Trollheart

Interregnum I: Star Bears?

Rather unfortunately for me, who has made no secret of his disdain for the goddamn Ewoks, it seems someone had the bright idea to make not only one movie about them, but two. How I wish I didn’t have to suffer through this, but sadly it’s as much a part of the Star Wars story as is a TV series about our two favourite droids, so I can’t avoid it. I wonder how they managed dialougue, given that the damn furry bastards don’t talk in English? Perhaps that will turn out to be a blessing. All right then, may need a few stiff drinks for this one. And I don’t even drink! But maybe after this, I will.


Title: Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
Year: 1984
Format: TV Movie
Broadcast Chronology: After Return of the Jedi
Universe Chronology: Dunno, or care
Basic premise: Ewoks help some kids find their lost parents, or something
Starring: Warwick Davis as Wicket W. Warrick (seriously?), Aubree Miller as Cindel Towani, Eric Walker as Mace Towani, Fionnuala Flanagan as Caterine Towani, Guy Boyd as Jeremitt Towani
Directed by: John Korty
General reaction: Negative
Personal reaction: Negative
Rating: 4/10

Right well clearly there’s only one way I’m getting through this, and that’s by unmercifully ripping the piss out of it. Which is what I will do, and I anticipate there being many opportunities for such derision and scorn. Look, I had to BUY this damn thing! Yes, it was only a buck fifty, what’s your point? I still had to purchase a movie I have no real interest in seeing. I couldn’t download it, the Y had only trailers, what’s a guy supposed to do? The suffering I go through in the name of my art, honestly. So the least I can do is have some fun with it, which I hope I will. So on the forest moon of Endor (duh) two concerned parents look for their kids, who have vanished after I guess they crashed here. As they search they’re attacked by some sort of big monster with an axe, who probably wants to know where Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are, and what this pile of crap is supposed to be?

I mean, it’s more like a Disney live-action adventure from the 1960s than anything to do with Star Wars, and it’s of course not long before the annoying Ewoks show up, one of them doing a Laura Ingalls across the field, another getting ready to fly off in his machine (how have such primitive creatures managed to master flight, when it took us nearly two thousand years?) in search of his missing kids, whom he finds, and then finds - anyone? Yeah, the missing human kids. At least one of them has balls. And a gun. Looks a little like a very young Luke Skywalker really. He’s quickly overpowered and taken to the camp, where no doubt the stupid Ewoks will regale him with tales of when they took on the mighty empire and helped the Alliance. Puke.

The kind, grandfatherly voice of Burl Ives doesn’t help to make this any more bearable, as if anything could, and the youngest kid is like a poster child for Cherubs R Us. Double puke. There’s a tiny little part of the Star Wars fanfare there, as if it’s embarrassed to be caught where it is, but otherwise there’s little to indicate this has anything to do with the greatest saga ever to sweep the galaxy. There’s a certain sense of racism - well, speciesism I guess - when Mace, the older kid, describes the Ewoks as animals, while the younger one, Cindel, sees them more as friends.

Not very clever to head off into the forest of an unknown moon at night, and in pretty short order they’re being hunted, on the menu for some hungry beast. They take shelter in the trunk of a tree and have to be rescued by the Ewoks the next morning. Tell me this: why is it, when people realise the person they’re talking to can’t understand them, that they talk very slowlyyyy as if somehow that is going to make them be more intelligible? Looks like the local witch doctor has located their parents in his crystal ball or whatever, and now they’re captives of some giant. Well of course they are. So now they’re off to see, and slay, the giant, which I suppose is a kind of a metaphor for Luke and his friends taking on the gigantic power of the empire. Or something. God, even Burl Ives sounds bored. I know I am.

So now the Caravan of Cunts, sorry Courage is on the way. Maybe they’ll all get eaten by wild beasts. No? Guess not. Kids’ film, so not exactly expecting much in the way of violence, death or gore. In fact, it’s very Disney, with even its own little version of Tinkerbell. Jesus! Come on! Bring on the giant! Time to grind some bones to make his bread. Preferably Ewok bones. Hey, has anyone noticed that Ewok is just an anagram of Wookie, minus two letters? How lazy. Hah! Good to see that no matter what far-flung future (or, you know, past) you’re in, or how far into space, the answer to all of life’s problems can be found in the hands of a kid with a gun. Makes you feel all sort of warm and Republican, doesn’t it?

