Along with R2-D2, seeing Yoda was one of the bigger thrills when I saw The Phantom Menace for the first time.  The idea, at the time, was that amid all the CGI and green screens, Yoda was a real puppet, just like during the OT.  Yet for whatever reason, he was VERY different.  It made no sense, and it was jarring.  The fact that the character was a puppet was a great move.  I never felt like it was out of place.  But the fact that it looked as if Yoda was high on Demerol after getting hit in the face with Gallagher’s Sledge-O-Matic probably was a good reason for George Lucas to make one of the better changes to the films through all his years of tinkering when he replaced the puppet with a much better looking CGI model.  Take that, stupid puppet Yoda!  Here’s a YouTube video of the differences between the two versions in the film:

This figure, in a way, is kind of like that of Lak Sivrak. While Yoda, of course, was not actually deleted from the film, this particular version of him was.  So the only time you’ll ever see the source is in an original unaltered version of The Phantom Menace..

The figure’s best attribute is its visual similarity to the puppet Yoda.  Beyond that, it’s kind of a terrible figure.  It’s sculpted in such a way that if you move the arms around, the draped sleeves look like wings.  He doesn’t have great range of motion at the shoulders anyway, so your best bet is to just leave them in a neutral position.  One thing few collectors can abide by, even back in 1999, is the uni-leg.  That’s what he’s got.  A uni-leg.  At this point in the review, I’m pretty much over this figure.  But for the sake of posterity, I’ll continue. 

He comes with one accessory: his Jedi Council chair.  It’s pretty good.  Yoda can fit nicely in it, however, in order to be seated in the most secure position, his left arm is force upward, so he can’t sit neutrally.  Some figures have non-neutral standing poses, this one has a non-neutral sitting pose.  And you have to admit, the feet sculpted at the bottom of the solid uni-leg look kind of ridiculous when he’s in a seated position.  He doesn’t come with a cane, which he did use briefly when he was walking around the room when granting Obi-Wan permission to take on Anakin as his Padawan. 

The value of this figure lies in the fact that it’s representative of his puppet look in Episode I.  The figure and chair were released again in those awesome-at-the-time-but-now-kind-of-terrible Jedi Council sets, but the paint wasn’t as good.  It was also used as the basis of an Episode II figure with the magnet gimmick in his left hand, to “Force call” the included metal-hilted lightsaber.  Of course that was a cheap-out by Hasbro, because AOTC had a CGI Yoda, so this figure was a poor representation of the Episode II character.

Basically, unless you want the TPM puppet Yoda likeness, this figure is pretty terrible.  To be fair, Hasbro has consistently struggled to get us anything that approaches a definitive Yoda, but this certainly ain’t it.  Hasbro did good in 1999 to match the puppet’s facial likeness, so I can’t be too tough on them.  But the uni-leg and wing arms are not easy to look past.  3/10.