To Endor Adam came . . . the Empire to crush.

Setting: The Muir Woods, California. But a certain, special few of us know that this place is much more than a collection of pretty freakin' huge trees. To us, it is Endor. Why? Because that is where George decided to film Return of the Jedi back in '83 which, of course, is the year I was born. That matters . . . trust me.

Unless you have lived in a cave for the last 30 years, you know that, yes, the Jedi did return. Originally, the Jedi were going to get revenge, but we all know that Jedi do not seek revenge.

However, I have a funny feeling that if the Jedi did seek revenge back in '83, the Sith wouldn't have been able to claim revenge in 2005. I suppose that the movie could have been called, "Return of the Sith," or "The Sith Cinderella Story" but anybody who has ever met a Sith Lord knows that a simple return would have been lowballing it. Nor do they like words like "Cinderella."

Emperor: "I thought I told you to get rid of that blue lightsaber . . ."

Vader: "I know . . . I know . . . overthrowing you is just taking longer than I thought."

Emperor: "I don't like Cinderella."

Vader: "Me neither."

What people don't realize is that even though the Jedi returned, and only one ewok died in the process, the empire never left Endor. George couldn't figure out a way to show that these things were not mutually exclusive with something as short as a film title. The closest he ever got was:

"Return of the Jedi . . ."

He ended up dropping the three periods at the end of the title and just promised to make Episodes 7, 8, and 9 after he finished Episodes I, II, and III. He then proceeded to break that promise right before he made three bad Star Wars movies.

Dork.

Ever since Lucas broke that promise, Adam and I have sought to finish the saga ourselves. Having been through the schools of Wolfenstein 3D, 007, Splinter Cell, Halo, Star Tropics, and Mike Tyson's Punchout, we knew we pretty much had everything under control. The images below tell our story.

First, we needed to scout out the area. A lot has changed on Endor over the last 25 years. Since our enemies typically dressed themselves in rigid, white costumes (that never seemed to even repel a laser . . . or an ewok-thrown rock, for that matter) or in GIANT Imperial Walkers, we knew that those who stayed behind would be in hiding.

Adam: "I got nothing . . . you?" Grant: "Only Jar-Jar's dead body . . . keep moving."

Grant: "They went this way."
Adam: "You can tell that by looking at a clover?"

Grant: "No, but you thought I was pretty cool, didn't you?"

Adam: "Not really."

After locating the imperial base, we decided that we must prepare ourselves mentally and physically for the upcoming battle. If you want to see how sweet we really are, check out the times these pictures were taken:

2:38:00:000

(hour: minute: second: millisecond)

2:38:00:001

Yeah, pretty fast. The camera broke when that second picture was taken. After our physical training, we needed to prepare mentally. So, we did what anyone does:

Adam: "Betting you there would be a McDonalds on Endor was the safest bet I ever made."

Grant: "I guess you're right. Mom always said 'it's not gambling if you know you're going to win.'"

Okay, so our initial attack on the base did not turn out too well. We blame McDonalds. Here we are fleeing down the side of a hill:

Adam: "Okay, so we'll never get in disguised as Ewoks . . . my bad."

Grant: "What is it about 'too tall' that you don't understand?"

Adam: "You sound like Grandpa."

Here's us accidentally choosing the same hiding place:

(no caption necessary)

But things began to turn around:

"37, 38, 39, 40 . . . Adam, how many you got?"

"Well, you like math . . . what's 40 times 3?"

Adam: "If you let me have your uniform, I won't shoot you."

Miscellaneous Storm Trooper: "Yeah right, this suit is worth at least . . ."

Adam's Gun: BAM!

We were able to rescue two members of the Rebellion that had been captured by the Empire. As you can see by this picture, she was suffering pretty bad:

Woman: "I am suffering."

See, told you.

And we even had time to teach each other about some of our special abilities. Here I am teaching Adam how blend in with the forest. If you look really hard, you might see me.

Here's Adam teaching me his patented "sneak up behind the guy and get creative" move. You can see the Stormtrooper off in the distance . . . he had no idea we were there.

Grant: "Couldn't we just shoot him?"

Adam: "I could shoot you."

Grant: "Alright, fine, I get it."

We ended up finding this sign written in the Ewok language. We couldn't understand it, of course.

Grant: "You know, if you shoot the drivers, the imperial walkers stop moving . . ."

Perhaps the most frustrating part was discovering the unguarded path that led straight to their power source.

Adam: "This was never in the movie!"

Grant: "Must have been a deleted scene."

ALL OF A SUDDEN, we saw a deer.

Adam: "I'm hungry."

Grant: "Me too."

Random Stormtrooper we didn't know was there: "Take Luck!"

The last task was to maneuver down a dark trench to the enemy power supply and destroy it.

Grant: "Rock beats scissors . . . you go first."

Adam: "Best 2 out of 3."

After that, we won. We ate dinner with the Ewoks. We left. THE END.

Adam: "I call this tree."

Grant: "Actually, it's a Redwood."

Adam: "Idiot."