Here is an old interview with George Lucas where he talks about the origin of Yoda and why he created him. My Other Social Media: / medinalorian23 / medinalorian23 #starwars #interview #georgelucas
More like he created a side character, but the award winning stage actor who played the character portrayed it in such a way that it became a powerful indespensable character. But that actor had also only taken the job as an afterthought to make extra cash on the side and never really planned on taking the role seriously. So expecting him to do the whole franchise with plenty of action scenes would be a problem, especially if he asked for bigger pay. So they killed him off and replaced him with a puppet.
Basically: 1. Creates Obi-Wan as a wise mentor and teacher for Luke 2. Kills off Obi-Wan because he was too cool of a character 3. Realizes Luke still needs a mentor and teacher, so he brings him back as a ghost. 4. Realizes Luke's mentor still needs to be able to physically interact with him for certain things, so creates another mentor, but makes him green and small.
He also copied the old Japanese trope of the most powerful character is the most unassuming. Like in dragon ball z, the god of the multi verse looks like a child's doll. Yodas appearance is meant to belie his power.
Well in Legends there were other members of Yodas species going back to High Republic era. The audience does not know his origins, but in film Yoda's species is well known and respected. 😆
Same with Boba Fett. Being tall, dark, and mysterious is why he is such a great character. It sucks that disney made a series bringing him back from the dead.
People in the SW universe would know where he's from and his species etc though because further works stopped him being unique by adding Yaddle and Grogu.
The fact that Disney bought this property from George Lucas and didn't consult him on a damn thing is hubris of the highest caliber. This man has an entire galaxy worth of stories and characters just floating around in his head, the kind that make BILLIONS of dollars, and Disney thought they could do it better. We all know how THAT worked out for them.
They buy the franchise so what was already done cannot be undone but why Disney should ask if it's OK he have no words to say because he sell is franchise... Didn't say it's a good things but only a fact.. When you own somethings you can ruin it or polish it or do whatever you want the original franchise will never be mess by Disney it's the only positif
Turns out his species is retroactively created by Rey everytime she sharts out some force lightening because she ate too many "portions" the night before. AAARRRGGGHHHH ⚡ 💩 👽
Nah,in the contracts, George specified they could never come up w that. So if ANYTHING happens to reveal the species name, origins, anything, Star Wars immediately goes back to George Lucas and Disney loses ownership
@@cloudmaster182 you know that the contracts are private, right? Nobody has seen them except for the people involved in them. Wherever you heard that was lying to you. Think about it... It doesn't even make sense. You don't just do "take backs" on a multi-billion dollar deal because of a single detail in the story. Yoda's mysterious background is not worth four billion dollars to Lucas, there's no way he'd risk the whole deal being cancelled by Disney because of a random single detail. When you buy something you own it - that includes changing or adding things to it. Disney owns Star Wars so they can do whatever they want with it.
That's what makes the Star Wars community so great, 22 years of George Lucas leaving the franchise alone. The fans came together and helped expand the universe for him with books, TV Shows, action figures and video games. There is no greater community than the Star Wars community that continously takes care and Shows more passion in their franchise even with it's ups and downs. Celebrating 50 years of Star Wars in 2027, let's continue it for another 50 years and beyond for our children and children's children.
I love how George openly admits that he just never bothered to make up any information about yoda because he didn’t care and it didn’t matter. When the creator of the lore and character says this how do you even argue with him? It’s wonderful and I love it!
that's why the prequels are shit, because it's entirely ad hoc. And he jsut makes shit up on the go, doesn't relaly think of the implications and then some guy writes a 400 book as to why mace windu had a purple light saber. This is kind of what I hate about Star Wars. I think it's time actually well written stories got more screen time like Dune. I love Star Wars but it should have never gone further than a cute trilogy from the 80s.
@@slyfox3333 very different things, one is a trilogy about emotion, adventure, family the other is about fleshing out an entire universe. You can do approximation for the first but not for the second. Hence why the ip became hot garbage after the prequels.
