Star Wars: Ewok Adventures

Double the fun?

After reviewing the whole Star Wars saga I felt I could go the extra mile and take a look at what George Lucas did to expand his universe on the small screen. The year was 1984, only 1 year after the shocking finale of Return of the Jedi, fan expectation was set high and the result as you can foresee was nothing but a bunch of furry fuzz ball crap made for children. However unlikely, Ewoks: Caravan of Courage, got its own sequel in 1985: Ewoks, The Battle of Endor.  Ultimately, Lucas got away with what he wanted: Silly TV spin-offs that would sell well among 80's children.On the other hand, these movies are terribly awful, not worth watching, not even for nostalgia purposes if you were a kid as I was in the early 80's. Not wanting to sound biased by the typical fan hatred, all I can say is that these films share the same origin as the unbearable Star Wars Holiday Special: Greed. 

So, let's try to review these two Ewok movies for the price of one.

Ewoks: Caravan of Courage (1984)

A very disappointing experience After the effort that had been made to create the very accomplished and hugely successful feature films, continual interest in the franchise led to the decision to undertake this project. While that in itself was absolutely fine, and the story, while aimed at a younger audience was also acceptable, it is the execution of the story that is so disappointing.

"I'm Luke Skywalker I'm here to..oh, wait!"

"I see no Star Wars universe connections here"

While it is to be expected that a television movie cannot have the level of investment in it that is commanded by a large scale feature film, I found it unacceptable that little effort was undertaken to make this film look credible. The Ewoks are themselves in my view, a cynical creation to make money by selling toys and merchandise rather than tell a story, but setting that apart, surely more resource could have been put up to reflect that the planet is teeming with Ewoks (as per return of the Jedi)and that the central Ewok character Wicket (played effectively by Warwick Davis)was part of a much larger tribe than is demonstrated in this film. Some of the matte painting work is satisfactory, and while ILM did win an Emmy Award for its visual effects for this movie (led my Michael Pangrazio, a matte artist and ILM veteran Denis Muren)I felt that some of the visual work was actually well below ILMs standards. It feels like this film was made to get the biggest possible audience with the minimum possible production budget.

Ewoks meet Luke Skywalker's impersonator.

Lost star girl.

The other failure was in the performance of Eric Walker. The good work carried out by child actor Aubree Miller (she didn't star in anything significant after these Ewok TV films) was totally undermined by the Walker's overacting, playing her elder brother. A restrained performance would have had a much greater impact on the story.

Very young children may well enjoy it, but it should have been so much better.

Here's the made for TV trailer:

And if your guts are strong enough, you can watch the film here:

Ewoks: Battle for Endor (1985)

I have officially vomited in my own mouth, thanks to this movie.

I expected the absolute worst with this movie, but I expected a heartwarming and pleasurable absolute worst. This is just terrible. Absolutely terrible. Terrible like Nazis spreading the black plague. Let me explain: Ewoks are speaking English. It's horrible.

The villain girl looks like she travelled from the future set of Power Rangers. I really really want her to rise up from the ground and say "At last! After ten thousand years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" The putties... er, I mean the big bad whatever the heck they are... they growl a lot. Many of them look like an even lamer version of the Cryptkeeper. The Cryptkeeper was pretty cool, but these guys were not.

Rita Repulsa: the Early days.

"Now we Ewoks speak English"

The only merit to this movie was Paul Gleason. This movie might have been better if he'd went to the bad guys and said "If I have to come in here again, I'm crackin' skulls." It would have been even better if one of the Ewoks was played by Judd Nelson, who mouthed his words as he said this.

Also, that speedy little creature is pretty badass. Word to that.

No word to the movie, though. I want to give this movie a two. I want to, so badly. There's a passage I have memorized: The path of this movie is beset on all sides by the inequities of terribleness and the tyranny of spin-off awfulness. Blessed is nothing, for this movie blows. 

"I bet you don't have this one sonny"

 Here is the VHS trailer for the sequel:

And here the full movie if you feel like puking:

Overall, these two films may have entertained a few children back then in the early 80's but, there is no way to consider the Ewok flicks as a serious Star Wars project made out of artistic interest. Definitely, these movies were made for selling more toys and to introduce Star Wars to the very few kids that hadn't heard of it back then to buy even more toys. After all, there are some fans that would buy anything Star Wars related no matter the quality of the product. 

Evil forces agains the Ewok.

1985 was also the year in which Lucas would present not one but two cartoon Star Wars spin-offs: Ewoks (again? WTF!) & Droids. Fortunately, those cartoons lasted only season, and like the Ewoks movies, had nothing to do with the original Star Wars saga.

Do you guys want me to talk about the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special? If so, be warned for that is the ultimate Star Wars pain in the ass as Lucas has stated himself several times "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it."