48 Fun Facts About Yoda

In which film did Yoda first appear?

The Empire Strikes Back needed a new teacher for Luke because George Lucas had killed off Obi-Wan in the first film, so he invented Yoda to take over the training.

Who puppeteered and voiced Yoda in the original trilogy?

Frank Oz worked the mouth and brow with his hand inside the puppet's head, held above him, while assistant puppeteers moved the eyes and ears by cable.

On which swamp planet does Yoda live in exile?

Dagobah hid Yoda after he failed to defeat the Emperor. He was still there when Luke arrived, sent by Obi-Wan's spirit, and Luke at first took the little creature for a pest, not the Jedi Master he was seeking.

At what age does Yoda die in Return of the Jedi?

900 is the age Yoda gives Luke from his sickbed, joking that Luke won't look as good when he gets there. Moments later his body fades away as he becomes one with the Force.

Yoda tells Luke to do or do not, because there is no what?

Try is what Luke promises to give it, and Yoda pounces on the word. Minutes later Luke says he doesn't believe what he has just watched, and Yoda tells him that is why he fails.

George Lucas pictured Yoda as a 'little' version of which spiritual leader?

The Dalai Lama was the picture in Lucas's head, which is why he wanted an Eastern-sounding name and called the little mentor Minch Yoda before trimming it to one word.

Which 1980s film features a trick-or-treater dressed as Yoda?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has its alien come across the costume while out on Halloween night. George Lucas returned the favour years later by slipping E.T.'s species into the background of a Star Wars prequel.

What colour is the blade of Yoda's lightsaber?

Green, on a hilt and blade built smaller than standard to suit his size. On film he only draws it in the prequels: the puppet Yoda of the original trilogy never picks up a weapon.

What does Yoda lift out of the swamp with the Force after Luke gives up?

An X-wing fighter, Luke's own, had sunk into the bog, and Luke insisted it was too big to move. Yoda answered that size matters not, then set it down on dry land himself.

Whose features did make-up artist Stuart Freeborn blend with his own for Yoda?

Albert Einstein's features were borrowed in the hope they would make the puppet look intelligent. Freeborn, who had already built Chewbacca, put the rest of his own face into the design.

Whom did George Lucas first ask to perform Yoda, only to hear he was too busy?

Jim Henson told Lucas he was busy making a film of his own, so he put forward a trusted Muppets colleague instead and stayed on hand to advise on how the puppet was built.

Yoda warns young Anakin that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to what?

Suffering ends the chain Yoda recites when the Jedi Council tests Anakin. He senses so much fear in the boy that the Council at first refuses to have him trained.

Which film was the first released with an entirely computer-generated Yoda?

Attack of the Clones was meant to keep the puppet and use a digital Yoda only for his lightsaber fight, until the animation director argued that matching the two would be harder than going digital in every scene.

Which film's puppet Yoda was later digitally replaced?

The Phantom Menace was filmed with a new, younger-looking puppet, but its 2011 Blu-ray swapped in a computer-generated Yoda, so all three prequels now show a digital one.

Which director insisted on bringing Yoda back as a puppet, cast from the original moulds, instead of CGI?

Rian Johnson had the puppet rebuilt from the 1980 moulds for The Last Jedi, even tracing the woman who painted the original eyes, so that Luke would meet the Yoda he remembered.

Which voice actor plays both Yoda and the newsreel-style narrator in The Clone Wars film and series?

Tom Kane first imitated Yoda for video games, won George Lucas's approval, and went on to voice him in both Clone Wars cartoons until a stroke in 2020 forced him to retire.

Which actor voiced Yoda in the radio dramatizations of Empire and Jedi?

John Lithgow says he won the part on the spot: director John Madden, then staging a play with him, complained he couldn't find a Yoda, and Lithgow answered in the voice.

When Obi-Wan calls Luke their last hope, Yoda replies that there is another, meaning whom?

Leia is the other hope. On his deathbed Yoda tells Luke there is another Skywalker, and Obi-Wan's spirit then helps Luke work out that she is his twin sister.

On which planet is Yoda commanding clone troopers when Order 66 turns them against him?

Kashyyyk is the Wookiee homeworld, and after Yoda cuts down the clones sent to kill him it is two Wookiees, Tarfful and Chewbacca, who get him off the planet.

Where does Yoda duel Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith?

The Senate chamber turns into a battlefield as Sidious hurls its floating pods at Yoda. Neither can finish the other, so Yoda retreats and goes into hiding.

Whom does Yoda duel at the climax of Episode II?

Count Dooku has just wounded Obi-Wan and cut off Anakin's arm when Yoda arrives, absorbs the Sith's Force lightning and fights him with a lightsaber until the Count flees.

Before turning to the Sith, what had Dooku been to Yoda?

His former apprentice: Yoda trained Dooku as a Jedi, and the Count walked away from the Order only later, disillusioned with it and hungry for greater power.

In The Last Jedi, what does Yoda's lightning bolt set ablaze?

The ancient library tree burns as Yoda tells Luke its sacred texts held nothing Rey does not already possess, and he is more right than Luke knows: she has already taken them with her.

In The Clone Wars season six, whose voice sets Yoda off on a spirit quest?

Qui-Gon Jinn had been dead for years, so hearing him proved that a Jedi could outlast death, and the quest that follows teaches Yoda to return as a Force spirit himself.

Which Star Wars film actor voices Darth Bane, whose illusion faces Yoda in The Clone Wars?

