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How many days were Han and the team on Endor's moon?

Posted: 2007-12-21 04:07pm
by Davey
I was watching Return of the Jedi again last night, and I couldn't help but notice.

When Han and the team are just about to go into the bunker, their scout tells them about a secret entrance around the back. When they arrive, Han turns to the scout and says, "Back door, eh?" the Ewok scout nods, obviously understanding, and Han replies with "Good idea."

The Ewoks didn't seem to understand Galactic Basic when Luke told Threepio about his plans to "free us or you'll become angry and use your magic," (And who was it who said he didn't want to impersonate someone elses' deity, eh? Guess he couldn't disobey a direct order from his master.) but Wickett seemed to understand Han perfectly when Han asked him about the back door. It wasn't a long conversation, but the Ewok does seem to have some understanding over Han's basic.

Before, I figured the Endor incident to take place over the period of one day and a single night, from the moment the stolen shuttle touches down to when the Rebel fleet arrives. I also figured that Han and the team attacked the bunker early in the morning, while everything was quiet. But now I'm not so sure. Common sense tells us it would take a bit more time than just a single night for someone to learn a language; yet Wickett seems to understand Han.

So, how long do you reckon it took - from the time Han and his commando team touched down, to the moment they managed to blow up the shield generator/bunker? Two, maybe three days, or just a plot hole? Is this answered somewhere?

Posted: 2007-12-21 05:24pm
by Vehrec
Lots of communication is possible without language. Remember how Wicket got Leia back to his village without understanding a word of basic or her understanding Ewok? It is entirely possible that they were at that point able to read human facial expressions with some confidence. Tone of voice may also be important. You 'lift' the end of a sentance vocally to indicate a question, and that's something that is constant in the language. Once you figure out that rule, you can almost always tell when someone has asked a question, even if you don't speak a word of the language the asking is being done in.

Posted: 2007-12-21 05:29pm
by Bounty
Wickett was familiar with a dialect of Basic spoken by the family that crashlanded on Endor a few years earlier. It's possible he didn't "get" the basic spoken by the Rebels at first (different pronunciations perhaps?), but was still able to make out individual words with some effort.

Posted: 2007-12-21 06:09pm
by Davey
Ah, I see. It's a good compromise, he managed to get just the 'tone' or the context down and maybe not the exact words themselves. I hadn't thought of that before, I figured the Ewoks might've had a different structure to their language that maybe we humans didn't understand, and I didn't know about that part about the crashlanders.

That's a good idea. So I'll still go with my original assumption and assume they were there for only one day for landing, one night for camping out with the Ewoks, plus another day for that battle on the surface, plus another night for celebrating with the Ewoks?

Edited to add: This information is for a fanfic.