Yoda Puppet Gets Digitized in ‘The Phantom Menace’ on Blu-ray

Don’t act so surprised, fellow nerdlings. As reported on /Film and a myriad of other movie sites, Lucasfilm and the folks at Industrial Light & Magic have made additional visual tweaks to the Star Wars films in preparation for the saga’s first-ever Blu-ray release on Sept. 16. Chief among these cosmetic alterations is the appearance of a completely computer-animated Yoda in The Phantom Menace, replacing Frank Oz’s Yoda puppeteering in the 1999 prequel.

Now, I’m certainly not the only person to note that the bug-eyed, creepy and out-of-place version of Yoda in The Phantom Menace was downright ugly, so I’m sure we’re all glad Lucas and his team made the change to at least make the look of the character consistent with the other prequels. However, it’s disheartening that Oz’s final performance as the wizened green Jedi has been excised from the films forever.

If you watched the special features on the Revenge of the Sith DVD released in 2005, you’ve known that a digital Phantom Menace Yoda has been in the works for quite some time, and was probably completed years ago. However, this Blu-ray release will be the first time we’ll see the CGI character in the actual movie.

Head over to /Film to watch The Phantom Menace’s CGI Yoda in action.

Fan Posts Hilarious 70-Minute Video Review of The Phantom Menace

It would be an understatement to say that Star Wars: The Phantom Menace—which hit theaters ten years ago—was a colossal letdown. Heck, when I went to a Star Wars panel at New York Comic Con earlier this year, the mere mention of that movie elicited boos from an auditorium full of diehard Star Wars geeks. It’s still a sore subject.

In keeping with those ill feelings, Red Letter Media has posted a 70-minute critique of the film that’s as bafflingly genius as it is laugh-out-loud funny. It also gets kind of creepy, but I won’t spoil that for you.

“Where do I possibly start?” the reviewer, “Mr. Plinkett,” asks. “Nothing in The Phantom Menace makes any sense at all. It comes off like a script written by an eight-year-old.”

What makes this seven-part video review so great isn’t that it bashes the Star Wars prequel (who hasn’t by now?), but that it humorously dissects the movie on a film school level. The problems extend far beyond Jar Jar Binks and some wooden acting.

Watch the first part of the video below, and head over to Red Letter Media’s YouTube page (RedLetterMedia) to watch the entire series.