10 Things You Didn't Know About Yoda
9. He Was Basically The Director
Irvin Kershner was the director of The Empire Strikes Back, dealing with the day to day shooting while George Lucas was trying desperately to keep the money from running out. Kershner's contemporaries remember him as an impish and occasionally irascible presence, which is one of the reasons Yoda ended up the way he did, if the stories told at Kershner's funeral in 2011 were anything to go by.
Frank Oz, puppeteer and voice of Yoda, asked Kershner for guidance on how he was supposed to move when Yoda, still in crazy hermit guise, batters R2-D2 with his cane. Kershner demonstrated, at which point Oz realised he should just play Yoda like a miniature green Irvin Kershner and all would be well.
And so it was that Yoda's character was heavily influenced by the hassled director of Empire, which then became embedded in the fabric of popular culture.