'Gremlins' Director Joe Dante: Baby Yoda Is 'Completely Stolen' From Gizmo

Baby Yoda may have to pay his share to another adorable creature: Gizmo.

'Gremlins' and 'Gremlins 2: The New Batch' director Joe Dante has denounced 'The Mandalorian' for "shamelessly" modeling Gizmo's Baby Yoda, the adorable young Mogwai from his feature film creature, as he sees it. The 1984 classic was produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Chris Columbus, and starred Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates, with Howie Mandel voicing Gizmo.

The franchise is getting an upcoming animated episode with the HBO Max series, “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai,” with Ming-Na Wen, BD Wong, and James Hong voicing the characters. Dante is a consultant on the series.

"I think the longevity of [the films] is really key with this character [Gizmo], who is basically like a baby," Dante told Reuters. “Which brings me, of course, to the subject of Baby Yoda being completely stolen and just being over-copied. Shameless, I think."

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Baby Yoda, or 'The Child,' was introduced in Disney+'s 'The Mandalorian' in 2019. 'Star Wars' creator George Lucas set out to confirm that Baby Yoda would receive an "appropriate amount" of Jedi training in the series to fit the film canon. Baby Yoda's real name is Gorgu, and the child has ties to Ahsoka, played by Rosario Dawson in another upcoming self-titled series.

Built by Legacy Effects, the rod-controlled puppet has become something of a meme throughout the pandemic, something cute to remember in tough times. But while "Mandalorian" lead Jon Favreau specifically wanted to avoid kindness to the character, he ultimately couldn't help but be adored.

"Gremlins"

Everett

Anyway, it looks like 'Gremlins' director Dante won't have to worry about Baby Yoda appearing in other 'Star Wars' movies. Writer/director Taika Waitit sets out to "expand" the "Star Wars" universe with a currently untitled feature film.

"I don't think I'm useful in the 'Star Wars' universe making a movie where everyone's like, 'Oh great, well, those are the plans for the Millennium Falcon, ah that' is Chewbacca's grandmother," Waititi, who previously lent her voice to "The Mandalorian," summed up. "It's all standalone, it's great, although I'd love to take something new and create new characters and just expand the world, otherwise I feel like it's a very small story."< /p>

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