Why do people hate Ewoks?
- Thread starter Jarlaxl
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Hero in a half shell said:
Very close, but you're wrong on one point: it was actually the first Star Wars that Lucas made sure he had exclusive merchandising rights to, and he didn't forfeit all of his other rights, he just requested that one in his contract knowing he'd get it, because movie merchandising really was not a big industry in the late 70's. He went on to make enough money on toys to personally fund the other five films, not to mention to buy back all the rights to A New Hope that he did give up (notably ownership of the film itself) back in '77.
Also, I think you're right about the real reason he changed the Wookiees to Ewoks, but Lucas has always maintained that it was because he wanted to do a story about a primitive people helping to defeat a high technology people, and we knew from Chewbacca that the Wookiees weren't exactly primitive. And to be fair to Lucas, the idea first showed up in the gigantic treatment he did for A New Hope, which was like 200 pages long and needed to be cut into three movies (although the final product barely resembled the treatment.) Basically, in that story, the heroes crash land on the Wookiee home planet and teach them how to fly fighter craft, and the final battle is pretty much Wookiees in X-Wings vs. the empire. So in that version, the Wookiees actually /were/ primitive, and the symbolism he claimed he wanted was intact.
Edit: And derp, I posted in a necro thread. Sorry about that.
I didn't mind them as much as I thought I would (I just recently watched Star Wars for the first time, so I already knew some of what to expect), but I will admit the fight with the Stormtroopers was a tad silly. They're supposed to be highly trained, well equipped veteran soldiers after all.
I think people dislike the Ewoks because it was the first sign that Star Wars was becoming more child friendly and humorous.
A New Hope: Han Solo wastes some guy for trying to collect his debt, Ben Kenobi cuts a man's arm in a barfight and the camera briefly shows a bloody arm.
The Empire Strikes Back: the good guys lose, you rarely see that in child-friendly movies.
Return of the Jedi: adorable teddy bears defeat the Emperor's "finest troops" with sticks and rocks.
Plus, the whole scene really made the Empire seem comical and nonthreatening. In the first two movies, the stormtroopers are fairly competent, taking Tantive IV and Echo Base by slaughtering all resistance. The Imperial command was full of brutal commanders that wouldn't have looked out of place in a war film. By Jedi? Stormtroopers are tripping over simple traps.
A New Hope: Han Solo wastes some guy for trying to collect his debt, Ben Kenobi cuts a man's arm in a barfight and the camera briefly shows a bloody arm.
The Empire Strikes Back: the good guys lose, you rarely see that in child-friendly movies.
Return of the Jedi: adorable teddy bears defeat the Emperor's "finest troops" with sticks and rocks.
Plus, the whole scene really made the Empire seem comical and nonthreatening. In the first two movies, the stormtroopers are fairly competent, taking Tantive IV and Echo Base by slaughtering all resistance. The Imperial command was full of brutal commanders that wouldn't have looked out of place in a war film. By Jedi? Stormtroopers are tripping over simple traps.
I think the whole "Ewoks are really the Viet Cong" is some half-baked BS concocted by Lucas to justify an otherwise unlikely scenario of the furry, cuddly forces of good owning the infinitely better prepared forces of evil.
Just to play devil's advocate, the Americans just like the stormtroopers had better equipment and training than the Vietminh and Vietcong in the Vietnam war, yet they still got owned, so it's not that unbelievable.
Weeeellll, Lucas-BS or no, that is what actually happened.Johnny Novgorod said:
Either way, unequipped and unlikely forces overthrowing the powerful and massive Empire is a thread that runs through the whole trilogy. That was also the whole point of the X-Wing strike in the first film. I've always seen the Ewok battle as taking that theme to its logical conclusion. It's the Empire's overconfidence and reliance on technology that gets them destroyed, and the idea that spirit and cunning can overcome those forces is the core concept of the Force and the Jedi. Of course it's unlikely. It's meant to be. As with most, if not all, fantasy.
Luminous beings are the Ewoks, not this crude matter.
I hate the idea of the ewoks, but I mean, they're there so. Also that scene where that one Ewok tries to wake up it's dead buddy always gets me.
I think that's a perfectly acceptable explanation. Since when does cute = weak? We know that these are sentient creatures, they hunt game, can set traps, and know how to wage war, so why wouldn't they at least put up a fight?Johnny Novgorod said:
I think they could've had the ewoks AND had the empire retain some shred of dignity if they had established the the ewoks massively outnumbered the empire's troops and also had ore scenes of abject slaughter when the empire started getting its' shit together again.
On another note, apparantly that scene was meant to have wookies instead of the ewoks. As annoying as the ewoks are, if you want an inkling of how much worse a similar number of wookies would be... well, go watch the star wars holiday special.
(Actually, don't. Really. Don't. Trust me on this one.)
On another note, apparantly that scene was meant to have wookies instead of the ewoks. As annoying as the ewoks are, if you want an inkling of how much worse a similar number of wookies would be... well, go watch the star wars holiday special.
(Actually, don't. Really. Don't. Trust me on this one.)
I entered this thread thinking "I could mention how the original battle was supposed to be Wookies, but Lucas changed it to Ewoks because they were more kid friendly and marketable" But to my surprise I found someone who already made that point, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
Well said me from the past. Couldn't have put it better myself. Damn NecrosHero in a half shell said: