6. The Empire Strikes Back Was Meant to be Yoda’s Solitary Appearance.
Lucas’ plans for Yoda were that his only appearance in the series would be in The Empire Strikes Back. After being a one hit wonder, he was supposed to disappear into oblivion. He was going to be there to train Luke then vanish. However, changes to those plans were made during pre-production of Return of the Jedi. And we have a child psychologist to thank for that.
Lucas was advised that the fact about Darth Vader being Luke’s father needed to be made clearer. If that is not done, preteen audience members would think it was a lie. In the face of this challenge, which is also one of the biggest and most famous twists in the history of movies, Lucas and Co. decided to bring back Yoda. Once he had served his purpose which was to confirm that indeed Vader was Luke’s father, he was relegated to minor and guest appearances in the three prequel films.
5. Exactly 900 Years Old
So, Yoda was exactly 900 years old when he died. But he could have been any number (0 to 900) of years old when he died. Was it on purpose, an indication signifies that he led a life well-lived. Or perhaps, it was one of those things over which we speculate but actually it turned out to be something really trivial such as someone at LucasFilm asked the boss how old the old man was and the for some reason pissed off boss replied angrily, “I don’t know, 900 or something, how do I know”? That got scripted and canonized, and here we are.
Whichever be the case, Yoda was born in 896 BBY and died in 4 ABY. This makes him exactly 900 years old when he died. Too bad for the green old man, another century and he would have died a grand one thousand years old.
