Why is the word Ewok common knowledge?

[An Enemy Spy]

Not once in Return of the Jedi is the word Ewok ever uttered, and yet everybody knows what an Ewok is. How exactly did that word enter the popular consciousness? Same goes with Palpatine. In the original movies he's referred to only as the Emperor, but by the time The Phantom Menace came along, his name was so well known that the movie just assumed that you already knew Senator Palpatine was the Emperor.

[hamishspence]

Tie in material I would guess - the novelizations, the Illustrated Storybook version of ROTJ, the TV movies and animated series, etc.

[JoshL]

It's an interesting thing. As hamishspence said, at the time, there were certainly enough other materials. I was a huge fan of the cartoon and comic book series (and still love Ewoks for that matter). Palpatine is a trickier one. I assumed everyone knew that, because I've always been a huge nerd. As it turns out, lots of folks watching the prequels, including people around my age did NOT know that. Because, as you say, why should they?

An even more interesting one is the case of Night of the Living Dead. They are not called zombies. The only time they are called anything, they are called ghouls. The audience determined that they should be called zombies, so they were, but in the Romero films that term is never used, leading to the Shaun of the Dead joke "we're not saying the Z-word!"

[BWR]

I'm guessing Ewoks were primarily because of the toys (guess who insisted on being called whatever character he wanted until his parents bought it for him...), though I'm sure the cartoon had something to do with it as well.

[Darth Ultron]

The Toys?

If you were a kid back in the '80's you had Star Wars toys. And all the cute little teddy bears had the word ''Ewok'' on them. You had the catapult, glider, all the action figures and the whole tree village. And all the cute stuffed animals too. And the emperor said ''Emperor Palpatine(tm)'' right on the package.

So...fast forward a couple years and all them kids grew up knowing all that...

[Ninja_Prawn]

It's probably just because Star Wars is so pervasive in modern pop culture that almost everyone is familiar with things from it, even if they haven't seen the films.

I saw the 1997 re-releases of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back as a child (I was 8 at the time), but I never saw Return of the Jedi until I was at university... but I still knew what an Ewok was because I happened to collect the Tazos that were in crisp packets at the time. What I'm trying to say is that you just can't avoid Star Wars. It gets everywhere!

[zimmerwald1915]

IIRC, the word "Ewok" appears in the film's end credits. "Palpatine," however, does not.

[Manga Shoggoth]

While the Emperor isn't identified by name in the closing credits of the film, the Ewoks are - two by name and two as "Ewok Warrior". And then there was a spin-off film about them...

But yes, the toys and books also named names...

Ha! Ninja'd by zimmerwald1915!

[Ebon_Drake]

I'm gonna agree with people blaming toys and other tie-ins. I just checked the back of my copy of ROTJ and that mentions the Ewoks by name too. It makes sense that a specific name for them would've caught on too, since they're a significant part of the movie and otherwise we'd be stuck calling them "those little tribal bear guys".

I'd guess that Palpatine is still widely known just as "the Emperor" amongst casual viewers, and certainly was up until the prequels came along. Heck, I'm a massive Star Wars geek and I still call him that (unless I'm being contrarian and call him ol' Sheev for a cheap giggle). It sounds classier and means you don't have to get into a Palpa-teen/Palpa-tyne argument.

The Sith are another example: The word isn't used anywhere in the original trilogy, but I still knew that Darth Vader was Dark Lord of the Sith because it said so on the back of his toy packaging. Even though none of us had any idea who or what the Sith actually were until the Phantom Menace came along.

[zimmerwald1915]

(unless I'm being contrarian and call him ol' Sheev for a cheap giggle)
Idle curiosity: what is some folks' problem with that name?

[J-H]

I'm gonna agree with people blaming toys and other tie-ins. I just checked the back of my copy of ROTJ and that mentions the Ewoks by name too. It makes sense that a specific name for them would've caught on too, since they're a significant part of the movie and otherwise we'd be stuck calling them "those little tribal bear guys".

