George Lucas Reveals Why Yoda Talked Backwards—It Was No Accident [WATCH]

George Lucas offered new insights into the Star Wars saga during the opening night of the 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles, where he celebrated the 45th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.

Speaking with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, the 80-year-old filmmaker finally explained why the character Yoda speaks in an inverted, backward style.

“Because if you speak regular English, people won’t listen that much,” Lucas said, according to Variety.

“But if he had an accent, or it’s really hard to understand what he’s saying, they focus on what he’s saying.”

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Lucas described Yoda as the philosopher of the film, explaining that he needed audiences—especially younger viewers—to pay closer attention to Yoda’s teachings.

Yoda talk like that, why does?

George Lucas explains why Yoda talks backwards. See the full conversation on our YouTube channel now: https://t.co/HzBbqRECmd #TCMFF pic.twitter.com/bQW96dL3dG

— TCM (@tcm) April 26, 2025

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Yoda’s distinctive speech became one of the most recognizable traits of the Star Wars universe.

Since The Empire Strikes Back premiered in 1980, the film has earned more than $550 million worldwide.

Yoda, portrayed as a powerful and wise Jedi Master, trained Luke Skywalker on the swamp planet Dagobah until his death at 900 years old.

Lucas has previously described Yoda as a “little Dalai Lama,” and the character was famously voiced and puppeteered by Frank Oz across six Star Wars films, including The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), Revenge of the Sith (2005), and The Last Jedi (2017).

Oz also lent his voice to Yoda in the animated series Star Wars Rebels and various video games.

During filming, Oz operated Yoda’s mouth and brow manually, while Kathryn Mullen, Wendy Froud, and David Barclay controlled other movements using cables and mechanical systems.

Other actors, including Tom Kane, Piotr Michael, and John Lithgow, have voiced Yoda in additional Star Wars projects.

Though Yoda’s death occurred onscreen in Return of the Jedi (1983), the popularity of the species endures through the character Grogu, commonly referred to as “Baby Yoda,” who appears in Disney+ series The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

Lucas also shared details about his creative process, describing his original Star Wars script as a “blueprint” that initially ran between 130 to 180 pages.

“So I cut it into three parts and said, ‘I’ll focus on the first one, because we’ll never get enough money to make the whole thing,’” he said.

He revealed that he agreed to write, direct, and produce Star Wars for a fee of $50,000 under the condition that he retained the rights to any sequels.

Additionally, Lucas negotiated to keep licensing rights, which studio executives at the time dismissed as insignificant.

“They went, ‘He’s never going to be able to do that. It takes them a billion dollars and a year to make a toy or make anything. There’s no money in that at all,’” Lucas recalled.

According to CCLCT.com, merchandise based on Star Wars has since generated approximately $32 billion in revenue.

Lucas also noted his dissatisfaction with 20th Century Fox’s marketing efforts for the original film.

Taking matters into his own hands, he promoted the movie directly to fans at Disneyland and early comic conventions, contributing to the enormous lines around theaters on opening day.

In 2012, Lucas sold Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, and the rights to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises to Disney for $4 billion.

Reflecting on the sale, Lucas compared it to losing family members, telling CBS, “These are my kids, I loved them. I created them.”

However, Lucas later voiced frustration with the direction Disney took the series. In a 2015 interview with Empire Magazine, he criticized The Force Awakens for being too similar to the original trilogy, stating, “They wanted to make a movie for the fans… They decided they didn’t want to use the stories I created.”

In subsequent interviews, Lucas acknowledged the film’s success and praised the work of director J.J. Abrams and the production team, though he continued to note that the film did not reflect the direction he would have pursued.

Meanwhile, Lucasfilm has confirmed that a new Star Wars project starring Ryan Gosling is underway, signaling that the franchise continues to expand even decades after its original debut.

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