Ewoks - Kampf um Endor

This movie is a little painful to watch now days, but I remember really loving it as a kid. The important thing about this film is that is does nothing to tarnish my love for the original trilogy. You can make a bad Star Wars film and that's fine, but when you destroy the characters I grew up with and loved and change the story so that it no longer makes sense with the original, that's when we have a major problem Ryan Johnson.

If you don't count behind the scenes programs and internet films like Dark Redemption featuring Myra Jade, this is the best of the Star Wars television offerings. Yes it is rough in some places, but it is an improvement over The Ewok Adventure and I give this one extra points for having the balls to kill that annoying older brother Eric Walker right at the top. I wonder what happened to the little kid Cindel. I though she was quite promising. I personally think aiming at children in film writing can water down the dramatic impact. The ewoks were the Jar-Jars of Return of the Jedi, a dramatic buffer between incidents in which we already had an emotional investment. The Mos Eisely Cantina would be a more lucrative setting for a TV series or set of TV movies.

This movie is surprisingly dark at times, and for no clear reason. It doesn't explore the dark things that happen very much (there is one "dream"-scene which is the exception to this), and it's not really necessary to the plot. There would be plenty of ways to write around it. I don't mind a movie like this having dark sides (see what I did there?), but if you don't explore them or put them to use, they serve no purpose, and is only in the way of the story.

But fair enough, lets look away from that. The movie follows Cindel and Wicket - both feeling more like sidekicks than they do protagonists. They end up in trouble a couple of times, and after a while meet Teek and Neo. These are more like side characters, the good helpers the hero meets on his way. The four of them works as a group in a sense, but even when they have a clear purpose, it feels like they have no aim. I think the movie wants Wicket to be the main hero of this movie. It's hard to have clumsy and heroic characters at the same time, but it is possible.

The story is not really that interesting, and some of the plot elements in the movie feels a bit out of place, especially the ring and the witch-like Charal-character. It all builds up to the final battle for Endor, which is an obvious attempt to capture the magic from Star Wars episode VI. The battle is alright, but because neither the heroes nor the villains are particularly interesting, the big battle itself doesn't really grab a hold of you.

Like in the previous Ewok film, the most interesting part are the visuals. This movie has some nice stop motion, especially the creatures the marauders ride. I also quite like the Teek character. Some of the scenes with him running are great fun.

While I appreciate what they tried to do here: give the story some gravitas, create an ensemble of interesting characters on a quest, risking everything for each other, etc. etc. - it just doesn't work, and the charm from the previous movie is not to be found in this one. At least not as strongly.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The adventure continues. One level up and not so irritable story about little Ewoks. Loved the cutie Teek. But it still feels more like a movie about magic and the Middle Ages than Star Wars.

This steady-going follow-up is simply both more and less. Even though the stop-motion effects look out of date, the visual quality is an improvement over the previous Ewok adventure. You won't be seeing too many strings attached anymore, and the costume appearances are much cleaner. What it lacks for the continuous thrills and excitement of the last one greatly gains in the characters including "Cindel", "Noa", and the stellar cast of Ewoks. Both movie adventures aren't too shabby when it comes to George Lucas' imaginable sensations, but does this mean they're an absolute must-have for every STAR WARS collector? Hmmm....