Yo, Yoda! Star Wars: Episode 9 needs you, and so do fans
Commentary: Rumor there is that fans will get to see the ancient green Jedi Master one last time. Sounds like a plan, hmmmm?
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Yoda surprised some Star Wars fans when he showed up in The Last Jedi, but he'd help the series come full circle if he appears in Episode 9.
Rumor there is, that Yoda in Star Wars : Episode 9 will be. Hmmmm?
Over the weekend, the New York Daily News cited a movie "insider" who claims everyone's favorite 900-year-old green Jedi master will return in the 2019 film.
"Yoda will again appear as a ghost as he acknowledges Rey's success and growth as a Jedi," the anonymous source told the Daily News. "The scenes are due to be put together later this year."
Even without knowing anything about the source, this rumor doesn't exactly go out on a limb. Yoda's appearance in The Last Jedi was a welcome sight, and worked for numerous reasons.
Yoda's scene reached across the years and generations, connecting Luke's fumbling moments as a Jedi trainee ("I can be a backpack while you run!") with Rey's. It reminded fans that amid all the new characters and creatures, Star Wars has a history the franchise at least tries to stay true to. And it offered a witty and even humorous plot point to Luke's sometimes angry and anguished storyline. (Yoda's dismissal of the burned sacred Jedi texts because "page-turners, they were not" might be my favorite line in the movie.)
Before The Last Jedi came out, I wrote up a list of five reasons why Yoda should show up in the film. After seeing the movie, that logic feels even more pertinent. Some believe his appearance as a Force Ghost was problematic, that it should have been Obi-Wan, Anakin or even a group of Jedi.
I'm just going to say it: Star Wars takes itself way too seriously almost all of the time, and a human actor here would inevitably come off as preachy. Frank Oz's rumbly voice and even the sight of the hairy-eared Muppet brightens up the screen.
Yoda wasn't in the first film in 1977. He came along in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back and, from then on, he commanded the screen like a boss. His Return of the Jedi line, "When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not," remains one of the best "call me old, will ya?" responses of all time.
With the death of Carrie Fisher, and the on-screen losses of Han and Luke, there's not much left reaching back to the three films that started it all. Just as I'll always feel my heart in my throat whenever the Millennium Falcon swoops in for a last-minute rescue, even though I know it's been carefully scripted to earn that exact reaction, I can't help it.
The Falcon, Yoda, C-3PO and R2-D2, Chewie -- they're like the last survivors from your high school class. Miss them, I do. Still appreciate seeing them, I will.
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