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George Lucas Reveals Why Yoda Talks Backwards at ‘Empire Strikes Back’ Anniversary Screening
George Lucas appeared at the TCM Classic Film Festival at a screening of 'The Empire Strikes Back,' revealing why Yoda talked backwards.
Even so, it was fun to hear him recount his grumpy disinterest in studio filmmaking — from that first day on set — and take up the lion’s share of the 35-minute conversation to get around to explaining how, because he’d overwritten the original script for “Star Wars,” he already had the story mapped out and ready to go for “The Empire Strikes Back.” But to be fair to Mankiewicz, he could not have known that Lucas would provide an unhurried, granular account of his earliest days on the set of Coppola’s “Finian’s Rainbow,” and the subsequent partnership that developed between the two youngest people on the ill-fated musical. Yet after Lucas playfully ignored repeated admonitions to hold the microphone close to his mouth so his answers would be audible, Mankiewicz finally got him to discuss a key detail in “Star Wars” lore: why exactly does Yoda speak backwards?
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