Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #168: DOUBLE FEATURE! Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984) / Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985).

Firstly, happy 2020. Now, the end of the original Star Wars trilogy with Return of the Jedi in 1983 was really the spark for something new: two telemovies from Lucasfilm, aired on America's ABC network, starring RotJ's breakout characters, the Ewoks, in headlining roles, and set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and RotJ.

In 1984's Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, young human stowaway Mace Towani (Eric Walker) and his baby sister Cindel (Aubree Miller) wake on Endor's forest moon, where their family's ship has crashed, to find their parents (Fionnula Flanagan and Guy Boyd) missing. They then come into contact with Wicket W. Warrick (Warwick Davis, reprising his role from RotJ) and his tribe of Ewoks, who subdue him after he tries to kill them. Now he and Cindel are taken to the Ewoks' tree city home, where she quickly becomes friends with Wicket and he gradually learns to trust the Ewoks. After then learning one of the Ewoks' main enemies, a Gorax, has taken his and Cindel's parents, Mace rallies all these galactic teddy bears to help him and Cindel rescue their folks.

Then in 1985's Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, it's almost six months later and the Towanis have fixed their ship and are about to leave for home when a band of marauders decimate the Ewok village. With them, their leader Terak (Carel Struycken) has brought the camp sorceress Charal (Sian Phillips, a Faye Dunaway doppelganger) to truly cause devastation and terror. While fleeing this, Cindel and Wicket meet fast young native Teek (Niki Botelho), who takes them to live with externally gruff human Noa (Wilford Brimley), who slowly warms to Cindel and Wicket. Amidst all this, the Ewoks must defend wage war on their invaders to save their home while the Towanis and Noa try to find a way back to theirs.

This telemovie double begins fairly well; I found Caravan of Courage by no means outstanding, but still very whimsical and pleasantly cute, and with a conscious effort at character development and logical plotting. Walker and Miller carry the film adequately on their own young shoulders, too, and director John Korty, a good friend of none other than George Lucas, and writer Bob Carrau, working from a story by Lucas, demonstrate true excitement for the project. But where Caravan of Courage worked because it was so distinctive for a slice of Star Wars, The Battle for Endor felt, to me, increasingly like one bloated war scene, with some superfluous characters (keep an eye out for Paul Gleason - aka assistant principal Vernon in The Breakfast Club and the idiot police chief in Die Hard - lasting literally about five seconds here as Jerritt Towani) truly ridiculous moments to boot. Writer-directors Jim and Ken Wheats, also working from a Lucas narrative, I think took a highly misguided and superficial route and their film suffers for it by comparison, but I sincerely praise them for not copying Korty's tack.

Interestingly, The Battle for Endor was considerably better-received than Caravan of Courage, but obviously I don't know why. Anyhow, for any committed Star Wars fan like me, there are still worse entries in the franchise to be witnessed.

Oh, and for some accompanying music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dDBvOtRaSo.