Yoda To Return In Star Wars 8? Frank Oz Has Reportedly Recorded Audio

Everyone’s favourite diminutive 900-year-old Jedi might be making a much anticipated return to the ‘Star Wars’ franchise after it was alleged that Frank Oz has recorded new audio for ‘Episode 8′.

Indie Revolver have reported that writer and director Rian Johnson asked Oz to join the cast. However it’s not believed that Oz would be working the Yoda puppet again, while there was no information on how big the part is.

For the time being, it’s probably best to take this speculation with a pinch of salt, as even the publication itself insisted that they’d only heard it through one source. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t already get ridiculously excited about Yoda maybe being seen on screen again.

Frank Oz provided the voice of Yoda in the original and prequel trilogies, while he worked as a puppeteer on ‘A New Hope’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, ‘Return Of The Jedi’, and ‘The Phantom Menace’. In ‘Attack Of The Clones’ and ‘Revenge Of The Sith’, though, Yoda was rendered using computer animation because of close-ups and fight scenes.

Frank Oz actually almost reprised his role of Yoda in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, too, as J.J. Abrams asked him to record vocals for Rey’s dream sequence when she first comes into contact with Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber.

However, while Ewan McGregor’s new audio was used in ‘The Force Awakens’, Abrams went with Yoda dialogue from previous ‘Star Wars’ films.

We’ll have to wait and see if Rian Johnson finds room for Yoda this time round in ‘Star Wars: Episode 8′.

But since Mark Hamill’s role as Luke Skywalker is set to be substantially larger, there’s every chance that he might pop to offer some advice to his old protégé and Daisy Ridley’s Rey as they set after Kylo Ren and the First Order.

We’ll find out when ‘Star War: Episode VIII’ is released on December 15, 2017.

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[Image via Lucasfilm]