Why do people keep saying the Ewoks beat the stormtroopers? They didnt.

It was just a diversion to not beat the Empire but just hold them off long enough for han and his strike teem to bomb the shield generator, thats all. They got there butts kicked at first then they are shown to be able to hold them off and before Han gets the shield down they run away into the woods.

This isn't a "point of view" this is FACT.

The only thing the Ewoks did was draw the troops away from han then run into the woods -thats all!

The fighting scenes between the troops and the Ewoks are just the Ewoks trying to hang in there and defend themselves in the meantime.

The imperial officer even says it, he reports- "its over commander, the rebels have been routed and are fleeing into the woods, we need reinforcements to continue pursuit". Thats his exact words, so WHY do people always get into big conversations about how the Ewoks were able to "beat" the empire when it wasn't even like that??? People ARE aware of this...right???

 

It was actually Chewie taking over the AT-ST that turned the tide of the battle.

And that was Han telling the officers inside the bunker that the Rebels had been routed. He's pretty sneaky.

 

yes but what im saying is that it was a diversion not a battle. They weren't fighting to "win" they were fighting to draw the troops away from han just long enough for him to get the shield down.

George Lucas himself even said that the reason why he had padme state in TPM that the gungan battle was just a diversion was because he didn't want people to misunderstand like they did with the Ewok battle in ROTJ so just to make it CRISTAL CLEAR he made padme practically look at the camera and state that the gungan battle was a diversion like he **should have done** with the Ewok battle.

But even though it wasn't spelled out in ROTJ, that was still the case, it was just a diversion.

 

*hugs obi-rob*

 

Your right, obi-rob. The Ewoks even seem to be losing during some parts of the battle.

 

Because we see Ewoks kill Stormtroopers and people assume they had a central role.

 

yea and all the parts that showed the Ewoks winning were only to show you all the different and clever ways they were able to hold the troops off.

 

I don't really think many people believe that the Ewoks "beat the Empire". It has been suggested that the Ewoks even contesting a battle against the Empire's elite troopers is slightly ridiculous. But let's face it, this is not the only occasion where the stormtroopers look like a bunch of muppets in battle, so it's probably quite appropriate that they get shown up by ... well ... a bunch of muppets!

 

But they DIDN'T!! Thats the whole point im trying to make, they didn't "get shown up" by the Ewoks! They got "outsmarted" would be a better word. Outsmarted and antagonized long enough to draw the troops fire away from han and leia.

I don't think the troopers look like a bunch of muppets just because the entire forests population of Ewoks were able to defend themselves for a little while before running away after han blew up the shield.

The Empires army of troops were still there after the shield blew up, in fact they were chasing the ewoks away after they retreated. -key word ***retreated***.

 

Outsmarted by sticks and rocks.

I agree with your main point about the Ewoks being more a diversion than anything else, but as has been said, there are points where we see stormtroopers being beaten in hand to hand combat by Ewoks. That doesn't ring true, whichever way you spin it.

 

First of all im not "spinning it" any way and they were being overtaken and overwhelmed by the Ewoks in hand to hand combat because there was so many that the troops in those scenes probably simply ran out of ammunition for there blasters.

Think of Zombies. They are not strong. They are not fast. They are not smart --but there are SO MANY OF THEM that they will eventually overtake you. Well its the same thing with the Ewoks except they ARE smart. They ARE fast and whose to say they aren't strong too? And on there own turf.

I think in those scenes the troopers were getting beat because they fired until they just didn't have any ammo left at witch point more Ewoks came, overtook them and bludgeoned them to death.

 

Seeing Stormtroopers getting overwhelmed by small rocks despite their armor was a little surprising, but considering how 'effective' their armor was against blaster fire during the movies, it's not that much of a reach. It's well established the Empire dominates the battle when the AT-STs arrive after the initial chaos between the Ewoks and the infantry. Chewie's commandeering of the AT-ST provided a morale boost that coincided with the Ewoks' clever log traps. That said, all that would do is provide a stalemate, as Han's bungling of the bunker back door made infiltrating it even more difficult. All the commander inside the base had to do was bide his time behind the safety of closed doors, but as tim said, Han tricked him. I wonder if Han's experience in an Imperial Academy helped him imitate the protocol between officers and sell the impersonation. Did he even know the name of the guy's uniform he stole?

