muppet
and visit with Yoda and on the set of The Empire Strikes Back.

Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog visit with Yoda and Mark Hamill on the set of The Empire Strikes Back.

Freeborn, Oz, and Henson consult over the creation of Yoda.

Freeborn, Oz, and Henson consult over the creation of Yoda.

George_Lucas_Leonard_Maltin_1995

George Lucas Leonard Maltin 1995

George Lucas on recruiting Frank Oz.

Yoda is a character from the Star Wars franchise, performed by Frank Oz. The character debuted as a puppet in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back, with Oz as voice and lead puppeteer, and Kathryn Mullen assisting.

In an interview with Leonard Maltin, George Lucas discussed the creation of Yoda:

“I went to Jim [Henson] and said, 'Do you want to do this?' And he said, 'Well, I'm busy, I'm doing this, and doing that, I'm making a movie and all that -- I really can't, but... how about Frank? You know, Frank's the other half of me.' And I said, 'Well, that'd be fantastic.'[1]”

Background

A popular misconception is that Yoda is a Muppet, based on the involvement of Oz, the character's existence as a puppet, vocal similarity to Oz' portrayal of the Muppet Grover, and a false assumption that The Jim Henson Company (or even Jim Henson himself) built the character. However, had he been built by Henson, the more realistic Yoda would technically qualify as a creature rather than a Muppet. The Yoda puppet was originally designed and built by Stuart Freeborn for Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. Henson merely consulted on the building of Yoda. A few other Henson veterans contributed to the character, such as Wendy Froud who assisted on construction, but their work on Yoda was under Lucasfilm's employ.

The creation of Yoda arose entirely independent of Henson, the only real connections being the loan of Oz and one or two other designers/assistants, and a slightly similar technology. Oz explained the character's creation in detail, during a 2000 interview with IGN FilmForce:[2]

“...Jim [Henson] came to me and said Gary Kurtz, who was co-producer of The Empire Strikes Back, had a character and I think they asked Jim first – but with running a company and everything he couldn't do it, so he recommended me....

From then on, I was the one who kind of put all the elements of Yoda together, and although Jim didn't make Yoda, George [Lucas] and he had an understanding that they would exchange technology information. George would give to Jim and Jim would give some of his people to George to help. Wendy Froud helped out a little bit with the character and two other people from Jim's company worked the cables for me.”

Filming

Yoda's scenes were filmed at Elstree Studios over two six-day spans during the summer of 1979.[3]

Amid the challenges of filming on a sound stage rife with miasma created by the mineral oil used for Yoda's swamp home on Dagobah, and coordinating with director Irvin Kershner via radio, Oz and his fellow performers found opportunities to keep the tone on set light with ad-libbing.

One day of filming included a visit from Miss Piggy as described in a 1980 article for People magazine:[3]

“One difficult day, when Hamill solemnly told Yoda, “I followed my feelings,” Oz suddenly and incongruously popped Miss Piggy into the scene decked out in lavender gown and gloves. “Feelings? Ya wanna know about feelings? Get behind this couch and I’ll show ya feelings, ya little runt,” squealed Miss Piggy. “Where the hell is this? Get my agent on the phone. I’ve been booked in dumps before, but nothin’ like this.” As the crew howled with laughter, Hamill and Piggy went into a duet of the tune “Feelings,” and Kershner cringed. “I could joke about everything else but not about Yoda,” says the director. “I had to keep him a living thing with feelings and imagination.””

According to the 2010 book The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by J.W. Rinzler, a filmed blooper exists of Piggy and Hamill's interaction on set. "When Mark Hamill first met Frank Oz, he asked him to do a brief Miss Piggy cameo during rehearsals on set, as a practical joke — but when the time came much later, it caught even Hamill off-guard."[4]

Later films

Warwick Davis stood in as a double for the character in scenes where Yoda was walking in 1999's The Phantom Menace. Frank Oz returned to perform the character on set, but the puppet was replaced with CGI in later home video releases. The puppet was not used at all for Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, with Oz serving in a voice-over capacity only. Oz returned again in 2015 for The Last Jedi (released in 2017), where Yoda was rebuilt using the original puppet molds from The Empire Strikes Back.

Gallery

References

Visual references

The built in 2002 for It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie.

The Yoda Muppet built in 2002 for It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie.

Grover dressed as "Groda" in a promotional image.

Grover dressed as "Groda" in a promotional image.

Verbal references

Muppet Mentions

Sources

  1. ↑ "Casting a Legend" @ StarWars.com
  2. ↑ IGN interview
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 People magazine, "Yoda Mania" by Karen S. Peterson and Fred Hauptfuhrer, June 9, 1980
  4. ↑ Wired review of Rinzler's book

External Links

Wikipedia has an article related to:
Yoda