Every once in a while, someone will put out their very own version of Howard the Duck. Rather than delete the blog entry, it should remain, proving that everyone is imperfect. I suggest that, in the SW Blogosphere, these Duckish entries simply be referred to as "Purple Lightsaber Entries." Perhaps Darth Vicomte will start giving out awards for that.

I'll put the self-deprecating humor aside (I'm generally against it), and get to my point.

I continually defend all changes made to the SW OT -- I mean, it's Lucas' story and if he wants to edit it, who should care? If you don't like it, don't watch it. I edit my work from time to time and it doesn't seem to bother any of my colleagues -- in fact, I think my boss prefers a little attention to detail.

It was not until I was driving a couple of days ago that something about the new DVDs bothered me -- the new soundtrack. Namely, the deletion of the "Ewok War Cry."

What? The "Ewok Wary Cry"? I'll get to that in a second. First, let me back up a little bit and give some context (what I'm doing is considered a "cliff hanger" -- I know you all want to know about the Ewok War Cry, but I'm making you wait so that you'll read the boring middle of my blog entry).

In high school, I created a "mix tape" (remember those) of songs that got me "psyched up" for sporting events. One of the songs was the final track from Episode 6.

My car has both a tape deck and an in-dash CD changer (I've come a long way, baby), but I hadn't ever used the tape deck. When I was digging through some old stuff, I found this tape. I decided to put it on while driving to my next soccer game.

The sound quality is horrible. I suppose some of it could be due to the age of the tape (over 15 years old), but the difference between tape and CD is incredible -- I guess I never paid attention before because I just stopped listening to tape. After my most recent move, I still haven't un-boxed my VCR or my dual cassette component for the home stereo system. I need to learn to let go of the past ...

In the beginning of the song, a victorious Ewok cries out, "Ooo-la-loo!" (That is what I have referred to as the "Ewok Wary Cry") The Ewoks then sing some sort of ancient victory song and keep time by using stormtroopers' helmets as drums and some bones (stormtrooper bones?) as drumsticks. It's a happy, uplifting song if you can get past the macarbe nature of the instruments. If you've got the soundtrack, go put it in now and come back to this blog after listening to the 30-second Ewok singing. It's quite uplifting.

The thing about the Ewoks is that these cuddly little guys were able to overthrow the Empire. When Luke befriends them, it shows how Luke learned his lesson that "Size matters not." When our heroes are first trapped in the net, due to Chewbacca's overwhelming hunger, everyone figures it would be relatively easy for Luke, Han, and Chewie to get away from a few dozen 3-foot teddy bears with sticks. After all, which side has the lightsabers, bowcasters, blasters, welding arcs (but no rocket boosters), etc.?

Luke decides to make friends instead of enemies. Come to find out, if those little furballs could do a number on the Empire, why would we think there's not more in the trees, ready to pounce? These guys could have caused some trouble. It would have been quite embarrassing if our heroes got waxed by the Ewoks.

By making friends, Luke saves his group. After that, the new friends show Han the back door to the shield generator, create a distraction allowing the Rebels into the generator, and then save the Rebels from a legion of Palps' best troops.

The "little guy" symbolism is pretty obvious. What's more important, however, is how it demonstrates the primacy of the individual. The war effort very often mirrors how the individuals are doing. Watch any one of the 6 movies, and the parallelism is relatively clear. Whenever the heroes are doing well, their cause is doing well. When they're getting their rear-ends kicked in, there are problems in the galaxy.

It's only fitting, then, that we all celebrate in the Ewok-way., with a smattering of "Ooo-la-loo"s. I mean, when in Rome ...

Instead, we've got some sort of "new age" music. Further, the whole galaxy appears to hear about the fall of the Empire the same day it happens.

I miss the Ewok War Cry.

Come to think of it, this is John Williams' fault. Doesn't he have full control of the soundtrack? Yeah, poor George was taken advantage of.