The legendary Jedi Grandmaster Yoda was originally going to be played by a monkey in The Empire Strikes Back. When George Lucas created Yoda, he wanted him to fit the trope of the unexpected teacher; the strange being who is originally underestimated by the hero, but turns out to be a fount of wisdom.

This is why Yoda speaks so strangely. According to Lucas, it was simply a trick to get people to listen carefully, given Yoda’s role as “the philosopher of the movie.” He felt it was very hard to get children in particular to pay attention, and it likely would have been harder still had he been played by a monkey, as ILM planned.

Yes, George Lucas Originally Considered A Monkey For Yoda

The above image is from J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, published in 2010, and it offers a unique vision of the original Master Yoda – played by a monkey. The story was something of a legend until 2010, with reports that the simian had even been taught to hold Yolda’s cane.

According to Rinzler’s book, though, the idea simply became impractical. “Look, the monkey’s just going to pull the mask off over and over again. It’s never going to work,” one crew member apparently observed at the time.

Star Wars Went For A Puppet Instead

In the end, Star Wars went for a puppet (an approach returned to by Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Acolyte, after the CGI Yoda of the prequels). Yoda was portrayed by puppeteer and voice actor Frank Oz, who left his mark on Yoda. According to Oz, not all of Yoda’s speech was originally so distinctive.

As Oz told The Guardian in 2021:

“I was just looking at the original script of The Empire Strikes Back the other day and there was a bit of that odd syntax in it, but also it had Yoda speaking very colloquially. So I said to George [Lucas]: ‘Can I do the whole thing like this?’ And he said: ‘Sure!’ It just felt so right,”

It’s amusing to imagine how different Yoda could have been. Even ᴀssuming Lucas could figure out how to get the monkey to keep the mask on, that version of Yoda would have been so very different. He’d have lacked the character’s distinctive gait, and he surely wouldn’t have had quite the same syntax.

The Empire Strikes Back definitely changed for the better.