# Minor Return of the Jedi question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 23, 2007, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022 "2007-12-23T15:09:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/1 "2007-12-23T15:09:13Z")
Why did the Ewoks have those traps and weapons like the catapult? Are we meant to assume that the Rebellion taught them how to make them? Or that they’d had them all along and just never gone to war with the Empire? (And I’m sure that more than a few troopers found their way into Ewok dishes over the years-they were man-eaters. So possibly Luke’s a cannibal if it was in the victory feats :eek: )
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/2 "2007-12-23T15:22:42Z")
[Don’t examine this too closely](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellisariosMaxim).
I’ve always wondered why they bothered to bring C3P0 to Endor. Lucky they did, huh?
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/3 "2007-12-23T16:23:04Z")
Look at ewoks. The are not an arboreal species. Should be burrowers or something, not living in trees.
Something on the forest floor has forced them to move to the treetops. Their impetus to sentience would have been the need to develop ways to keep from being eaten by whatever big nasties inhabit (or used to inhabit) the forest floor.
No one develops tools and techniques to take out large bipedal entities unless they have a tradition of being chased by carnosaurs…
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### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/4 "2007-12-23T16:46:43Z")
I would have thought the answer was obvious: Ewoks use their war machines on _other Ewoks_. You don’t just develop a tradition of religious cannibalism overnight. The political landscape of Endor was no doubt an endless series of brutal tribal wars over status and resources.
The fact that the Empire stumbled on the Ewoks at the dawn of their civilization is an accident of history. Ewoks were obviously vastly more competent and intelligent than any other species in the Star Wars universe. They had no ability to smelt metals, yet they still developed complex war machinery and glider flight.
Supposedly the Empire had subjugated and enslaved the arboreal Wookie race. Yet they were not able to do the same to the Ewoks. Why? Because Ewoks were simply smarter. When the Empire were finally forced to go up against them, it was a massacre. Lasers and armored vehicles were unable to cope with the Ewoks’ deadly tactical genius.
On their own planet, Ewoks were kept in check by their constant intertribal struggles. Yet these same battles honed them to a vicious edge unparalleled in Galactic history. If even one Ewok were ever to escape from Endor, it would be all over for the rest of civilization. Ewoks with spaceflight capacity would lead inevitably to a tyranny that would make the Empire pale by comparison.
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### Author:  [@Surbey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surbey)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/5 "2007-12-23T16:53:18Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
I would have thought the answer was obvious: Ewoks use their war machines on _other Ewoks_. You don’t just develop a tradition of religious cannibalism overnight. The political landscape of Endor was no doubt an endless series of brutal tribal wars over status and resources.
The fact that the Empire stumbled on the Ewoks at the dawn of their civilization is an accident of history. Ewoks were obviously vastly more competent and intelligent than any other species in the Star Wars universe. They had no ability to smelt metals, yet they still developed complex war machinery and glider flight.
Supposedly the Empire had subjugated and enslaved the arboreal Wookie race. Yet they were not able to do the same to the Ewoks. Why? Because Ewoks were simply smarter. When the Empire were finally forced to go up against them, it was a massacre. Lasers and armored vehicles were unable to cope with the Ewoks’ deadly tactical genius.
On their own planet, Ewoks were kept in check by their constant intertribal struggles. Yet these same battles honed them to a vicious edge unparalleled in Galactic history. If even one Ewok were ever to escape from Endor, it would be all over for the rest of civilization. Ewoks with spaceflight capacity would lead inevitably to a tyranny that would make the Empire pale by comparison.
[/QUOTE]
🙂
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/6 "2007-12-23T17:19:13Z")
Be of good cheer! The Ewoks are doomed anyway: [STAR WARS: Endor Holocaust](http://theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html)
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### Author:  [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/7 "2007-12-23T17:37:53Z")
[QUOTE=Surbey]
🙂
[/QUOTE]
I agree. That’s the kind of ironic fandom I love ;).
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### Author:  [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/8 "2007-12-23T20:10:45Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
I would have thought the answer was obvious: Ewoks use their war machines on _other Ewoks_. You don’t just develop a tradition of religious cannibalism overnight.
[/QUOTE]
What cannibalism? We never see them eat other Ewoks, we only see them about to eat humans.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/9 "2007-12-23T20:15:26Z")
They have siege weapons because of [Goraxes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_races_%28F-J%29#Gorax). And no wonder - 30m? That’s some giant.
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### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/10 "2007-12-23T21:00:09Z")
[QUOTE=bouv]
What cannibalism? We never see them eat other Ewoks, we only see them about to eat humans.
[/QUOTE]
Well then, call it “ritualistic predation of sentients.” The point is that they all seem real comfortable with the idea. I suggest that if unfamiliar (yet clearly intelligent) beings invade your territory, eating them is not likely to be your first course of action unless your society has a longstanding practice of eating intelligent beings.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/11 "2007-12-23T23:03:34Z")
There are quite a few predatory beasts, and at least one other sentient race, seen in the Ewok movies, which are better than most people give them credit for (not great, but better than ‘crap’).
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/12 "2007-12-23T23:26:16Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Supposedly the Empire had subjugated and enslaved the arboreal Wookie race. Yet they were not able to do the same to the Ewoks. Why? Because Ewoks were simply smarter. When the Empire were finally forced to go up against them, it was a massacre. Lasers and armored vehicles were unable to cope with the Ewoks’ deadly tactical genius.
[/QUOTE]
I would imagine that the Empire simply did not care about Ewoks. They (and their army of independent contractors) were clearly focused on building their Death Star and the Ewoks seemed pretty harmless.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/13 "2007-12-23T23:29:25Z")
I thought the Ewoks movies flatly contradicted the canonicity established in RotJ. Don’t they take place in a parallel universe that’s a “kiddie” version of the main Star Wars reality?
Anyways, the simplest answer is that the Ewoks had been preparing for the attack for months before Luke and co. showed up. And although the Ewoks won, the movie glosses over the fact that they took something like 50-1 losses, all but depopulating that region of Ewoks.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-return-of-the-jedi-question/431022/14 "2007-12-23T23:41:48Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
And although the Ewoks won, the movie glosses over the fact that they took something like 50-1 losses, all but depopulating that region of Ewoks.
[/QUOTE]
You say that like it’s a bad thing.