Henson puppetry still outperforms CGI

Cafe Society
1

No, not in a lightsaber battle, just which seems more real in the movies…

Maybe it’s because i grew up with the original trilogy on the big screen, but the Henson puppet Yoda just always seemed to have more on-screen presence, even though he was clearly a puppet, yes the CGI Yoda can have more subtlety in his movements and facial expressions, therefore seeming more “real” on a technical level, but something about the old foam Henson puppet just seems more “alive”

yes i know, the puppet is real, wheras CGI-Yoda is simply a spectre, a trick of the light, more gravy than the grave (sorry, channeled Dickens there for a moment :wink: ), but given the advances in CGI over the years, giving him a subtlety in expression and motion that a simple puppet can’t have, CGI-Yoda should on paper seem more real than the puppet

so, why does the more primitive puppet seem more alive to me than the CGI one?

maybe it’s because i’m a fan of Henson puppetry no matter what they do, Henson’s the established kings if puppetry, whether it’s Sesame Street, the Muppets, a wizened old Jedi Master, a symbiotic Crusteceanlike Pilot species (watch the Farscape season 2 episode “The Way We Weren’t” and then try to see Pilot as a latex and foan-rubber puppet, in this ep, he becomes more than "just a puppet, he is a REAL lifeform), the Vogons from the HHGTTG movie…

Henson’s work just has an aura of magic and enchantment that cannot be defined or replicated, just too bad Jim Henson had to be so selfish and die on us… :frowning:

2

I was talking to a friend about this just yesterday after watching Attack of the Clones again. The way Yoda’s mouth and ears move in the original trilogy made him seem so much more real than the new computer version. I don’t like the new high-tech Yoda.

Maybe since the puppet Yoda is the one I got to know first, the CGI version feels too smooth and not quite natural. The bit where the most “reality” is lost for me is when he squinches up his lips to say “hmmm?”

3

Personally, I agree.

However, my flatmate, who saw Episode I before she saw the original trilogy just said this every evening: “I’m sorry. The old Yoda just looks like a puppet.”

So it could be a question of what we’re more used to.

Also, I think they did a much, much better job with the CGI Yoda in Episode III. (As they did with everything else.)

4

There’s an artistry to puppeteering I sometimes appreciate more than even the finest computer effects or animation (excepting maybe stop animation.) See: EMMIT OTTER’S JUG BAND CHRISTMAS, THE DARK CRYSTAL, LABRINYTH, TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE…

5

Here’s good news for fans of the Muppets, A “Dark Crystal” sequel is in the planning stages.

You can definitely count me as a fan of Muppetry over CGI effects. I much prefer the Yoda of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” over the Yoda of the three prequels. Like Antigen and others have said, it may be because we saw the original puppet first.

6

It was my understanding that Yoda in The Phantom Menace was still a physical puppet, not yet computerized. Is this not the case?

7

With all this talk about Yoda being a “Henson puppet,” you do realize he was performed by Frank Oz, right (I’m thinking everyone knows this, but there’s always a few…)?

He was also designed by Wendy Froud, the (heh!) Wife of Brian.

(I like the puppet better, too. The Dark Crystal sequel has me quivering.)

8

I agree with the OP, and said as much in another thread.

Part of it is that because the new Yoda is CGI, they wind up limiting what he can do. When we first see him in The Empire Strikes Back, he’s wrestling with Artoo over a flashlight, or making dinner around his home, or poking things with a stick. CGI Yoda can’t interact with things the same way, and so they fit the characters actions to be within the limits of the technology.

And I think another part of it is the incredible complexity of real objects in the real world. When a character jumps up on to a table (for example) there’s a certain way that they balance their body, twisting their shoulders one way will turn their lower body the other way, their mass and deceleration due to gravity, the way their clothes drape and swing, the pores in their skin, etc. There are things we’re all used to, and if they’re not right, we notice even if we can’t put a name to it. CGI just isnt sophisticated enough yet to do those things perfectly. And even if the technology reaches a point where it can, I don’t know if the human animator using it will ever have the skill to perfectly mimic reality.

I want puppet Yoda back.

9

Just saw Attack of the Clones again. During his big fight scene, Yoda bounces around like a frog in a blender. Perhaps the force allows him to violate the laws of physics, but I don’t enjoy watching something that looks like it’s been drawn in on top of a scene with too little regard for trajectories and perspective.

10

Mostly. There were a few shots where he needed to be a bit more ambulatory, and they were done with a CGI Yoda.

Different techniques, different limitations. The puppet was much more limiting. It could only appear in scenes where the set was built around the need for a puppet. Yoda could only move along “trenches” dug for the puppeteers – which had to be concealed from view. The limitation of the puppet Yoda is that he couldn’t be shown anywhere that didn’t have a hidey-holes for the rest of him. That’s a huge limitation.

All of these things could be easily realized with the CGI Yoda. Even handing off objects is a pretty easy trick to carry off, with a reference object replaced with a digital one. Interacting with Artoo would be especially easy – since a nice geometric character like an R2 unit is extremely easy to replace with a CGI model with no complaints from viewers. (Haven’t heard anyone complain about the CGI Artoo yet, anyway.)

