CT Ewoks

Next to the Gungans, the Ewoks are the most reviled creatures in the Star Wars universe. They're cute, cuddly, short and can't possibly be a threat to anyone. And yet they help to topple the evil galactic Empire. And for that reason, many people hate them and consider ROTJ to be a crappy movie......WHY? I mean are the Ewoks really THAT bad? Lets take a look at them for a sec. Standing at a menacing 2 feet the Ewoks are furry, little woodland creatures who live in the tops of trees the size of large redwoods. Pause. They live in villages built in/near the tops of trees the size of redwoods. A redwood can reach heights of around 360 feet. These little guys have built whole villages in these trees. A 2 ft tall thats impressive for them to have gotten all that material to build that high up with NO tech whatsoever. This shouldn't be out of the ordinary. Look at the Egyptian pyrimads. We'd have trouble building one of those in the 21st century. When they were build the pulley was cutting edge tech!
Second, during the battle you see several Ewoks picking up and hurling football sized rocks ( a couple of them were bigger) at Stormtroopers. From experience I can tell you, a rock that size is really freaking heavy and these little guys are picking these things up and hurling them at Stormtroopers with not much effort. And a rock that sized being thrown at you, is not only gonna hurt, it's gonna cause a great deal of injury, even death. (I don't if the troops were wearing armor. You and I both know good and well that stormtrooper armor is USELESS)
Third, also during the battle, the Ewoks set traps for the walkers using trees they choped down. In one case they stacked them up so that when realeased, would roll out and trip up the walkers. It takes several guys to lift and haul a tree trunk the size of a regular oak tree. Just one. Here, the Ewoks have stacked these thing up and rigged them to fall on "command". Another instance is that they have hoisted 2 very large tree trunks up high in the air and set them up as a another trap. So what do these example show us? It shows that at 2 ft tall Ewoks are quite strong. Since when does being 2 ft tall, furry and cute and primitive mean that you're weak? These little guys have to have some major strength to handle these very large trees and hurl heavy rocks at people. On top of that, they present at least a rudementary understanding of technology. Ex. the Ewok that climbs onto the speeder bike. It knew what it was doing. Of course it was gonna have a little trouble trying to control something that wasn't built for anyone it's size. The point is, it knew, to a certain extent, how to operate it. Ex 2. The Ewoks that help Chewie "steal" a chicken walker. Before Chewie got into the cockpit they were the ones who began to start driving it before Chewie took over. And thats another thing. People always complain about the Ewoks as if they were the one who defeated the Empire all by themselves. What everyone seems to leave out is that THEY HAD HELP! There were rebel soldiers down on the planet as well, and the tide of the battle turned once Chewie got a hold of one of the walkers. They didn't just beat the Empire's best completely by themselves. Many of the tatics the Ewoks used were plausible for something that size. Also, the Ewoks outnumbered the stromtroopers. Now imagine tring to fight off 3 or 4 2 ft tall creatures that have enough strength to hurl a cinder block. Yeah you have a gun, but as you shoot one, another one pulled your leg out from under you, another one has grabbed you gun holding arm and has yanked your gun aqay from you. Now what? Didn't Yoda say "Size matters not"?

 

The vision was that they overcame the Empire's troops by blinking at them.

 

I never hated the Gungans or the Ewoks. The Ewoks were a bit cutsey, but STAR WARS isn't a completely dark hardcore series (Though SITH and EMPIRE get pretty close). I think part of the reasons I accepted the Gungans was because I was able to accept the Ewoks. I don't think the Gungans are a bad race, it's really just Jar Jar that gives them a bad rep. I mean what's wrong with a race of amphibious characters (which makes them pretty unique in the films) in a Galaxy filled with teddybears and burly pig people (Jabba's guards), or puffy blue piano playing elephants. All in all, while neither are my favorite creatures in STAR WARS, I don't think either is as bad as they're often made out to be. I liked that both races showed that (at least a somewhat) primitive race could stand against a much more powerful force and fight to protect their homelands. (Though both end with different outcomes as one wins and the other doesn't, though to be fair the Gungans weren't fighting in their natural terrain)

 

The Gungans came alot closer to it being a fair fight than Ewoks vs. stormies, IMO. Yes the popular impression is that the Ewoks won but the popular impression is wrong. They were losing horribly (attempting to trip an AT-ST and failing, the hang-glider guy dropping rocks on another AT-ST, Corpsey the Ewok and his buddy, throwing rocks at walking tanks in general) until Chewie commandeered one of the AT-STs and blew the others to pieces, and then started shooting stormtroopers. Before that it was like watching civilian rioters throwing rocks at main battle tanks: a massacre for the Ewoks.

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Above: Not the face of victory.

 

Good point I should've thought of. Indeed both races in the end did need to be helped out to win by the Nabooians and Rebels.

