www.forbes.com: The breakout star of The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda, is not actually alive, but rather one foot zero of rubber and machinery, a puppet, in the simplest terms. The show has been praised for using a live-action, old-fashioned puppet for Baby Yoda instead of CGI, though the show originally wrestled with the concept and thought about using a computer-generated Baby Yoda instead. That led to the famous Werner Herzog quote, known Baby Yoda supporter, “Leave it, you cowards.”
11 comments:
It always amazes me just how much money is spent on television and movies as opposed to other mediums of entertainment. It is crazy to me that five million dollars is only five percent of the budget, and that five million dollars was spent on a robot that is only one foot tall. I have not seen the Mandalorian, but I am extremely confused as to why they put the baby Yoda robot worth five million dollars inside of a sack to be beat up. If he is hidden inside a sack as the article says, why did they want the actor to actually punch him? It just doesn’t make sense to me. That aside, I cannot believe the incredible things we are able to make now. I remember not too long having a Yoda Furby and being insanely impressed with how it moved. In 8th grade I actually took apart one of my Furbies to figure out how it worked for my science class. I can’t imagine the things I would find if we were allowed to skin baby Yoda.
Five. Million. Dollars. That is outrageous. When I saw the title of the article, I guessed maybe $50,000 or so, and I thought I was guessing high. My jaw dropped to the floor when I read that figure. It is hard to understand how something so small, barely over a foot in height, could cost so much. Are its innards made of solid gold? Well, with the current price of gold, five million dollars would get you about two hundred pounds of gold. So, the five-million-dollar Baby Yoda puppet animatronic isn’t even made of solid gold. The film and television industry have such ridiculously high budgets, with the most expensive movie ever made having a staggering $379 million budget. This brings up an interesting point, as there are countless films created very small budget which have been massively successful, such as Paranormal Activity, which had a budget of only $15,000 yet went on to gross almost $200 million. Granted, movies are not cheap to make, especially when it comes to cutting-edge visual effects, large scale sets, and the like, but these multi-hundred-million dollar budgets seem excessive to me, and back on the subject of the article itself, five million dollars for a one foot tall animatronic puppet of Baby Yoda is ridiculous.
As most people have already commented, the amount of money Disney spent to make a puppet is absolutely ridiculous. 5 million dollars for a fully working puppet that is the size of a human baby. I appreciate that the production staff of The Mandalorian decided not to use CGI to create Baby Yoda, as I think it would have detracted from the story a bit and definitely would have been the conversation of Star War fans across the country. I too would love to see the inter-workings of Baby Yoda, if only to understand why it costs 5 million dollars. I also found it hilarious that the actor who punched Baby Yoda was actually aware of how much money the puppet costs. I can imagine the pressure to not only deliver a convincing performance while also attempting to minimize the actual damage due to the cost to build it. I guess I now should watch the rest of The Mandalorian and finally understand the fascination with the 5 million dollar puppet of Baby Yoda.
While I’m not shocked that Disney has a huge budget for its projects, five million for a puppet is crazy and outrageous. On one hand, I really do appreciate that the production staff decided to not use CGI and go with how the original Yoda was created as a puppet as in the original trilogy. However, on the other hand, what kind of puppet is this that cost five million dollars. Yes, unmasking the inner workings of the puppet and the technology used to create baby Yoda may make the show lose its magic but I’m genuinely curious what makes this puppet so special and expensive. I remember a while back, I read an article about the making of the Dark Crystal puppets. Did those puppets cost just as much? Disney has the money and wealth to throw as much money at their projects as they want but I do also believe that there are ways to minimize the budget and still have a successful final product.
I can't believe this is real. First off it was such a surprise on this show to have a version of Yoda back on screen. But the fact that Baby Yoda as a puppet costs $5 million is insane. Knowing that, I wonder if they have multiple models of Baby Yoda (in case if one breaks). Also, the fact that they punch him at all is frightening. I don't know why they didn't put a cheaper body double in the bag when they were punching Baby Yoda. I am glad they mentioned the budget for the whole show in this article. Even though Baby Yoda is $5 million, it makes sense when you see that next to the cost of the whole show, being approximately 5% of the budget. Still, it feels wrong to have a $5 million dollar puppet be punched but I am sure they will profit in the end just from merchandise and small Baby Yoda plush toys.
