A BBC Channel 4 film crew flew into St. Maarten recently to spend two days filming Star Wars personality Nick Maley at his “Yoda Guy Movie Exhibit” on Front Street. Maley is known internationally as St Maarten’s “Yoda Guy” because of his involvement in building Yoda and other Star Wars creatures for the classic Star Wars Trilogy. The visit was a follow up to an interview Maley did with the BBC in London last July, when Lucasfilm invited him to show his newly rebuilt animatronic Yoda puppet at Star Wars Celebration Europe.
The puppet, built in St. Maarten, is the only one in the world built using the exact same principles as the original which Maley and his colleagues built in 1978, when they were part of the Star Wars creature crew. Maley’s passion to encourage youth to live exceptional lives inspired the documentary makers who filmed the museum and Maley interacting with cruise passengers as part of a TV special airing early next year.
