Sci-Fi Review: Ewoks: The Battle For Endor (1985, dir. Jim Wheat & Ken Wheat)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

So one year later we returned to Endor to see the continuing saga of Wicket (Warwick Davis) and the family from The Ewok Adventure. What were those words Burl Ives left us with at the end of The Ewok Adventure again?

“Reunited, the families enjoy the simple pleasures of being together. Having learned something they already knew. That courage, loyalty, and love are the strongest forces in the universe.”

Well, those forces are apparently not that strong because this movie opens up with Cindel’s (Aubree Miller) family getting murdered. That’s nice!

I love that apparently Kilink’s ultimate weapon from Kilink vs. The Flying Man made it all the way from Turkey to the moon of Endor.

During all this killing we meet the two main villains of this movie.

This guy (Carel Struycken) who looks like every generic bad guy from ever fantasy adventure movie ever made. He wants some sort of device from a spaceship that he thinks will make him powerful.

And this lady (Siân Phillips) who looks like she belongs in He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe.

After getting captured, then escaping, Cindel and Wicket do battle with something I’m pretty sure I once hit a golf ball into when I used to play miniature golf.

While trying to escape that dragon via a hang glider, they crash. Then they meet this guy who is quite annoying throughout this film.

I guess they figured since Wicket now speaks English, they needed something else small that doesn’t. That thing takes them to a house in the woods, but soon the owner comes home.

Yep, it’s Wilford Brimley. According to IMDb, he and the Wheats didn’t get along, so the production designer Joe Johnston directed all the scenes with Brimley. How did that work considering Brimley is in the majority of this film. Well, unfortunately Brimley did not bring Remo and Chiun with him. That would have made for a very short film.

A large chunk of this movie can now be described as Brimley talks to Cindel, the bad guys talk amongst themselves, and Brimley and crew decide to seek out the bad guys. Oh, and this happens.

Unfortunately, Chewbacca from The Star Wars Holiday Special isn’t around to tell little Cindel that something about this doesn’t smell right. Of course she pulls a switcharoo and kidnaps the kid.

Now we get the annoying little creature, Wicket, and Brimley walking. For some reason we bump into a rock and get this shot of it.

Looks like a slot machine to me. They finally reach the evil castle, and after girl talk…

Brimley and crew scale the wall of the castle. Meanwhile, stuff is happening inside. Remember that whole Han and Greedo thing. Who shot first and all that. We can stop arguing about that. It’s time to start arguing over which one of these guys shot first.

There really isn’t much to talk about now because after they break the good guys (other Ewoks and Cindel) out of the castle, the rest of the film is a run and gun battle. At least this time Endor doesn’t scream Northern California like it did in The Ewok Adventure. Now shots like this just scream EBMUD watershed lands and Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland hills.

Eventually it all comes down to a battle between Brimley and the bad guy.

If you strike him down, he will become a more powerful spokesman for diabetes testing supplies then you can possibly imagine. But before that can happen, Wicket throws something that hits a thing on the bad guy’s chest and this happens to him.

With that done, it’s time for goodbyes and Brimley and Cindel leave the moon of Endor.

The question is whether this is any better than The Ewok Adventure. I would say no. Sure Wicket can talk, it feels more like we are on a foreign world, and there’s a lot more action to it, but that doesn’t make it better. The Ewok Adventure was a serviceable, but forgettable children’s sci-fi/fantasy adventure movie. This feels like they were contractually obligated to make a sequel so they threw together as generic a fantasy plot as possible and paid Brimley a few bucks to be in it. It’s super forgettable.

Now I just need to rewatch my childhood favorite Warwick Davis movie Willow (1988) and hope that The Force Awakens opens with Wicket pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky using the force.

Sci-Fi Review: The Ewok Adventure (1984, dir. John Korty)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Yes, the Ewoks were cute, fun, and Warwick Davis, but did we need two movies devoted just to them? I guess so. This movie is about two kids who are separated from their parents after their spaceship crashes in Northern California where a bunch of little people are cosplaying as Ewoks. Or they have crashed on the distant moon of Endor as our narrator Burl Ives tells us. I believe Burl Ives was an afterthought as he actually barely narrates this movie. It begins when we see the parents at the crash site looking for their kids. A giant shows up and takes them away.

