Pop cultural shorthand for Return of the Jedi centers around variations on “that one with the Ewoks,” and more often than not, the nickname is intended as a derogatory one. Would Lucas’ original suggestion of Wookiees assisting the Rebels have been cooler? Undoubtedly, although that its inevitable realization in Revenge of the Sith raises a separate set of questions.
For many, Return of the Jedi’s furry-footed militia were a sign that Lucas was losing his grasp on his multi-million dollar franchise and 16 years before fanboys would cast aspersions on Jar Jar Binks and the taxation of trade routes. Against the Wagnerian operatic notes of The Empire Strikes Back, Ewoks seemed childish and out of place, ripped from the pages of a well-intended middle schooler’s creative writing assignment. How can cuddly teddy bears possibly fit into a saga of Intergalactic Civil War and Buddhist mysticism? Of betrayal and patricide?
I’ll tell you how.
Ewoks defeat the Empire because the Empire sucks. The Ewoks’ dismantling of the Empire’s Endor squads seems particularly out of place. It’s one thing to ask us to believe in a mystical Force that surrounds all of life as we know it. It’s quite another to show Imperial Stormtroopers falling to stones and arrows. Then again, aren’t these the same storm troopers who bang their heads on blast doors? Who take hours to track two missing droids to the nearest spaceport? Whose sole existence only appears to be blaster fodder? Grand Moff Tarkin was ruthless, Vader fearsome, but we were never meant to dread the seemingly limitless throngs of white-armored idiots. Ever since an old Jedi Master’s mind trick, stormtroopers have been little more than bumbling bucketheads, and that a group of archaic natives with primitive technology take them out should be no surprise.
Ewoks are the ultimate Rebel Alliance. That same archaic culture also situates Ewoks in a similar camp to the Rebels. Where the Evil Lord Space Helmet is the intergalactic aggressor to the Rebels, any intrusion on the Ewok’s forested home world is met with hesitation and defensiveness. So piss off with your speeder bikes and fancy helmets. Wicket W. Warrick sends his regards. Forever forced to outwit their aggressors who, quite literally in Jedi’s case, outgun and outman them. Ewoks are resourceful, a fact that their regressive way of living tends to hide. After all, they learn through trial-and-error how to properly down an Imperial AT-ST walker — several attempts first via trip rope, then aerial assault and catapult and finally a double battering ram. Part of Star Wars’ charm is its “used future” aesthetic, that a galaxy far, far away had smudges on the windshield and Bantha poodoo on boot heels. It feels lived in. If Jedi’s story were in a Trek film, there would be no end celebration. Ewoks’ sewn together, hand carved weaponry is a few epochs below a rag-tag squadron of volunteers piloting junk starfighters, but strategies are drawn from the same “guerrilla” playbook.
Ewoks have a goddamn heart. Despite claims to the contrary, perhaps no major Star Wars has received more of a bum rap than C-3PO, and that’s outside of Solo’s insults and backhanded compliments. For one Star Wars film, Ewoks changed that dynamic, not only raising up the golden protocol droid as a kind of nondescript god but mistreating Luke and Han and Chewie. Even R2-D2 — whose endearing quality has always been toddler cuteness packaged inside resourceful thrift — isn’t safe from the Ewoks’ dinner preparations. While the tribe’s worship of goldenrod is hokey, the rest of the gang understands this and reacts with varying degrees of disbelief, and yet at the same time, it also seems fair that the Saga’s unsung hero finally gets his fifteen minutes.
Before our heroes depart and spring their attack on the Empire, Jedi allows a moment of reflection, with Lawrence Kasdan and Lucas’ script providing C-3PO with a stage on which to recount the adventures up and all before an enraptured audience of Ewoks. Using little more than recorded sound effects and an occasional name drop, “Story Time with Threepio” is surprisingly cinematic, in part because director Richard Marquand arranges the scene at a bare minimum of frills. Marquand repeatedly cuts back to the wide-eyed gazes of these stupid little teddy bears, understanding that they’ve taken to this sweeping tale of space and fantasy almost as much as we have. Ewoks are you.