So much of what you know about the Star Wars universe was actually learned after the fact. A lot of details you take for granted were never mentioned in the original movie or the original trilogy. Those details were filled in as Star Wars fandom grew to a population who craved documented information on everything.
Personally, I’m glad to find this out, because even though I’ve been a Star Wars fan since 1977, I felt really out of it for not knowing those things were called Ewoks until later. And that’s not the only example. Now I feel vindicated of my ignorance. -via Laughing Squid