The official Star Wars YouTube channel has brought out the next part of the original series of interviews that Leonard Maltin did with George Lucas where they talked about the three movies. The first two features were covered previously with the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back and now the third piece has been revealed with Return of the Jedi. The clip runs about six minutes and talks about things familiar to most fans but is definitely fun to revisit as we get ready for a whole new trilogy being put into production and how things can change in so many phases.
“Lucas says that Return of the Jedi mostly matched his original vision, except that Ewoks replaced Wookiees. He wanted a primitive species to battle the Empire, and he’d already established Chewbacca as being mechanically sophisticated in A New Hope, which disqualified Wookiees. This led to the creation of the Rebels’ new “furry companions.” (In fact, the name Ewok is derived from Wookiee.)”
