Wookiees in ROTJ instead of Ewoks

[Gandalf]

In the original script for ROTJ, the Death Star was orbiting Kashyyyk,

Kashyyk might not be very hidden or out of the way, unlike the moon of endor, you know, to keep the death star hidden.

At the time of ROTJ, had anything been written about Kashyyyk aside from the Holiday Special?

If not, you can say anything you want about the place. It can be next to Coruscant, or outside of the damn galaxy.

[Elfdart]

In the original script for ROTJ, the Death Star was orbiting Kashyyyk,

Kashyyk might not be very hidden or out of the way, unlike the moon of endor, you know, to keep the death star hidden.

At the time of ROTJ, had anything been written about Kashyyyk aside from the Holiday Special?

If not, you can say anything you want about the place. It can be next to Coruscant, or outside of the damn galaxy.

There was a kids' picture book in 79 (I think) about Han and Chewie bringing paying Lumpy a visit and having to save the baby wookiee because he had wandered off in the forest below and got lost. The jungle below looked more like Dagobah than what you see in Revenge of the Sith (though there's no reason for that not to be the case).

I only remember the book because (a) my kid sister had it and read it constantly (b) the book showed the Falcon with some kind of rocket sled/speeder that looked like the tiny jet flown by James Bond in Octopussy and (c) between the book and the Holiday Special, my older brother and his dickhead friends started calling me Lumpy -a nickname that stuck for a long time.

[Darksider]

I'm sorry, you actually watched the SW holiday special? Like, all the way through?

[Gandalf]

I'm sorry, you actually watched the SW holiday special? Like, all the way through?

Of course.

I feared to watch, but I couldn't look away.

[Batman]

Why is that so hard to believe? A lot of us also read the Jedi Academy Trilogy, Darksaber and A Crystal Star. Yeah, okay, bad call and the nightmares may never go away, but the point is you can't know it's that abysmally stupid until somebody breaks down and samples it.

[Elfdart]

I'm sorry, you actually watched the SW holiday special? Like, all the way through?

When it aired the first and only time, yes. As bad as it was (and it had to be to make me cringe at that age), it wasn't nearly as bad as the Star Wars-themed episode of Donnie & Marie.

[Havok]

Oh for fucks sake the midichlorians do NOTHING to demystify the Force.
And EVEN THEN, the guy who is supposed to have all the midichlorians in the universe, KEEPS GETTING HIS ASS KICKED.
Fucking Yoda's explanation of the Force in TESB does more to demystify the Force than midichlorians do.

How? Yoda's explanation was basically the same as Obi-Wan's original definition. In TESB, the Force could still simply be magic.

Since when are "energy fields" magic?

The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us.

QUI-GON : Midi-chlorians are a microscopic lifeform that reside within all
living cells and communicates with the Force.
ANAKIN : They live inside of me?
QUI-GON : In your cells. We are symbiont with the midi-chlorians.
ANAKIN : Symbiont?
QUI-GON : Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the
midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the
Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force.

The only relevant addition info we get is the name of what allows Jedi to sense the Force. Yoda and Obi-Wan already said it is energy. Only morons get magic out of energy field and then extrapolate that it is some sort of magical thing. Yoda getting all misty eyed about it in TESB is a byproduct of knowing that belief is a major factor in USING the Force, and that Luke more than anything needs the faith and belief in himself and the Force to prevail.

[Skywalker]

Any already existing canon about Kashyyyk could be retconned. Lucas has said he hates the special.

Alright, by magic I guess I just meant beyond understanding.

[Arawn Fenn]

There was a kids' picture book in 79 (I think) about Han and Chewie bringing paying Lumpy a visit and having to save the baby wookiee because he had wandered off in the forest below and got lost. The jungle below looked more like Dagobah than what you see in Revenge of the Sith (though there's no reason for that not to be the case).

I had that book. Probably could still find it if I looked hard enough...

KOTOR had a Shadowlands level of Kashyyyk that was a lot like the portrayal in the kids' book, in the sense that it upheld the same basic idea that things get more dangerous as you go further down, and it did look like Dagobah on the bottom. That area had Mandalorians, a terentatek, a shapeshifter if you were following the Genoharadan plotline, etc. This was supposed to be underneath Rwookrrorro.

In Dark Lord Luceno apparently attempted to address the discrepancy between the EU's depiction of Rwookrrorro and ROTS's depiction of Kachirho by stating that Rwookrrorro was "on the other side of the escarpment".

[Terralthra]

KOTOR had a Shadowlands level of Kashyyyk that was a lot like the portrayal in the kids' book, in the sense that it upheld the same basic idea that things get more dangerous as you go further down, and it did look like Dagobah on the bottom. That area had Mandalorians, a terentatek, a shapeshifter if you were following the Genoharadan plotline, etc. This was supposed to be underneath Rwookrrorro.

In Dark Lord Luceno apparently attempted to address the discrepancy between the EU's depiction of Rwookrrorro and ROTS's depiction of Kachirho by stating that Rwookrrorro was "on the other side of the escarpment".

I don't think this is any sort of discrepancy at all. It's a goddamn planet, after all. A mono-terrain planet defies any sort of suspension of disbelief. Consider that no single location shown screen in any of the OT (and the vast majority of the NT, as well) are perfectly reasonable locations on Terra, one single planet. That variety is not accidental or unexpected: it's fundamental. Planets with Terra-equivalent gravity are, by necessity, rather large. Incident solar radiation alone will create vast differences in climate between the poles and the equator. The climatic changes will naturally also lead to a difference in the flora and fauna.

