In movies and television, the choice of actor can be critical. If the character turns out to be the two-foot tall Dominar of the Hynerian Empire, you can’t cast Shaquille O’Neal. (‘Course, the movie adaptation of ‘Steel’ proved that adage to be true even for characters he is more suitable to play, so that’s probably a bad example.) Rygel’s success as a character comes from how seamlessly he fits in to the world of ‘Farscape’, and even though it takes half a dozen people to puppeteer his body, he is no less a character than is John Crichton. The same is true for Master Yoda, whose puppet/CGI interactions (especially in the second prequel movie) are just anchored enough in reality that we think of him as a “him” rather than an “it.” The fact that both of these examples are partially derived from The Muppets can’t be ignored either (especially given Kermit’s recent public breakup being treated as seriously as any Hollywood split) which leads us to today’s animatronic query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) figures that this whole Baby Yoda thing isn’t blowing over any time soon, asking: Who is the best “non-human actor” in all of pop culture?
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IBit in “Tron” could express so much in just 0 and 1. And Bubo the Owl was cuddly cute and I loved his origin story.
How far into CGI-fakery does this one go? I mean, I love Smeagol/Gollum from the LotR Trilogy, but would he technically count? Eh, just popped into my head on reading this one.
Also, Pilot was equally as incredible as Rygel. Also, also, from another Muppet-adjacent movie, the cast of Labyrinth is what puts it onto my list of favorite movies.
The beauty of the MS-QOTD is that it goes as far into anything as you can justify. If you think Smeagol should count, you can put forth that assertion.
Leonard Nimoy as Spock.