Guys, you have to understand how rare this is for George. He wrote pages and pages of backstory for everything. He has documents on Darth Vader's armor alone. So yeah this is a interesting fact.
After the success of the first Star Wars, Lucas launched into busy business man mode and hired other people to flesh out his ideas. He didn't write or direct Empire, he took an advisory role as executive producer and made a good choice to trust other creatives who showed passion and understanding of Star Wars. He gave the writers an outline for Yoda's purpose in the story but the character was evolved into the version we know by Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay) and Frank Oz (puppeteer).
jrr tolkien not only would had given us a background to yoda but spent 5 years creating Yodish, which would had been the language of yoda race. then another book on the treebranch of Dagobah
@@sheflashedus I disagree. Yoda would have been unpacked to be in a certain tribe of a planet his race settled speaking a particular dialect of a language that had evolved from the people that oppressed Yoda's intermixed with a crude form of their original language. And yes, there would also be a book about the branch. Tolkien doesn't play around lol.
@@akilisimm in storytelling the characters must keep presenting purpose and they should act and be presented as that character till the end, he felt the options he had for obi wan werent good for the character specially and the story also
I remember having a sense of awe about him because his species wasn’t known and he was a mystery and a magical character. Thanks Disney for running roughshod over my childhood.
I can just the averaged-iq sequel creators in a story conference hearing about everyone's ideas about this scene and that and telling each other, "That is SO cool!."
George Lucas knew he created a character that fit the role needed (yoda) and didn't down play the past (obi-wan)and continued to help the main character who was Luke. Amazing story telling
Star Wars was still a joint effort by a lot of very talented and creative people. It's often overlooked how much his wife helped him in the proper writing of dialogues. Lukas had some great ideas and he was very skilled in some areas. But he also had people which would give him opposition on some decisions and make important changes. For example Lukas is not exactly a great script writer.
@@CrniWuk for sure. he's got a lot of ideas and you can see where he drew a lot of inspiration from tons of different things, but he often needed others around him to keep his vision from being too batshit crazy. Which is why the prequels turned out a little wonky for some people compared to the original trilogy
The 30seconds during which Yoda pulls the X-Wing out of water is peak Star Wars out of all movies. Music Picture and morality all come together so perfectly during those 30 seconds, it’s beautiful and really moving.
I love that he’s honest about just not coming up with anything, but actually it fits so well for someone like Yoda to be a mystery character. It just adds to the magic of an ancient wise being if nobody even knows what he is and where he came from.
I love how George isn't afraid to just say that he never thought that deeply about the characters he was creating and he just wanted to create something magical and fantastic that served the story
That's not what he said 40 years ago. Back then he was pretending he'd mapped out everything beforehand and had the prequel trilogy all set up in his head. He did not.
Right? Even at his corniest, his movies still had charm. The horrible fans berated him for the prequels enough that he sold his ideas to Disney who were dumb enough to think that everyone was so Anti-Lucas they would be grateful for anything that didn't have him at the helm. Don't worry old man, we will take good care of the ol' gal. They were so condescending and too good/big to fail. But they didn't respect him or the fans, so we get the hot mess we deserved and Lucas gets to have the last laugh while he can hug his millions and we get to complain ourselves to sleep.
@@MLBlue30 so not ALL of it but most, George is actually very financially smart. He took about 2.6B in "cash" and 1.8B in Disney stock. On dividends alone from that stock, George makes about 25 million dollars a year. Not to mention that when he took that deal stock traded for about $55, and now transfer about 133. Making his total stock in Disney worth over $5B. So in short, by taking the socks he made more money than the entire Disney deal was even worth, and was still able to donate over 2 billion dollars to charity.( This was based on information from 2019/2020)
@@Nay-kp6uu what is your point? Lucas is literally saying that he didnt plan it in advance. Having a plan doesnt mean something is good and not having one doesnt mean it's bad. You don't like the sequels, ok, move on. They're here to stay and lots of us love them.