I honestly think their level of difficulty in the fight sort of evens out. The Gungans had a bit more high tech of weapons, but as I said they were out of their usual environment and were even fighting in the middle of an open field (which especially became a problem when their shield was destroyed). The Ewoks were lower-tech and smaller, but they did get to fight on their home turf and were able to build hidden traps as well as hide themselves in the environment.

 

I liked the Gungans too. And Jar Jar didn't bother me...that much.... I didn't really discuss them because I saw them as being closer to the droid army tech wise. But the whole train of thought that the Ewoks "defeating" the Empire is absurd because they are so primitive and small and look non threatening. Had it been a bunch of Wookies this wouldn't have been an issue because Wooks are 7ft tall and known for tearing out peoples arms when they lose. Star Wars is not all dark and serious. It's supposed to be fun too. And like it was said above, the Ewoks were NOT winning. They were getting their furry little behinds whooped!

 

One of the DVD chapter titles is "The Ewoks Turn The Tide".

Though maybe it should be "Chewie Turns The Tide".

 

"The Ewoks Turn The Tide With Major Assistance From Chewbacca."

 

Those 2 little and funny light-hearted efficient fuzzball in the AT-ST helped Chewie to relax and perform in something he had never pilot...

 

I dislike the Ewoks but I still like ROTJ.

1) They get to my moralic sensibilities. They eat intelligent beings and yet they are presented as a force of good in the whole movie, who we are supposed to feel pity, just because they are "cute". The average imperial is quite possible less evil than the Ewoks, who will just pick up random trespassers to be grilled. Later they use the helmets of the fallen as musical instrument. Yes, really funnny.

2) The log traps and stone throwing is utterly ridiulous. Just how did they get the logs prepared in the short timeframe they had? Just how are they capable of carrying more than any animal species of the same size is capable of? And why do they, as primitive culture, stand a chance against "the Emperors best"?

 

Not funny - hardcore. An illustration of how the good guys still have to get their hands dirty in times of war by utilising the services of vicious, almost psychopathic organisations for the greater good, much as the US/CIA enlists organised crime or fundamentalist crackpots to assassinate communists & overthrow corrupt regimes.
It's obvious that Chief Chirpa & Logray are primitive caricatures of a Don Corleone-type mafioso & his consigliere. Rumour has it that the Sequel Trilogy of Episodes VII-IX would have parallelled the United States' dubious deals even further with a subplot involving the Ewoks declaring a holy war on the rebuilt Republic. Let's just say that a key scene would have involved the Jedi Temple & a petrol-soaked Ewok flying a hang-glider.

The Force did it.

 

I figured the Ewoks had learned how to demoralize dissidents through cannibalism at a Rebellion-run School of the Americas!

Incidentally, the upcoming Essential Guide to Warfare is going to include an anecdote from a former stormie about the myth of Ewoks being cute and cuddly. That's just Rebel propaganda, according to a poor traumatized vet who barely escaped the vicious things.

 

The log traps and such weren't originally there for the Imperials; they were there for the various large nasty beasts on Endor. So says the Ewoks movies, anyway.

 

"2) The log traps and stone throwing is utterly ridiulous. Just how did they get the logs prepared in the short timeframe they had? Just how are they capable of carrying more than any animal species of the same size is capable of? And why do they, as primitive culture, stand a chance against "the Emperors best"?"

An ant can lift up to 50 times it's own weight. Thats equivilant to a 220 pound man lifting 4,400 pounds over his head. In fact, the Ewoks being small would be a reason for them being as strong as they are. Ants aren't super strong. They're able to lift like that because they are that small. The reason ants can lift so much is because their small size means they don't have a large body mass that they must carry around- they have proportionately more muscle (in terms of that cross-sectional area) that they can use to lift heavy things. Conversely, humans are proportionately more massive, and have less muscle that can be applied to lifting heavy things. You're judging the Ewoks by their size thinking that because they're weak because they're small. With that thinking, Yoda shouldn't be a Jedi grandmaster. Less size means less blood, less blood means less midichlorians, less midi's mean less connection to the force. Yet Yoda can lift an 8 ton fighter out of the water with the force without breaking a sweat.

The traps...according to other sources they had set up the traps not long after the Empire had first set foot on Endor. So as far as we know, those traps had been there for a little while.

Why did the Rebels stand a chance against the first death star? A moonsized battle station armed past the teeth, bristling with weapons including a laser with the power to destroy a planet. On top of that it also had several wings of TIE fighters ( around 72 fighters a wing) What did the Rebels have? 30 X-wings and Y-wings......30. They should'nt have had a prayer, but the rebels won didn't they. And the Ewoks didn't stand much of a chance. As said plenty of times before, the Ewoks were losing big time for a while. It wasn't until Chewie commandeered an AT-ST and helped turn the tide.

