One More For The Star Wars Fans!
Author: Megan Natoli, Challenge America Program Director
Today is National Talk Like Yoda Day, another opportunity to continue on with the Star Wars marathons in the month of May! This silly holiday commemorates the release date of the movie The Empire Strikes Back, which was released in the United States on May 21, 1980 and was the film Yoda made his debut appearance in.
Yoda has officially been a part of our world for a total of 44 years and has been in more than 50 films and TV shows!
Yoda’s specific style of speaking is based off of the language “Yodish”, which is very similar to English but with a twist on the sentence structure - the sentence structure follows the order of object-subject-verb instead of subject-verb-object order.
Fun Fact:
Did you know that there is a deep-sea acorn worm named after Yoda? The Yoda purpurata can be found about 1.5 miles below the surface of the Atlantic sea. The large lips on either side of the worm’s head reminded scientists of Yoda’s ears. The word “purpurata” is Latin for the color purple, which describes the way the creature looks 👇
For the role of Jedi Master Yoda, George Lucas initially approached American puppeteer James Maury Henson, who created The Muppets and Fraggle Rock, and directed Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Being busy with other projects at the time, Henson recommended Frank Richard Oznowicz for the role instead.
Oz performed the Yoda puppet and voice acting in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). Oz also provided the voice of the CGI Yoda in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). Throughout the films, Oz was able to take many creative liberties on Yoda’s character and was responsible for creating his trademark syntax known as “Yodish”.
The use of puppetry in the Star Wars films was what made the Yoda the world knows and loves to this day. Because of this, the conversion to CGI was met with much criticism from fans. Though CGI can shape some incredible worlds and scenes, I can’t help but think about creative individuality in the art form of puppetry.
Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre performance initially recorded in the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece. Puppetry involves the manipulation of inanimate objects that often resemble human or animal characters. The puppeteer’s role is to make the puppet’s inner monologue and emotions tangible.
Through puppetry and incredible artistry, Frank Oz created a character like no other that was full of wisdom, inspiration, and magic. Today, I invite you to indulge in a little Yoda magic by checking out this article containing 40 quotes of Yoda’s and this video:
May the force be with you all!
Sincerely,
The Challenge America Team
