Ewan McGregor has said that he was disappointed by the CGI version of Yoda that was used in two of his Star Wars prequels.
In an interview with Variety, the actor firstly recalled the joys of working with the puppet version of the Jedi master in The Phantom Menace.
“I couldn’t believe I was acting with Yoda,” he told Pedro Pascal as part of Variety‘s Actors on Actors series. “There’s so many people operating him, and the stage is lifted up so they’re underneath the floor and we were literally walking next to each other — and he’s alive.”
However when a CGI version of Yoda was brought in for sequels Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, McGregor said that he struggled to get on board. “It’s not nearly as endearing,” he said.
He added: “Also, we know Yoda as a puppet. We know him from the original movies as a puppet. So when it was suddenly computer generated, it didn’t feel like Yoda to me anymore.”
McGregor will reprise his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in his own standalone series for Disney+. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor said that the spinoff will feel “so much more real” than the franchise’s prequels.
Again, he took fire at the prequels’ heavy reliance on CGI. “He [George Lucas] wanted more and more control over what we see in the background,” McGregor said. “After three or four months of that, it just gets really tedious – especially when the scenes are… I don’t want to be rude, but it’s not Shakespeare.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi is thought to be due for release in 2022, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Hayden Christensen will also reprise his role as Darth Vader for the six-part series. Joel Edgerton, Kumail Nanjiani and Game of Thrones‘ Indira Varma will also star in the show.
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