The Shadow Stone: An Ewok Adventure

The Shadow Stone: An Ewok Adventure

Author: Cathy East Dubowski

Illustrator: Deborah Colvin Borgo

Medium: Picture book

Publication Date: May 1986

Timeline Placement: 1 ABY

 

An adaptation of the Ewoks episode "Sunstar vs. Shadowstone," the conclusion of the cartoon's Morag arc. Those were always my favorite episodes of the show so getting only the final episode adapted to book form kind of takes away from its significance. The book is all right, but ideally you would just watch the four episodes of the show.

Chief Chirpa regales the Ewok children with the story of how Logray, when he was young, once spent years enslaved by Morag the Tulgah witch after she stole the mystical Sunstar-Shadowstone from the Ewok village. Logray bided his time, learning magic from Morag, until he was finally able to make his escape. In the magic battle, the Sunstar-Shadowstone was broken into two pieces, with Logray escaping with the good Sunstar but Morag retaining the evil Shadowstone. Since then she has plotted to reclaim the other half of the stone and achieve unlimited power or something.

After hearing the tale, Teebo thinks Logray is just the coolest and decides to ask to become his apprentice. Hey we already did this plot! Maybe Teebo got fired for failing a drug test. In any case, Logray agrees to make Teebo his apprentice (for the second time) and immediately sets him to work doing chores and cleaning Logray's hut. Wicket, Kneesaa, and Latara come by and laugh at Teebo for doing an unpaid internship, so Teebo steals some of Logray's magic tricks and takes his friends out into the woods, where he fails to successfully perform any of them.

Just then, however, the young Ewoks are tricked by furry bait as a sexy cat-woman lures them into a cave, only to morph into the slightly less horrifying countenance of Morag the Tulgah witch. Morag contacts Logray via his crystal image spinner and tells him to bring her the Sunstar in exchange for the lives and browser histories of her prisoners.

Logray arrives in Morag's lair and the greatest wizard battle since Gandalf vs. Saruman takes place, by which I mean Morag causes vines to wrap around Logray's ankles, Logray dispels them with the Sunstar, then he gets tired and has to take a break. Morag summons the Sunstar to her and rejoins the two halves, reforming the Sunstar-Shadowstone and achieving power so unlimited that it causes an earthquake which knocks her into a pool of lava.

The Ewoks run for it but now Morag emerges, transformed into a giant lava monster. She bats away Logray's staff, but Teebo retrieves it for him, allowing Logray to plunge it into the ground and summon a geyser of cold water that blasts Morag and hardens her lava form into stone. Morag then collapses into a pile of rubble.

No one mourns the Wicket.