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STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Nearly Had a Yoda Cameo

By this point, pretty much everyone on Earth has seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but in the interest of those who haven’t, we’re going to throw a SPOILERS tag on this article.

SO, in The Force Awakens, a pivotal—and unquantifiably awesome—moment comes when Rey (Daisy Ridley) touches Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber and gets visions of the past and future as well as hearing the faint voices of Jedi masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, which were actually the voices of Frank Oz, Ewan McGregor, and the late Sir Alec Guinness. It’s probably one the best scenes in the movie, but it was recently revealed that Yoda was almost going to appear in the movie, in the CGI-rendered flesh.

The Oscar-nominated editors of the movie, Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey, revealed to Entertainment Tonight that there was at one point a plan for a vision of the old master to appear onscreen.

“There was one point where we were actually thinking of having Yoda in the film, and then we decided not to,” Brandon told ET at the 66th annual ACE Eddie Awards. “Frank Oz came in for a day and did a whole bunch of Yoda and he was over the moon to do it — and we were tickled pink!”

We’d heard a bit about Oz having come in to record new dialogue but that it wasn’t used, in favor of just using existing audio clips from the earlier movies, but we had no idea that they’d actually considered putting Yoda in the vision himself. Ultimately, the filmmakers probably made the right choice, since that moment was about Rey’s discovery and the inclusion of Yoda would have pulled focus, but it’s still a neat what-if to think about.

Since Yoda is one of the only Star Wars characters that can be unchanged by time, and seeing as Oz is still “over the moon” to do it, it’s quite conceivable that he might make an appearance in Episode VIII or even IX. Hell, maybe even put McGregor in it wearing his hood or something, since his voiceover sessions were actually used in TFA.

Would you have liked to see Yoda in The Force Awakens or was a whispered line enough? Let us know in the comments below!


HT: Entertainment Tonight
Image: Lucasfilm

Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!

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