-Pablo Anton
On the surface, this does seem surprising that the puppet that everyone recognizes is so expensive. I thought the decision to include a physical puppet instead of a computer generated creature is one that I thought elevated the material very well. The level of detail afforded by the puppet made it seem like a real child of Yoda’s species. I wonder how much it would have cost to provide the creature in computer generated form. The other computer generated imagery in the show is actually quite good for a television show, which makes sense considering the budget appears to be so large that $5 million is only about 5% of the total budget of the season. The development of this character is one that I think many fans will be interested in, not only for its purpose in the story, but because of the technical development of the puppet. Animatronics and accommodating them in the scene has always been an effective and interesting effects process, and often they help convey realism because they are so detailed.
5 MILLION DOLLARS?????? ON A ROBOT?????? Can Disney please just hop over to our financial aid office and pay my tuition already? All jokes aside, I think it's pretty outrageous that 5 million dollars was spent on this puppet. Going in to reading the article I didn't really have any expectations as far as how much its would cost, but it was definitely exceeded. Wow. It's very surprising that television and movies, especially made by Disney, have such extraneous budgets, meanwhile many theatre productions have a fraction of the budget. I think that It just goes to show how much fun theatre is, trying to create things with lower budgets and really needing to stretch your creativity to get to your end goal. Overall, the Mandalorian is a show I have very little interest in watching, however it probably has outstanding production value considering the budget. Baby Yoda is cute. Live on little guy.
Wow! I just assumed that Baby Yoda from the Disney Plus tv show the Mandalorian was made digitally using special effects. I had no idea that he was a puppet/robot that cost $5 million dollars. I can’t imagine spending $5 million dollars on anything let alone a puppet! I mean everyone knows that Disney’s budget is insane, but that just seems a little crazy to me! I can not even imagine being the people who got paid to make Baby Yoda. They must be doing pretty well for themselves. It is amazing that we have the technology to create a robot such as Baby Yoda, but I still can not get over the price. Especially when people in other parts of the world are starving because they don’t have enough money to buy food and Disney is over here spending $5 million dollars on a puppet for a tv show!
This winter break, I spent 30 minutes of my life watching a compilation video of all the moments Baby Yoda appeared in the Mandalorian. I have not watched the Mandalorian. Personally, I love that they decided to make Baby Yoda a puppet because one of the shining attributes of Star Wars was the amount of crafting that went into the film to make it as realistic as possible. I am not the only one to say that the CGI in the prequels and director cuts of the originals look horrendous and the puppets from the 80s look more realistic that what the computers made. To see the creators go back to their roots for this crucial character is so wonderful. The amount of money spent is crazy, but it paid off tremendously. I can’t stop staring at it’s cuteness and neither can the rest of the world. No computer can compare to that.
Ok, you would have to pay me a lot of money to say something bad about Baby Yoda. The Design/Production Class of 2023, including me, love Baby Yoda. He's a 50-year-old baby and he's absolutely never done anything wrong. I understand that this is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a puppet, but he's literally worth it. Aside from all that, I'm really glad that Baby Yoda was not CGI. I think that he would definitely not have been as endearing if he weren't actually real. He's such a cutie and I just don't think we would feel remotely the same way if he were fake. Again, the number is alarming, but if that's what got us the Baby Yoda we have today, I think it's worth it. Disney has a lot of money, it's wild, but if this is what's going to get us Baby Yoda, that's fine. I do really love that it's a real puppet. It's so detailed and has clearly paid off for Disney. If they hadn't got that puppet exactly right, we wouldn't be spending so much money on merchandise and such. I went to Disney World while I was home for break and I swear every third person had some Baby Yoda paraphernalia. It was wild. This character may just be one of the most successful Disney has ever created, maybe after Elsa. Lastly, that final picture of Baby Yoda in the article is super cute; I love him.
Considering the scale and popularity of the show, I had assumed that the Baby Yoda puppet would have been fairly expensive. Maybe around $2million was how much I originally assumed it could be but like others have said, $5 million is still so much more than I had expected; though I don’t think it’s so ridiculous or outrageous as many others say. I know that programming and technology necessary to make the tiny facial movements look natural are pretty complex; along with the materials and painstaking work it takes to replicate skin and paint/texture for it to look realistic is not be that cheap either. Especially now that I know that the puppet was made to be basically its own functioning robot that can take a beating, rather than a base for CGI to be built upon, it has to be even more perfected. When you have the insane budget like Disney, why not use all the resources you can get. Though I do wonder if there were any changes they could’ve made to the overall build cheaper without effecting the final product.
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