Joe Dante, director of The Gremlins, denounced that Baby Yoda is a “completely stolen” character

Grogu, or Baby Yoda -as he was called until his name was revealed- is a fundamental piece in The Mandalorian, the series starring Pedro Pascal. So much so that those responsible can leave out actors -like Gina Carano- for reasons unrelated to the story, but surely they could never do without him. And it is that, for many, the presence of the funny little being was essential for the series to become a great success.

As soon as he appeared on the screen, with his huge ears and that tender puppy look, two simultaneous phenomena happened: while many began to love him immediately, others did not hesitate to point out the resemblance to another great fictional character: Gizmo, the main character of the gremlinsthe 1984 blockbuster film.

The controversy intensified this Wednesday, when the director of that 1984 film starring Phoebe Cates and Zach Galligan gave his own version of that undeniable resemblance. “I think the longevity of the movies is really key for this character. [Gizmo]which is essentially like a baby”Joe Dante assured in an interview published by the newspaper San Francisco Chronicle which was quickly replicated in the main US media.

“Which brings me, of course, to the subject of Baby Yoda, who is completely stolen and just copied. Shamelessly, I would think.”added the director. However, he revealed that he is not planning to sue Disney, the entertainment industry giant that owns the rights to the character and the universe created by George Lucas.

Perhaps his decision is due to the fact that, beyond the obvious resemblance between the two characters, trying to determine who copied whom would mean getting into a legal mess with implications that are not easy to determine. It is that the character who made his debut in the series released in 2019 is, neither more nor less, than a child version of the great Yoda, the powerful Jedi who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Backfrom 1980, four years before the gremlins hit theaters.

With the controversy of who copied whom already raised, the showrunner of The MandalorianJon Favreau explained in an interview with dead line that, when creating the character that accompanies Din Djarin on his adventures, he took another great character from the big screen as a reference: ETthe brainchild of Steven Spielberg.

“The animation director, Dave Filoni, had done a sketch of a kind of Michelangelo/ET moment, and that was a source of inspiration,” Favreau revealed of the first Grogu scene in the series. The sketch shows the picturesque character’s cradle afloat with his little hand coming out of it and Mando bending down so that his fingers could touch, as in The Creation of Adam, the famous work of the Italian Renaissance.

“Then Doug Chiang – vice president and creative director of Lucasfilm – and the whole art department started generating drawings and the people at Legacy Effects built it,” Favreau said. And he added: “We have lots and lots of drawings. Some of them were too cute, some of them were too ugly, some of them were the wrong proportions.”

“Finally, there was a picture that illustrator and concept artist Chris Alzmann did where he was wrapped up in what looked like a flight jacket,” Favreau said. “His eyes were a little strange, and he looked a little out of it, there was something a little weird about that. But we found it charming, and that became the image that conformed to everyone: ‘This is good,’ we agreed. And the character developed, from there, ”he indicated.

The inclusion in the saga of a second character of the mysterious species of Yoda had the creator of the universe of Yoda quite worried. Star Wars. According to Filoni, George Lucas was eager to learn the details of the character’s development. “I had a conversation with George at one point about Grogu, and his main concern was that he should have extensive training.”