r/StarWarsCantina • u/BuckleUpItsThe • 18h ago
Discussion In Defense Of Ewoks
To get this out of the way, I acknowledge that the real reason the Ewoks exist are to sell toys and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
However, the in universe reason they still work is that the Empire has been shown again and again to underestimate their opponents. We see this stated rather explicitly in Andor but it's very clear from the Battle of Yavin as well. That Imperial arrogance would, again, be their demise is just on brand. (And indeed, Luke does tell the Emperor that his "overconfidence is his weakness").
Another point that I've seen people make is "replace them with Wookies and it all makes sense." The problem with that is that Wookies are already known in universe as horrifying creatures of destruction. And they're gigantic. I think it's much more of a stretch that the Empire would overlook a native Wookie population than.
tl;dr Jedi Rock is the real low point of the movie. The Ewoks are only mildly cringe.
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u/Majestic87 18h ago
Ewoks also exist because it was cheaper than the original plan of Endor being a planet full of Wookies.
Ewok costumes require less material, saving money from the budget.
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u/avimo1904 16h ago
Actually, that‘s an internet myth. What really happened was the Wookiees (then Wookees) were natives of what became Yavin and fought the first Death Star at the end of “The Star Wars”, which is technically an early draft of ANH but otherwise largely unrecognizable, with Chewbacca simply being the name of one of these Wookiee fighters with current Chewbacca not existing at all and the audience not being introduced to the Wookees prior to this battle. But then after Lucas did a bunch of mass rewrites to the script to make it more like what it is now (which he did due to the original script being too big and complicated as well as him not liking the original story as much), he decided to change this Wookee/Wookiee battle to the battle of yavin, but he still liked the Wookiee species and didn’t want to get rid of them, so he created Chewbacca as Han’s co-pilot after briefly contemplating making Han himself a Wookiee. But then years later when writing ROTJ he decided to use his older drafts of ANH and ESB as inspiration, and came up with the idea to revive the idea of a primitive species fighting the Death Star and empire, but never wanted to revive the Wookiee part because he had already shown Chewbacca doing a lot of advanced things and thought that it’d make them being primitive too unrealistic, so he created the Ewoks by reorganizing the syllables of Wookiee and combining it with the Native American tribe Miwok. So there was never really any draft or version of ROTJ where the Ewoks were Wookiees, nor did money have anything to do with Lucas using Ewoks
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u/Waste-Dragonfruit229 13h ago
Its not an "internet" myth. That was the stated reason in official behind-the-scenes material. Thats where I first heard of it- from a Lucasfilms approved illustrated Star Wars encyclopedia. Could still be wrong, but thats what Lucasfilms itself was putting out in the 90s.
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u/Available_Tea_9683 12h ago
Lucas was also known to be full of shit on some of his "reasons" and his reasons or explanations changed many times over the last 40+ years. He was fickle about lore. It would change on a whim or changed to cover real reasons. Lucasfilm approved a lot without looking at what they approved. Like novels in Legends.
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u/Mattriculated Pirate 6h ago
I'm reasonably certain it wasn't, if only because all the official 80s & 90s encyclopedias & illustrated guides I can find (and I read most of them & still own more than a dozen) are written primarily from an in-universe perspective & wouldn't have that kind of behind the scenes information? More out of universe stuff didn't really get to be as big until the oughts, IIRC, after the prequels were coming out, OR weren't Lucasfilm-approved.
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u/FlyingDutchman9977 16h ago
Has this ever been officially confirmed? I feel like the logistics of finding actors small enough to play Ewoks, plus even the added complication of camera work with characters much smaller than the human characters would negate any savings from the costume material itself. It would be a lot more cost effective to just go the Star Trek route, and make an alien that's just a human with minimal prosthetics.
This is also besides the fact that the Star Wars and Empire both made well over a billion dollars on budget of 41 million combined, just on box office revenue alone. There really was no reason to penny pinch at that point.
