Return of the Ewok

October 6, 2011 at 7:31 am | Posted in Entertainment, Humor | 1 Comment
Tags: return of the ewok, warwick davis

The year 1983 was a wonderful time during May. That was the month Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was released. But before ROTJ was made, little did the eagerly anticipating fans know that there was another. Always two, there are in the Star Wars mythos. In order to help promote the upcoming finale of the Star Wars series, David Tomblin and Warwick Davis created something very special, and it was called…RETURN OF THE EWOK!

Yes, that Ewok is only 15, but give him a sharp stick and he’ll eat you.

The fun and humorous promotional film, however, has a rather secretive history. The entire 24-minute promotional film has never been officially released by Lucasfilm in it’s entirety. For whatever reason, Lucas has only released 4 minutes of the film. We here at Roqoo Depot can only speculate that to watch more than that could lead to ee cha wamma yuuda yub nub!

So what do we know? Well the film was created by David Tomblin, the assistant director of Return of the Jedi and starred Warwick Davis, the actor who played Wicket the Ewok. Warwick plays himself in the film as he gets the role of Wicket, all of which is a fictionally portrayal. After landing the part he has to wander through the real world and the galaxy far far away in search of his fellow Ewoks. Along the way he runs into the cast and crew of Return of the Jedi. At various points he speaks with Luke, Han, and Leia, winds up in Jabba’s Palace, gets shot at on the Deathstar by Boba Fett and chased by Darth Vader, goes to Dagobah to see Yoda, and finally gets to Endor with the other Ewoks. All of the original cast plays their roles including Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fischer, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Jeremy Bulloch, Frank Oz, Peter Mayhew, and even Tim Rose who performed as Salacious Crumb.

Here you can see the Big 3 wondering why they weren’t needed on set today, meanwhile Wicket is delivering his speech on how he will conquer the galaxy and take all the credit for Star Wars! Or maybe not.

So a film that follows Wicket meeting Yoda, Vader, Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett, how could that get any better? Well Supertramp was used as the soundtrack with their song “The Long Way Home.”

They’re from a galaxy far far away…

What should be one of the coolest Star Wars bonus film every made remains relatively unknown to this day. Part of the reason is the only known copy of Return of the Ewok is a VHS tape owned by Warwick Davis. Warwick has played the video for his close friends and it has even been aired at Star Wars Celebration I, II, and III. Two scenes were also included as Easter eggs in the 2004 DVD release of the Star Wars Original Trilogy. And as mentioned before, there are 4 minutes of the film that have been officially released by Lucasfilm and can be viewed by Hyperspace members on StarWars.com.

Ahhh, such an elusive treasure. Not even the much hyped Blu-ray release can boast having a find such as this. It begs the question: when will Return of the Ewok get an official, full release? Maybe when the 3D versions are released? Or a Blu-ray release of the Original Trilogy untouched by special additions?

Wicket winds up in Jabba’s Palace were he jams with Max Reebo.

Well while we’re waiting there is one avenue left for us relentless Star Wars fans and ever loving Ewok fanatics: Youtube. On Youtube you can find several video reconstructions of the original with a rough soundtrack and pieced-together scenes. Some parts are the higher resolution pieces available on Hyperspace, others were filmed at the Celebration screenings.

However, most of those videos are no longer on Youtube, but Daily Motion still has it. So if you haven’t seen it yet, here is the link to Return of the Ewok. It’s a fun film short that shows the cast playing around and lots of little pieces of humor. Plus plenty of Wicket! And take note of how everyone refers to the Return of the Jedi as Revenge of the Sith.

Posted By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.