 

How much you can lift isn't correlated lineary to body weight. More like logarithmic. And the Ewoks are much, much closer to humans than to ants when it comes to actual size and body weight. There's no way you can convince me that lifting logs is normal for animals this size.

As for Yodas statement: That's a strawmen. We're talking muscle strength here, not the force or wisdom or any of the other qualities Yoda has.

Just how did the Ewoks build all their log traps without the Empire noticing? You'd think they'd use infrared scanning, listening posts and would generally control the perimeter. Especially when they are "the Emperors best".

You have a point there. But Ewoks strain my Suspension of disbelief (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief) much more than the rebells destroying a battle station through exploitation of the one fatal vulnerability.

 

What always gets me is that the people who think the Battle of Endor was silly or cannot be "convinced" that the Ewoks put up a lucky, gutsy, and improbable raid ---

These people think a green puppet Frank Oz is like the total bomb, they just roll with his presentation.

They roll with Kid Terrific evading and tossing a lucky Proton Torpedo winning Yavin.

They roll with almost every implausible situation that Star Wars gave us.

And yes, Caravan of Courage clearly shows that the Ewoks had many huge traps and snares (they were proficient at guerrilla/hunting tactics too) all over the forest moon.

 

"How much you can lift isn't correlated lineary to body weight. More like logarithmic. And the Ewoks are much, much closer to humans than to ants when it comes to actual size and body weight. There's no way you can convince me that lifting logs is normal for animals this size."

Actually yes it is. http://askville.amazon.com/weight-ant-lift/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=452804 And besides, Ewoks are some creature from a GFFA. Whats so implausible about them being that strong? They're muscles may work a different way than animals on earth, again you're judging by their size. You ever seen a freight lifter? They are short stalky guys, some around 4-5 ft tall lifting object up to 150 lbs heavier than they are. Thats not implausible, thats real life.

"Just how did the Ewoks build all their log traps without the Empire noticing? You'd think they'd use infrared scanning, listening posts and would generally control the perimeter. Especially when they are "the Emperors best".

You're sort of answering your own question. If YOU'RE on a planet inhabited with 2ft tall teddy bears who every now and, terrorize the outer areas of your base which houses Walkers, well trained troops, weapons etc, and you're being called the Emporer's best? It's called overconfidence. Thats why 30 little starfighter took down a moonsized battle station with around 600 fighters of its own. (even Darth Vader warned them about being overconfident) And they probably did keep an eye on them a bit, but I imagine they just didn't care. They're 2 ft tall teddy bears. What are they going to do?

 

The only aspect of the Ewoks that I truly enjoyed were their participation in the Battle of Endor. In that respect, I believe Lucas made good use of it.

 

How do you know Ewoks don't have access to simple machines such as levers? They don't have to be able to lift logs to build traps.

 

Indeed, both the gungans and ewoks have received their fair share of grief in SW fandom.

The gungans... I, for one, have always maintained that the gungans were an interesting species, and their battle formations were very original and "cool". However, what soured the whole gungan experience for many was Jar Jar, specifically. If it weren't for Jar Jar's contrived and over-the-top antics taking the viewer out of the drama, the gungans would have proven to be a more interesting warrior race. However, Jar Jar was not the only problem with the battle on the Naboo plains. The droid army was too weak to seem like a credible threat, and the CGI was not realistic enough to make the battle appear as though it was actually happening--- it looked like a sub-par video game. But I digress... The bottom line is: don't hate on the gungans, per se.

The ewoks... I have to admit that it bothers me that our furry little friends receive so much flak for being "too cute". I suppose I was at the right age when I saw ROTJ, because I thought the ewoks were totally cool. Their village up in the trees was genius, and I often fantasized about building my own series of tree forts with suspension bridges between them. That opinion that the ewoks are cool has never wavered for me, although I must admit that an army of wookiees (the original concept) would have been way cooler for the film.

 

I think you're giving 1999-era video games entirely way too much credit.


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Quick, which is the film?

 

OK, I'll grant you that the Naboo plains battle looked like a "good" 1999 video game. But the point is, it looked like a video game.

 

Video games today don't look that good, unless you're counting cinematics. Which aren't the game.

This is probably the most graphics-intensive SW game to date, The Force Unleashed:

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Not even remotely close to a movie made 11 years ago:

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The Phantom Menace doesn't look like a "good" video game of today, let alone anything out in 1999.

 

Even if it looks better than any video game ever made, it still doesn't look real. That's the point.

 

Except that you don't have a point beyond "lol video game lol". I disproved that. The Phantom Menace looks great for a film of its time (and still does today; I'm vastly disappointed in what used to be my favorite FX-centric scene in any movie, the Brachiosaur introduction in Jurassic Park; the Brachiosaur did not fair well in 1080p, sadly enough) and your contention that it looks like a video game is nonsense.