Star Wars: You won’t BELIEVE George Lucas’ original name for Yoda

The friendly green Jedi is one of the most recognisable characters from the Star Wars franchise.

Voiced and puppeteered – where not in CGI – by muppet legend Frank Oz, Yoda has featured in every Star Wars episode except for original movie A New Hope.

However Star Wars creator George Lucas almost called him something else entirely.

It turns out Yoda was going to be called Buffy.

No doubt a certain 1990s vampire slayer would have had a very different name if Lucas had stuck with it.

According Weasac.com The Making of The Empire Strikes Back book says Buffy was changed to Minch Yoda in the film’s first draft.

However it was eventually shortened to the four letter household name he’s known as today.

Interestingly Yoda was originally going to look rather different too.

Back in 2016, Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition came to London’s O2 and it featured the original concept art for Yoda.

It turns out he was originally imagined as a humanoid elf, complete with red gnome hat and bushy white beard.

The original concept painting is by artist Ralph McQuarrie, but unfortunately for him, we ended up with the Muppet-inspired goblin-like Jedi we know and love today.

Having returned in The Last Jedi, it’s still unclear if Yoda will be back as a Force ghost for Star Wars 9, however any future plans – including a Yoda solo movie – have a condition for Oz.

Speaking with IGN, he said: “[Yoda] won't be a puppet. Believe me. That's way too difficult for me.

“I rehearse a long time just to do one line of dialogue [as a puppeteer]. It would have to be [CGI], yeah.

“It would have to be. It's far, far too difficult because I'm doing it with three other people.

“So it's four people and you can't just wing it. You've got to study every single word with four people.”