A long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away…
STAR WARS
Episode ?????.II
THE EWOK ADVENTURES
Our story begins long, long ago,
deep in an enchanted forest on the
distant moon of Endor.
In an Ewok village, Deej tries to
summon two of his sons who went
into the woods and have not
returned. He fears they may be lost.
Using his skin glider to look for his sons,
Deej sees a strange shining object in
the trees below. But, anxious to find
his missing children, he continues the
search…
Although Return of the Jedi had completely burnt Lucas out
on telling the Star Wars Saga, he was always acutely aware how much fans wanted
to return to that universe; especially the youngest ones. Remembering how
popular the Ewoks were with this crowd (though, at the time, very few others),
Lucas handed a couple of fun story outlines to his production team so that a
couple of made-for-TV movies could be produced. These became the Ewok Adventure
films: Caravan of Courage (1984, directed by John Korty) and Battle for Endor
(1985, directed by Jim and Ken Wheat).
 |
| "Yub Nub!" |
Already, being produced in-house by Lucasfilm upped the
quality of the films remarkably compared to the previous television special.
While they still don’t even begin to approach the Saga proper, the filmmaking
and effects are certainly better than most TV movies of the time, and even a
few theatrical ones. More than that, though, with the writing and general
atmosphere these films truly feel like George Lucas stories.
However, they still don’t quite feel like Star Wars stories.
At least not enough of the time. While Star Wars has always been a fantasy film
set in space as opposed to true sci-fi, the Ewok films seem to be in full-on
Dungeons and Dragons mode, especially Caravan. And, once again, there’s
strangely no crawl; what I typed above is actually from one of Caravan’s most
annoying features: Every so often, Burl Ives will come out of nowhere, telling
us what’s going on as if he’s narrating a nature documentary, when all of this
information could have be easily given by Ewok subtitles. Thankfully, this is
absent in Battle.
As a matter of fact, of the two, I felt like I was able to
get more into Battle as it downplayed if not completely removed a lot of what
annoyed me about Caravan. The narration is gone, and the straight-up magic is
confined to the character of Charal (who feels like a cross between Maleficent
and Mother Talzin, and in some EU sources is in fact a Nightsister) as is the
inexplicable appearance of Earth animals.
 |
| "Not her! She's evil!" |
However, I’m getting ahead of myself. For an Ewok adventure,
the little guys are really only supporting characters. The main character
actually seems to be a little shipwrecked human girl named Cindel Towani, who
is for all intents and purposes an annoyingly stereotypical cutesy little kid.
She forms a strong bond with Wicket throughout the films, and even teaches him
Basic which…really makes no sense if this is actually supposed to take place
concurrently with Empire Strikes Back, as the official timeline states. It’s
better to think of this, if one does at all, to take place after Jedi, once the
Empire is destroyed and the Rebels leave, and the Ewoks go back to daily life
for a while. Then again, the point is completely moot in light of the new canon
restructuring anyway.
 |
| "We gotta make like a tree and get outta here!" |
Caravan deals with the Ewoks helping Cindel and her older brother
Mace (in hindsight clearly named after the famous Jedi Knight and Republic
General) on an epic quest to rescue their parents from the behemoth known as
the Gorax. Mace, who dresses like Marty McFly and whines so much he could be
mistaken for a Skywalker, naturally goes on his own mini-Hero’s Journey. He
acts like the stubborn pre-teen he is throughout the entire story, and by the
end realizes why everything he said and did was wrong and became a better
person out of it, just in time to rescue the parents.
Battle makes all of this mean absolutely nothing by KILLING
MACE AND THE PARENTS OFF IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES what the poodoo?!
 |
| "I regret nothiiiiiii-" |
Yes, Battle starts with the Ewok camp being raided by…let’s
say Orcs, because no matter what their canonical name is that’s exactly what
they are…who round up the furballs and shoot up the Towanis (except for Cindel)
in order to get a ship’s power core because they think it’s magic for some
reason. Cindel and Wicket escape and have to free their friends with the help
of another marooned pilot named Noa Briqualon (a gloriously grouchy Wilford
Brimly).
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| "If I let them stay, they'll want to be friends, and that'll give everyone diabeetus." |
For me, aside from Brimly, the standouts of these films are
the characters of the Gorax and Teek. While the Gorax’s facial prosthetic
didn’t always work just right, the overall character design is a very strong
and interesting one and he feels right at home as a Star Wars apex predator.
Teek, who is Noa’s companion, is a blindingly fast half-rabbit-half-macaque with
a goofy grin and a penchant for comic relief and maniacal giggling. I can’t
help but wonder if he’s a sort of proto-prototype for another comic relief
character Lucas would dream up down the road.
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| "I think he's just looking for any excuse for a reference at this point." |
Once again, if you are young and/or a Star Wars fan, both
these films are entertaining time-wasters. Most of their issues can be forgiven
due to the medium and the time period, and in fact come off comparatively
decent when those are taken into account.
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| "I'll grind your bones to make my bread!" |
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