back then George really just wanted to make everything as simple as it could be. Now we need massive backstories to justify how or why characters can do the things they do. Don't take everything so seriously, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I think the reason that Yoda not having an actual backstory works is because it's Star Wars. Everything in the beginning was mysterious and unknown, not just Yoda. For instance, we didn't know what the Clone Wars was until the prequel trilogy, and we still had to have an entire animated show to completely understand what the Clone Wars actually was. On top of that, Yoda was the epitome of what a Jedi was supposed to be. He was arguably the most powerful Jedi of all time and had been alive for 900 or so years. Plus, George honestly could have made Yoda just forget what/where his homeplanet was called because he'd been around for so long, and I'd bet money people would have accepted that answer since he's roughly 900 years old. What I'm trying to say is that Yoda's background being all mysterious and unknown to us fans works because it's Star Wars. Like I said before, everything was mysterious in the beginning, and as time has gone on, we've slowly been shown more of the amazing SW universe. This tactic allows characters like Yoda to remain mysterious indefinitely. Sorry for the long paragraph. I just love SW sooooo much. Lol.
@@quantumprodigy9009 It's like the universe, at first there was nothing until light was created, things became clearer and we discovered more things, more planets, more solar systems, but some things seem to always remain a mystery or can never be understood by humans as a whole.
That’s part of yoda. He’s just this magical mysterious character that is incredibly powerful and incredibly kind and humble. Who is a force for good. It allows us to come up with what we think his origin and species is.
It made sense to kill off Obi Wan at that right time. Luke needed to be taught by the ultimate Jedi master (Yoda) and then learn the concept of the "force ghosts" for guidance. Luke's importance in the prophecy to bring balance to the force couldn't have translated well without these events. George Lucas set this up really well.
I appreciate the George is being honest here that the characters and their stories are developing . . . he didn't have it all planned out in advance. Star Wars geeks talk about Star Wars lore as if it is homogenous story without devastating plot holes all over the place. I think it's safe to enjoy the story and ignore the holes without pretending they aren't there at all.
I was recently plagued by the mystery of yoda(his species, surname, parents,etc) but this has satisfied my need to find for answers. Thank you George Lucas
Wow, quite a confession. I always figured Lucas made a lot of the story up as he went along. This is certainly a good example. I always wondered about the sith as well since they were never mentioned until episode 1. But they were in the story all along. Check out the cut scene where Vader was referred to as a Sith Lord in episode 4. That blew my mind.
I've been listening to this guy talk about this my entire life, and his story and the story surrounding various circumstances all change. By the time this man dies his story will be that he acted everything himself and Harrison Ford loved his scripts and didn't insult them at all!
Ultimately it all worked out, especially with the lines he gave Yoda. Basically the lesson was the outward appearance is not what determines your abilities in the force. And “the least among you is the greatest”
Not every character needs a backstory. It’s the strength of the character and the performance of the artists involved, that make it special on screen. The mystery of what yoda is and how powerful he is, makes it so much more compelling and intriguing. When he raises the x wing out of the swamp..it’s one of the best moments in Star Wars. it’s perfect. Rian Johnson & JJ Abram’s aren’t fit to make Lucas’s coffee!
Love how people come up with all these bulshit theories and he's just like ehh, I needed to continue my story... One of the most iconic characters of all time. Lol Even toddlers know Yoda.
It’s interesting how both the OT and the ST killed off beloved characters, but did it in such absurdly different ways. Obi-Wan was killed off because his arc was complete and his sacrifice could inspire the next generation. Luke was there to witness it, and that tragedy drove him in his journey. Obi-Wan had reached his peak, and rather than letting it plateau or slip down the other side, Lucas let him die in a meaningful way. Luke’s arc was complete in the OT (or the EU, if you prefer). It was then kicked off a cliff, stomped, and spit upon. He was killed not to inspire a new generation, but to buy time for the idiots in the cave to look for a second exit. (TLJ tries to show the slave kids reenacting Luke’s grand final stand, but… did the First Order tell them about the Jedi that make them look stupid? It certainly wasn’t the Resistance, since they abandoned the slave kids) It’s almost like nobody has a problem with a beloved character being killed *in theory* . It’s all in the execution, so to speak.
