'Star Wars' plot: What happened to the Ewoks?

Star Wars Official Website

Physicists claim that there should have never been a celebration after the destruction of the second death star in "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi."

According to The Force, a website based on a white paper published in Purdue University, George Lucas may have made an ending that was scientifically impossible. The reason for such a claim is backed by the idea that the explosion of the Death Star should have obliterated the planet of Endor, as well as the adorable inhabitants, the Ewoks.

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" picks up after the defeat of a Vader-lead army called the Empire when the resistance blows up a planet-sized ship. The film previous to "Force Awakens," titled "The Return of the Jedi" ends with a great celebration on Endor, the planet closest to the wreckage of the Death Star.

"The Ewoks are dead. All of them," planetary scientist and self-confessed "Star Wars" fan Dave Minton said in a paper titled "Endor Holocaust." The essay goes on to say that "No Ewok could withstand an impact of that magnitude....It is likely that the atmosphere would be so heated up ... that every body of water on the entire world would be flash heated to steam, and every forest would ignite into a global firestorm."

The Star Wars Wookepedia describes the Ewoks as a diminutive species native to the forests of the planet Endor. The primitive tribe were key to defeating the Empire in the resistance's final attack on the corrupt force.

As much as everyone loves a happy ending, Minton's theory does seem to make sense. This means that there should be no reason that people will be seeing the Ewoks again in the third trilogy of the franchise.

However, some Ewoks fans may be willing to ignore sound science to see the stout and furry warriors again in Episode 8 or 9.