(RE)Watching The Ewok Movies
To everyone’s surprise DisneyPlus added a Star Wars Vintage Collection section at the beginning of April, including among other things the Ewok TV movies, which I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. So one Saturday night I sat down with my wife and several large measures of Rum to watch a Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor double header, to sample some nostalgia, ewoks and terrible movies.
A few minutes into Caravan of Courage and honestly it’s better than I had remembered! We’ve already had a ‘Yub Nub’ and the production values were a lot better than I thought although the Ewok costumes are more obviously costumes (no blinking! aarrggghh!) which makes you wonder what happened to the Return of the Jedi costumes? The whole thing is very 80’s fantasy, especially when the kids and Ewoks get given their magical objects before going on their quest, very Willow, very Dark Crystal, very Dungeons & Dragons cartoon which is very charming. We also get some things which have become canon like Wisties (Battlefront II) which is great. I praised the production values earlier but the budget clearly did not stretch to to the spiders in the Gorax’s mountain liar, because they are TERRIBLE! The best new character in Caravan of Courage is Chuka-Trok, an Ewok they meet on their journey, he’s beefcake warrior, but SPOILER ALERT!! He dies! I was heartbroken. The movie, of course, ends with a party - those Ewoks LOVE a rave up! Overall I enjoyed this way more than I expected and would give it a 2.5 / 5.
Next up is Battle For Endor, which immediately puts me on the back foot when Wicket talks! I didn’t mind him picking up the odd word in Caravan of Courage but Ewoks outright talking is so WRONG. The first ten minutes of the movie are brutal! Marauders (very reminiscent of the one in the Mandalorian) attack the family and Ewok village, killing all the family members except Cindel (the little girl) from the previous movie, this is the Game of Thrones of the Star Wars universe! At this point I realized I actually had never seen this. We also get the first appearance of Blurrgs, (as seen in Clone Wars and The Mandalorian). Noa (Wilfred Brimley) and Teek are both fun additions, Teek in particular is funny, ridiculous and a complete sweetheart and if they Chuka-Trok him I will riot. Breaking into the Marauders castle has big Labyrinth vibes but regular horses is just absurd, they couldn’t even be bothered to disguise them, they’re just regular horses. Now we get Ewoks blowing horns, setting traps and using the forest around them to defeat a superior enemy just like Return of the Jedi and this is the content we are here for! Although then have them manning the guns of Noa’s ship and blasting away at the Marauders and hitting trees doesn’t seem to fit with the “protect the forest” message of the cartoons. The whole premise of the film is the Marauders and the witch Charal want the magical power source (power cell), but the end with Wicket hitting Charal’s red stone with his sling, which for some reason kills Terak, the Marauder leader, comes out of nowhere and is just plain confusing. There’s no party at the end which makes you question whether this is even really an Ewok movie, there are some fun parts but some really strange choices so this one only gets 2 / 5.
This was a great evening of nostalgia for me and I’d recommend watching these two films if you love Ewoks (and why wouldn’t you?) and approach it with a sense of fun and don’t take it too seriously.
Jonny O
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