The Star Wars Universe has some amazing characters and concepts, and about 10 times that many that everyone hates. Someone should take these hated ideas and give them their own movies. Hey, maybe Timmy Williams should do it!
In this new column I’m going to excavate some of the more obscure, weird and hated parts of the Star Wars Universe and pitch them as new movies. This first one is different, though; this was at one time an idea for a comic book that I actually pitched to the company that used to own the Star Wars license for comics. They turned it down. For anonymity sake let’s call this company "Hark, Norse."
We as a society seem to have forgotten how weird it is that the Ewoks worshipped C-3PO. What was their frame of reference for this android being a deity? And what if C-3PO wasn’t being manipulated by Luke and Han, but rather by someone more devious? And why doesn’t anyone else remember that Wilford Brimley was part of the Star Wars Universe?
These are the questions I would answer in the animated feature film: The Many Malfunctions of C-3PO, Human-Cyborg Relations.
So there’s this Ewok named Glucket and he is totally sick of being an Ewok. Glucket hates the tribal lifestyle; not enough privacy and too much dependence on logs. Glucket moves out to the woods, finds some old Empire technology from the Battle Of Endor and decides he’s the first “modern” Ewok. He changes his name to Chester Burton. Like anyone who likes technology, Chester totally hates the simpletons he left behind in Ewok Village* and decides to destroy their culture. He chooses a foolproof, time-tested method to destroy innocence and corrupt a culture: religion!
First thing Chester will need is the Ewoks’ god, so he creates a device to hack C-3PO and change his personality. Chester sneaks into the Jedi Museum on Coruscant and plants a hacking device on 3PO and also steals Mace Windu’s lightsaber, because f$ck that guy, why didn’t he do more to stop Anakin?
Anyway, this hacking device scrambles 3PO’s personality and causes him to act like other Star Wars characters. Chester first gives 3PO the personality of R2-D2 to make him curious enough that he’ll follow him onto his spaceship. On his way 3PO briefly becomes Chewbacca when he encounters the legendary warrior in a hallway, and for a fleeting moment the legendary Wookiee actually knows what someone else is talking about.
Once he gets 3PO on the spaceship, Chester takes off for Endor. As soon as they land he leads him to the village and turns his personality into Jabba the Hutt. The Ewoks are happy to see their deity again and don’t realize he’s changed until it’s too late. 3PO The Hutt immediately enslaves the Ewoks in a carbon mine and forces the ladies to wear bikinis. It is tragic and adorable.
Meanwhile Wicket W. Warrick, aka The One With The Orange Hood With Willow Inside aka The Only Ewok Anyone Really Cares About**, has been out on an extended hunting trip. Wicket is completely unaware of what has befallen his people. Or bears. Or bear-people. You get it. While he’s out and about he runs into his old friend Teek. Teek is that ugly little white creature from the made-for-TV movie Ewoks: Battle For Endor.
In that movie he could run real fast, which he can still do now, but now he’s super-old and blind so he just runs into things. Teek lives with the even older Noa Briquon and the now-a-hot-18-year-old Cindel. Both of these characters are from those TV movies but the important thing here is that Noa was played by Wilford Brimley.
Yes, the Quaker Oats guy who became Internet-famous for pronouncing “diabetes” was once an integral part of the Star Wars Universe. By “integral” I mean “had some lines in one movie.” He’s maybe the most-forgotten human character in all of Star Wars lore but there’s something I always loved about him and so he simply must be included in this story. Also, I worked out a line for him that would surely bring the world to its knees: as the bad guys approach at the end of this story, someone asks Noa what will happen and he says “They’ll either die or beat us.” Thank you.
Where were we? Oh yeah. So Wicket and Cindel take Teek and Noa out for a walk because old people nap better after some fresh air. On their walk they discover a rusty space pod filled with Battle Droids from the Prequels! Because there weren’t enough neglected characters in this story! Turns out Chester’s equipment that he’s using to manipulate 3PO also has activated these Battle Droids. Uh-oh!
Wicket runs back to camp to tell the village about the impending robot invasion, and how this army might be less vulnerable to rocks and logs. Once he gets there, he sees the havoc that 3P0 the Hutt has wrought and leads an insurrection against their corrupted god. They eventually jam 3PO into a catapult and launch him into the woods, where he’s discovered by Noa and Teek and Cindel. C-3PO is so taken by Cindel’s charms that his personality switches to Lando Calrissian and he paints a mustache on his face. More than anything, I think a C-3PO with a mustache needs to be visually realized. We can’t evolve without it.
Chester takes to the woods to look for 3PO. He can’t really continue his insurrection without his Golden Calf.*** He doesn’t find him but he does find the Battle Droid battalion! Chester decides to just take them as his army and crush the Ewoks. Why do all that work to ruin their religion when you can just shoot them?
Cindel gets pretty fed up with Lando-3PO hitting on her so she gathers up her elderly charges and the horny robot and heads back to the village. They arrive just in time to meet Chester’s army! The Ewoks are ready to fight but would really like their deity on their side so Wicket gives a rousing speech in that adorable vaguely Hispanic language they have, and 3PO becomes Yoda.
The climactic battle ends with 3PO Yoda battling Chester and maybe “climactic” is the wrong word because it’s a robot who can’t move his arms very well fighting a tiny bear who can barely wield Mace Windu’s lightsaber.
Once defeated**** Chester decides to abandon technology and become a regular Ewok. 3PO and Cindel and Noa head back to Coruscant, and Teek lives with the Ewoks because he’s pretty much an Ewok and I’m not sure why they made him a different species in the first place.
So there you have it! A rousing adventure that focuses on some of the garbage Lucasfilm has saddled us with over the years, peppered with enough good characters that no one will really care and we all make a billion dollars. Thank you and good night!
*IS that the name of that place? They never really asked the Ewoks what to call it. Typical White Man Bullshit.
**Or maybe there’s people out there who really care about Chief Chirpa.
***Get it?
****No, I haven’t worked out how 3PO defeats the bad guy, but maybe we can tie it into why his arm will be red in the new movies because it’s 2015 and you have to explain the hell out of everything.
