Irvin Kershner-directed The Empire Strikes Back from the Star Wars franchise is one of the highly recognized movies but it has a lot of behind-the-screen moments that would reshape the very outline of the movie. Thanks to the mastermind behind the franchise, George Lucas fans got the best treatment from the 1980 movie.
The Empire Strikes Back has undergone several changes before reaching the final product. Written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan from the story developed by Lucas had different plans for the iconic character, Yoda who would later make several appearances throughout the Star Wars franchise.
George Lucas’ Original Plan For Yoda Was Different
Legendary filmmaker and the father of the Star Wars franchise, George Lucas, had a different plan for Yoda— a small, green humanoid alien and a Jedi Master— and that would have potentially ruined the very impression of the character. Yoda was originally named Buffy, not bluffing, the original draft from Lucas had this name for the character.
In the draft, Mark Hamill’s character, Luke Skywalker, encountered a supernatural being who goes by the name of Buffy, or Bunden Debannen. Lucas’ description of the character further hinted that the filmmaker almost went for it.
Buffy very old — three or four thousand years. Kiber crystal in sword? Buffy shows Luke? Buffy the guardian. ‘Feel not think.’
It meets the description quite accurately, he added saying “the human Buffy” (retrieved from WIRED) to explicitly detail the humanoid nature of the character. In another draft, Lucas imagined the character as a small frog and he had a full name Minch Yoda. It was the beginning of the evolution of the character. As this version of Yoda made it into the early script draft, it has the following lines as the dialogue:
Skywalker. Skywalker. And why do you come to walk my sky, with the sword of a Jedi knight?… I remember another Skywalker.
Thankfully, something was not satisfactory to Lucas as he eventually decided to change the name of the character to Yoda. The name and the character stuck, and it has been a pop-cultural phenomenon ever since.
George Lucas Described Backstory Of Yoda
Lucas was quite uncertain about Yoda. The character was born out of the observation of the filmmaker as he felt a void in the storyline. “The truth about Yoda is in the original movie Obi-Wan went to the very end of the film and Yoda didn’t exist,” Lucas said in an old interview on Moviefone.
Where I realized that when I came to the end battle that Obi-Wan had nothing to do but sit around and watch the battle like Princess Leia and then in the next film he basically sat around and taught Luke how to use the force and things.
I felt that his character had become so strong the way Alec Guinness had presented it that I really couldn’t do that he was too noble so I had to kill him off when I got to the second movie I could do certain things by having him come back as it goes from the force.
Lucas went on to add:
But he couldn’t do everything I needed a physical body there to do things and so and I created Yoda who was two feet tall large with green ears but to be very honest with you I never really figured out where he came from what his species is called it doesn’t even have a name so he’s a mystery character.
It paid off, Yoda became one of the coolest characters in the history of Star Wars. Several actors voiced the legendary Jedi Master which includes Frank Oz, Tom Kane, and Piotr Michael.
The entire Star Wars franchise, including all the films and spinoff TV series, are available to stream on Disney+.
