1 week Ago By Cameron Bonomolo
Answered a major question, the Maker has. Star Wars creator George Lucas made a rare public appearance at TCM Classic Film Festival 2025 for the opening night gala screening of 1980’s Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, which continued the Star Wars saga started with Lucas’ original blockbuster in 1977. The Irvin Kershner-directed sequel expanded the galaxy far, far away, introducing not only the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), dark master of Darth Vader (David Prowse and James Earl Jones), but the charming scoundrel Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and the reclusive Jedi Master Yoda (Frank Oz).
“Away put your weapon,” said the wizened little creature upon meeting Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in the swamps of Dagobah. “I am wondering, why are you here?” When the Jedi-to-be answered that he was looking for someone, Yoda replied, “Found someone you have, hmm? Help you, I can.” Between stealing Luke’s lamp, rummaging through his things, and fussing with droid R2-D2, no one could have expected that the small, stick-wielding bog dweller was the “great warrior” that Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) sent Luke to the Dagobah system to find for training.
“Take you to him, I will,” Yoda told Luke, in a test of the would-be Jedi’s patience.RELATED: Star Wars: Ian McDiarmid Answers A Big Mystery About The EmperorAs The Empire Strikes back celebrates its 45th anniversary in May, Lucas explained why he had Yoda (mostly) speak backwards: “Yoda had a very distinctive way of talking. And it was done purposefully, because if [he was] speaking regular English, people don’t listen that much,” Lucas said of Yoda’s reverse speech pattern.
“But if he had an accent, or it’s really hard to understand what he’s saying, they focus on what he’s saying.”“He was basically the philosopher of the movie,” Lucas continued of Yoda. “So he was talking about all of the things [about the Jedi and the Force] in long talking scenes, where I had to figure out a way to get people to actually listen, especially 12-year-olds.
” The screenplay, drafted by Leigh Brackett and written by Lawrence Kasdan from a story by Lucas, originally introduced Yoda as “Minch” before the finished script described the legendary Jedi Master as “a strange, bluish creature, not more than two feet tall” dressed in rags. While most of the 25-minute conversation with moderator Ben Mankiewicz was about topics unrelated to The Empire Strikes Back — Lucas’ friendship and collaborations with fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola dominated much of the talk — Lucas was asked to choose which of the film’s new characters he liked better: Yoda or Lando. “It’s like choosing your kids, if you’ve got 12 kids, ‘Which one do you like the most?'” Lucas said.
George Lucas Thought Yoda Was Going to Be “A Disaster” in The Empire Strikes BackIn the 1983 documentary From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga, Lucas revealed that he created the Yoda character to replace Luke’s mentor Obi-Wan, who died battling Darth Vader aboard the Death Star in A New Hope. “When I came to the second film, to start working on The Empire Strikes Back, a lot of the information and the training that takes place was originally designed to be done by Ben,” Lucas said at the time. “But since I killed off Ben in the first film, it left me with a lot of exposition — a lot of training scenes that I didn’t have anybody to perform.
So I had to come up with a new Jedi Master who was even more powerful than Ben, and I had to come up with somebody who would be interesting to watch.” That led to Yoda, a puppet designed by Stuart Freeborn and Wendy Froud and brought to life by Frank Oz of The Muppets. “I was very apprehensive about how that [Yoda puppet] was going to work,” Lucas said in The Making of a Saga.
“Could I take a main character in a movie and use a little rubber puppet? Is it gonna happen, or is it just going to be a disaster? And right up until the moment he was on film and talking, it looked like it was going to be a disaster. You know, little hints [on the set], ‘Well, it looks pretty good,’ and ‘Frank can do some really funny things,’ and ‘that sort of seems to work.’ ‘Is it going to happen?’ But when he goes on the screen, it’s magic.
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