ST Yoda in Episode VIII

Would he? If they go the puppet/mo-cap route I'd agree with you, but I've got no idea if he can act. He has been honing his craft of puppetry for almost 50 years. That's the experience you want brought to the table. "Hey Frank, I know you've spent the better part of your life bringing nuanced performances to puppets, but now we're throwing all of that out the window and asking you to act."

My point wasn't that there isn't more to Yoda than moving your hand and talking, my point was that if you have another actor doing the mo-cap, you're actually diminishing the work that Frank would bring to the table, and all you'd be left with is a puppet or a cartoon.

 

To me it would all depend on how it's done and does it work for the story. If they're throwing in cameos for a sake of a cameo that would be bad. But if there's a point to having Yoda and Obi-Wan and maybe even Anakin then I'm for it. It all depends on the story to me.

 

I think a practical puppet/ animatronic with facial features augmented with CGI is the best way to go.

 

Depends if they can get the look right. The puppet part deux in The Phantom Menace was an awful attempt at recreating the puppet. I agree the Unkar Plutt puppet/CGI hybrid was done very very well, but to me, unless they can get a Yoda puppet/CGI hybbrid to be a spitting image of the one from TESB/ROTJ they should go CGI. I would imagine his file is still in the ILM databanks so recreating him would be nil next to creating a new puppet.

 

I don't understand why the Yoda TPM puppet is constantly brought up. That was a different team, almost two decades ago, trying to create a younger Yoda. If Lucasfilm is committed to recreating the Yoda puppet faithfully, they will do it. I have no doubt that enough talent and money exists to get that right. Augment the puppet with a little CGI in the face to give Yoda a broader range of emotive potential, and you have an easy winner, IMO.

 

I am as gung-ho for practical effects as anyone you'll find, and the puppet for Yoda in The Phantom Menace is one of the most bafflingly awful practical effects I've ever seen in my life, especially considering how right they got it with less money 16 and 19 years prior. This isn't me slamming the prequels, I think TPM is generally speaking a really good looking film and the best looking film in its trilogy, but as much as the CGI Yoda in AotC and RotS doesn't do it for me, it's far, far better.

Just don't screw up the puppet this time if they go puppet (pleas go puppet). There's really no reason not to do it that way, though. I doubt he'll be doing backflips or be part of action scenes, which is what necessitated the CGI approach in later films.

 

Me too.

I agree with you there.

 

Maybe because it's the most recent attempt at recreating the puppet? We don't have any other examples of anyone attempting to recreate the puppet. I'm not saying they can't, nor am I dead set against them trying. All I'm saying is that if they can't do a completely faithful recreation, don't do it. If they can, I am absolutely on board with it.

 

I think part of the question would also be if they want the broader range of emotive potential. I seem to recall that coming up during the prequels--the idea of dumbing down the CGI so that it was matching the puppet rather than some abstract 'real' Yoda.

I think everyone brings up TPM Yoda for the same reason they bring up CG in the PT...I just don't know what that reason is. Everything in the movie biz has changed by leaps and bounds, but Star Wars fans always go back to 20 and 40 year old movies as the measuring stick for everything.

 

That's a good question. I think ESB Yoda was so amazingly expressive, that if they can capture that again using only puppetry, I'll be happy. But if they can't, I'm open to them CGI'ing his face a little to capture an emotive range that matches his facial expressions in ESB. I certainly don't want overly emotive cartoonishness.

 

IMO, the only emotive cartoonishness of the PT CGI was Jar-Jar. For the most part, I thought the other CGI characters were fairly well. He came up with some alien's where puppets would not have done them justice (Sebulba/Watto, for example). Like I said before, I'm cool with a CGI/puppet hybrid if they get the look right. I thought the look of Unkar Plutt was very very well done.

 

As we've seen animatronics have improved tenfold in the last 10 years, so has the technology that sees mo-cap become the preferred technique over CGI to produce realistic alien characters with realistic expressions. I prefer to see a mix and use whatever provides the best results, whether for example that be a puppet that has a mo-capped face superimposed on it, blended together it could produce a fantastic result.

 

I liked Sebulba and the other CGI characters in TPM (barring Jar Jar and Boss Nass - the latter being the worst, IMO). But Yoda, Dex and some of the other CGI aliens in AOTC and ROTS just rang false to me. Perhaps shooting digital exposed the seams/ artifice too much. I don't know.

 

CGI Yoda please

 

The Force ghost scene between Luke & Yoda that was suppose to be in EP7 is now ago for EP8

 

Make his scene(s) compellingly mythical and spiritual and i don't care how they do it...puppet, CGI, flipbook...just do the character some justice.

 

When a mix of effects would seem to be the best choice, why would someone demand just digital or just puppet?

Bias.

 

I'm in the same boat, CGI Yoda looked good to me, but whether it's puppet or CGI, it'd be awesome to see Yoda back once again!

 

If he were to be in there for an actual purposeful way, I would say CGI him, they would have to make him a spirit anyway so why "Puppet film" Yoda, then do CGI as well doesn't make sense. Just my take on it.

 

There's a "team PT vs. team OT" distortion that happens sometimes when talking about practical and CGI tools, which leads people to irrationally insist on either/or. For some reason or another, suggestions for striking a balance between practical and CGI tools aren't as popular. Reminds me of the current political dialogue in the United States, to be honest.

 

If they want to keep it completely practical they should have a mix of puppet and animatronics. The motion capture-animatronics they do for masks like in the TFA documentary now is crazy.

EDIT: And I see that was already mentioned

 

I don't think they want to keep it totally practical. That's a myth created by the PT fringe.

LFL may have marketed practical heavily, but TFA was a mixed approach and it looked great.

 

He was indeed a very well done CGI character.



Although a bit cartoony I also like Ben Quadinaros

 

This. I too recall them having to hold back with CGI Yoda in order to line up with the limitations of OT Yoda, even down to the way his puppet ears wobbled unintentionally.

I'm a big fan of both Yoda and practical effects. I was actually one of those people who shouted WTF ARE YOU DOING when I heard that Yoda would no longer be a puppet in Epi II. But, at this point, it just seems unnecessary to revert back to any form of puppet for a character that was successfully digitized 14 years ago.

There have been unreal advancements in CGI since ROTS. The things they could do with a fully CGI Yoda, IMO, make it totally unnecessary to use a puppet. Particularly considering that Yoda wouldn't be in the flesh, but a ghost. A ghost that's already obscured and bathed in artificial looking blue light. Why would anybody even go through the trouble of doing a puppet + enhanced CGI that would be half obscured by a bath of light, for a character that would likely only be a cameo?