CT If Endor were the Wookies' Home Planet....

Pointing to the Wookies depiction in ROTS doesn't disprove anything about the validity of this idea. As discussed extensively over the prior pages of this thread, greater Wookie society was still very much a question mark in 1983 and could have been taken in any direction if George had willed it.

And FRAGWAGON , that was a odd and unnecessary Kasdan/Kurtz swipe that has little to do with the topic at hand. People who dislike the role of the Ewoks in ROTJ aren't necessarily driven by some insatiable desire for dark and moody storytelling.

 

IIRC, Lucas originally intended/wanted to use Wookies in ROTJ, but didn't do so for two reasons:

-It would have been too expensive & logistically difficult to find & outfit a large group of 6-7 foot tall men & women to play Wookies back in the early '80's - when ROTJ was being filmed. This was long before CGI, and they would have had to use real people. Presumably, it was a lot easier to find much smaller people to play the Ewoks.

-Lucas felt that Chewie had already been established as technically-savvy in ANH & ESB re: his proficiency with the Falcon, laser guns, etc. - so, seeing a group of Wookies use primitive bows & arrows, etc. during the Endor battle would have been contradictory...

Note this is anecdotal - not sure if I read this anywhere official. I still haven't read the "Making of ROTJ" coffee table book yet.

 

ROTJ lost the feeling of our original ensemble. I will always believe focus on the Ewoks played a part of this.

 

Uh, no, it wasn't. Lucas had already decided that the Wookiees were not primitives when he made Chewbacca be technology proficient. And as bad as "The Holiday Special" was, it wasn't too far removed from Lucas's view.

 

I believe Lucas used the technological knowledge of the Wookiee race as his official excuse, but I don't believe for a single second it has anything to do with anything other than marketing and spin-off licensing opportunities.

 

It would be the same marketing wise with Wookiees as it is with Ewoks. So that isn't the deal.

 

They ended up using real people for Episode III anyway - basketball players. I'm not sure if CGI for fur was that advanced when that film was being made.

 

Wasn't aware of this - Thanks. In any case, however, it was almost certainly easier to outfit a group of Wookies in 2003/2004 (when ROTS was being made) then it would have been in 1981/1982 (when ROTJ was being made) re: the advances in prosthetics/full-body outfits during the 20+ years between the making of the films, etc.

It's also possible there were more Ewoks during the Endor scenes than Wookies in the ROTS scenes, which would have made outfiting a group of Wookies during the ROTJ era much more difficult & expensive - however, I would have to go back & re-watch both films before I definitively said this, since I'm not sure...

 

They only used a handful of costumed Ewoks (6 -8) and duplicated them digitally. Coudln't be done in 1983.

 

OK - that does make sense; I thought this was what I had heard/read back in 2005 when the film was released.

So, my earlier point stands - i.e., that what possibly kept Lucas from using Wookies in ROTJ was because of the fact that it would have been logistically more difficult to locate & costume very tall actors/actresses; and also financially more expensive - to come up with full-body fur suits for taller folks, as opposed to much smaller people (the Ewoks).

 

There were plenty of seven foot tall people in 1981, when ROTJ was being written. Just look at the NBA and NCAA basketball teams alone. The costumes being made probably wasn't that much of an issue. There were already a few Wookiee costumes made for "The Holiday Special". Unless there's hard figures for how much a Wookiee costume and an Ewok costume cost to make.

 

I see what you're saying - but, I stand by my opinion that Wookies would have been more difficult to include in ROTJ than Ewoks - at that time:

1) I strongly suspect that the cost for a Wookie oufit - including the fur, the headpiece, the somewhat complicated mouth (made so that it moved, etc.) would have been more expensive to produce than a similar, significantly smaller ouftit for an Ewok... For one thing, the Wookie outfit is much larger & as such uses more fur, prosthetics, etc.

