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Why We Hate Ewoks

The year was nineteen seventy eight. I was seven years old when I first stared up at that enormous, black, magic screen to read these words: A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away. Like millions of other people around the world, I became an instant Star Wars fan. I must have watched that movie, now known as Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, about fifteen to twenty times in the theater. Of course back then a movie as popular as Star Wars stayed in the theater much longer than they do now. The movie was re-released about seven times in my town and I remember reading the ad for the River Hills/Riviera theater in the Des Moines (Iowa) Register and seeing that Star Wars was there for its fiftieth holdover week. That became its one hundredth holdover week, which became its one hundred and fiftieth holdover week and eventually Star Wars ended its run by being replaced with The Empire Strikes Back.

I read Star Wars books, played with Star Wars toys and pretended I was Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. To this day I pretend that automatic doors are actually being opened by my command of the force. When I play Star Wars trivia, I am required to answer every question on the card in order to move just to make it fair. (Indeed, I joke that if the space in my head reserved for Star Wars and M*A*S*H trivia had been used to absorb medical knowledge, I'd be a pretty wealthy doctor right now.) I convinced my parents to stand in line for The Empire Strikes Back for two hours, which they were glad they did in the end because by the time we were entering the theater, the line was around the block. I waited for Return of the Jedi anxiously for four years to see if Han would escape and if Darth Vader would be defeated. And then one night at a drive-in theater near Portland, Oregon, I tell you with no shame that I literally cried before the movie Independence Day when I saw the trailer for the twentieth anniversary re-release of the original trilogy. I was instantly transported back to that seven year old whose imagination was overwhelmed by lightsabers, droids and X-wing fighters.

And I wasn't the only one. This is only a guess, but I'd say that other than Coca Cola, Star Wars is more universally recognized than any other commercial product. People everywhere love Star Wars.

And yet, people everywhere who love Star Wars hate the Ewoks. Not every single Star Wars fan hates the Ewoks, but a good majority of them either hate or will at least admit that they're apathetic at best about them. Why is that? Creator George Lucas said he originally designed the final battle not to be on Endor, the home of the Ewoks, but on Kashyyk, the home of the Wookies, but his vision of the advanced empire being outdone by the primitive Wookies was trashed when he made Wookies a highly intelligent race that used modern weapons and could navigate starcraft at speeds beyond that of light. We don't hate the Wookies. In fact, we love the slimy, undignified bad guys like Boba Fett, Greedo and Jabba the Hutt more than the Ewoks. We liked other small characters like the Jawas. And although I've never heard of anyone being a huge fan of the Ugnaughts (the pig-like creatures working in Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back), I've never heard of anybody who despises them and curses George Lucas for ruining the franchise like they do with the Ewoks.

Why? Why do people hate the Ewoks? I think I might just have the answer?

It's not the idea of the Ewoks that people hate, the little guy going up against overwhelming odds and winning, it's the application. The Ewoks simply look phony. From the first moment, Star Wars made us believe. From that first shot of a Corellian Cruiser fleeing an Imperial Star Destroyer, we were sucked into this universe. It was an amazing place filled with awe and wonder, but not just in our imaginations. Lucas did the in the seventies. He gave us a science fiction film (technically it's a space opera) that didn't give itself away as phony with the special effects. Finally we had a movie that took place in space and on other worlds that felt just as real as Gone With the Wind, or Citizen Kane.

And then came the Ewoks. You simply can't help but be brought back into the reality that it's all just a movie. There are two things wrong with the Ewoks that break the willing suspension of disbelief. First, they look like little people in pajamas and not like alien creatures. You believed the Tauntaun (the two-legged creature the rebels were riding on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back) because even in close up shots you could see the muscle tone of the creature. I've literally spotted folds in the outfits of some of the Ewoks as they turn. The second problem is in the faces. Jim Henson of Muppet fame commented that the believability of the Muppets was ninety percent in the eyes and mouth and only ten percent in their movements. The actors who played the Ewoks did a good job, but their faces couldn't be acted around. What you saw were blank stares that often didn't point towards anything in particular and mouths that didn't seem to sinc with the speech if the mouths even moved at all. Personally, I give Lucas credit that he was limited by the technology of the day and if episodes four, five and six were made after episodes one, two and three, the Ewoks wouldn't have had these problems and people wouldn't hate the Ewoks. (At least not for these reasons.) But the fact is that he didn't and people hate their phony appearance.

We have an Ewok problem in the church today. People like the concept of what they can get with God, but the application reeks of smoke and mirrors. What started with a wide-eyed "WOW!" when they first caught sight of what God offered them, has ended with a disappointed "I knew it was too good to be true."

The bible tells us that God wants to heal our diseases and repair our deformities. Church: "No, no, no. God doesn't work that way anymore. You have to live with your illnesses. It builds character. In fact, if you're sick that means God's punishing you." (I think I saw a fold in the fabric of the costume.) God wants an intimate, personal relationship with you. Church: "As long as it goes through us. You're not allowed to approach God unless we know of the how and why and we approve of your attempt." (Were they even looking at us when they said that?) God provided us with a variety of spiritual gifts to prove His love to us and give us the power to share it with others. Church: "YAAAAAAAH! EVILLLLL! God has no power anymore. He's a feeble old man. And even if he did have any power, he wants us to suck it up and stop complaining. We're supposed to do everything ourselves." (Amazing. How do you do that without moving your lips?)

The problem is everywhere and is not limited to a particular person or denomination so don't fall into the trap of saying, "Yeah, those Catholics are so messed up." or "You got it fella. I just don't get why those Baptists think the way they do." I spent several years growing up in a charismatic, non-denominational faith church. At one point, we had a very real, very powerful movement of Yahweh sweep through. I can say from personal experience that people were healed both physically and emotionally, the gifts of the spirit were present to edify everyone, and the tangible spirit of God was moving in that place. But after that it all fell apart. God said, "This was a movement which means it keeps moving. Come follow me where I want you to go next." And we all said no. We were addicted to the feeling. We ended up not seeking God, but just another rush. In the end, it became forced and fabricated, and if I may coin a term it became very Ewokian. We were little people in pajamas trying to scam ourselves into believing that if we just raised our hands in a certain way and shouted loud enough that God would be forced to move again the way we wanted him to.

Guys, I could go on and on with examples I've personally witnessed, but I don't want to sound like I'm beating anybody down. I believe that we're coming to a point where God is going to tell us to come out of the dead, religious ceremonies that deceive our consciencies into believing that we're alright but don't have any real function in His kingdom, or make us admit that we're doing everything without him. Too often, we're trying to look the part but then we're forced to admit to a skeptical world that we've got nothing. The Star Wars universe is phony. The Ewoks didn't change that, they just forced us to admit it. The sad thing about the church is that Jesus Christ really is the way, the truth and the life, Yahweh really is God, and we really do have access to more love, power and joy than we can possibly imagine. When people recognize that we, individually or as a group, don't have access to what they were hoping to find, they come to the wrong conclusion that God must be just as much of a fiction as R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Why do we try to deny the power of God? Why do we say that God doesn't speak, heal or love in the same way He used to? Why don't we take His word for who He is instead of trying to manipulate Him into doing and being what we want of him? Let's start seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness instead of our own agenda. Let's start finding out what He wants from us and obeying instead of demanding God obey our desires. There's power to be had, but for His glory, not ours.

I am the pen.

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