5 best Yoda moments in Star Wars

To honor the release of The Empire Strikes Back, today is Talk Like Yoda Day. Celebrate his best scenes to mark the holiday, we will.

For not appearing until The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda has left a pretty indelible mark on the Star Wars franchise as a whole. In fact, Yoda’s probably the Jedi equivalent of Darth Vader when it comes to merch — although we’re also pretty sure R2-D2 and BB-8 have them both beat.

But Yoda also has his own semi-official holiday. It’s not quite on the level of Star Wars Day, not yet, but Talk Like Yoda Day, today is.

We don’t think we could write an entire article in Yoda-speak, but we can give you five awesome looks at the Jedi Master to celebrate him today.

“Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

Very few characters can turn Luke Skywalker’s failing into not only a lesson, but the kind of lesson that stays with Star Wars fans long after they’ve first watched this scene. Decades before Chirrut Îmwe‘s “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me,” Yoda summed up the heroic relationship to the Force by explaining it — and how it ties everyone together, elevating them beyond just “crude matter” to “luminous beings.”

Yoda proves his point and lifts the X-Wing

This is perhaps the most famous Yoda moment of them all, and for good reason. Much of what we see of Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back is from Luke’s perspective — so we don’t understand why Yoda is doing all of these things in the name of “training” Luke.

But here, as “The Force Theme” rises, Yoda shows us all why he’s a Jedi and why he’s the teacher who can pick up where Obi-Wan leaves off in terms of Luke’s journey with the Force.

“The sacred texts!”

Even long after he’s passed into the Force, Yoda has the ability to troll the daylights out of Luke and bring out that whiny part of him, even if it also involves flat-out burning some sacred Jedi texts on Ahch-To by summoning a lightning bolt via the Force.

There’s no one best part of this entire scene, but if we had to choose aside from Luke yelling about the texts, then it’s probably just Yoda cracking up after he summons the lightning bolt. That’s a being who knows he’s just out-drama’ed an extremely dramatic character.

“Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing!”

But Luke isn’t the only younger Jedi that Yoda trolls and then assists. For all the bad points about the prequel trilogy, this scene from Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a great character moment for both Obi-Wan and Yoda, showing that Obi-Wan still needs help from his teachers as an adult, and that Yoda’s willing to take unorthodox approaches to problems by listening to the younglings that he’s teaching.

Yoda takes on Palpatine

It’s not often that Yoda has to throw down in the Star Wars universe.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t. It just means that he has better things to do, like playfully educating younger Jedi. Take this example from Revenge of the Sith, where he takes on Palpatine in an attempt to stop the Emperor. It starts well when Yoda knocks out two guards with just a wave of his hand, and though he takes a hit of Force lightning, he’s not going down without a fight.

In fact, it’s quite a fast-paced fight for the two older gentlemen to go through, but just remember: the Force is Yoda’s ally, “and a powerful ally it is.”

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What’s your favorite Yoda moment in Star Wars?