Then the opening credits start. I swear you could put these over the start of a Davy Crockett movie and they wouldn’t look out of place.

Next we meet the Ewoks. Two of the kids went out hiking in Marin County and haven’t come back, so it’s time to go hang gliding to find them.

After the kid Ewoks are saved, we get introduced to the human children.

This is Cindel played by Aubree Miller who just had a mirror put in front of her and realized she’s wearing that unfortunate headband.

This is Mace played by Eric Walker who is doing his best impersonation of David Packer in V (1983).

It’s actually kind of tough to talk about this movie cause there’s little to it. So let’s hit the main points here. Such as that we finally know where the llama at the gas station in Godard’s Film Socialisme came from.

It came from the North Bay Area Moon of Endor. This is the first of several times you’ll see Earthbound animals that apparently exist on Endor too.

A bunch of this now is the kids and the Ewoks feeling each other out such as how to communicate, can they be friends, and will the Ewoks help the kids to find their parents. Cindel isn’t feeling well so the Ewoks and Mace go out to find some special medicine. And by that I mean we can have a scene where Mace almost gets his arm chewed off by putting it in a tree with this.

Now Cindel is just fine.

The kids try to sneak away, but they should be careful out there, it looks like there’s a werewolf howling at the moon.

Scratch that! It’s one of those Rodents Of Unusual Size that Wesley fought in the Fire Swamp.

They find something on the creature that leads them to believe that their parents are still alive. Now it’s time to go out and hunt for them. But first we need to hand out special items to the members of the caravan that will go to search for the parents.

Mace gets stuck with a rock. That’s no good. The rock arcs over anything you throw it at.

How is Mace supposed to save his parents from Jason Voorhees? Now they head out and make me depressed that I can’t go hiking right now.

Next Mace makes a rookie mistake that people who approach California ponds frequently make. He gets really close to the water when…

suddenly he is erased from the frame leaving only his reflection in the water…

before we cut to him trapped under the water like he’s under ice.

It could have been worse. It could have been this pond just a few miles from my East Bay California home.

After he’s rescued and some more travel, we get to the next plot point. Nukie flies by the tent.

Actually, it’s a bunch of light that is collected and turns into Mace’s own personal little fairy.

Time for more walking. They finally arrive at “The Dreaded Forbidden Fortress Of The Giant Thorax (???)”.

Good thing Ives told us that because otherwise I thought they arrived at the poster for The Keep (1983). Now we find out what the rock from earlier was about. Turns out it’s hollow.

Inside is an arrowhead that was clearly placed inside there by some Native Endorian Indians. The arrowhead flies toward and underneath a rock. The kid blows the rock away with his gun. Inside, Mace decides to leave Cindel behind for her own safety. Now the Ewoks mean business. This one puts on its Thor helmet just in case they run into Vincent D’Onofrio and don’t have the money they owe him.

Now they reach a cavern, but unlike Indy, they have a web they can climb across.

They fight a huge spider, which falls down the cavern, then magically pops up again before getting defeated.

Now we finally get a good look at the creature holding the kids’ parents.

After a battle that takes the strength of all of them working together, they defeat the monster who also falls down the cavern, then is magically back at the top of it before ultimately being stopped.

They all make it out alive. Mace lets the fairy thing loose and Cindel gets her wings.

This is when Burl Ives comes back to leave us with these parting words: “Reunited, the families enjoy the simple pleasures of being together. Having learned something they already knew. That courage, loyalty, and love are the strongest forces in the universe.”

And when those don’t work, just shoot lasers…

and throw hatchets.

This is a harmless little 80s children’s fantasy/sci-fi movie. The thing is there are better films of this sort from that same time period such as Labyrinth (1986), The Never Ending Story (1984), and Willow (1988). I’d say this is for Star Wars completionists only.