Busy for a thread just started today.
But to tackle the question of the original post… things don’t have to be perfect. Yoda is voiced by Frank Oz in all the films so it is the same character. Puppet or CG doesn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t matter that there were multiple R2-D2’s used in each film, not to mention the vast number used over the course of the Saga. Do you really watch for the hoses that hid Kenny Baker’s legs or the supports that hold him in the correct position when the 3rd leg is out? Those are movie shortcuts that you are supposed to ignore. If you want perfection, you will not find it. It doesn’t exist. Rogue One did an awesome job of replicating aspects of A New Hope, but there are flaws even in that. Who cares that Hayden’s character is especailly whiny and in Clone Wars he is more sure of himself. It was his golden age and he was elevated to Jedi Knight and assigned a Padawan. Clone Wars did a good job of hinting at the growing Darkness in Anakin.
And if you watch the Saga in order on Blu-ray, you get 3 films of CG Yoda, 1 film without Yoda, 2 films with old Puppet Yoda, another film without Yoda, and 1 film with Puppet Yoda 3.0 (my opinion is that 2.0 is best forgotten and was fortunately replaced by CG Yoda). Why complain? It is a series of movies made over more than 40 years. Technology has changed and they have managed to keep the vision pretty consistent. A lot of people can’t wrap their heads around sets, props, and models not always being built to scale. Spend some time appreciating the classics and the development of special effects and movie magic and you can ignore all of it and appreciate the grander story being told. Don’t sweat the little things. The character of Anakin/Vader was played by 7 people over the course of 6 films and Clone Wars.
But then, I am also a Star Trek fan and as a Trekkie I have to deal with recasting Saavik, changing Klingons, Romulans, ship models that aren’t in scale and seem to appear in many scales, and a whole host of issues that make what you are talking about seem pretty pathetic and ignorable. I’m also a Doctor Who fan where we’ve had 3 actors play the first Doctor, 3 versions of the Destruction of Atlantis, two origins for the Daleks and Cybermen, and so many glitches, gaffs, and outright contradictions that two different versions of Anakin between the movies and Clone Wars is nothing.
Almost every movie has its issues and you just accept them and let the illusion wash over you and don’t sweat the details. It is cool to notice them and find all the mistakes the movie makers made, but letting it ruin a movie makes about as much sense as cutting off your leg because you stubbed your toe.
Going back to Star Trek, when I finished watching 7 seasons of TNG and then was presented with Generations, it sucked. 7 seasons of intelligent stories followed by such a dud… And it only got worse when Abrams and Orci made their films. Talk about not knowing your characters and no knowing the property. Those films make the worst of the Prequels look like an Oscar winner. Trek canon was literally thrown out the window. You can argue that Luke in the ST (Rian just followed JJ’s lead and piked up where he left off) is very much like the Luke of ANH and TESB where the ROTJ Luke was quite different. But there is a 200 page topic about TLJ that frequently discusses Luke. But as a fan of many franchises I find that Star Wars has been the most faithful and consistent over the course of years where others often involve overlooking a lot more heinous mis-steps.
So I find it quite easy to ignore all of it and focus on the story. That is what is important after all.
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.