 

If memory serves, they were supposed to symbolise the triumph of organic over the mechanised - albeit a rather small triumph as they served as a useful aide to the Rebels during their mission but that's it.

Moving like a swarm of irate teddybears they duffed up a few stormtroopers - but that's it.

 

You could even say that the Empire technically won the battle. Even though the shield got blown up by the rebels the Ewoks still retreated and scattered into the forest because the Empire was too much for them.

Of course the empire then realized that the Ewoks were just a distraction and they should have focused more on the rebels than the natives.

In a nutshell, thats how the battle went and there's nothing wrong with that.

Its no different than the gungan battle from TPM, the natives were just a distraction.

 

Sometimes, a distraction is essential to a victory.

 

They beat their helmets.

 

So true.

 

While I wouldn't argue that it was a diversion, there is some reason to think that Lucas actually did mean for the Ewoks to "beat" the Stormtroopers.

As we all know, the original plan was for the Wookies to battle the Empire at the end, but then after Chewbacca became such a technologically adept character, Lucas changed his mind about using Wookies and instead turned them inside out and called them Ewoks. The reason he couldn't use them was because he wanted to make a thematic point based on his observations of Viet Nam, in which a people with no technology were able to defeat a much greater power using primitive yet effective methods. Lucas has definitely spoken to this many times.

When did he say people misunderstood this and thus he made it so clear in TPM? Was that in the commentary? I don't dispute this at all, just curious.

Also, it may be nitpicking to try and differentiate between the Ewoks defeating the Empire, and the Ewoks fighting alongside the Rebels defeating the Empire. The latter is undeniable. Also, I'm not sure that staging a successful diversion, in which you take out as many of the enemy as they take out of you (debatable), it might be enough to make the point.

 

Good points but while that is true Lucas also said in the commentary of ROTJ that the "real battle" was the space battle and that the Ewoks were ultimately a diversion to help the rebels, thus helping to overthrough an empire.

What i think he meant by saying that is what the ewoks did was not without merit and there diversion was a key part of insuring the space battle (the real battle) but still not as big a deal as people say it was because they didn't overpower the empire so much as they "hung in there" until there retreat.

 

They're like animals... and I slaughtered them like animals.

I hate them!

 

Not to break my arm patting myself on the back, but I've been saying this for years. The Ewoks are clearly losing their various skirmishes until Chewbacca commandeers the ST and turns the tide, allowing the 'woks to employ their primitive traps, against which the Troopers have no defense. Trooper armor is designed to repel blaster fire, not concussive force, so the rocks and sticks realistically stun or knock out the Imperials. There are also Rebel soldiers fighting the battle, but the camera lingers on the 'woks because theirs is the more interesting story. This gives the false impression that the Ewoks beat the Empire, when in fact, as many have been saying in this thread, their efforts were a diversionary tactic to buy Han time to get the shield down.

 

The Rebel landing party never planned on having any help on the forest moon. The Ewoks were a boon to their mission. They were only meant as a diversion. It worked pretty well in the end.

 

Quite so, a diversion is all they were.
Plus, referring back to what I said, as well as Obironsolo's greater description, they were symbolic of the un-mechanised thwarting the mechanised, or organic overcoming the inorganic.
The notion that they were an aide to the Rebels and fought with pluck is one thing, to suggest that they beat the stormtroopers is laughable.

 

We know this it's just a lot of people get so upset by the fact that you actually see the Ewoks beating down stormtroopers that they can't move past that shocking moment.

 

Ewoks are said to be EXTREMELY strong, kind of like apes. An Ewok can very easily overpower a human (or in this case a human clone).

Its basically getting outnumbered, then held down and bludgeoned to death by apes with rocks and spears. -thats what those scenes were pretty much.