“You must unlearn what you have learned,” Jedi master Yoda instructed his stubborn apprentice, Luke Skywalker. And now Star Wars fans may have to do the same after confirmation that the beloved fictional alien was very nearly blue, or even purple.

Reviews of archival sources – and new testimony from a special effects makeup artist who worked on the first Yoda puppets – suggest film-makers made a decision late in the development process to switch the character’s skin colour to green.

Had producers of The Empire Strikes Back closely followed the final screenplay, then Yoda would have been “bluish”.

In the text, Luke and his droid companion, R2-D2, are surprised after being confronted by a small creature who appears on the swamp-covered planet of Dagobah. “Mysteriously standing right in

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