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Star Wars: Ewoks

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For other uses, see Ewok (disambiguation).
Star Wars: Ewoks
Format

Animated

No. of episodes

35

Run time

approx. 30 min. per episode

Network

ABC

Writer(s)

Bob Carrau
Paul Dini
Michael Dubil
Earl Kress
Stephen Langford
Michael Reaves
Linda Woolverton

Director(s)

Raymond Jafelice
Dale Schott

Executive producer(s)

George Lucas

Starring

Denny Delk
Jim Henshaw
James Cranna
Alyson Court
George Busa
Rick Cimino
Don Francks
Esther Scott
Cree Summer

Canon

C

Timeline

3.5 ABY[1][2]

Era

Rebellion era

First aired

September 7, 1985

Last aired

January 10, 1987

[Source]

Star Wars: Ewoks is an animated television series set in the Star Wars galaxy. It focuses on the Ewok characters introduced in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Produced by Nelvana on behalf of Lucasfilm, Ewoks was broadcast on ABC from 1985 to 1986. The first season was advertised as simply Ewoks, but the second season was advertised as The All New Ewoks, and was aired as part of Ewoks and Star Wars Droids Adventure Hour. The series lasted two seasons, totaling 26 episodes.

Ewoks focuses on the adventures of Wicket W. Warrick and his friends on the forest moon of Endor shortly (3.5 ABY) before the Battle of Endor—and thus—before Return of the Jedi.[3] The primary recurring villains are Morag the Tulgah Witch who had a personal grudge against the tribe's shaman, Master Logray, and the Duloks, a rival species that is related to the Ewoks..[4]

Contents

[edit] Episodes

[edit] Season I

Episode Title Airdate Prod. #
1. "The Cries of the Trees" September 7, 1985 101
2. "The Haunted Village" September 14, 1985 102
3. "Rampage of the Phlogs" September 21, 1985 103
4. "To Save Deej" September 28, 1985 104
5. "The Travelling Jindas" October 5, 1985 105
6. "The Tree of Light" October 12, 1985 106
7. "The Curse of the Jindas" October 19, 1985 107
8. "The Land of the Gupins" October 26, 1985 108
9. "Sunstar vs. Shadowstone" November 2, 1985 109
10. "Wicket's Wagon" November 9, 1985 110
11. "The Three Lessons" November 16, 1985 111
12. "Blue Harvest" November 23, 1985 112
13. "Asha" November 30, 1985 113

[edit] Season II

Episode Title Airdate Prod. #
14. "The Crystal Cloak" September 13, 1986 201
15. "The Wish Plant" September 13, 1986 202
16. "Home Is Where the Shrieks Are" September 20, 1986 203
17. "Princess Latara" September 20, 1986 204
18. "The Raich" September 27, 1986 205
19. "The Totem Master" October 4, 1986 206
20. "A Gift for Shodu" October 4, 1986 207
21. "Night of the Stranger" October 11, 1986 208
22. "Gone with the Mimphs" October 18, 1986 209
23. "The First Apprentice" October 18, 1986 210
24. "Hard Sell" October 25, 1986 211
25. "A Warrior and a Lurdo" October 25, 1986 212
26. "The Season Scepter" November 1, 1986 213
27. "Prow Beaten" November 8, 1986 214
28. "Baga's Rival" November 8, 1986 215
29. "Horville's Hut of Horrors" November 15, 1986 216
30. "The Tragic Flute" November 15, 1986 217
31. "Just My Luck" November 22, 1986 218
32. "Bringing Up Norky" November 22, 1986 219
33. "Battle for the Sunstar" December 6, 1986 220
34. "Party Ewok" December 13, 1986 221
35. "Malani the Warrior" December 13, 1986 222

