The Ewok Adventures – 2 movies located on the planet Endor (which should be known to all Star Wars fans out there as the planet where the final battle against the empire is taking place in Episode 6) – might be the cutest SciFi movies out there.
I watched both “Caravan of Courage” as well as “The battle for Endor” far before I watched the original Star Wars Trilogy. The story is set somewhere between Episode 5 and 6 of Star Wars. Written by Jim and Ken Wheat and produced by George Lucas, the Ewok Adventures were presented to the American audience in November 1984 and won two Primetime Emmy Awards for outstanding children’s programming and outstanding special visual effects.
A space ship crashed on the small moon, the place called Endor. The Towani family is separated during the crash, and the parents, Jeremitt and Catarine, cannot locate their children Mace and his little sister Cindel. The children are found by the Ewoks and – after some struggles – become friends. When the Ewoks kill a beast, they find one of the life monitors of the children’s parents close by. Soon they find out that the Towani parents have been kidnapped by the monstrous Gorax. The “Caravan of Courage” sets off to find Gorax’s lair to rescue Mace and Cindel’s parents. When the Towani after many adventures are reunited, they decide to stay with the Ewoks until they can repair their starcruiser.
When the Towani are ready and preparing to leave the forest-moon of Endor, the village of the Ewoks is attacked by a group of marauders around their leader Terak and the sorceress Charal. Many Ewoks are killed during the battle. Cindel escapes but is forced to leave her family behind. Wicket, Cindel’s and Mace’s best friend, Teek – a native from the planet – and the girl meet Noa, a kind-hearted human turning out to be friend and support. Charal is ordered by Terak to find Cindel, because he assumes Cindel will be able to get a stolen energy cell to work. Cindel eventually is found and captured by the sorceress and imprisoned at the marauders’ castle. The friends rush to her rescue. Noa is trying to repair his own starcruiser, the only thing missing is an energy cell. The friends manage to escape with the energy cell, but during the installation Terak and his men attack and manage to kidnap Cindel again. Another battle breaks out…
I personally love both movies dearly. I watched them as a child, when my parents and their best friend were playing cards together. Once a year he would bring the movies with him and me and my brothers were allowed to stay up late and watch both Ewok adventures. Even now, years later, I love those films. Yes, they aren’t up to par in the special effects of modern SciFi movies. But the storylines are really good and both films are a pleasure to watch for both children and adults. Considering those films were shot in the 80s the effects are really good, too.
The double feature DVD is rather expensive with 39,70 Euro for the German translation, and even more expensive in the original language with 141 Euro. I would recommend buying the German version, since the original language is available in the gGrman version also. Because to be honest – close to 40 bucks for those movies that I happen to love and still enjoy is ok. A small fortune for the original version without any additional languages but only English, is far from acceptable.
