I thought I might have to actually watch a Star Wars flick, because Alan Tudyk. Unfortunately, he just has a voice part in this rehash, so I’ll be able to spare myself. (Not that he won’t do a brilliant job, I know he will.)
Apparently, people are going to continue to be drowned in Star Wars flicks for the next, fuck, who knows, it looks like decades more. I haven’t seen a Star Wars movie since standing in line at the Cinedome in SoCal back in 1970something. I think I saw three of them, I don’t remember. I gave up on the appearance of the teddy bear beings, there’s only so much eye-rolling I’m willing to pay for. For all the fans though, Raw Story has a good run down on what’s happening with the next however many movies it is coming out.
Yep, it was the Ewoks who did me in, too.
The movies just felt terribly juvenile after that (in retrospect, I know, they were terribly juvenile all along; the Ewoks just made me more aware of the fact). I went to another one, years later, (“Episode I”) but it was a big, big mistake.
Why do people hate the Ewoks so much? Besides, Episodes I -- III never happened and should be wiped from the memory.
Juvenile? Yeah, it’s true. Bad acting? Sure! Problematic relationships? Yes! Plot holes the size of the galaxy? Of course! And yet I feel no shame in admitting that I find the movies oddly and powerfully compelling*. Mostly as a form of mental escape. I like the new diversity in Episode VII, and I hope they keep that up with the rest of the movies.
And honestly, what’s not to love about the Ewoks???
* Might have something to do with the fact that (a) we didn’t own a TV when I was young (and when we did, we weren’t allowed to watch it on a regular basis), and therefore (b) visiting grandma had the added bonus of Being! Allowed! To! Watch! TV!, which meant (c) a very narrow range of kid-friendly movies owned by my uncle that we watched over and over again (Star Wars, Close Encounters, E.T. and Indiana Jones (I have my doubts about the kid-friendliness of Indiana Jones, though)).
rq:
I would ask “and honestly, what’s not to hate about the Ewoks?” :D
Rick loves all the Star Wars stuff, and that’s fine, he gets to watch it all, while I get to happily avoid it.
Okay, so part of what’s not to love about the Ewoks? They were supposed to be Wookies.
E-wok = Wook-E, get it?
In writing up the original plot line, the battle that takes place on Ewok-World was supposed to take place on Wookie-World (Kashyyk? spelling?), but Lucas et al. decided they could make more money off teddy bears than off a planet of Chewbacca-relatives. When they decided that the details of the story*1 should take a back seat to harvesting money, they made a very bad call.
Now, in the halls of the Lucas mansion, there may have been many previous decisions that prioritized money over story, but that one seemed such an obvious money-grab to so many at the time, that reporters actually dug around and found the witnesses who could confirm the reporters’ (and my) intuitions. It’s long been an established fact that the decision was made for commercial reasons, which makes it easy to pin the Ewoks with the weight of crass commercialism that poisoned so many later StarWars-related stories.
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*1: Whatever those details may have been. And I don’t claim that the movie would have been inevitably better if set around Kashyyk, just that you don’t intelligently, intentionally make a movie better by prioritizing money over story.
CD:
Ohhhh. I had no idea. Answers for a lot.
Speaking of Alan Tudyk, did everybody see If Congress Was Your Co-Worker?
He was also The Duke of Weselton in Frozen and Duke Weaselton in Zootopia.
Golgafrinchan Captain:
I did!
Kashyyyk, actually (three y’s, pretentious much?), and I agree that Wookiees would have been much cooler. But what’s not to love about Ewoks!!! The little money-grubbers.