While Star Wars: The Force Awakens gave fans of the original trilogy the unbridled joy of seeing the core cast together again, there were still other characters that we would still love to see once again. One of those characters, who appeared in both the original and prequel trilogies, is Jedi Master Yoda. A few months ago rumors started that we might see Yoda once again in Star Wars: Episode VIII. Now we've got a second source claiming the same thing.
The rumor comes from a Redditor who says he attended the recent Star Wars Celebration Europe in London. While there, he was in line to get his picture taken with one of the original Yoda puppets. According to the post, a person working in the area, who was in a position to know, told this person that members of the original Yoda team had been called on to perform one of the other Yoda puppets for Star Wars: Episode VIII.
As this statement is coming to us through multiple mouths, and there's little to verify the statement or the authority of the original speaker, we have to take it with a grain of salt. However, since this is the second rumor, and an independent one, of a possible Yoda appearance, we can say that the circumstantial evidence is beginning to pile up.
Several months ago Frank Oz, the voice of Yoda, was seen at Pinewood Studios in London. This, of course, got people buzzing. Was Oz there to perform as Yoda once again? While that was certainly one possibility, there were any number of others. He could have been there to work on another, unrelated, project or simply to visit with old friends.
At the same time, if it were true that Yoda was going to appear in Star Wars: Episode VIII we would expect it to happen something like this. When J.J. Abrams wanted to show the holographic chess board on board the Millennium Falcon for only a couple seconds, he brought the man originally responsible for it to recreate his work. Since we know the new trilogy is trying to do a great deal of their work with practical effects, it would follow that Rian Johnson would call on the original puppeteers, rather than create Yoda with digital effects, which was the way much of Yoda was created in the prequel trilogy.
We know that Yoda survives as a Force Ghost, so he could certainly appear in the new film to give Luke or Rey some key piece of information, just as Obi-Wan Kenobi did throughout out the first set of movies.
Would you like to see Yoda appear in Star Wars: Episode VIII? Let us know what you think in the comments.
