kottke.org

...is a weblog about the liberal arts 2.0 edited by Jason Kottke since March 1998 (archives). You can read about me and kottke.org here. If you've got questions, concerns, or interesting links, send them along.

Jedi sucks

Fifty reasons why Return of the Jedi sucks. Number one with a bullet is "Ewoks, Ewoks, Ewoks".

But aside from what we see onscreen, the Ewoks are miserable little creatures for a completely different reason: they are the single clearest example of Lucas' willingness to compromise the integrity of his Trilogy in favor of merchandising dollars. How intensely were the Ewoks marketed? Consider this: "Ewok" is a household word, despite the fact that it's never once spoken in the film.

When I was a kid, I had a friend who knew all the names of even the most minor characters from the Star Wars movies and had no idea where he got that information. Was there a fourth movie I didn't know about? It wasn't until much later that I realized his extensive collection of SW action figures had filled in all the blanks for him.

BTW, the current definition of an Ewok on Wikipedia reads:

Ewoks are a fictional species of teddy bear-like hunter-gatherers that inhabit the forest moon of Endor and Settlement operations at Goldman Sachs.

Goldman, you've been burned!

By Jason Kottke    Mar 12, 2009 at 12:05 pm    lists   movies   Star Wars

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