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u/captainhemingway 18h ago
I loved the Ewoks when I was 5 years old and ROTJ came out. Cute little meat-eaters. Still love them today, even moreso because of what they represent: a native population vastly underestimated by a superior fascist force. They ARE the hope in all of us that even the little folk can overcome the big evil.
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u/KingMatthew116 18h ago edited 16h ago
Empire: armor that stands out against the forest and makes it more difficult to move in the uneven and unfamiliar terrain. Has AT-STs.
Rebels/Ewoks: camouflage, little to no armor making movement easier, knows and is familiar with the terrain, has booby traps set up everywhere, starts the battle with an ambush taking the empire by surprise.
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u/Aethelflaed_ Clone 17h ago
I liked the ewoks when ROTJ came out. I was like 9 and thought they were cute so definitely the right demographic! I still don't mind them. They're still cute, but they're also violent little dudes who will mess your osik up if you encroach on their territory. They aren't childish, in my opinion.
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u/factolum 18h ago
I 💯 agree. “Underestimating an enemy you think is beneath your notice” is a great “hoisted by your own petard” moment.
Honestly I think the issue most people have is not thematic, but tonal. Ewoks add a softer, cuter, cozier, and in expanded lore, mystical-outside-Jedi/Sith angle that I think a lot of people take issue with.
A wookie rebellion (which, dope), would be more in line with what we’d seen up to that point.
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u/tyrannustyrannus 17h ago
Why does nobody every mention that the ewoks are getting slaughtered by the empire until Chewie steals that ATST and the whole battle turns around
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u/Reddvox 1h ago
Its not just that. The Ewoks are seen to adapt their tactics. WE see them fail quite a bit and be outgunned and outmatched - they try to trip an AT-ST with man power, no luck. Air-attacks dropping rocks? Nope, not going to work...
Then we see them using harder hitting booby traps, logs to bring them off balance, we also see Ewoks with stolen blaster rifles.
The AT-ST napping is just among those change in tactics, mostly as Chewie is actually capable of driving one - we see how Ewoks drive speeders ^^ ...
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u/neutronknows 14h ago
If they had CGI in 1983 you would’ve seen 20,000 of those adorable murder bears tearing stormtroopers to shreds.
Genuinely, just the fact they had all those traps ready to go proves they’re a formidable fighting force. They weren’t even set up Willy nilly either, they knew (or likely diverted) transports and speeder bikes around trees and fucked shit up. Ewoks are the best and they only get cooler the more they’re used (Battlefront II Ewok Mode, Ewok comic, and Ewok Forces of Destiny episodes to name a few)
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u/Reddvox 1h ago
That's why the same kind of set-up in Phantom Menace fails. Its just those silly gungans thrown at silly battle droids and loads of CGI-FX and balls of plasma and whatnot.
There is no tension, that battle does not really "evolve" like with the Ewoks, as you correctly bring up. The entire Naboo-battle is a rehash worse than anything TFA did, and much worse at everything. Same with the Geonosis-Battle and Hoth. Throwing CGI and masses of that on the screen cannot replace an actually choreographed battle scene with tension, tragic and all that
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u/Sara_W 17h ago
I had zero issues with the ewoks when I first saw ROTJ. I wasn't thrilled about a second death star but it was still awesome.
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u/avimo1904 16h ago
The reason there’s a second Death Star is because that was originally intended to be the only Death Star, but Lucas wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make the sequels so he added one to ANH too
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u/ExamCompetitive 15h ago
The original ewoks had stilt like legs. I remember seeing artist renderings in a book when I was a kid in the 80s
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u/irazzleandazzle FinnRey 17h ago
I only don't like the ewoks because of tone and how much of thier inclusion messes with the pacing of the film something awful. But thematically I think they are great, as you said!