For certain examples, one could say that the planet is so close to the edge of habitability that only small portion of it is habitable at all, e.g. Hoth, the regions which are amenable (if only just) to human life are all near the equator, and once you get above 10 or 15 degrees north or south latitude, it's simply uninhabitable. Tatooine could be much the same, with habitable poles, and anything below 80 or so N/S latitude unbearably hot and dry for humans to survive.

For forested planets(/moons) like Kashyyyk, Endor, Dagobah, this fails to hold up. To have that sort of lush forest with multiple canopies and miles-high trees implies an environment with a pleasantly long, warm (but not hot) growing season and reasonably short, mild winters (or no seasons at all). This, in turn, implies that there are other environments nearby that are equally human-habitable, but not as friendly to giant multi-layer canopies. If the area with the canopies and vertical ecosystem is near the equator, there will be areas further north and south with longer, colder winters, similar to environments that give rise to conifer forests and deciduous forest/plain mixtures. Conversely, if the vertical jungle ecosystem is polar, nearer the equator there will be environments suitable for savannah (drier summer, hotter) or semi-deserts and deserts. Additionally, for lands like the vertical forests, there must be rainfall, which means that (more or less) there must be large-ish bodies of water.

tl;dr: the existence of oceans, beaches, and smaller treed-forests on Kashyyyk is in no way a contradiction, it's implied by basic climatology.

[Baffalo]

I agree with Terralthra on this. Oceans aren't just vital, they're essential for life to form properly unless the circumstances allowing for life to form are so outrageously remote that it would make a dramatic impact on the life itself. Life on Earth began in the oceans because there wasn't an ozone layer when life began to grow, and the atmosphere was filled with CO2, which makes aerobic life impossible (hence, had Chewbacca been from a world with a CO2 atmosphere, he would die just hanging around humans without a suit).

As life forms in the oceans, it eventually begins to cause the atmosphere to shift to having more oxygen, and the ozone layer protects it as it begins to move onto land. There are ways to have a completely forested world, but it's so difficult, it would be impossible to rationalize. Let's say you have a planet with no oceans. The atmosphere will need to be made suitable for the first trees, they'll need to spread to the entire planet, and then you need to have enough animal life to produce CO2 to offset the plants producing so much oxygen.

If the Wookies were immigrants to Kashyyyk as it's been hinted at before (I don't remember where), then why would they spend so much time preparing Kashyyyk? Was it deliberate? If so, why? Why would they go to so much effort just to make an entire planet full of trees? And how would they generate such a diverse ecosystem that has multiple layers? Would they have brought such animals from their homeworld? Have they been there so long they've adapted and thrived?

[Arawn Fenn]

I don't think this is any sort of discrepancy at all.

I agree; I probably should've said "perceived discrepancy".

[Terralthra]

I agree with Terralthra on this. Oceans aren't just vital, they're essential for life to form properly unless the circumstances allowing for life to form are so outrageously remote that it would make a dramatic impact on the life itself. Life on Earth began in the oceans because there wasn't an ozone layer when life began to grow, and the atmosphere was filled with CO2, which makes aerobic life impossible (hence, had Chewbacca been from a world with a CO2 atmosphere, he would die just hanging around humans without a suit).

As life forms in the oceans, it eventually begins to cause the atmosphere to shift to having more oxygen, and the ozone layer protects it as it begins to move onto land. There are ways to have a completely forested world, but it's so difficult, it would be impossible to rationalize. Let's say you have a planet with no oceans. The atmosphere will need to be made suitable for the first trees, they'll need to spread to the entire planet, and then you need to have enough animal life to produce CO2 to offset the plants producing so much oxygen.

Eh, this is a bit tortured in terms of logic. Either oxygen-rich or carbon-dioxide-rich atmospheres could give rise to various carbon-based life, assuming enough of the hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon building blocks are there in the right conditions. Having water is kind of implied by a sufficient quantity of hydrogen and oxygen, as water represents a stable, low-energy configuration of these two, and otherwise oxygen is highly reactive due to electronegativity. Having large bodies of liquid water is currently seen as highly conducive, as it provides both a good, stable temperature range (high specific heat capacity) and a fluid in which the aforementioned components of Terra-organic chemistry can float around and potentially react with each other. Experiments containing these ingredients plus some heat and other energy sources produced amino acids numerous times.

[Baffalo]

Eh, this is a bit tortured in terms of logic. Either oxygen-rich or carbon-dioxide-rich atmospheres could give rise to various carbon-based life, assuming enough of the hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon building blocks are there in the right conditions. Having water is kind of implied by a sufficient quantity of hydrogen and oxygen, as water represents a stable, low-energy configuration of these two, and otherwise oxygen is highly reactive due to electronegativity. Having large bodies of liquid water is currently seen as highly conducive, as it provides both a good, stable temperature range (high specific heat capacity) and a fluid in which the aforementioned components of Terra-organic chemistry can float around and potentially react with each other. Experiments containing these ingredients plus some heat and other energy sources produced amino acids numerous times.

Right, saying that you MUST have water is a bit of a stretch, it certainly helps. Theoretically, silicon based lifeforms should be dominant on this planet due to the higher presence of silica. However, it's due to water that carbon is more prevalent. If it's a world with little water, silicon might be more common, but we know that Chewbacca is carbon-based because some food on Kashyyyk is shared with Leia in some of the Thrawn novels, and that wouldn't be possible had he been silicon based. There are numerous theories, but water makes it so much more likely so that's why I run with it.