I'd guess that Palpatine is still widely known just as "the Emperor" amongst casual viewers, and certainly was up until the prequels came along. Heck, I'm a massive Star Wars geek and I still call him that (unless I'm being contrarian and call him ol' Sheev for a cheap giggle). It sounds classier and means you don't have to get into a Palpa-teen/Palpa-tyne argument.

The Sith are another example: The word isn't used anywhere in the original trilogy, but I still knew that Darth Vader was Dark Lord of the Sith because it said so on the back of his toy packaging. Even though none of us had any idea who or what the Sith actually were until the Phantom Menace came along.

I learned from the ANH novelization. I actually recall when and where I was reading it (family trip to CO after 4th grade). I ran across that word and spelled it out loud to ask my parents what a "Sith" was, except I am pretty sure I got the letters out of order and put the H after the S at first.

[Giggling Ghast]

Both Ewok movies had the word in their title. So did the cartoon. And the comic.

[Zaydos]

Yeah ewok was just splattered places. Palpatine, I knew a lot of people who didn't know that was Emperor Palpatine until Attack of the Clones and even then it was because they asked fan boys (and girls) why they should care about this Palpatine fellow, and it's like 'Oh well if you read the EU you know he's the Emperor'.

[Ebon_Drake]

Idle curiosity: what is some folks' problem with that name?

I can't speak for everyone, but it's just kinda silly is all. Try saying it out loud. Sheev. Sheeeev. ShEEV. It's one of those inherently funny words, and doesn't really fit with an evil manipulative galaxy-conquering space wizard. Same goes for Supreme Leader Snoke. On a more serious note, I think some people also feel it's another case of messing with something that didn't need fixing in the first place, and of Star Wars's constant need to flesh out every single tiny detail of the 'verse when some things are either unnecessary or would be better left as mysterious.

Really though, in the grand scheme of things Sheev Palpatine doesn't particularly stand out when compared with the likes of General Grievous, Savage Opress, Sio Bibble, Droopy McCool, Rotta the Huttlet and so on. I'm just disappointed that we never got to see the adventures of BJ Dart and Darth Insanius.

[An Enemy Spy]

Star Wars loves its silly names.

[Velaryon]

Really though, in the grand scheme of things Sheev Palpatine doesn't particularly stand out when compared with the likes of General Grievous, Savage Opress, Sio Bibble, Droopy McCool, Rotta the Huttlet and so on. I'm just disappointed that we never got to see the adventures of BJ Dart and Darth Insanius.

*shudders* I still wish great misfortune on whoever came up with the name Savage Opress. Or the character himself, for that matter. Everything about him was just terrible, quite possibly the absolute nadir of the Clone Wars CGI cartoon.

[Aedilred]

Ewoks seem to be a pop culture staple, although it's hard to tell how universal that is since most of my friends are the sort of person who would know that and I don't talk about ewoks with people who aren't my friends. The name has sufficient memetic strength that it's hard to avoid if you discuss Star Wars. As the film series goes on, though, and the corpus of Star Wars media expected to be common knowledge grows larger, I wonder if ewoks will start to be forgotten.

I didn't know Palpatine was the Emperor until after I watched The Phantom Menace and commented to a friend that this Palpatine guy seemed a bit shifty. I suspect that the name of the Emperor is less common knowledge than the ewoks are - if only because "the Emperor" is already an adequate way to refer to him.

[Kitten Champion]

I too didn't know The Emperor had a name. I assumed it was sort of like the Lord Ruler from the Mistborn series and he long since became this ancient evil sorcerer who left all his human history in the distant past. When the Phantom Menace came it was rather immediately obvious with the cloaked villain-looking guy sending transmissions was Him - given that's most of his iconography - and he was Palpatine. Pal[p]atine is a mildly clever name for an emperor, at any rate.

I don't know why I know they're called Ewoks, I assumed it came up in the movie. Though I assumed the same thing about Sith, and no, they were never mentioned. I didn't know about the cartoon or television specials either, even indirectly.

Some kind of cultural osmosis at play I guess?