Mark Hamill, the screen's Luke Skywalker, voiced the long-dead Sith Lord, whose illusion is one of the trials Yoda must pass to learn how to survive death.

In Rebels, Yoda speaks telepathically to Kanan Jarrus and which apprentice?

Ezra Bridger hears Yoda's voice inside a hidden Jedi temple, where the old Master asks whether he is ready for what is to come and guides him to the kyber crystal for his first lightsaber.

Which Jedi Council member of the prequel era belongs to the same mysterious species as Yoda?

Yaddle sat on the Council beside Yoda as a quiet background figure, then gained a speaking role, voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard, in Tales of the Jedi, where trying to reason with a fallen Jedi costs her life.

George Lucas says he gave Yoda his back-to-front speech for which reason?

So audiences would listen closely: Lucas said people tune out plain English but focus when a line takes effort to follow, and Yoda was the film's philosopher.

Weird Al Yankovic's song Yoda parodies which Kinks hit?

Lola became 'Yoda' in 1980 as an accordion demo, but no album carried the parody for five years, and it never got a video: by then, Yankovic said, film and tune were both old news.

In The Last Jedi, what does Yoda tell Luke is the greatest teacher?

Failure, most of all, is what Yoda says a master must pass on, along with strength and mastery. He adds that teachers are what their pupils grow beyond.

Which ally flies Yoda to safety after his duel with Darth Sidious ends in a stalemate?

Bail Organa is waiting with a speeder when Yoda escapes, and it is to him that Yoda admits he has failed and must go into exile.

Which Muppet did Yoda's original puppeteer also perform for over two decades?

Miss Piggy once burst onto the swamp set mid-scene, on the same puppeteer's arm, to heckle Yoda and the worn-out actor playing Luke and threaten to call her agent.

Which 1986 musical film did Yoda's puppeteer direct?

Little Shop of Horrors first ended with the man-eating plants winning and overrunning the world, until preview audiences rejected it and the director reshot a happy ending.

Which comedian plays Yogurt, the wise Yoda spoof in the 1987 film Spaceballs?

Mel Brooks, who also directed, plays Yogurt as a sage who teaches 'the Schwartz' and hawks Spaceballs merchandise, the one thing George Lucas had told him the real film could not sell.

How old is Grogu, of Yoda's species, when The Mandalorian begins?

50 years old and still in a floating pram: the bounty hunter expects an adult target, but Yoda's species matures so slowly that at that age Grogu is an infant.

Which director called The Mandalorian's makers cowards for doubting the Grogu puppet?

Werner Herzog, who plays the Client, saw the crew line up a back-up take without the puppet and told them to leave it alone. He called the animatronic Grogu heartbreakingly beautiful.

In The Book of Boba Fett, Luke makes Grogu choose between Yoda's lightsaber and which gift from the Mandalorian?

A chain-mail shirt of beskar, forged for him as a present, is what Grogu picks, giving up Jedi training with Luke to go back to the Mandalorian who had raised him.

Before his name was revealed, what was Grogu officially called in subtitles?

The Child was the only name Lucasfilm would give him for a year, while viewers everywhere called him Baby Yoda, a label Jon Favreau kept pointing out was wrong: he is not Yoda.

At the Jedi Temple on which planet was Grogu raised during the Clone Wars?

Coruscant's temple trained Grogu until the clones stormed it. He was smuggled out by the Jedi Kelleran Beq, played by Ahmed Best, the actor once behind Jar Jar Binks.

After Padmé dies, to which planet does Yoda send the infant Luke to be hidden?

Tatooine put the boy with his step-uncle and step-aunt, Owen and Beru Lars, and let Obi-Wan settle nearby as a hermit to watch over him.

In the 2008 Clone Wars film, Yoda assigns which apprentice to Anakin?

Ahsoka Tano was 14 when Yoda paired her with Anakin, who bristled at being given a pupil at all. Yoda's hope was that the responsibility would help the reckless Jedi grow up.

Where does Yoda's Force spirit appear in the final scene of Return of the Jedi?

Endor is where Luke looks up from the Ewok victory party to see Yoda beside Obi-Wan and Anakin. Later editions of the film swapped in Hayden Christensen as the young Anakin next to him.

On his deathbed, Yoda says Luke will be a Jedi only after he does what?

Confronts Darth Vader is the one task left, Yoda says, since Luke's training is otherwise complete, yet he also calls it unfortunate that Luke rushed to face him once before.

In the prequels, what title does Yoda hold at the top of the Jedi Order?

Grandmaster made Yoda the most senior Jedi, though the Council itself was led at first by Mace Windu. When war came, the rank put the little teacher in command of clone armies as a general.

During his training, Yoda sends Luke into which place that is strong with the dark side?

A cave, where Yoda says Luke will find only what he takes in with him. Luke keeps his weapons anyway, cuts down a figure in black armour, and sees his own face inside the broken mask.

In The Clone Wars series opener, whose droid army hunts Yoda while he tries to win over King Katuunko?

Asajj Ventress bets the king that her battalion can capture Yoda and three clone troopers; when the four of them wreck it instead, the king sides with the Republic.

Yoda makes a silent cameo in the finale of which 2024 series?

The Acolyte is set about a century before the prequel films. Yoda is seen only from behind, at the very end, as a Jedi Master comes to tell him what has happened.

When Obi-Wan cannot find a planet in the Jedi archives, Yoda's class of younglings helps him locate which world?

Kamino had been erased from the archive, and it is one of Yoda's young pupils who works that out. Yoda, delighted, remarks how wonderful an uncluttered young mind is.