This report is from Alyse
Published on December 3rd, 2004
Meeting Ken Wheat
'Battle for Endor' Co-Writer & Director
at an Ewoks DVD Line Up
November 22nd, 2004
There was a lot of promotion and line ups for the original trilogy release on DVD but no excitement for the Ewok movies finally getting their due on DVD. We thought it was a shame, so we decided we'd line up for the midnight release on November 22 and show our love for Ewoks.
As part of LiningUp.net, we planned to meet for dinner at the Hamburger Hamlet on Hollywood across from the Chinese Theatre. After dinner, those brave enough, would head over to the Virgin MegaStore on Sunset to get in line for the midnight release.
Our crazy idea to line up for Ewoks turned out to be a wonderful and exciting night! As a group of us finished our dinner, a new fan showed up to join us. He had found out about our line from our website and wanted to check things out. He wore a vintage Ewok shirt that none of us had ever seen before (tagline: Ewoks 2 - Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the forest.) It wasn't until we went outside to take some group photos that we learned who this new "fan" was: none other than Ken Wheat, co-writer and director of "Battle for Endor"!
We ended up having an hour long discussion with Ken, asking him plenty of questions regarding "Battle for Endor" and finding out many interesting details and behind the scenes info. Did you know that the dragon was made from pieces of the Rancor? And that Ken and his brother got the job after telling George that "Caravan of Courage" sucked? Ken was a wealth of information, not only on Star Wars but on film history in general, and gave us many recommendations of other movies to check out.
After we parted ways, those remaining went to Virgin to represent. However, the selection of DVDs to choose from was sorely lacking. They only had 2 copies of the Ewok Adventures DVD and only a few copies of the Droids and Ewok cartoon DVDs.
All in all though, we are so glad we decided to do this line up. We got to meet Ken Wheat, who was responsible for a movie near and dear to us.
Check out the photos we took with Ken and of the night's adventures here.
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