It’s funny because I find the puppet Yoda to be much more convincing than the CGI one. Maybe convincing isn’t the right word, because there are times when it is clear he is a puppet, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me. However, I think Yoda’s “acting” is just better in the OT and easier to connect with. It also could be that the dialog for Yoda is much better and there is more emotional content in the scenes with Luke than there were in the Prequels. I don’t know, but puppet always seemed more human as odd as that sounds. Then again I guess puppetry is an art form and Frank Oz is a master…
It is an art, and the art actually transfers. In Machinima (CGI that’s generated real-time, usually using video game engines) the operators are called puppeteers. In conventional CGI, they are animators (IIRC) which draws on the tradition of cel animation.
Shorter version, the puppeteers of Ep. V were probably just better than the animators of I-III. (Unless you’re just comparing fight choreography.)
Everything that is real is always more convincing than CGI. CGI is great for everything that happens really fast, but once the eye gets a chance to linger over an image, you can always tell CGI from real effects and an actual model of a spaceship that someone took in into his hands and painted and scarred and what not will look better than something CGI that looks like something out of a video game. I think they never stopped building huge models for Star Trek for the close-up fly-by scenes of ships. One of the greatest visual advantages of newer Star Trek over the SW prequels.
And one would think that the same thing is true for puppets/muppets.
Okay, more thoughts from finishing up my rewatch of ESB. Right before Han gets placed in the carbon freeze pit Chewbacca goes all mad wookie on a few storm troopers. Boba Fett is about to plug him but Vader stops him. I was wondering why he’d do that? He has no concern for the wookie.
I guess he thought the situation could be put under control, and didn’t want Han all pissed off even more before going into deep freeze. May have hurt his survival chances. Then I realized C-3PO was strapped to Chewie’s back. Maybe Vader does remember him and still has a soft spot for the Ole Golden Rod…
You ask some tough questions.
I always liked that scene. The whole sequence is great but you’re right. Why does Vader stop him? Does laser fire and carbonite not play nice? Will it just make the Wookie more angry?
And I was also somewhat perplexed by the very meaningful look that Leia gives Vader at that moment. Is she beginning to suspect that something more is up with him?
I also figure that Leia and Chewie are to serve as bait for Luke. Maybe if they die, Vader is worried that Luke would sense that and not come?
Yeah I knew that. Is that really an oxygen chamber?
More ESB questions:
So any indication on how long a time the movie takes place? It would seem to be pretty short because after the Hoth scene I can’t imagine Han, Leia and Chewie out maneuvering the Imperial Fleet for more than a couple days. But that would mean that Luke was initially with Yoda for only a short period. Can we speculate that with out hyperdrive it took at least a few weeks for the Millennium Falcon to make to Besben, so that Luke would have had at least some significant time with Yoda?