The Digital Tech of 'Attack of the Clones'

May 16 -- The good news for Star Wars fans: Yoda, the diminutive Jedi Master, makes a return performance in the latest George Lucas movie, Attack of the Clones. The even better news: He kicks butt — literally.

In the previous Star Wars episodes, the mythical 800-year old imp did little more than just spout off mystical ramblings about "the Force." That's because the only way to create the character for the 1980 movie Star Wars: Episode 5 — The Empire Strikes Back was to use complex immovable puppet models.

But in Clones, the wizen 2-foot tall creature jumps, twirls, and duels with dynamically smooth and powerful moves that would make any kung fu martial artist turn green with envy.

And the "secret" to Yoda's magical transformation? Not surprisingly, it's through the use of powerful digital effects computers.

By using 3-D imaging software and computers, Lucas' own special effects team, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), created a virtual version of the Yoda puppet. "We made him the perfect copy of the puppet," says Lucas. "Only he's a little bit better. He fights, he does all kinds of things."

The Age-Old Quest for the Perfect Effect

And getting a special effect "just right," isn't something that's the alien to Lucas.

In 1977, the technology to produce some of the visual effects in the original Star Wars was fairly rudimentary. If Lucas needed to show a spaceship getting destroyed in battle, it was as simple as, well, blowing up a plastic model.

"On the first trilogy, I was always bumping into this 'I can't do this,' 'I can't do this,' 'I can't do this,'" Lucas told ABCNEWS' Joel Siegel. So, for the most visually compelling scenes, Lucas had to create some of the most revolutionary special effects processes at that time.

For example, Lucas helped develop "motion-controlled cameras" — a computer-controlled system to help match the flying spacecraft against the background of the Death Star in the final battle scene of Star Wars.