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Yoda looks like a crappy sock puppet

#1 User is offline   Kelethor Icon

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Posted 05 July 2005 - 11:04 AM

I was watching TPM last night(dont ask why). And I couldent help but notice how crappy Yoda looks, he just dosent fit in with the rest of the movie. Yoda looks so great in ROTS, compared to this sock puppet we see on the jedi council, I cant quite place it, his eyes seemed all bugged out of something. Either way, did Yoda look this bad in ESB? If so I cant remeber.

Anyways, I can at least say how much I enjoyed the lightsaber duel at the end.
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#2 User is offline   SithAvenger Icon

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Posted 05 July 2005 - 03:38 PM

There is a problem with Yoda in the saga. If we watch the saga in chronological order YODA changes a lot:

Ep. I: Yoda is a crappy puppet.
Ep. II: Yoda is a crappy CGI.
Ep. III: Yoda is a good CGI.
Ep. V and VI: Yoda is a good puppet.

Yoda looks different in all movies. When will Lucas care about continuity?
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#3 User is offline   Private Zod Icon

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Posted 05 July 2005 - 04:14 PM

One thing that helped the puppet's appearance in the ESP and ROTJ was that every scene it was in was in a dark, foggy swamp on a soundstage. It hid any potential blemishes. When they did the same thing in TPM, now they had a puppet in a bright, clean CGI environment where it really looked bad. Quite simply, the puppet also just looked bad.
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#4 User is offline   Darth Player Icon

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Posted 05 July 2005 - 05:59 PM

Supposedly the puppet used in Empire and Jedi deteriorated around the face when they pulled it out for TPM. The best he looked is for Empire, where a lot hinged around wanting to make him look convincing, and they succeeded. In ROTJ, you start to see the cutting of corners, especially when he's lying down with his back toward Luke.

For the PT, I just don't think a lot of thought was put into what to do with Yoda, let alone his appearance. As with a lot of CGI, he looks like more of an animated character than trying to be a real one. They should have used a combination of puppet (redone) for close ups, and the CGI stuff sparingly for walking and all that. The mini lightsaber and fighting ability become sillier with each viewing.
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#5 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 05 July 2005 - 06:22 PM

yoda looks crap all the way through the PT.

he's a damn sight better in ROTS, and that's because they guys who did the CGI yoda in the PT studied gollum and decided they needed to work harder!!!

I don't think that was a puppet in TPM...

if it was, then they didn't even come close to the original...
no one picked up jim hensens talent...

that man was a genius
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#6 User is offline   Harvey Globetrotter Icon

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Posted 06 July 2005 - 03:09 AM

QUOTE (barend @ Jul 6 2005, 09:22 AM)
I don't think that was a puppet in TPM...



Well, it was.

QUOTE (barend @ Jul 6 2005, 09:22 AM)
if it was, then they didn't even come close to the original...
no one picked up jim hensens talent...

that man was a genius


Yoda was done by Frank Oz.
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#7 User is offline   Giff Icon

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Posted 06 July 2005 - 03:17 AM

Frank Oz was schooled by Jim Henson.
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#8 User is offline   Patrick Bateman Icon

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Posted 06 July 2005 - 03:20 AM

I prefer the puppets from the OT than the CGI from the PT. All I can help thinking when seeing CGI characters interact with actors is "ah, blue screen" I can't help it. At least with puppets they are all there with each other. It's like The Muppet Show. I am a relatively sane grown up and yet I still find it hard to comprehend the fact that Kermit is anything other than alive. A CGI Kermit however is a different story.

Look at Chewbacca. Guy in a suit kick ass.
Jar Jar. CGI bollocks

Lucas should have kept the cgi to speffects etc and left the characters as puppets or people, or both if you think of Mark Hamill.
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#9 User is offline   SithAvenger Icon

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Posted 06 July 2005 - 03:29 AM

And the puppet looked like it was alive. When you see the CGI the first thing you think is ''That's so fake!''
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#10 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 06 July 2005 - 07:41 PM

the thing with Jar Jar is aprently from the neck down it was Amed Best in a suit and only the head was CGI...

this totally scares me, because there is not one scene where he looks like he's there...

same with yoda...
if at any point he was a puppet in TPM, that's terrible too... because he looked really bad.

there were about two or three moments in ROTS where he was passible, and that's in the whol PT!!!

And i think while i'm at it, acting in a scene on a suspended stage with the hand of a man downstairs and and a dwarf in a firehydrant on wheels that can only beep at you, is testiment to mark hamils acting abilities that so many feel the need to underate...

the guy just didn't get that much high profile work. It's not a reflection on his abilities because he act circles around most people out there, and his impressions and energy are awsome...

man, they should get him to play the joker in the next batman!!!
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#11 User is offline   Patrick Bateman Icon

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Posted 06 July 2005 - 07:53 PM

Hamill as the new Joker, brilliant!!

He was pretty kick ass in Jay and Silent Bob too.
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#12 User is offline   Failureboy2 Icon

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Posted 08 July 2005 - 06:55 AM

It's sometimes sad listening to comments on the DVD of Empire.

Here we have this risky introduction of Yoda which the success of the movie - according to Lucas - hinges on, and Freeborn, Oz and Kirschner absolutely nail it.

Then on the DVD, Lucas says something like, "This is probably where I first thought about making digital characters, because since Yoda's a puppet, it limits what you can do, like showing him walk away on his feet and so forth.."

Ironically, Lucas has always professed to love that scene and admire deeply what Frank Oz did with Yoda. He doesn't see that the movie magic from the 1980s has been replaced by easy, lazy, glistening crap.

yell.gif angry.gif yell.gif yell.gif angry.gif
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#13 User is offline   Darth Player Icon

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Posted 08 July 2005 - 01:57 PM

QUOTE (Failureboy2 @ Jul 8 2005, 06:55 AM)
Here we have this risky introduction of Yoda which the success of the movie - according to Lucas - hinges on, and Freeborn, Oz and Kirschner absolutely nail it.




As I'm sure you know, he even went so far as to try to get Franl Oz an Oscar nomination, taking ads out in Variety and the like, but the Academy didn't consider what Oz did as acting.

How does the same guy who saw the same movie make a CGI character that's less believeable than the animated characters in films like Shrek which utilize the same process?
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