Classics Ewoks Movies: Caravan of Courage and The Battle for Endor

I remember when Caravan of Courage came out, but for whatever reason I missed it the first time around - hard to believe this is 30 years old; where has the time gone?!....When I saw it years later via VHS tape, I enjoyed it since it expanded what we saw of Endor in ROTJ, and I felt the story was solid - especially liked the giant monster who kept the family in a bird-type cage in that cavern, as well as the huge spider-creature.

That being said, the 1985 Ewok TV sequel "Battle for Endor" was far superior; much more epic, with great battle scenes and more of a fantasy element, i.e. the witch who could transform, etc.

Wonder if these two TV films will ever be released on Blu-ray? I've got the Double-sided DVD that came out circa 2004, and while that's fine, there seems to be room for improvement in the picture quality and color....

 

Wanted to also mention that I re-watched the entire Droids series about two years ago & really enjoyed this. Excellent animation & story.

And, I tried to re-watch the Ewoks cartoon a while back but really couldn't get into this; it's possible part of this was because the quality of the prints I was seeing were extremely poor (Droids was slightly better). However, these Ewoks stories did seem somewhat childish & kiddi-fied, like a lot of Saturday morning cartoons were from that era.

That all being said, I still want to see both cartoons on a deluxe Blu-ray (or DVD) set at some point. The 30th anniversary of both cartoons will be in Fall 2015....

 

http://www.starwars.com/news/9-things-you-never-knew-about-the-ewok-adventure?linkId=10763698

 

http://www.starwars.com/news/caravan-of-courage-celebrating-30-years-of-an-ewok-adventure

 

Thanks for the link!

Pretty cool, that. Nice to see a little shout-out for those pictures.

You know, along with a proper blu ray release of the complete Star Wars: Droids series (remaster, deleted scenes, production notes, interviews, accompanying release of modern action figures of characters from the show, etc. -- hey, a guy can dream, right?), I'd like to see the Ewok films out there again.

I still remember watching the film at home as a kid and quite liking it (if nowhere near as much as SW, ESB and ROTJ, naturally).

Heh, I also recall not caring for the intro of the second Ewoks film. "Hi. Welcome back. Remember that family you rooted for last time? Yeah, they're all dead. Well, okay, not the little girl, but the rest? Nope. Too bad, so sad." I mean jeesh!

I did like Noa, though.

Come to think of it, I'd love to see some action figures made of the Ewok film characters, too.

Anyway, yes, bring on the Ewok movies. Maybe a starwars.com showing, or something?

 

I also liked those movies as a kid, and I agree about the second one being kinda grim for a kid's movie.
On the previous page I also posted another link (Trivia) from StarWar.com for the Ewok movies.

 

Wow, it's been 30 years since I last saw the first Ewoks movie! I remember I didn't really like it much then, but maybe I would appreciate it more now. I don't think I have ever seen the second Ewoks movie.

 

Caravan Of Courage is pretty good and enjoyable; It gets far too little credit.

 

Kaink and Teek were Disneyland specials, I think. I am currently trying to get 'em from somewhere, so I cannot say more.

A civilisation that didn't discover metal, living in a backwards world where everybody has a different interpretation of Force and nobody calls it that way? I'd say it's perfectly SW.

I could get you a better link.

This may be the same problem I'm having with Caravan of Courage - I didn't grab a DVD yet, and the audio on YouTube is so bad that I would need subtitles to make sure I've understood everything correctly.

Also, while I can see a lot of 1980s animation stereotypes in the cartoon (e.g. gasping at every given opportunity), some stories are quite challenging in terms of seriousness, depth and moral: there's death implied in Asha and To Save Deej, some serious bullying in Sunstar vs. Shadowstone...

Don't! The edits are horrible, horrible, horrible.

Number nine...that book rules my word and next to Revenge of the Jedi drafts, it's a clear proof that the character swap myth is just a myth. <3

 

Excellent article - Thanks. Again, it's amazing that this Ewok TV film is 30 years old, and equally amazing that little A. Miller (Cindel) is now in her mid-30's.

 

I enjoyed the ewok adventures that had that Star Wars feel, same with Willow but Lucas lost his touch by the PT, he went green screen.

 

He holiday special is still an interesting piece of star wars history. Don't forget that some star wars fans buy the prequel films even if they hate them because they simply have to own everything star wars related.

 

There is a great interview with Eric Walker in the September 2015 issue of Empire. Was wondering if I could post the scanned pages.

 

That's a shame...but ohwell, their loss.

 

As an Ewok fan myself , I'm glad you made this thread . SW Ewoks and Ewok Adventures are both great.

 

TigerCraneFist

I merged your thread with this one because we already had an Ewok discussion thread. Next time please you the search button on the forums to make sure a thread about the topic you want to post about hasn't already been created.

 

I merged the wrong one my bad. But there is already a thread about the Ewok movies (this one) and we don't need multiple separate threads on the subject.

 

The Illustrated Star Wars Universe and The Essential Guide to Characters came out very close together - December 1995 and November 1995. Charal is not in The Essential Guide to Characters- but Cindel Towani is. I know Charal was a Nightsister as of The Illustrated Star Wars Universe at least - I'm not sure if any info about her made it into Cindel's entry in the earlier book.

The much later Book of Sith, in the Nightsisters section, written by Mother Talzin, discussed various talismans, with the comment "One of our brethren has yet to return the Talisman of the Raven".

 

I understand where your coming from but at least this thread can appeal to a few of the old classics under one thread. I mean, it's better to have a single thread covering a few topics that users can discuss then to have seperate threads that make it harder for users to find and look for constantly with the search function and wonder if the thread is the one they are looking for.

I do however enjoy the Ewok movies and I agree with you that they do deserve more recognition.