Yoda getting ready for a scene.
The above picture shows director Irvin Kershner as he works on his contribution to the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back. He and his assistant are setting up the Dagobah scene with its star, Yoda.
Yoda came to be from an interesting problem. With the first film, Lucas originally wanted Obi-Wan to survive and spend the next movie training Luke to become a Jedi Knight. However, as the film progressed, Lucas decided he would rather create a little more drama and suspense by killing the wise master off. This meant in the next movie, there would be no one to follow through on his original plan of training Luke to hone his skills. A new character had to be created to fill this role, which would be Yoda.
Yoda started out as an homage to the wise teachers of myths and fairytales. Unassuming people like Merlin or Gandalf, who just seemed like old men until you learned their power. That is how Lucas wanted Yoda to be, weak and frail looking to show that anyone can be great. They decided to make him green to give him a more distinct look from Obi-Wan and make him a recognizable figure. The decision to make him a puppet was also Lucas’s because he wanted to make him seem real, but still fantastic.
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