Ewok Films: Welcome Additions to the Star Wars Universe

In 1977, George Lucas gave the world Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the first of his famed Star Wars Trilogy, and changed the way we looked at movies. Lucas released the second of his Trilogy, the Empire Strikes Back, in 1980, and concluded the Trilogy in 1983 with the penultimate film Return of the Jedi. Near the close of the Millennium, Lucas would give us another Star Wars Trilogy, Episode I, II, and III, and introduce a new generation of fans to his cinematic masterpiece.

But between these Trilogies, Lucas gave us two additional films. These films spun-off from the original Trilogy and featured those furry characters from Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks. These films are mainly family films and certainly not up to the caliber of the Star Wars Trilogy. Nevertheless, they're quite enjoyable in their own right.

There were two of them made, Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor, both set on the Forest Moon of Endor seen in Return of the Jedi. The first, Caravan, was released in 1984, one year after Return of the Jedi. It features the adventures of the Towani family as they crashland on the Forest Moon. Mom and Dad look for the children, teenager Mace and his little sister Cindel, in the night, presumably shortly after the crash, where they are found and taken captive by a gigantic creature. Later, a family of Ewoks finds the crashed vessel and discover the two children inside. The children have apparently returned to the crash site.

So the two Towanis take refuge int he Ewok village. Yes, it's the same village seen in Return of the Jedi, and the main Ewok seen in the film is Wicket, who is unmistakable from Return of the Jedi. To make the summary incredibly short, the children learn that their parents are held by the giant Gorax, they put together a caravan with the Ewoks to rescue the parents, accomplish the task, and return to the Ewok village. The film ends with the family deciding to stay on Endor until they can fix their starcruiser.

In the next film, Battle for Endor, released a year later in 1985, the Towani family is murdered by Sanyassan Marauders. Except for Cindel. The Ewok village is ransacked and most of the Ewoks captured by the Marauders. Cindel and Wicket manage to escape and take refuge with a hermit named Noa. At first, Noa is a cantankerous old man who just wants Cindel and Wicket out of his house. But he comes to care for the little girl. A witch-like character named Charal manages to capture Cindel and take her to the Marauders. She learns that the Marauders killed her parents to obtain a power cell of some sort from their starcruiser. Terak, the Marauder Chief, wants Cindel to use her magic to make the device work. Cindel doesn't have magic, and she doesn't know what the device even is.

Well, the Ewoks and Cindel are rescued. The Marauders are defeated. Cindel and Noa depart the Forest Moon on Noa's starship, which he has secretly been repairing throughout his years on Endor.

The plots of both films are pretty simple, and nothing to write home about. But they are both heartwarming family stories with repeat value all their own. Caravan features a narrator, none other than the great Burl Ives. Both films are notable for containing some of the last sequences of stop-motion animation used by Industrial Light and Magic. And it's done pretty well.

These films tend to get overlooked in the Star Wars universe. I don't believe it's a reflection on the films at all. I think it's simply because the films are spin-offs and do not feature main characters from the parent Trilogy. The films do have a connection to the Star Wars film. There's the blatant Rebel pilot look that Mace mimics. The titular Ewoks are a dead give-away. Then there's the toy Imperial Walker that an Ewok owns in Caravan.

Some elements of the two films are a bit unique. The Star Wars Trilogy has one supernatural element, the Force. These films feature a heavy dose of magic and mysticism. In the first film, the Ewok mystic Logray uses a spinning magic lantern to find the Towani parents. Members of the caravan also obtain magical objects that help them during their quest. Battle for Endor introduces Charal, who exhibits the magic prowess we would associate with a witch or sorceress. Official sources suggest that Charal is a Nightsister who escaped Dathomir. Nightsisters were basically Force-gifted women who used the Force for magical purposes. Fans have offered several explanations, but I don't see it as a problem. We know the Star Wars universe is very big, certainly big enough to accommodate magic.

There's also the character of Teek in Battle for Endor. He's another little furry creature, and another native of Endor. Certainly a cute addition to the franchise, Teek can run incredibly fast. No ridiculously fast. His speed ultimately helps the party escape the Marauders in Battle for Endor. In an almost heartbreaking scene, Teek stays on his native Endor, forsaking Noa and Cindel at the conclusion of Battle for Endor.

Official sources place these adventures before Return of the Jedi. I believe they are better placed after Jedi, as do many fans. In the Ewoks films, an Imperial presence is certainly absent, but an Ewok in Caravan owns a toy resembling an Imperial Walker. This implies an Imperial presence in the near past. Plus, there's the language problem. The Ewoks speak Ewokese, a language invented for them for their role in Return of the Jedi. But Cindel teaches Wicket to speak Basic. In Battle for Endor, a few other Ewoks are heard speaking Basic. If these events precede Return of the Jedi, why does Wicket not speak Basic when he encounters Leia?

Well, some sources say that the Towani family speaks a different language other than Basic. It simply "sounds" like Basic for the benefit of the audience. I don't buy it. In no other film does a human speak any language other than Galactic Basic. It makes more sense to assume the Towanis speak the same language as the rest of the Galaxy.

The characters here are created specifically for the films, but Cindel Towani would make an appearance in the Expanded Universe. She appears as a reporter in Tyrant's Test, Book 3 of the Black Fleet Crisis. And she has a fairly important role. She leaks a story to the press that gains sympathy in the New Republic and the Senate. She's come a long way from that old Caravan.

Bottom line? I give both film solid A's. They tend to get overlooked, because they are spin-offs. But I call them very successful spin-offs. Battle for Endor is sometimes considered a dry-run for Willow, a George Lucas production also featuring Warwick Davis (the actor who played Wicket). The characters introduced here have an extremely fleeting relationship to the parent series, the exception being Cindel and she only appears in another Expanded Universe work. But the films successfully expand the Star Wars universe, in a way that Lucas doesn't want to deny (unlike the Holiday Special).

Good family entertainment with a slight Star Wars twist.