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Galactic News
Thursday May
16, 2002
Homing Beacon
#60
The latest Homing Beacon has arrived, and today we get to talk about Master Yoda! This week audiences around the world will see why exactly Yoda is referred to as the Master, but getting the tiny green alien to deliver the saber-swinging goods was a long, risky road to travel. It's easy to write on paper that Yoda is an incredible swordsman, but realizing it on screen called for a yeoman's effort from Industrial Light & Magic and Animation Director Rob Coleman.
In a movie filled with breakthroughs, Director George Lucas points to the computer-generated Yoda as one of the key ones. When he began work on Episode I, Lucas knew full well that the prequel trilogy would show a different side of Yoda than that seen in previous films.
"That was one of the constraints early on: I can't do it with a puppet," he says. "He's got a big action sequence, and I can't even get him to walk more than three feet. So, on The Phantom Menace, we started trying to develop digital characters. We had dinosaurs that could run through a real environment, but we'd never really done anything that could actually act as real actors and be believable."
While Episode I featured a number of brand new digital characters -- such as Sebulba, Watto and Jar Jar Binks -- mastering the CG Yoda was still elusive. "Making a replica of an existing character we all knew was very hard, and quite frankly, we couldn't pull it off in that movie. I had to go back to the puppet. I got one shot of him walking along, but basically we couldn't do it," says Lucas.
With the advancements in technology and artistry since Episode I, ILM tried again for Episode II. "Obviously, if I couldn't pull it off, I was dead. I could have done it without Yoda, but the whole point was Yoda. He is in the whole climax of the movie. And fortunately, we got to the point where it looked really good," says Lucas.
Once cameras began rolling during Episode II's principal photography, CG Yoda was still in the R&D stage, but Lucas had faith in Coleman's team. "We were close enough when we shot the movie that I made that commitment. When we shot the movie, we didn't actually have Yoda accomplished at that point. It wasn't until after that we saw a Yoda that worked," he says.
"It was five years of artistry and development. The breakthrough was after we finished shooting. It was about a little over a year ago. Frank Oz was very excited about not having to hold his hand up a heavy puppet and be in a hole in the floor."