Jedi Master Yoda is one of the most famous and most popular fictional characters of all time. He was a breakout character for Star Wars when he first appeared, but his actions in the Prequel Trilogy cemented his status as one of the greatest fictional characters of all time. This is a fact.

Yoda first appeared in 1980, in the movie The Empire Strikes Back, which was the second movie in Lucas’ Original Trilogy. He was a mentor figure to Luke Skywalker after Ben Kenobi’s death and while we knew that he was powerful, it wasn’t until the Prequel Trilogy that we finally understood just how powerful Yoda was.

Initially, Yoda was a puppet, and while modern versions of the character were made with CGI, Frank Oz’s famous 1980 puppet is one of the major elements of the original Star Wars movies, and many fans cannot even imagine Yoda as something else.

But did you know that Yoda almost looked totally different? Several concepts were proposed before the production ultimately went with the doll. This report will be about that story.

As stated, Master Yoda is one of the most famous fictional characters of all time and definitely one of the most popular Star Wars characters of all time. The character was introduced as a wise and powerful yet very old Jedi Master during the Empire, and it was later revealed that he was the most powerful Jedi of the Republic and one of the most powerful Force users of all time.

Yoda’s race is unknown – fans are hopeful that The Mandalorian might shed more light on this issue – and while we have seen other members of his race, we don’t know what it is called or anything relevant about them.

They are all short, green-skinned aliens with impish ears and three fingers on all extremities. We don’t know if they have a special connection to the Force, but all the canon members of Yoda’s race are powerful Force users.

As said, the appearance we all know and love is now a part of movie history, but the process of crafting it was a complex one. Namely, the film’s visual effects art director, Joe Johnston, created hundreds of sketches of Yoda, each different, and he later said – according to Rinzler’s The Making of the Empire Strikes Back – that the design Lucas ultimately picked looked like a combination of a leprechaun, a troll, and a gnome. Sounds interesting.

As for his portrayal, Lucas himself decided on the strange speech pattern because he wanted to add something unique to Yoda, which actually worked out quite well with the famous puppet. But, before actually deciding on the puppet, did you know that there were several very crazy ideas on how to portray him?

One of the ideas was to get a child or a dwarf to play Yoda in a costume; this was abandoned, although actor Deep Roy was in Yoda’s costume during the several wide shots that show Yoda moving in the movie.

Another idea was to use stop-motion animation, which would have been interesting, but the craziest idea of them all was to use – a monkey! Yes, someone wanted to put a trained monkey in the costume, give it a cane, and then have it walk around. We’re lucky that they picked the puppet, eh?

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