line, puppets or CGI Yoda represents THE best of both worlds!

 

ESB and ROTJ puppet Yodas: great. AOTC and ROTS CGI Yodas: great. TPM puppet Yoda: terrible.

But I don't think that the puppet Yoda in TPM was made to look bad intentionally to ease the transition to CGI... although I never could figure out how that puppet made it in. He simply looks like another individual of the same species as Yoda, but not Yoda himself.

 

You're right. But I think its absurd to suggest TPM Yoda puppet (which isn't bad btw, just different) looked "terrible" on purpose. The animation team and GL did consider doing Yoda as a CGI model for TPM and I've no doubt if Lucas thought it was achievable he'd have ok'd it. They did actually CG him for one wide shot. The problem was, in 1997, with Jar Jar and Watto etc. already on their plate, it would likely have been too big a commitment for the animation team. Yes, the fan pressure would have been significant and maybe this also forced them to resist. And its true that the subsequent grief over TPM's puppet gave Lucas nothing to lose. But the advancement of the technology again to the point where they made AOTC was significant - Rob Coleman said so. Only then did they all feel comfortable they could achieve a realistic Yoda that wouldn't disappoint the fans. Even then they were unsure about doing it fully until very late into pre-production on AOTC. And thats what we're debating here - the fact they did a full CGI Yoda... not a partial one on only wide shots. Because I think that was always the intention for all the films from the start

I actually still don't think they got Yoda right until ROTS. That's the definitive Yoda for me (out of all the movies). He's close to perfect in that movie. Take the scene with Anakin in the meditation chamber... or the shot when he turns to Obi-Wan and says "the boy you trained, gone he is". For me, they're beyond anything Oz produced with the puppet. Its actually difficult to look at his close-ups in ESB and ROTJ with as much credibility as a result. AOTC got close in one or two scenes... but they never quite nailed it - and that was three years after TPM. So considering the advancement in the animation performances from movie to movie, had they done a CGI Yoda for TPM back in 97-99, I think there's a decent chance it would have been as bad, if not worse than the puppet they did use.

 

Yeah, the "Revenge" Yoda was by far the best, but it was great to see him in action period. I'll agree with the majority of the "Menace" Yoda was horrible, but I don't see the conspiracy to get people to accept him in CG as a valid assessment. I can see where you're coming from but it doesn't sound very realistic. While a lot of the details of these films were made on the fly, I refuse to accept that Lucas would use Yoda as a pawn to push CG on the audience. We had already seen a great deal of it in "Menace", especially with Jar Jar, so using it on a classic character to make him more life-like isn't that much of a jarring change.

I really do prefer him in CG though. I honestly never liked him in the original trilogy; not just because he was a bit overrated as a character back then, but because he was so static.

 

but because he was so static.
The worst was when Luke was running/jumping around with Yoda on his back. Yoda looked like such a sack, heh.

 

rhymes quite nicely now with him riding along Chewie's back in ROTS (surely now the cutest moment in any Star Wars film)

 

Personally, I prefer the CGI Yoda over ANY of the puppets.


I agree with this statement.

 

I don't think of it as a "conspiracy" made up of lots of people. Like I don't think Rick MacCallum was in on it! I think It was George alone who decided to just go ahead with the puppet knowing it didn't look right. He wanted a CG Yoda. And had that one bit of him walking in TPM to test it out. When you read interviews with Nick Dudman at the time he really wanted to do his best. He didn't want to make a bad job. He just thought he could improve on the puppet, using advance techniques that had developed since the early 80s. The problem is the old version, as limited as it was so familiar to us that any change would look weird. We got in our heads when we first saw TESB that that's how Yoda should look. it's If I had seen the Yoda puppet in TPM without ever seeing or knowing the TESB I would have thought it looked great and more realistic. As someone posted the puppet in RotJ did look "off". I read somewhere stuff that the control for one of the eyes didn't work) but I can excuse it because Yoda was supposed to be dying. He's not supposed to look great at that point!

 

Absolutely. I mean, don't get me wrong, OT Yoda was some good puppet work but he is just shown in such a better light in the prequels. They actually made me like Yoda for the first time.