[Feytalist]

So there's this thing called white knowledge (coined by Pratchett, actually); stuff that we know without knowing where we know it from. Knowledge propagated through memetic means. Star Wars is a huge part of our cultural consciousness, and has been for four decades now. It's not strange at all that some of the more esoteric knowledge will filter through to others over time.

Take the Harry Potter series for instance. I've never read word one of the books or watched minute one of the movies, and yet I'm fairly well aware of most (if not all) of the major plotlines and twists, simply from being surrounded by fans of the series for so long. White knowledge at work. Easier of course since most of this happened in the internet age.

But yeah, it probably happened through tie-in merchandise.


I too had no idea who Palpatine was until The Phantom Menace, and even then only because he turned into the Emperor over the course of the trilogy. Maybe there were never Palpatine figurines sold? Heh.

[b_jonas]

See also the question "How do we know they were called 'Ewoks'?" on Sci Fi SE (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/5824/4918), which is not quite the same question, but related. Also "How did people know Emperor Palpatine's name before the release of Prequel Trilogy?" (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/71843/4918).

[JoshL]

I too had no idea who Palpatine was until The Phantom Menace, and even then only because he turned into the Emperor over the course of the trilogy. Maybe there were never Palpatine figurines sold? Heh.

The toy was a mail-in exclusive. I didn't think it was that rare at the time; I somehow had four of them. But, yeah, not something you'd see on the shelves, so something you'd only come across if you were already really into it.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Idle curiosity: what is some folks' problem with that name?

It's underwhelming, monosyllabic, and as noted, inherently funny in pronunciation (the fact that it's almost identical to "Steve" basically sums it up).

I do see what they were going for - continuing the trend of Naboo (speaking of inherently silly words) names being slightly altered references to Indian names and Hindu spirituality. As Padmé is to Padma, Sheev is to Shiva. It's just. Goofy-looking as heck in English.

Then again, his surname Palpatine is also a slightly garbled meaningful reference to something on Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatine_Hill), and is also faintly ridiculous-sounding to an English speaker (resembling the word palpitation, which is something an old man like the Emperor would probably be worrying about if he wasn't being kept alive eternally by Sith alchemy).

[Telonius]

This source (http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/71843/how-did-people-know-emperor-palpatines-name-before-the-release-of-prequel-trilo) (answer #1) points to 1976 and 1983 books by Alan Dean Foster and James Kahn as the first mention of Senator Palpatine.

[Leewei]

The Toys?

If you were a kid back in the '80's you had Star Wars toys. And all the cute little teddy bears had the word ''Ewok'' on them. You had the catapult, glider, all the action figures and the whole tree village. And all the cute stuffed animals too. And the emperor said ''Emperor Palpatine(tm)'' right on the package.

So...fast forward a couple years and all them kids grew up knowing all that...

Exactly this. Kids in the 70s and 80s had tons of dolls action figures for Star Wars, including characters that had only brief appearances in the movies (Hammerhead and R5-D4).

[Peelee]

I can't speak for everyone, but it's just kinda silly is all. Try saying it out loud. Sheev. Sheeeev. ShEEV. It's one of those inherently funny words, and doesn't really fit with an evil manipulative galaxy-conquering space wizard. Same goes for Supreme Leader Snoke. On a more serious note, I think some people also feel it's another case of messing with something that didn't need fixing in the first place, and of Star Wars's constant need to flesh out every single tiny detail of the 'verse when some things are either unnecessary or would be better left as mysterious.

Really though, in the grand scheme of things Sheev Palpatine doesn't particularly stand out when compared with the likes of General Grievous, Savage Opress, Sio Bibble, Droopy McCool, Rotta the Huttlet and so on. I'm just disappointed that we never got to see the adventures of BJ Dart and Darth Insanius.

You missed the best of all, Elan Sleazebaggano.

[JoshL]

I was curious, so looked it up. The toy, in its original form, was just identified as "The Emperor"
http://theswca.com/images-speci/mailaways/emperor.html
It looks like there was a mail-in Anakin as well, buy I don't think I ever saw that one. Or if a friend had it, it was a boring toy.

