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Star Wars Insider: Return of the Ewok |
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ARTICLE TEXT
Boba Fett hid in the shadows of the Death Star, undetected. It was there in the dark, lonely corridors, atop the gleaming black floors, that the bounty hunter would wait patiently for his quarry. But unlike the scores of smugglers, scoundrels, and renegades he had captured in his day - from the lowliest Rodian to Han Solo himself - there was no bounty for this victim, no vicious Hutt waiting to add the hunted to his art collection. No, this time it was personal.
Boba Fett was hunting Ewok.
What brought about this odd opposition? What bizarre series of events could possibly have led an unassuming Ewok into not only confrontations with Boba Fett and Darth Vader but also a primitive and dangerous dance with Jabba the Hutt? What surreal story could possibly involve both a major European soccer match and an onscreen meeting between Wicket and Yoda?
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| Warwick Davis [center] with Mark Hamill [right] and Mark's son Nathan [left]. |
The answers lie in a charmingly wacky home movie called Return of the Ewok. The hilarious brainchild of Return of the Jedi first assistant director David Tomblin, Return of the Ewok stars Warwick Davis in the twisting and turning tale of how Davis, then 11, got his part as Wicket in Jedi. Written and directed by Tomblin using his own 16mm camera, and featuring enthusiastic cameos by virtually all the stars of Jedi, the 24-minute film was shot in 1982 on lunch breaks and Sundays during the London and California shooting of the film then called "Revenge of the Jedi."
Even though Warwick actually got his part at an open call (see his interviews in Insiders #31 and #39 for the real story), Tomblin's film finds young Warwick wondering what to do with his life when he's inspired by The Empire Strikes Back to become a movie star. He raises Boba Fett's ire by considering taking over his part in Jedi before settling on Wicket. In the end, of course, he somehow helps save the galaxy.
Crammed with inside jokes and weird moments of farce, infused with Warwick's winning cheerfulness, and enhanced by the strangely successful pairing of John Williams' music with that of late '70s pop sensation Supertramp, the film is a treasure trove for fans, a mind-blowing array of previously unseen images of favorite characters in new environments. We see Wicket on Dagobah, Chewbacca on Earth, and even Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher, all in costume, just kicking back in their dressing rooms at historic Elstree Studios.
"Those were their actual dressing rooms where they'd hang out at Elstree," Davis, now 29 and fresh off Episode I, recalls. "We used all the sets we could get into. Everyone who took part did so voluntarily - David is so well-respected and liked they would do it for him on their lunch breaks or day off."
But in fact, the film wasn't always shot during breaks. "While they were shooting the shield generator explosion," Davis reveals, "David said, 'We're going to shoot the bit for our film now as well.' There was David, the first assistant director, running the show for the director of the main movie, and he's also making his own movie on the side at the same time! There was this dual shooting going on."
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| Warwick Davis in part of his Ewok costume. |
But, Davis pointed out, "It wasn't on the sly. George knew about it. I think the original concept was that it was going to play as a kind of teaser to Return of the Jedi, a promotional idea that never really came to fruition in the end. But it was great the way we were allowed to go on and film - I can't see that kind of thing having happened on Episode I."
Return of the Ewok was definitely a looser production. "David would come up with bits," Davis remembers. "He would scribble something in the middle of the night and we'd do it the next day." (The Insider tried to find David Tomblin for this article - if you're out there, David, drop us a line!)
For the young Warwick Davis, starring in this side-project to Return of the Jedi was just one more whirlwind experience among many. "The whole experience of Jedi was so overwhelming," he says. "At 11, I couldn't comprehend it. I just said, 'This is good fun,' and got on with it. I didn't really realize the significance of everything."
In fact, for years Davis held onto his video copy of Return of the Ewok without considering what a hot property he had (not even the Lucasfilm archives had one). He first mentioned it in a 1996 interview in Insider #31, and finally unveiled it for the public in a world premiere at the Star Wars Celebration in Denver earlier this year. "It wasn't something we planned to keep under wraps," he says, "just nobody ever talked about it. It's not until you think about Star Wars a lot that you realize that within it, there's some unique footage that's really priceless."
Unfortunately, the original 16mm print of Return of the Ewok has been lost, and all that is left is the very grainy, poor quality video dub from which our "screen-grabs" were taken. Tomblin never finished the post-production. "The charm about it for me now is that raw state it's in," Davis says. "You can see the reel changes - it gives you that real lost-in-the-attic feel."
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