The Ewoks From Star Wars Defeated The Empire In A Stunning California Park You Can Visit

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"Star Wars" may take place in a galaxy far, far away, but George Lucas and every director who has made their mark on the legendary franchise since its inception has to make do here on Earth. One of the biggest tricks in cinema history is that Lucas and other filmmakers have managed to make an entire galaxy out of the planet we all live on. That has, at times, taken these productions to exotic locations, such as Tunisia, and not-so-exotic ones, like, in one case, Lucas' own swimming pool for a scene in "The Empire Strikes Back."

Despite how much many of us would like to, we'll never get to visit places like Tatooine or Naboo. Disney has offered fans something close to visiting the "Star Wars" galaxy in real life with the Galaxy's Edge theme park at Disneyland and Disney World, but it turns out that fans of "Return of the Jedi" can get pretty close to the real thing by visiting a national park in California.

The Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park famously served as the real-world location where Lucas and director Richard Marquand created the forest moon of Endor, the location where the Ewoks helped the Rebellion topple the Empire. It's one of relatively few filming locations in the U.S. where the "Star Wars" films have been shot, so it's become a relatively popular pilgrimage for hardcore fans of the films.

There is, however, a bit of a catch here. While Grizzly Creek was one of the locations used to shoot some of the Endor scenes, not all of them were filmed there. Many of the scenes were filmed on private land in Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. Not only are those lands not accessible to the general public, but the trees that once stood there that made up Endor's lush scenery are no more.

Lucasfilm originally wanted to film in the Muir Woods in California, going under the production name "Blue Harvest" to try and mask that this was indeed a "Star Wars" movie. However, the planned use of pyrotechnics complicated matters.

"Despite a persistent rumor to the contrary, none of the 'Star Wars' films were shot in Muir Woods," said Julian Espinoza, spokesperson for the National Park Service speaking with SFGATE in December 2022. "Owing to its small size, sensitive resources and high visitation, little commercial photography has taken place at Muir Woods over the years."

The production had to turn elsewhere. That's where Del Norte County comes in. Ernie Perry, a retired worker for Del Norte County, explained to SFGATE in that same article:

"On Park Service property, every time they brought up the issue of pyrotechnics, it was a deal killer. A scout was looking for private land and happened to run into a man who took them to the Miller-Rellim Redwood Company."

The company had plans to harvest timber on the land, which made pyrotechnics and whatever the crew wanted to do a non-issue. The crew completely reshaped parts of the land to craft Endor as we know it. The vast majority of that filming took place on private land. Unfortunately, that private land was completely cut down by the logging company just months after "Return of the Jedi" finished filming. But fear not! Fans who want a taste of Endor can still get one.

"You can visit the grove where the speeder chase scene was shot," Nate Adams, deputy director of the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission, explained in that SFGATE piece. "It's off Highway 36 in Grizzly Creek State Park along the Cheatham Grove path," Adams said. "When you go there, you'll recognize some of the fallen trees close to the trailhead. I was there last year to help with ["The World According to Jeff Goldblum"] and immediately recognized trees 40 years later."

"Return of the Jedi" hit theaters in 1983 and brought the original trilogy to a close. Endor and the Ewoks had a huge part to play in bringing the Empire down, and none of that would have been possible without these lush, forested lands in Northern California. Though some of it is now gone, what remains is a little piece of a distant galaxy right here on Earth.

You can grab "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" on 4K, Blu-ray, or DVD from Amazon.