Ascovel wrote:But that's the thing - the puppet is real, even if a puppet, the CG Yoda is not real at all.
Actually Frank Oz keeps out of sight, so it's like a kickass living puppet interacting with Luke!
The way all movie creatures should be done! 
This X100. That clip looks more magical to me than anything I have seen created in CGI.
The problem, for me, is not that CGI is "new", more it is that it is still "young" - so I'm not one of those who is against the shift to CGI, I just think the fact is it is a technology in its infancy (with regards with how it is being used to make movies now).
People have been working with puppets for centuries, and people have been creating illusions on film with models, masks and puppets for the best part of a century. Again, just my personal opinion, but when you see ROTJ Jabba, or TESB Yoda, or the famous shot from the Battle of Endor with the Falcon passing through all those TIEs, you are seeing an atform at its peak.
All those years of experience and tradition reaching a logical conclusion in ILM's work on those films, and notable others in that early-to-mid-80s era.
We are in a new era of filmmaking, and different things are possible, so we should embrace that - but CGI is nowhere near at that same level yet, IMHO. And the issue for me is not comparing how a puppet looks with how CGI looks, it is about how believable a scene is in and of itself, however it was realised.
And I just don't have that same belief in CGI creations yet, compared to the more tangible alternatives that were the only option a couple of decades ago, on the available evidence so far. I don't have a problem with the prequels on that front - they are "of their time", just as the OT is of its time too.
There is no denying that TPM Yoda was a pretty shoddy example of a puppet though.
If I do have a gripe with the PT, it is perhaps that the actual design work, the pre-production stuff, isn't quite in the same league as the OT. But that is all. I feel mutch more strongly about CGI editions to the classic films at the end of the day.
Try watching it in context with the entire series, like you know, the first episode of a larger story. I agree that by itself it's not as good of a self-standing installment, but it's just the Overture to the Space Opera. I saw bits of it again on Spike over the weekend, and thought wow, this is not bad at all. Some clunky moments, but also some spectacular scenes.
