Cliff Notes – Star Wars boss finally reveals the bizarre reason Yoda talks backwards
- George Lucas the Star wars boss finally reveals why Yoda talks backwards. It was designed to give Yoda’s unique speech pattern to engage audiences
- Contrary to fan assumptions, Yoda’s speech is not representative of his species, as evidenced by the normal speech of Yaddle.
- A fan theory suggests Yoda’s unusual syntax honours his master, N’Kata Del Gormo, although this explanation remains non-canonical.
Star Wars boss finally reveals why Yoda talks backwards
Yoda’s well-known for his odd speech pattern. He speaks rather strangely, our favourite Star Wars character, Yoda, does.
Ahem… sorry. If you’ve ever watched the Star Wars movies, you’ll no doubt have noticed that Yoda has a pretty odd way of talking.
The former Jedi grandmaster has a bad habit of breaking the rules of grammar whenever he opens his little green mouth.
Instead of structuring his speech in the normal way – subject-object-verb (e.g. the writer described grammar well) – he reverses things – object-subject-verb (e.g. grammar the writer explained well).
Now, for the longest time, Star Wars fans just presumed this was how Yoda’s entire species talked, but then we met Yaddle, and she spoke completely normally.
So what’s going on with Yoda? Well, Star Wars boss George Lucas has cleared up why Yoda talks backwards while appearing at a Q&A during a 45th anniversary screening of The Empire Strikes Back on the opening night of the TCM Classic Film Festival.
It turns out there’s a good reason he talks like that
Moderator Ben Mankiewicz asked George about Luke Skywalker’s master’s speaking habits, and the 80-year-old director admitted he did it because he didn’t trust audiences.
‘If you speak regular English, people won’t listen that much,’ Lucas said [via Variety]. ‘But if he had an accent, or it’s really hard to understand what he’s saying, they focus on what he’s saying.’
‘He was basically the philosopher of the movie. I had to figure out a way to get people to actually listen — especially 12-year-olds.’
Well, George’s tactics clearly worked. Yoda’s been a fan favourite ever since he first appeared in 1980, regularly appearing in top 10 lists of the greatest Star Wars characters.
And it’s because George Lucas doesn’t trust you
A 2017 Statista poll of 2,200 people found 13% of fans said he was the best character in the franchise (not bad for a little froggy fella).
Of course, while George’s explanation works in the real world, you might be wondering what the in-universe reason is. Well, there’s a fan theory that explains it.
Supposedly, Yoda talks backwards like that to honour his master N’Kata Del Gormo, the Jedi who trained him in the ways of the Force. Of course, this isn’t canon, so maybe we’ll learn in a future Star Wars series that Yoda talks like that because he had really bad teachers as a youngling.
It’s a great time to be a Star Wars fan. Aside from learning the secrets of Yoda’s peculiar vernacular, the best Star Wars TV show has finally returned to our screens.
Andor season two started airing on Disney Plus on April 23 in the UK, and it’s been a colossal hit with critics.
The series is currently sitting at an impressive 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Star Wars fan s have said it’s been well worth the three-year wait. One person, who you might be surprised to learn is happy Andor is over, is Diego Luna, who plays the lead character.
Speaking about the Andor season two red carpet press junket, he admitted he knew the time was right to say goodbye.
‘There’s nothing [I regret]. There is nothing. I’m getting to the end of this journey after enjoying every second, and I’m ready to go because I’m still excited,’ Diego said.
‘I’m really proud of what we’ve done. I’m very happy I’ve made this family this connection, and that’s the way to end things when you’d still like to come back; otherwise, it’s wrong, you know?’
‘I’m very pleased, I thank Cathy and Tony and the universe because this has been a very interesting ten years of my life, and I’m never going to forget what I went through.’
It does not sound like happy end, but a cordial one, there seems to be! Yoda!