2) Re: using extremely tall people/basketball players as Wookies, I agree it may not have been extremely difficult to actually find people that were this tall. However, my original opinion stands: I believe it was easier to find a group of small people to play the Ewoks in the film than it would have been to find a group of much taller people to play Wookies. I just think a group of much taller folks would be more difficult to put together than a group of much smaller people; plus, the smaller Ewoks could have been played by children (though I'm not sure many were, even though Warwick Davis - i.e. Wicket - was a kid at the time).

That being said, I also fully admit that my opinions about this are sheer speculation on my part. And, I agree that unless/until someone at Lflm. confirms this, that's all this is - speculation.

That also being said, I haven't read the "Making of ROTJ" coffee table book that came out in 2013 - yet. Possibly that will shed more light on this...

 

I believe I read an article where it was explained that children don't have short legs.

 

Good point. Though, I still think using small people as Ewoks may have been a matter of convenience; maybe Lflm. had more access to small actors than extremely tall actors. I've never worked in film, but know a lot about it since I'm such a huge movie fan - and, in a lot of cases things are done for the sake of convenience/simplicity - especially in the days before CGI became prevalent..

 

I think ROTJ would've been improved for almost all viewers if they had used Wookiees, certainly for me. GL could've even still had a cute teddy bear-like character too. Wicket could've just been a young Wookiee, and little kids would've liked him just the same.

Lucas's excuse that Chewbacca shows that Wookiee's are technologically proficient doesn't make much sense. Ewoks aren't stupid. They're just primitive. Han could've met Chewbacca and taught him about advanced technology just like someone could take someone living in an isolated tribal culture and bring him to a developed country and teach him about our technology. I think this is an example of Lucas getting something in his mind, then not being open to other ideas that would've complemented or improved upon his initial idea.

The Wookiees would have been more believable foes for the Imperials, brute force vs. technology (rather than teddy bears vs. technology). Most importantly, adding Wookiees would've worked better dramatically. The widely known explanation for why Chewie owes Han a life debt is because Han saved Chewie from Imperial slavery. Having Chewie and this tribe of Wookiees as adversaries would place a species treated and looked down upon as no better than slaves as foes against the Empire. That gives them a strong dramatic motivation. The only motivation the Ewoks have is that they like C-3PO's story (which is a nice moment).

 

The Ewoks still use brute force in using catapults, logs tied to trees, ropes strung up between trees and large rocks to take out Imperials. The only thing they don't do is physically pick up an Imperial and toss'em about like Chewie does. Everything else is the same as it would be if it were Wookiees.

 

Because Wookiees look so ugly?

People do realize that merchandising was always a huge part of Lucas' plan for Star Wars right?

He would have liked to launch an entire line of toys before the first movie came out just like he was able to get t-shirts and posters as well as the book and comic out before the movie opened. The idea was to pre-sell the movie to the core audience.

Why anyone finds it so hard to believe that the basic idea of Wookiees as primitive not working anymore when they are flying spaceships I don't know.

In fact the actual ending for The Star Wars was pretty ludicrous as the primitive Wookiees learned to fly spaceships in 3 easy lessons and attack the Death Star.

I think what often happens is that when people have problems with a movie they get the grass is greener on the other side mentality and when they hear about other paths not taken they think "Well I didn't much like the one they did so maybe the one they thought about and didn't do would be better." Usually that is not the case which is why after they went through it that they made that decision in the first place.

If you uses Wookiees in ROTJ then the end battle on Endor just doesn't mean as much. A bunch of massively large technologically savvy warriors overcoming a relatively small group of Stormtroopers is really not as dramatic as small primitives with no tech-savvy doing the same.

 

Some examples of Rock Beats Laser work better than others:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RockBeatsLaser

 

In before somebody dares to say that there is "one ugly Ewok", because...you don't say that stuff around EP.

 

Yeah, I don't understand this constant criticism of merchandising either. I loved my Star Wars toys. They allowed me to play out my own adventures. When I was a kid, they may have meant as much to me as the films did. And I remember my youngest brother carrying around his Wickett stuffed Ewok everywhere. It was like his teddy bear. That Lucasfilm made merchandise that kids (and even some adults) still love isn't a criticism of Lucas; it's a compliment.