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Was Yoda crazy?

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My wife, who, god bless her, I've subjected to more Star Wars in the years of our marriage than is legal in most principalities, has an interesting opinion.

She doesn't see Yoda as acting intentionally silly in ESB. He's not trying to fool Luke.

He's actually gone peculiar.

She, inspired by the PT, sees it like this:

Yoda was (in her words) Big Daddy Jedi of the Universe. For 800 or so years he was 'the man' with everyone telling him how wise he was. Then he 'blew it' and saw everything he stood for and defined himelf by destroyed, largely his own fault, and he went from having the Jedi penthouse in the capital of the galaxy to living in a nasty swamp. After 20 years of eating mud he's actually lost his mind, and it takes him a while to get his act together. That's when he starts talking to Obi-Wan.

It was an interesting viewpoint, one I certainly never thought of.

Thoughts? Was Yoda just plain nuts?

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Maaaan, dat bitch craaazy!

Ha, just to be clear, even though I used the term "bitch," I was referring to Yoda, not your wife.  But it just sounds better with "bitch," don't you agree?

But, hmm, that's a very interesting take.  As much as it refers to the prequelization of the character, I can't say I don't like it.  I don't really have much more to say than that, but it certainly makes those scenes quite a bit different.  Kudos to her!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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No.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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That is why  I wish the prequels had been made differently, and the jedi were not treated as retards and yoda a cartoon joke.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Hmm.  Short but sweet.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Gaffer Tape said:

Hmm.  Short but sweet.

 You're not bad yourself, hot lips!

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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Nah. He was testing Luke, and drops the act once Luke loses his cool.

Wasn't there a scene scrapped early in the production of ROTS where Yoda acts crazy to evade capture?

Where were you in '77?

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I think it is made very clear in that scene that he was testing Luke. As SilverWook pointed out, as soon as Luke lost his patience, Yoda straightened up and announces that he is unteachable.

If Luke had known the silly little green muppet in the swamp was the great Jedi master Yoda he had been searching for all along, then he would have treated him very differently. By pretending to be a crazy lowlife, Yoda was able to learn a lot more about Luke's true character. 

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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My brother wanted to rewrite the prequels to make Yoda even more full of himself and wear his vanity on his delicate silk sleeves.  Then, after the fall of the Republic... he would enter his repentant vagabond stage.

My problem with this treatment of Yoda is that he's 800-900 years old.  Some people do go crazy and get different mental disorders late in life, but I think character is fairly well established after 800 years or so.  Probably aren't a lot of life changing events after 60 or so... let alone 500 or 800...

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

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I don't know - I think the guy was a little looped. Come on, man - no sunlight and all that moisture in a house that didn't have windows to close or a dehumidifier - you know there had to be a mold problem. That's not healthy. I'm going with early stages of dementia.
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Keep in mind that Yoda is basically a frog. Living in a swamp, eating snakes and not seeing the sun are probably his idea of a vacation. Thats why it all worked so well--Yoda was a part of Dagobah, designed and written to be part of the ecosystem. The whole "cosmopolitan" angle of the prequels where Yoda travels in spaceships and sits in buildings and has meetings is rubbish.

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zombie, I want to argue with you about that, but I don't know that I can.

Still, wasn't Yoda first envisioned as a little blue gnome?  I agree with Yoda and the swamp going hand in hand, but Yoda = Kermit seems a little much.

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I agree with the Yoda acting crazy to test Luke.  But I'm sure he had been affected somewhat by living alone for 20 years with no one to talk to but a ghost.

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A ghost that only he could see or hear in ROTS apparently. ;)

Where were you in '77?

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The guy is 900 years old and his favorite pass time seems to be meditating... by himself... alone... without anyone else around... in a darkened room... I am sure the guy could maintain his sanity over the short stretch of 20 years on a dimly lit planet.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I think Yoda was crazy in the prequels. A damn teenager who was obviously reeking of evil, went over Yoda's enlightened mind. The ESB Yoda would have said He is an evil bitch. Kill him, we must. He is a whiny annoying crybaby.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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