Sitting down with Turner Classic Movies’ Ben Mankiewicz ahead of a 45th anniversary screening of The Empire Strikes Back which kicked off the TCM Classic Film Festival, George Lucas delved into a number of topics, including why Yoda talks the way he does and the importance of self-funding Episode V.

“When I write, it’s like a blueprint — there’s not great deal of detail in it,” Lucas said. “As it turned out, when I got the ‘Star Wars’ script done, there were 180 pages. So I cut it into three parts and said I’ll focus on the first one, because we’d never get enough money to make the whole thing.”

“I said, ‘I want the rights for these things because I’m going to make those movies no matter what happens, and besides that, I want the licensing.’ They said, ‘What’s licensing?’”

“Fox was shocked when on the first day the lines were all around the block. ‘Where’d these people come from?’ Because they hadn’t really run a campaign.”

When it came to making that incredible sequel (Empire, not The Holiday Special) Lucas’ mind was set.

“I said, I’m going to do it myself. I’m going to go to the bank, I’m going to get the money.”

And why does Yoda speak like he does?

“If you’re speaking regular English, people don’t listen that much. But if it’s hard to understand what someone is saying, people focus on it. Yoda was basically the philosopher of the movie, and I had to figure out a way to get people to actually listen to these long talking scenes, especially 12-year olds.”