This is something that the animators took a lot of trouble to work around — it’s not that CGI isn’t as “real” as the puppet – it’s that they had to hobble the CGI model to match the puppet as closely as they could manage. The puppet Yoda had very little articulation around the mouth. The CGI Yoda was deliberately made not to model a “realistic” Yoda, but to model the movements made by the puppet as closely as possible, so he wouldn’t be too jarringly different.

Squink, I agree that Yoda’s hyperactivity should have been toned down in Attack of the Clones. A lot.

11

I am a huge fan of CGI effects, I do a little bit of them myself. I also am a big fan of ILM. But Yoda in EpIII wasn’t anywhere near as good as Gollum.

The CG Artoo bothered me a little bit, mostly because it was so obvious when he was used. It still had a digital look to him, despite being so geometric and metallic, the easiest style to re-create.

As for real-world physics still nto being able to be emulated, it has always dumbfounded me that as the laws of physics are just mathematical functions, why is it that they can’t be mathematically reproduced and be perfectly accurately represented? And the answer is, unfortunately, it’s a technical nightmare to achieve such infinitessimal accuracies. But they’re coming along.

Anyways, what they probably should’ve done is taken a leaf out of Jurassic Park’s book, where they utilised a talented stop motion artist to use a Digital-Input-Device to have the physics of a dinosaur look accurate - and they should’ve used an actual Puppeteering-Inout-Device to achieve Yoda’s facial movements, instead of solely relying on a GUI approach.

12

I would hardly consider Henson & co.'s puppets or puppeteering primitive. Have you seen Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal? Half of the time I was wondering how they did that.

13

Despite all the amazing advancements in CGI, it seems like the technology has outpaced the movie-maker’s ability to know how the hell to use it. Back in the dark ages (c.1990) computer graphics were so rare and expensive that only the greatest artisans of our time (Spielberg, et al) were brave enough to use them, and they knew how to use them. But now any B-list director can order up a CGI creature and they don’t care how good it looks, they just wanna say, “Hey look! I’m using CGI!” So we end up with garbage like the centaur in Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone, or that godawful giant snake in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Many CGI creatures look bad because they’re constantly in motion – skin rippling, ears twitching, like they’re made of liquid or something. That’s why Gollum looked so good, in many scenes he barely moved at all.

You know who also looked good? The CGI Dino from The Flintstones. No, really. I recently watched that film and what I thought of the most (aside from, “GAWD this movie sucks”) was, “How come, ten years later, we can’t make a CGI creature look that good?” It’s almost like we’re going backwards in our mastery of the art form.

14

Wow, I’m surprised so many thought puppet Yoda looked better. That looked SO fake to me, even when I saw it as a kid. CGI Yoda is about a million times more like an actual character, as opposed to a prop.

15

One reason Puppet Yoda looked so good was he was operated by Frank Oz.

Frank Oz:puppetry::Olivier:acting

If ILM had allowed Oz to control CGI Yoda, or at least his face, then I think he would have looked much much better.

16

I have to respectfully disagree with the OP.
After going out with my wife to see ROTS she just had to see the original trilogy since she has never seen them. I hadn’t seen them in about 10 years.

Sorry, but Yoda in ESB has not aged well. My memories of him are fond like many others but once you revisit it you may wish you haven’t.
Puppet eyes on Yoda just aren’t right. They look plastic and not really focused on anything. Puppet Yoda doesn’t really walk, he kind of bobs up and down everywhere. Big ears on animals stay rigid and actually can move, puppet Yoda’s ears are made of foam and vibrate when he moves like foam does.

So are you guys comparing CGI Yoda vs. early memories of puppet Yoda
or are you comparing CGI Yoda vs. recent viewing of puppet Yoda?

17

Fully agree with you and Larry Mudd. The CGI Yoda was slightly held back by having to resemble the puppet, just like Darth Vader’s suit looks absolutely silly with the flip-switches and the two 80s square red and green buttons. I had to laugh when I saw that, because at the one hand it was understandable, and on the other hand it just looked so incredibly silly.

But even so, Yoda totally convinced me. The mouth movement was good for me too, it really worked. I never thought about him as a CGI, which I admittedly did do occasionally with Marvi … euh … 3PO. (But I thought he was pretty decently rendered nonetheless - his presence was just totally irrelevant)

18

Another vote for the puppet. Another problem with CGI Yoda is that most of the actors don’t feel like they’re talking to another being, but just a spot on the wall or an empty chair. There was a palpable dynamic between Luke & Yoda in Empire–you believed in Yoda the creature because Hamill does so persuasively.

19

Put me in the CGI over puppet Yoda camp. I watched ESB before I went to EP III and thought the puppet look stiff and limited.

20

One thing about ESB Yoda was his attitude. He got to do some silly stuff, fighting with artoo and acting like an old coot. That’s really different from what he was in I-III.