[Dragonexx]

Didn't C3PO call them Ewoks in the movie?

[The_Snark]

You missed the best of all, Elan Sleazebaggano.

Darth Malak (of the first Knights of the Old Republic) was named Alek Squinquargesimus before he turned evil. I imagine the Sith tradition of renaming yourself was a selling point.

[Wardog]

You missed the best of all, Elan Sleazebaggano.

You would think a drug-dealing sleazebag would at least come up with a more classy alias. How does anyone fall for his spiel?

I'm reminded of someone's comments on Transformers:



Optimus Prime: We were betrayed by the Decepticons.
Really? They're called "the Decepticons". And they betrayed you. And you didn't see that coming?

[rooster707]

Really though, in the grand scheme of things Sheev Palpatine doesn't particularly stand out when compared with the likes of General Grievous, Savage Opress, Sio Bibble, Droopy McCool, Rotta the Huttlet and so on. I'm just disappointed that we never got to see the adventures of BJ Dart and Darth Insanius.

And Darth Icky... *shudders*

On-topic: I've always wondered something similar myself; why does everyone know what an AT-AT is called when, as far as I know, they're never actually named in the movies? :smallconfused:

[Murk]

And Darth Icky... *shudders*

On-topic: I've always wondered something similar myself; why does everyone know what an AT-AT is called when, as far as I know, they're never actually named in the movies? :smallconfused:

Rogue Squadron (the game)!


EDIT:
Huh, only after posting this I looked the game up on wikipedia. I remembered it as this archaic game from long, long ago, but it seems it only came out long after the movies (and only shortly before The Phantom Menace). Nevermind me then.

[Peelee]

You would think a drug-dealing sleazebag would at least come up with a more classy alias. How does anyone fall for his spiel?

Well, to be fair, his sales pitch was "wanna buy some death sticks?" If that's the most charismatic selling he can do, I don't think his name is his biggest problem.

Also, to answer "How does anyone know X is called that when in the movie it was never named?!?"

Toys. They sold toys. With the names nicely printed on the toy box. Toys were kinda a big thing for Lucas and Star Wars.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Let's also not forget the wonderland that was the JC Penney Christmas Catalog. Containing 50+ pages of child-sized fun, in bright glossy color.

[The_Snark]

As Mel Brooks put it: Merchandising! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNZove4OTtI)

[Peelee]

As Mel Brooks put it: Merchandising! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNZove4OTtI)

Imean, the joke there is based on the ridiculous success Lucas had merchandising Star Wars, since he had all the merchandising rights. Dude basically fought for something that wasn't really cared about at the time, and made it one of the biggest sticking points in entertainment contracting.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Lucas also told Mel Brooks he could make whatever Star Wars references he wanted in his parody, as long as Brooks didn't try to sell any merchandise. This, in Mel Brooks's mind, made for the perfect joke premise.

[Peelee]

Lucas also told Mel Brooks he could make whatever Star Wars references he wanted in his parody, as long as Brooks didn't try to sell any merchandise. This, in Mel Brooks's mind, made for the perfect joke premise.

I didn't even know that. It just makes it all the more hilarious. I love me some Mel Brooks.

[smuchmuch]

Personaly i remember learning the name of palpatine from the novelisation of a new hope and ewoks from the spinnoff movies (which I admitedly saw before seeing Star wars, probably helped me accpt some of the sillier element by comparaison)


Sheev. Sheeeev. ShEEV. It's one of those inherently funny words, and doesn't really fit with an evil manipulative galaxy-conquering space wizard.

(really ? Am I the only one who feel like being called someting that sound a bit like 'shiv' works pretty well for a guy who backstabbed an entire galactic republic ?)

[Peelee]

(really ? Am I the only one who feel like being called someting that sound a bit like 'shiv' works pretty well for a guy who backstabbed an entire galactic republic ?)

If it hadn't sounded ridiculous, I wouldn't have minded. Name sounds silly, though. They didn't even need to have it, it was a throwaway line in a newcanon book.