[edit] Cast and characters

[edit] Production

  • For viewer ease, the dialogue is in English, rather than Ewokese, which was the native language of the Ewoks.
  • The first season of the show aimed for a more sophisticated style, but in the second, the writing style was geared toward a much younger audience, with less sophisticated characters.
  • In the series' final episode, the Imperials had discovered Endor, and several of the Ewoks stowed away on a Star Destroyer, but were returned to Endor safely after an evil Imperial attempted to steal the magical Ewok Sunstar stone and even dared to attack the Emperor with it. This event suggests that this led to the Empire choosing Endor to build the second Death Star around.
  • The series is a follow up to the two Ewok films: Caravan of Courage (1984) and The Battle for Endor (1985), which were themselves spin-offs of Return of the Jedi.
  • The Ewoks and the Droids cartoons are generally considered to have been fairly well-crafted compared to other Saturday morning animated series of the period. The shows featured visual designs that were original at the time. Both shows presented continuing story lines, which were uncommon among mid-80's Saturday morning shows.
  • A particularly thoughtful aspect of the first season was the fact that the debut episode was set in the late summer (coinciding with its September airdate). The weather seasons changed in harmony with North American seasonal changes that were occurring as the episodes aired.
  • Unlike the rest of the series, the last three episodes were originally aired out of story order. The correct order was "Party Ewok", "Malani the Warrior", and "Battle for the Sunstar", respectively. However, the episodes were originally aired in the order of "Battle for the Sunstar", "Party Ewok", and "Malani the Warrior". Storywise, the series ends with "Battle for the Sunstar", which depicts the Empire discovering the Endor moon, where it would later construct the second Death Star.
  • The episode "Battle for the Sunstar" re-aired separately on January 10, 1987, and that marked the official end of the series.
  • The title of the series' twelfth episode ("Blue Harvest") is a reference to the famous ruse used by Lucasfilm to maintain secrecy when shooting location scenes for Return of the Jedi.
  • Most episodes of the second season were aired together in pairs.
  • According to series animator Brian Lemay, after working on a few episodes, the animators at Nelvana grew a hatred for the Ewoks—particularly Wicket. As a result, a wall in the studio was devoted to drawings of Wicket being killed and mutilated in ways similar to that of the animated shorts of Happy Tree Friends. The wall, as called by one of the staff members, was called "the Wicket Wall".[source?]
  • In the early and mid 1990s, beginning in 1994, the US Sci-Fi Channel ran episodes of the series, along with those of its counterpart, Star Wars: Droids, on its "Cartoon Quest" and "Animation Station" blocks of programming.
  • Warwick Davis, the actor who portrayed Wicket in all of the character's live-action appearances, auditioned for the same role in the animated series, but was ultimately not given the role.[5]
  • James Cranna is the only actor who participated in both the Ewoks films and animated series; He voiced the Ewok Widdle Warrick in Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, and voiced the Ewok Teebo in the second season of the Star Wars: Ewoks animated television series.
  • The series had two different opening sequences—one for each season. The first season opening featured a song by the American blues musician Taj Mahal, while the second season opening was, like the actual episodes, designed to be more kid-oriented. The second season featured the Ewoks singing a song about their friendship.
  • The developers of Star Wars: Galaxies watched the entire Ewoks to prepare for creating Endor in the game.[6]

[edit] Release

[edit] Merchandising

The Ewoks episodes referenced many previously-developed incarnations of the Ewoks and attempted to pull everything together into one plot. Characters from Return of the Jedi, the Ewok films, the storybooks, the coloring books, and the Kenner toys blended together thanks to the show's writers.

Prior to the debut of the series, Joe Johnston wrote and illustrated an Ewok storybook titled The Adventures of Teebo, which formed the basis of the show. Among other things the book introduced the Duloks (who were originally much nastier than the bumbling Duloks in the TV series). In 1984, Random House began publishing a series of children's books with the subtitle "An Ewok Adventure", which were meant to tie in to both the series and the film it spun off from, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.

In 1986, Star Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics published a bi-monthly Ewoks comic, which was based on the animated series. The comic ran for two years, ending with issue #14. Like the TV series, this was aimed towards a younger audience. It was produced along with the Droids comic, which was based on the Droids animated series. Issue #10 of Marvel Ewoks was a cross-over with Star Wars Droids 4: Lost in Time.

In 1985, Kenner produced a toy line based on the series, including action figures, ship models, and other items. For more on the toy line, see this link.

Star Wars: Ewoks merchandise was offered at the Celebration IV Lucasfilm Licensing Archives auction, including a complete set of the rare Kenner action figures.

[edit] Home video

The cover of the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: Ewoks.
The cover of the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: Ewoks.

The series received its first home video release in 1990 when J2 Communications released The Star Wars Trilogy Animated Collection. The collection consisted of three VHS tapes; one tape contained one episode, while the other two tapes contained two episodes each—with one of those repeating the episode from the single-episode tape. Each tape began with a Star Wars Animated Classics trailer promoting the "Special Double Length Edition" volumes. However, for the single volume tapes, the white box covers were shown, but differing content was advertised. CBS/Fox Video also released the complete series on Region 2 VHS in the UK.

