George Lucas explains why Yoda speaks backwards at ‘Empire’ screening

Since the beginning of his Hollywood career, George Lucas has always done his own way. Almost 60 years later, he didn’t change a bit.

Lucas performed at a 45th anniversary performance by “The Empire Strikes Back” on the opening evening of the TCM classic film festival in 2025 about his introduction to the long-time friend and collaborator Francis Ford Coppola. Despite the best efforts by the host and moderator Ben Mankiewicz, he hardly mentioned the film that the sold -out audience was there – and only when he was good and ready.

It is enough to say that Lucas’ career has been thoroughly documented and deconstructed. No fewer than eight books were written about him, along with a handful of documentary films and non -fiction. Nevertheless, it was fun to hear how he reported on his grumpy disinterest in the studio filmmaking from the first day on the set and the proportion of the lion in the 35-minute conversation to explain how because he had overwritten the original script for “Star Wars”, he had the story that the story had intended and ready to come back according to the Empire Stre.

“I write like a blueprint,” he said to Mankiewicz. “It doesn’t have a lot of details. And when I did the script (for” Star Wars “, there were 130 to 180 pages. So I cut it into three parts and said:” I will concentrate on the first one because we never get enough money to earn it. “

To be fair, Mankiewicz may accidentally have made a tactical mistake by starting her conversation with a question about his friendship with Coppola. But in order to be fair for Mankiewicz, he could not have known that Lucas would deliver an unpleasant, granular report on his earliest days on the set of Coppola’s “Finian’s Rainbow” and the subsequent partnership that developed between the two youngest people on the unfortunate music. “I was 22 years old, Francis was 27 years old. He had a beard, I had a beard. We both had long hair. We are both film students,” said Lucas. “Everyone else in the crew was 65 years old.”

But after Luca’s repeated warnings had playfully ignored to keep the microphone close to his mouth so that his answers were audible, Mankiewicz finally gave him an important detail in the “Star Wars” tradition: Why exactly does Yoda speak backwards? “Because if you speak English regularly, people won’t listen so much,” said Lucas. “But if he had an accent or it is really difficult to understand what he says, focus on what he says.”

“He was basically the philosopher of the film,” continued Lucas. “I had to find a way to get people to actually listen-especially 12-year-olds.”

Although the chat otherwise shone details about the production of “The Empire Strikes Back”, Lucas said the lack of support from the studio for “Star Wars”, which initially hesitated to agree on the deal memo he designed. “I said,” I will do it for $ 50,000 to write and guide and produce … but I want the sequels. “And I wanted the right ones because I will make these films no matter what happens to it.”

He said that he added another condition that would be life -changing again, both for him and for the entire entertainment industry. “I said:” I also want to license. “You went,” What is licensing? “Unlocked from the film and the history of Moves Merchandising up to this point, the studio that surrendered to his requirements.” You spoke to yourself, and you were: “It will never be able. It takes a billion dollar and a year to make a toy or do anything.” There is no money at all. “

Lucas, underwhelmed by Fox through the film by Fox, said that he had carried out a guerrilla campaign to create excitement and predict a future in which several generations of cinema goers prove their first -hand support for the films and franchise companies that they love. “I made the children go through Disneyland and the comic disadvantages and all these things to advertise the film,” he said. “And that’s why Fox was so shocked when the first day was the lines all over the block.”

Mankiewicz concluded a softball of Lucas, which of the two new characters in “Empire”, the cozy Jedi master Yoda or the charismatic swindler Lando Calrissian, was his favorite. Lucas didn’t bite again. “If you have 12 children, which one do you like the most?” The filmmaker was distracted. The moderator’s efforts were noble, but like the film, which had the audience shortly before the solution, the resulting conversation was a little abrupt and incomplete. But at the age of 80, Lucas appears less often than ever before, so that the opportunity to see him, like a rare pleasure – even if the unspoken lesson of the event is that people are a bit easier, the easier it is to deliver it at your own pace.