Bingowings said:
I don't really get the obsession with a Wookiee army over a band of Ewoks.
The Ewoks could have worked fine if A) better quality costumes were made for the foreground characters (with heads that fitted and eyes that didn't look like glass beads) B) they were given more of a culture instead of being largely being the receiving end of jokes C) we saw evidence that they were already successfully taking on the Empire and this was being covered up (presumably to avoid getting a visit from Vader or some other similarly ruthless enforcer).
If we saw a village with totems made out of wrecked Imperial tech and Stormtrooper armour and maybe some half eaten stormies the cute little teddybears would suddenly look like the sort of creatures who could help the Rebels take on an entire legion of the Emperor's best.
While we are on the subject a legion is about 3-6 thousand troops (and that's on top of the troops that would be expected to be there guarding such an important base).
If Lucas can make us believe in a space battle with hundreds of different looking ships why does he find it so hard to make us believe in a ground battle with thousands of troops who all look exactly the same?
All you would need would be one amazing reveal sequence and then use the same troops in different areas of the forest (or inside the base itself) being picked off, over and over again.
Well the Ewoks were going to eat Luke,Han and Chewie alive!
The problem with huge battles on large scales is that you lose sight of the individuals.
This is a problem that effected Return Of The King.
It got away with it because it looked cool especially in 2003. Seeing Return Of The King now in 2011 it does not carry anywhere near the same power (for me personally--seeing it the other night I focused more on the individuals within the battle as opposed to being overwhelmed by the jaw dropping visuals----and because of this I found it severly lacking in punch.)
I obviously have to qualify this again by stating that it is solely in my opinion---but ROTJ(over 28 years) holds up better over time than ROTK has(in just 9 years)
In the final 3rd of ROTJ, the focus is explicitly on Han and co with the Ewoks providing the back drop.
Combined with the best crafted space battle (even to this day) and Luke's emotional confrontation with Vader + Palpatine----that is what made ROTJ work for the audiences back in 83.