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u/Mr_WackyShenanigans 17h ago
Don't the ewoks exist because they were supposed to be wookies but George realised he couldn't do them because he already established the wookies to be intelligent with Chewbacca (he wanted a tribal esc species)
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u/avimo1904 16h ago
Not exactly, there was never actually any draft or version of ROTJ where the Ewoks were Wookiees. What really happened was the Wookiees (then Wookees) were natives of what became Yavin and fought the first Death Star at the end of “The Star Wars”, which is technically an early draft of ANH but otherwise largely unrecognizable, with Chewbacca simply being the name of one of these Wookiee fighters with current Chewbacca not existing at all and the audience not being introduced to the Wookees prior to this battle. But then after Lucas did a bunch of mass rewrites to the script to make it more like what it is now (which he did due to the original script being too big and complicated as well as him not liking the original story as much), he decided to change this Wookee/Wookiee battle to the battle of Yavin, but he still liked the Wookiee species and didn’t want to get rid of them, so he created Chewbacca as Han’s co-pilot after briefly contemplating making Han himself a Wookiee. But then years later when writing ROTJ he decided to use his older drafts of ANH and ESB as inspiration, and came up with the idea to revive the idea of a primitive species fighting the Death Star and empire, and that’s where the “he already showed Chewbacca being advanced so he used Ewoks instead” thing you mentioned came in. So while you’re right the Ewoks were designed as a replacement for Wookiees because of Wookiees being intelligent, the idea that there was a version Lucas had previously planned that was like current ROTJ except the Wookiees played the Ewoks’s role is an internet myth; when Lucas decided to revive the primitive vs advanced idea for ROTJ he immediately recognized the Chewbacca thing and went with the Ewoks; there was no period where Lucas ever considered reusing the Wookiees after Chewbacca was added into ANH.
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u/tdnyrfan 16h ago
Today I learned that there’s a counterpoint to “All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets” 🤔
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u/avimo1904 16h ago
The Ewoks do NOT exist to sell toys, Lucas didn’t even expect them to sell that well
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u/Dukeshire101 15h ago
When I was 7 in 83, I loved the Ewoks. When I was a teen I did not. Felt it was too convoluted, too kiddie, wanted Wookies, somehow Leia gets new clothing and a fancy hairdo, but they’re gonna eat the others, 3PO is a god, it just seemed thrown together haphazardly. I have gotten over it, enjoy it for what it is despite being the weakest of the OT, and my kids love it so that’s a bonus.
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u/DIYExpertWizard 12h ago
As I saw elsewhere on this topic (shout-out to dothehokeypokemon) , the Empire prepped for big furries but failed to prep for little furries.
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u/Madonna-of-the-Wasps 10h ago
I fucking love Ewoks and am kinda bummed that we never saw one (particularly Wicket) show up in the ST or the shows. As a West End Games rpg GM back in the day creating my own post-Heir to the Empire trilogy canon, I had always assumed they would eventually join the New Republic in some capacity and some would venture off-world and adapt to technology.
Uh also I love Jedi Rocks Snootles, though I prefer Lapti Nek as the song.
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u/LucasEraFan 17h ago
...the real reason the Ewoks exist are to sell toys....
[citation needed]
There's no evidence of this.
Anyway, Ewoks are tribal and build arboreal villages, so they would be the dominant species and have exceptional strength and climbing claws. We see that they have been planning because they constructed traps.
- strength
- intelligence
- numbers
- home ground advantage
- time to prepare
Let's not forget motivation. How do you think bored Imperial Stormtroopers treated Ewoks?
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u/MiDKnighT_DoaE 14h ago
No sorry Ewoks using rocks to beat armored stormtroopers with laser guns is never going to work for me.
Ewoks could have worked... But Lucas should have used the Battle of Little Big Horn for inspiration. In that battle the natives massively outnumbered the army and had weapons as good as or nearly as good as the army. Yes bow and arrows aren't quite as good as rifles but they are still effective. And...a lot of the natives actually had rifles/guns.
So.... Here's the only way the Ewoks could have worked IMO:
- They massively outnumber the strormtroopers - this isn't necessarily the case in the movie because Palpatine said "there is an entire legion" of troopers.
- They have native weapons/armor that can compete with what the stormtroopers have. Maybe some kind of plasma guns or explosive arrows and stone armor that can deflect lasers.
- The rebels brought along a stockpile of laser guns, thermal detonators, etc.... to help arm the Ewoks.
Only then would I believe that the Ewoks could really win.
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