George Lucas is the perfect definition of an “organic” writer. He keeps a general idea of what he wants, but still allows the story to flow and change naturally as needed. He’s created one of the most iconic stories to ever exist, and it literally just came to him in such a casual way. I love it.
I actually enjoy the mystery behind Yoda's species. all we know is they are very force sensitive and in touch with the force and it's so wonderful to see like a physical avatar of an etherial entity
And also explains why grogu is so powerful at a young age, lifting a mudhorn, calming the rancor while on a rampage, deflected flames from a. Flame trooper, as well as many force pulls and pushes and jumps, and was literally able to force field around three people as a starship crashes just a few feet away from them. If grogu continues his way with the force he could be one of the most talented force users in the galaxy, on top of not having a weapon 90 percent of the time
The more you listen to interviews of George Lucas the more you realize that he had no clue wtf he was making or doing with Star Wars in the moment. He just had a vague sort of vision of the world he wanted to create and he tried to be as outside the box and innovative as he possibly could be, and that ultimately created such an original work of art it captivated the audience.
Having Yoda jump around like a spastic jumping bean with his baby-size lightsaber killed EVERYTHING Irving Kirshner did to develop the character in "Empire".
Directed? Ehhh not so much. However he should have served as both creative and story consultant as well as executive producer overseeing the whole thing as well as hire a comptent screen-writer and director to help helm his vision.
Yeah yeah everyone LGBTQ is definitely trying to take over ALL media, rather than just be represented even a little bit. It really must suck to be a grown adult with a child's brain, what's that like?
One thing disney fails to understand is that everything doesn't need an explanation. Sometimes, it's more fun to let the fans speculate. George understood that like reading a good book through cinema.
All this from Disney having the audacity to write an open letter on behalf of their LGBTQ employees whose civil rights were/are being threatened...geez talk about beating a dead horse. You people bitch about gay characters being "shoved in your face" way more than I've ever even seen a gay character appear in film/tv
And this my friends is how a really talented creative mind works and operates. Hollywood really needs to go back to the basics and stop hiring political activists to write their movies.
Guinness contradicted that at times as well saying he was aggravated his character was getting killed off. Probably after he figured out his 2.25% was gonna yield millions. He wrote in his diary the bread (money) was the only reason he stayed on in the first place.
The entire story happens because Yoda decides to train Anakin even though they all say he's too old to start. Yoda is responsible for a lot of death and destruction.
Yeh I think the high republic era was his prime and even that order crashed and burned. I would love to say Luke redeemed his legacy butt it's retcond bye Disneys trilogy sadly.
That’s not true… The council agree with Obi Wan’s decision to take Anakin as his Padawan learner but Yoda expresses he’s not happy about it. Yoda and the rest of the Jedi made countless mistakes that allowed Palpatine to enact his plan so they are all to blame in varying amounts though. Besides all that, it was necessary for Anakin to be trained since he was the Chosen One who would bring balance to the force. You’re looking at all the bad things that happened since they did train him and just assuming a lot worse wouldn’t have happened if they had forbade his training.
The fact that George created yoda , yet he turned to be an iconic character, gonna show how of a genius he is to make his characters interesting and fit into the story perfectly.
Obi Wan’s death really raised the stakes of the trilogy and showed that this wasn’t just gonna be some happy fairy tale where all your favorite characters survive. George demonstrated he knew what it takes to tell a good story
Behind every decision he made, there is always an in-story logic. This is the major difference with Disney. All their decisions as based on things completely external to the story.
It's still so fascinating to me that all of these films were made on the spot, all the characters and stories. Star Wars feels like some book series turned into movies.
