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"My very first Lucasfilm project was Revenge -- er, I mean Return of the Jedi," Quinn says. "I was already a big fan of the first Star Wars movie and an even bigger fan of The Empire Strikes Back -- especially because of Yoda. I was still finishing school around the time Empire was about to come out. Already being a Muppet fanatic, I saw all the pre-publicity coming out about Yoda and got a look at all the pictures. Knowing some of the Jim Henson guys were involved -- especially Frank Oz -- I was really curious to see how this Yoda would move."

"So that summer when Empire finally came out, I was just fascinated by Yoda -- and so was the audience," Quinn recalls. "They would always fall silent when Yoda came on screen. Talk about cinema magic! No one had seen anything like that before. I recall a kid sitting behind me asking his father how Yoda was done and the father wanting to be all-knowing said 'it's a person in a suit.' I think a lot of people must have thought that. Since then, there has been The Dark Crystal, E.T. and many more so people are used to seeing animatronic puppet creatures, but that was a first and it was great!"

Working at the famous Elstree Studios amongst Kermit the Frog and his crew, Quinn waiting for his chance to star with creatures in a galaxy far, far away.

"Elstree Studios was a great place in the early '80s," Quinn recalls. "'The Muppet Show' was shot right across the street from the film studios. My first movie was actually The Great Muppet Caper. They had not long finished shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark there and lots of set artifacts were still lying around. By next movie, The Dark Crystal, they were already making noises about [the next] Star Wars. So as Dark Crystal was drawing to a close, production offices were gearing up for Return of the Jedi. The producer, Robert Watts, interviewed several of the puppeteers and mimes from Dark Crystal and it was that simple. I was at the right place at the right time. All I had to do was have a nice little chat in his office and I was hired. No audition or anything! We were shooting by the following January."

As the co-pilot to Lando Calrissian aboard the Millennium Falcon, Nien Nunb is a crucial member of the Rebel Alliance. The small, mouse-eyed pilot may look lifelike, but that's all due to the wizardry of Quinn's puppetry skills. "Some fans probably don't realize Nien Nunb was actually a puppet in the cockpit," Quinn says. "That puppet weighed a ton too. I remember getting terrible motion sickness in that cockpit!. The stage hands would bounce that thing around all day to simulate the flying and battle. I couldn't see out as I was under the puppet so I was pretty green by the end of each sequence."

Nien Nunb was not the only Sullustan Quinn had a hand in; lesser known is Ten Numb, a fighter pilot who has recently been immortalized as an action figure. "We shot Ten Numb in a B-wing cockpit," Quinn continues. "Those scenes were cut and are probably waiting to be discovered in the archives somewhere. I had to improvise the whole thing as there was no scripted dialogue and they were just generic cutaways for the space battle at the end. I said some pretty stupid things about not getting good reception of his favorite radio station out in space. These days, the Lucasfilm archives take good care of Nien Nunb for me and have preserved him for future aliens to enjoy. Another point of trivia that fans might be interested to know is that he was named Nien Nunb because he was number nine on the shipping list to London."

Though many films today seem to be a showcase for the latest CGI breakthroughs, Quinn is convinced there's still a place for puppetry skills on the big screen. "Puppetry has actually been around for thousands of years and will continue to be," Quinn says. "There has been a pendulum swing back to puppets in the entertainment industry in the last year or two interestingly enough. I've built and performed quite a few characters recently for TV with more in the works. In a way, animation is a kind of puppetry -- especially now as I can use those same puppetry skills to perform CG characters for film in real time. There's an evolution and it's up to people like me to take puppetry to new places. It's what Jim Henson would have done if he were still alive today. He loved the technology and what it allowed him to create. So if anything, puppetry will still be around in its many forms only perhaps with more diversity and computer integration, it's not going away."

Read more behind-the-scenes stories from Quinn in his VIP blog Views From the Cockpit.

Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force-Episode 118

Be sure to check back next week for the one-hundred and nineteenth episode of Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force. Then join us every week as we continue to follow the adventures of the Wookiee E'nac from the Star Wars Galaxies videogame in the form of Gamics!

Congratulations to all!

Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force-Episode 117

Be sure to check back later this week for the one-hundred and eighteenth episode of Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force. Then join us every week as we continue to follow the adventures of the Wookiee E'nac from the Star Wars Galaxies videogame in the form of Gamics!