Star Wars: Ewoks (September 7, 1985 - January 10, 1987) was an American/Canadian animated television series featuring the Ewok characters introduced in the sixth Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi.

The series was produced by Nelvana on behalf of Lucasfilm and broadcast on ABC, both by itself and later, as part of The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour. The first season was advertised as simply Ewoks, but the second season was advertised as The All New Ewoks. The series lasted 35 episodes, divided into two seasons.

Setting

The series is set, beginning in the year 1.5 BBY, on the forest moon of Endor, mainly in an Ewok village. On the final episode, however, some scenes were set briefly in a Star Destroyer in space.

Plot

The series focuses on the adventures of Wicket W. Warrick and his friends on the forest moon of Endor five and a half years (1.5 BBY or 1.5 BSW4) before the Battle of Endor, and thus, before Return of the Jedi. 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.

Locations

• The forest moon of Endor
• Outer Space
• Aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer

Characters

Notable series details

• For viewer ease, the dialogue is in Basic (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.
• 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.
• In the series' final episode, the Galactic Empire had discovered Endor, and several of the Ewoks stowed away on a Star Destroyer, but were returned to Endor safely after an evil Imperial named Dr. Raegar 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: An Ewok Adventure (1984) and The Battle for Endor (1985), which were themselves spin-offs of Return of the Jedi.
• Unlike the rest of the series, the last three episodes were originally aired out of story order. The correct order was Party Ewok, Melani 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 Melani the Warrior. Storywise, the series ends with Battle for the Sunstar, because it 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.

Comic book series

In 1986, Star Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics published a bi-monthly Ewoks comic, based on the animated series, which ran for two years, ending with issue #14. Like the TV series, this was aimed towards a younger audience. It was produced along with Droids, 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. For more on this series, see this link.

Toy line

In 1985, a toy line was produced that was based on the series. This line included action figures, ship models, etc. For more on the toy line, see this link.

Episodes

Season I

Season II

DVD release

• Star Wars: Ewoks was released on November 23, 2004, as an edited compilation DVD with the title Star Wars Animated Adventures: Ewoks. The DVD contained eight episodes in total of the series, edited together as two full length movies.
• Episodes 1-3 and 9 were edited together to make "The Haunted Village," and Episodes 10, 5, 4 and 13 were edited together to make "Tales from the Endor Woods."
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Language: English
• Release Date: November 23, 2004
• The entire original series has yet to be released, either on DVD or VHS. Some of the original episodes were released in the 1980s and '90s, however, on VHS. Star Wars prequel trilogy and DVD producer Rick McCallum, along with Lucasfilm head of fan relations, Steve Sansweet, have reportedly stated that a future release of the series in its entirety on DVD is possible.

References

• Star Wars: Ewoks 1985, George Lucas
• Star Wars Insider #27
• A Guide to the Star Wars Universe,
• The Star Wars Encyclopedia by Stephen J. Sansweet, ISBN 0345402278 Del Rey; first edition (June 30, 1998)

External links

• Star Wars: Ewoks at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• starwars.com DVD "Closer look"
• An informative fan site
• An article from the Star Wars Insider on the series
• The official Star Wars site details the "Creatures of Endor" from the series.
• Bantha Tracks #29 - An interview with Executive Producer Miki Herman
• An interview with series animator Paul Dini
• A history of home video releases of Star Wars: Ewoks

1980s TV shows in the United States | ABC network shows | Star Wars animated television series

Ewoks (Serie)