14 Star Wars Moments George Lucas Wanted You To Forget
14. That Yoda Was A Puppet
With his characteristic lack of self-awareness, and an almost conscious choice to completely ignore how the fans feel, George Lucas believes that the CGI version of Yoda is superior over the puppet Yoda who appeared in the original trilogy. Apparently, it was only technology, and later a lack of time that lead to the puppet solution being used:
We tried to do Yoda in CGI in Episode I, but we just couldnt get it done in time. We couldnt get the technology to work, so we had to use the puppet, but the puppet really wasnt as good as the CGI. So when we did the re-issue, we had to put the CGI back in, which was what it was meant to be.
The simple fact is that the CGI version of Yoda is not better than the puppet - yes, the technology allowed for greater character agility, but there was too much of a trade off in the character's personality, and perhaps even his magic that came with the original version of the character. Thank God Lucas no longer has his hands on the films, because it was surely only a matter of time before Yoda was post-fixed into the CGI version of the prequels in the original series.
