Ewok

• 1. Introduction

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  The Ewoks made their debut in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi as a tribe of small, furry bipeds living in treetop villages on the forest moon of Endor. Within minutes of their arrival on screen, they had captured Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca for a potential feast. And yet by the film's end, these same creatures had helped bring down the Galactic Empire. How did a species standing roughly one metre tall, armed with slings and wooden spears, outmaneuver the stormtroopers of a spacefaring civilization? And who, exactly, decided that primitive teddy bears should carry the climax of one of the biggest film franchises in history? The answers involve a dog, a language borrowed from a refugee in Russia, an eleven-year-old actor whose grandmother heard a radio ad, and a deliberate echo of the Vietnam War.

• 2. A New Species from Old Ideas

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  George Lucas originally planned the pivotal battle scenes of Return of the Jedi to take place on the Wookiee home planet. As the Star Wars series evolved, though, the Wookiees grew into technologically capable figures, which made them unsuitable for the role Lucas had in mind: a primitive tribe defeating a high-tech empire. He needed something new, and he needed it small. To name the species, Lucas reversed the syllables of Wookiee to arrive at Ewok, a word that rhymes with Miwok, the name of a Native American tribe indigenous to the Redwood forests where the Endor scenes were shot. Lucas grounded the Ewoks' victory over Imperial forces in a real historical parallel: the guerrilla tactics of the Viet Cong fighting American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Before the bear-like design was settled on, other proposals circulated, including a stilt-legged creature called the Yuzzum. The final Ewok form was shaped by make-up artist Stuart Freeborn, who drew on the image of the Griffon Bruxellois, a dog breed that Lucas himself owned. The result was a stocky, flat-faced biped covered entirely in fur, with large jewel-like eyes in shades of brown, white, grey, gold, and black. A few different creatures, such as the stilt-legged Yuzzums, were proposed before the diminutive bear-like design was settled on.

• 3. The Language of Endor

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  Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Return of the Jedi, built the Ewokese language from an unexpected source: Kalmyk, a Mongolic language spoken by the Kalmyk people of Russia. Burtt encountered Kalmyk in a documentary and was struck by how alien its sound would register to Western ears. He tracked down an 80-year-old Kalmyk refugee named Kosi Unkov and recorded her telling folk stories in her native tongue. Those recordings became the sonic blueprint for Ewokese, which voice actors Lama Kunga, Jr., Lama Kunger the Elder, M. K. Nepali, Khendup, and Dirty Daza then performed by imitating Unkov's voice in different styles. When the script called for C-3PO to speak Ewokese, actor Anthony Daniels sat down with Burtt and invented words directly from the Kalmyk recordings. Separately, reports indicate that some Ewok speech in the film also draws on Nepalese and sped-up Tibetan phrases, including one that translates as "there is lots of money here."

• 4. Warwick Davis and the Role of Wicket

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  Warwick Davis was eleven years old when he began work on Return of the Jedi in January 1982. His grandmother had heard a radio ad calling for short actors, and that is the only reason Davis entered the production at all. He was initially cast as a generic background Ewok, not the featured character Wicket. Kenny Baker, who also played R2-D2, was originally set to portray Wicket, but Baker fell ill with food poisoning and Davis stepped in as a replacement. George Lucas noticed something specific in Davis's performance: his ability to poke his tongue through the Ewok mask, and the inquisitive way he tilted his head, a habit Davis said was inspired by his own dog. Those small physical choices transformed a generic costume into the face of the tribe. Wicket was the only Ewok costume with moving facial features during the original production; the 2011 Blu-ray release of Return of the Jedi later added eye blinks to all of the Ewoks across the board.

• 5. Inside the Tribe

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  Chief Chirpa has led the Ewok tribe for 42 seasons, and while the source of his authority is wisdom and good judgement, old age has made him forgetful. He carries a medallion that marks him as chief. Chirpa was played by Jane Busby. His nephew Paploo serves as a scout, and in the film's ground battle, Paploo steals a speeder bike and draws three Imperial scouts into pursuit, clearing the way for Rebel forces to overwhelm the remaining guard and enter the bunker protecting the second Death Star. Teebo, described in the Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary as "a watcher of the stars and a poet at heart," holds a leadership position within the tribe and wears a Gurreck skull headdress; he was portrayed by Jack Purvis. Logray, the tribal shaman, relies on ancient magic and views all outsiders with deep suspicion, a posture reinforced by the arrival of Imperial troops on Endor. Logray was portrayed by Mike Edmonds, who also operated as the tail-puppeteer for Jabba the Hutt. Wicket's voice in the film was provided by Adeal Crooms.

• 6. Television, Animation, and Controversy

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  After Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks headlined two made-for-TV films, both starring Warwick Davis as Wicket. The Ewok Adventure aired on ABC on the 25th of November 1984, directed by John Korty from a script by Bob Carrau based on a story by George Lucas. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor followed on the 24th of November 1985, directed by Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat. The franchise extended further into an ABC animated series simply titled Ewoks, which introduced a rival species called the Duloks, officially described as distant cousins of the Ewoks. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure received a juried Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects at the 37th Primetime Emmy Awards. At the 38th Emmy Awards, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor earned a second juried Emmy in the same category, alongside additional nominations for Outstanding Children's Program and Outstanding Sound Mixing. Critical opinion on the creatures themselves has been sharply divided since their introduction. Tami Katzoff of MTV News summarized one persistent view: a prevailing theory among Ewok-haters holds that the creatures were originally conceived to appeal to children and sell plush toys to their parents. Return of the Jedi holds an 82 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 93 reviews, with a Metacritic score of 58 from 24 reviews, while The Ewok Adventure holds just 23 percent from 13 reviews.

• 7. The Word Never Spoken

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  In Return of the Jedi, the word "Ewok" is never spoken aloud by any character. No individual Ewok is addressed by name during the film itself; the names Wicket, Paploo, Teebo, Logray, and Chirpa only appear in the end credits. The Ewok language is understood by C-3PO but by none of the human characters, and the film never explains how or why. A non-canon Star Wars Tales comic called Apocalypse Endor raised the question of what happened to Endor after the Death Star exploded in orbit above the moon, with one character claiming the falling debris devastated the Ewoks' forest; another character dismisses this as a myth, arguing that most of the Death Star's mass was destroyed in the explosion and that the Rebels handled the rest. A canon Ewoks comic spun off from Return of the Jedi was scheduled for release in April 2023, and Wicket W. Warrick made a brief return appearance alongside another Ewok at the close of the 2019 film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.