Yoda goes CGI for Blu-ray release
Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 3:43 PM Central
Last updated Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 3:43 PM Central
by John Couture
In Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Yoda's action sequences, including a light saber dual, forced George Lucas to create an all CGI version of Yoda. Up until this point, Frank Oz controlled a puppet version that appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace.
The striking difference in appearance in Yoda from The Phantom Menace to Attack of the Clones is just one of many reasons that originalists prefer the older set of movies. Well, word is spreading online via /Film and other outlets that one change in the upcoming Blu-ray release of the Star Wars movies is that The Phantom Menace will feature a completely CGI Yoda.
Man, I wonder if Frank Oz loses a royalty check for this move.
All kidding aside the newly CGI Yoda probably won't be that distracting as we've gotten accustomed to it in the following two films, but it might shed light on a concern that is rising in a number of fans. There hasn't been any information released by Lucas or Fox in regards to changes made to the films themselves other than allusions here or there.
But this is George Lucas, isn't it? He has consistently made changes to the films with each release and it would only make sense that there would be at least cosmetic changes when making the jump to Blu-ray. So, will there be other, more self-indulgent changes?
One can only hope that Lucas goes back and fixes the whole Greedo shooting first fiasco, but I wouldn't hold my breath. More likely, there will be a few changes here or there, but to be honest, there have been so many over the years, I probably won't be able to tell which ones are new and which ones were present in earlier versions.
At the end of the day, these are Lucas' movies and he's free to tinker with them any way he sees fits. And we'll continue to buy each version because that's what we do. I would love to see him insert a wacky sequence into the middle of one of the movies just to see if people are paying attention.
/Film has a great comparison between puppet Yoda and CGI Yoda, so I'll let you surf over there to check it out. I will post this short clip showing CGI Yoda in action in The Phantom Menace.
The Blu-rays will hit stores on September 16, 2011.