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  • Somewhere in Rural America

The rebels are surrounded by a species of teddy bear, the Ewoks. But just before things turn ugly, the Ewoks recognize C-3PO as a god they have been waiting for.

They lower their primitive weapons. They bow to the golden god. They have him sit on a special chair. They prepare a feast in his honor. But C-3PO's masters (who, like Ewoks, are mammals) are to be cooked and served as the main dish of this feast. A strange master/servant tension becomes noticeable. C-3P0 doesn't seem to mind being a god. This is not unexpected. He is the most uppity robot in the galaxy. He looks very comfortable in the special chair.

When C-3PO's masters order him to order the Ewoks not to cook them, he does as he is told. But the Ewoks do not do as they are told; nothing, it seems, can stop them from cooking and enjoying the meat of the rebels. (Another strange tension: Why do the Ewoks not follow an order from their god? Does their idea of God not envolve fear or domination?) Finally, Luke Skywalker tells C-3PO to warn his furry worshippers that, if they do not obey his command, something bad will happen. Again, the Ewoks dismiss their god. At that moment, Luke Skywalker concentrates his powers on C-3P0 and makes the sitting god rise into the air. At this point, the Ewoks are spooked and decide it's not a good idea to disobey their god. Something else will have be the main dish of the feast.

This sequence, of course, is based on an old and worn colonial narrative: the white adventurer and the black cannibals. The white adventure is about to be cooked. The savages dance and sing as the flames around their dinner grow and grow. How does the white man get out of this one? He suddenly remembers that the sun is about to be eclipsed. He angrily yells to the sky. The sun goes black. Day becomes night. The natives are seriously spooked—the white man has a juju that's far more powerful than their juju. The black savages free and worship the white man who killed their god.

With the Ewoks, this narrative is given a new twist: they too are spooked, but by actual magic. The savages in the standard colonial narrative are tricked—there is no such thing as magic; what's real, and what the white man has access to, is scientific knowledge; the Ewoks, on other hand, are not tricked at all—they witnessed and surrendered to real magic power.