Stuart Freeborn

The make-up artist Stuart Freeborn based Yoda's face on his own face and partly on Albert Einstein's.[6][7][8][9] In The Phantom Menace, he was redesigned to look younger. He was computer-generated for two distant shots, but remained mostly a puppet.[10] The puppet was re-designed by Nick Dudman from Stuart Freeborn's original design.

Rendered with computer animation in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Yoda appeared in ways not previously possible, including his participation in elaborate fight scenes. In Revenge of the Sith, his face appears in several big close-ups, demanding highly detailed CGI work. His performance was deliberately designed to be consistent with the limitations of the puppet version, with some "mistakes" made such as the occasional ear-jiggling.[citation needed] Rob Coleman was responsible for the character's new incarnation to the series.

Yoda was recreated in CGI for the 2011 Blu-ray release of The Phantom Menace.[11] A clip of the new CG Yoda from The Phantom Menace was first seen in the featurette The Chosen One, included in the 2005 DVD release of Revenge of the Sith.[12] The 2012 theatrical 3D release of The Phantom Menace also features the CG version of Yoda.

Character overview[edit]

"Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering."

Grand Jedi Master Yoda is among the oldest and most powerful known Jedi Masters in the Star Wars universe. Series creator George Lucas originally wished Yoda to follow his other characters in having a full name—Minch Yoda—but instead opted to have many details of the character's life history remain unknown. Yoda's race and home world have not been named in any media, canonical or otherwise, and he is merely said to be of a "species unknown" by the Star Wars Databank. Yoda's speech syntax has been analyzed and discussed by academic syntacticians, who found it somewhat inconsistent, but could extrapolate that it has object–subject–verb word order.[13]

The films and Expanded Universe reveal that during 800 years, he had a hand in training almost every Jedi, including many of the most powerful Jedi such as Count Dooku, who is identified in Attack of the Clones as Yoda's old Padawan Learner; Mace Windu; Obi-Wan Kenobi (partially, before Qui-Gon Jinn takes over as Obi-Wan's master); Ki-Adi-Mundi, Kit Fisto and eventually Luke Skywalker. During the animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars, set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, he mentions that he trained another one of the leaders on the Jedi Council, Master Oppo Rancisis. In the Star Wars prequels, it is shown that he instructs several younglings in the Jedi Temple before they are assigned to a master. This was displayed in a scene in Attack of the Clones.

Appearances[edit]

Feature films[edit]

Original trilogy[edit]

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)[edit]

Yoda makes his first film appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) arrives on Dagobah to seek his guidance, having been instructed to do so by the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness).

Yoda does not initially identify himself to Luke and instead tests his patience by presenting himself as a comical and senile backwater individual, deliberately provoking both Luke and R2-D2

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