Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith marked the conclusion of the prequels era of the space opera franchise created by George Lucas. The film explores Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the dark side and transformation into Darth Vader. Meanwhile, the Jedi Order is destroyed by the Sith, forcing Master Yoda to take some tough calls.
Given Yoda’s larger role in the film, Lucas and his creative team had to figure out how to deal with his movements as he was primarily a CGI creation. Lucas faced issues with filming scenes where he had to depict Yoda walking, resulting in a hilarious issue. Nonetheless, Lucas was able to resolve the issue with a clever CGI solution, and here is everything you need to know about it.
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Had a Hilarious Issue With Master Yoda’s Walking
Master Yoda, voiced by actor Frank Oz was first introduced during the original trilogy of Star Wars movies. In the originals, Yoda was primarily a puppet with limited movement since he was mainly an aging mentor to the protagonist. However, franchise spearhead George Lucas had to change his approach to the character for the prequels, which show Yoda in his relative prime.
In Attack of the Clones, Yoda is shown walking alongside his fellow Jedi Order members, which presents a challenge because of the character’s dwarf size compared to his peers. As a result, Yoda was unable to keep up with the long strides of the full-sized characters.
The same issue recurred during the production of Revenge of the Sith as detailed in issue #75 of the Star Wars Insider magazine. Lucas made the following statement regarding the problem with Yoda’s walk:
This is pretty fast. If he was walking this fast, be could keep wp with those guys.
Lucas’ words indicate that figuring out the proper pace at which Master Yoda would walk alongside the likes of Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi was a laborious task. The director did not want the Jedi Master moving too fast given his small stature or too slow to make the scene appear comical. As a result, Lucas devised a clever solution to the problem.
George Lucas Came Up With a Quick Fix For Yoda’s Walking Scenes in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Lucas was able to circumnavigate the issue for Revenge of the Sith, using a stand-in actor resembling Yoda’s stature. The actor’s movement was then used as a reference for Yoda’s walk while digitally animating the character.
Lucas also relied on footage from the first prequel trilogy film to animate Yoda’s walk at the exact pace. Thus, visual effects supervisor Justin Knoll was surprised by the simplicity of the solution and exclaimed:
So, we won’t have to give him rollerblades?
Ultimately, Lucas devised a simple and elegant solution for filming Yoda’s walking scenes without the CGI character’s walk looking comical. The filmmaker used a real actor’s movements as a reference point for Yoda’s pace of walking and fine-tuned it with the character’s movements in The Phantom Menace, resulting in a final result that is easy on the eyes of the viewers.
Revenge of the Sith and other Star Wars movies are streaming on Disney.
