This is going to sound strange, but am I one of the few people who actually doesn’t mind the Ewoks and appreciates how they overcame that Imperial detachment?
I’m serious. The Ewok stratagem is far from unintelligent. They attack the enemy by surprise then quickly withdraw to entice a pursuit (which the arrogant Imperials fall for hook line and sinker), whereupon they use numbers, superior knowledge of terrain, and traps they’ve set to steadily whittle down the enemy’s numbers.
That way they not only laid waste to the garrison (at a very high cost I might add), but gave the Alliance commandos the time they needed to destroy the DSII’s shield generator.
The Ewok chieftain was no Sun Tzu, but he knew what he was doing and his warriors were willing to make the sacrifice for a free Galaxy.
The idea is pretty good. The issue with the Ewoks, I feel, is that they're rather "kiddie"-- and as a grown-up, you can't escape the realisation that they're meant to sell toys (and animated series & tv films, aimed at children). There's also the fact that Wookiees (indeed, the original idea) were shown to be familiar with blasters etc., whereas Ewoks are stone age primitives. When you think about it as an adult, the idea of those Ewoks doing so well becomes... a bit iffy. Their traps were good, but they're fighting soldiers with guns. Is it plausible that they'd win? Or would they get mown down by the survivors after their traps have been sprung? You can only use a trap once, and I don't buy that they'd kill all -- or even a majority of -- the Imperial troops that way.
None of this matters when you're a kid. RotJ was my favourite of the OT when I first saw them, and I liked the Ewoks. I find that it's harder to take them seriously as an adult.
I very much like the idea (and have suggested this in the past) of using the premise of a Wookiee slave labour camp on Endor, which the heroes raid, liberating the Wookiees. The Wookiees take the guns of their former captors, and then they and the Rebels hide out in the forest. There, they join up with the native Ewoks. That way, the Ewoks provide the traps, but the Wookiees can do the actual fighting alongside the Rebels-- removing the rather implausible notion of teddy bears with slingshots taking down armed soldiers with blasters.