In 1997, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox released an animated film, The Haunted Village, which was a compilation VHS of four episodes from the series. Fox created a commercial advertising the newly-edited film, along with its counterpart Droids animated film, The Pirates and the Prince. The commercial was included on the release, and was later hidden on the DVD release of The Pirates and the Prince. The initial shipments of the tapes were sent to many stores in a display bin that featured a Star Wars Animated Classics header. Several stores also received a merchandising kit with shelf danglers, shelf talkers, countertop displays, mobiles and buttons.

Star Wars: Ewoks was released on Region 1 DVD on November 23, 2004 as an edited compilation under the title Star Wars Animated Adventures: Ewoks. It contains eight episodes of the series, edited together as two full length films. Episodes 2, 1, 3, and 9 were edited together to make The Haunted Village (which was previously released on VHS in 1996[7]), and Episodes 10, 5, 4, and 13 were edited together to make Tales from the Endor Woods. These compilation films were later released in several Region 4 countries, such as Brazil (the Brazilian edition was released in 2005 with the Region 1 and 4 Codes on the same disc) and Australia. The Pirates and the Prince combines four loosely-related episodes into one story, while Tales from the Endor Woods connects four seemingly unrelated stories via a voiceover by Alex Lindsay (digital effects artist for The Phantom Menace) intended to be an adult Wicket. The original opening credits and theme song are not included as part of the films, and were replaced with simple credit sequences and new scores by Marco D'Ambrosio.

The placement of the episodes in The Haunted Village causes several continuity errors; Chief Chirpa's campfire story at the beginning of the film was taken from the ninth episode, "Sunstar vs. Shadowstone". However, the rest of the ninth episode is presented as the final act of the film, in which Chirpa's story is said to have occurred the previous night. When taken as one continuous story, several nights have passed between the two sequences. Additionally, Malani gets her hood in the first episode, "The Cries of the Trees". However, since this episode is presented second in the film, we see Malani wearing her hood before she receives it. Another unrelated continuity error is when Paploo is seen playing his horn, but no sound can be heard by the viewer.

The entire original series has yet to be released on any home video format. However, some of the original episodes were released in the eighties and nineties on VHS. On June 26, 2002, prequel trilogy producer Rick McCallum responded to a question about a complete DVD release on StarWars.com's now defunct "Ask the Jedi Council" feature, in which he said "I hope so. Definitely. At some point after we're finished with Episode III, we'd really like to make all of that material available to our fans on DVD. Unfortunately, we won't be even thinking of making any firm plans until we're finished with this trilogy."[8][9] However, in 2005, at McCallum's Celebration III "Spectacular", he and Lucasfilm's Vice President of marketing Jim Ward dodged questions about a complete DVD release of the series.[10]

According to Steve Sansweet at 2007's Celebration IV, Lucas himself cut together the film versions from his favorite episodes. The 1996-1997 VHS releases were meant to present that, and for the 2004 DVD release, the DVD team assumed that the re-edits were what Lucas wanted on the DVD. Sansweet says that Lucasfilm has many materials they have yet to release that will be released in the coming years, and that with the upcoming animated and live-action series, a complete DVD release of Star Wars: Ewoks is possible if the fan support is there. In the meantime however, there are currently no plans to release the entire series on DVD.

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Characters

NB: Some of these individuals are actually Ewok deities rather than corporeal beings.


[edit] Creatures

[edit] Droid models


[edit] Events

[edit] Locations


[edit] Organizations and titles

[edit] Sentient species

NB: Some of these species may actually be spirits from Ewok belief. For example, the Iceheads serve an Ewok deity known as the Snow King and thus may be figures of Ewok mythology themselves.


[edit] Vehicles and vessels


[edit] Weapons and technology

[edit] Miscellanea


[edit] Notes and references

  1. ↑ http://forums.starwars.com/thread.jspa?threadID=222689&start=1845
  2. ↑ http://forums.starwars.com/thread.jspa?threadID=222689&start=1905
  3. ↑ http://www.starwars.com/eu/tv/classic/news20040826.html
  4. ↑ http://www.starwars.com/kids/explore/eu/f20041123/
  5. ↑ Star Wars Insider 31
  6. ↑ SWInsider_small.jpg "GameScape" - Star Wars Insider 62
  7. ↑ VHS : Star Wars Animated Classics - Ewoks: The Haunted Village
  8. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20050310100228/www.starwars.com/community/askjc/rick/askjc20020626.html
  9. ↑ http://www.starwarz.com/tbone/index.php?categoryid=20&p2_articleid=121&p2_page=2
  10. ↑ http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=9297

[edit] See also

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[edit] External links

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Fan sites:

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