Seeing a lot of elements of Lord of the Rings here - long journey, quest, fellowship, magical items, underground chamber, dwarves, giant spider, evil giant - well I guess it’s a good turnaround. The parents are now helpless and the kid has to save them. Also the idea of small creatures being able to outwit and outfight a much larger but slower opponent. Tell you what though, that giant bears more than a passing resemblance to a Klingon warrior! More of the triumph of little things over big when Tinkerbell distracts the giant and he ends up going on a really bad trip, man.

And of course we end on a fucking Ewok dance and party. Basically Jack and the Beanstalk, without the beanstalk. Or the magic harp. Very definitely for kids and not likely to appeal to anyone over the age of maybe six or seven. Still, you know, to be fair, this movie has really given me a new insight into these little guys and made me think about them in a completely different way. Oh no wait, it hasn’t. I still hate the little bastards, maybe more than I did before. Oh well, at least it’s over.

Title: Ewoks; Battle for Endor
Year: 1985
Format: TV movie
Broadcast Chronology: After Caravan of Courage
Universe Chronology: Dunno
Basic premise: No idea. I’ll assume they battle for Endor.Okay I checked and apparently most of the cast, all of the family from the previous movie, bar the girl, die, and then there’s some sort of inter-tribe war over the engines of a starcruiser or something, and some human whose presence there doesn’t seem to be explained in the synopsis, and I don’t care. Thankfully, despite diligent efforts (no really!) I can’t get my hands on it. What a disappointment.
Starring: Warwick Davis as Wicket W. Warrick, Aubree Miller as Cindel Towani, Eric Walker as Mace Towani, Paul Gleason as Jeremitt Towani, Wilfred Brimley as Noa Briqualon, Carel Struycken as Terak, Sian Philips as Charal, Niki Botelho as Teek
Directed by: Ken and Jim Wheat
General reaction: More or less negative
Personal reaction: n/a
Rating: n/a

Now be fair! I looked online, I tried YT, I was even willing to bite the bullet and purchase the cursed thing (as long as it wasn’t more than a buck fifty) but taste prevailed apparently, and it’s available nowhere. So it with a heavy heart I can’t review this, but I doubt it’s any loss. I do note that though the father is in it (and dies) he’s played by another actor - assume the original one said no fucking way am I doing that shit again - while Fionnuala Flanagan, who had little to do in the first movie other than wander around the forest and then spend time sitting in a cage, although at least she did get to shoot the giant, correctly believed her talents would be better utilised elsewhere, and her character isn’t even in it. I didn’t like either of the kids, but if I was forced to watch one I think it would be my choice to have the watch Mace, the boy, however here the movie concentrates apparently on little cherub Cindel, so thank the great maker I don’t have to suffer through it. We move on.

Interregnum II: Cartoon Wars: Star Wars Comes to the Telly

While we waited - most of us with extreme skeptism - for the continuation of the story in the much-mooted prequel movies, and paid exorbitant sums to therapists to help us forget the damned Ewoks, the next natural progression for Star Wars was for it to make its transition to the small screen. After all, TV shows are a lot cheaper to make than movies, and you have a ready-made captive audience, not to mention that if the series is any good, chances are you’ll have them watching every week. Naturally, animated was the way to go, though in recent years the first live-action series have begun to appear, but the restrictions of the latter versus the former, both in terms of securing actors, sets and stage time and also in the area of special effects and budget, makes animation always the more attractive prospect. Also, as originally Star Wars was produced, or seen as being produced for kids, it made more sense to appeal to that market. Adults might go to see a movie they’d been told was great, but the chances of them sitting through a whole television series were, at the time, remote. This being the 1980s, people wanted shows about cops, lawyers, soaps and the like; there were science fiction and fantasy shows on the telly - most notably Star Wars’ biggest rival franchise - but apart from the dedicated fans of those shows, they were not considered huge draws for adults.

But hey, kids always love cartoons right? And even if it had been somewhat commandeered by adults, kids pretty much unilaterally loved Star Wars, and kids loved TV, so it should really have been a match made in Heaven. Two characters surely ready-made for their own adventures were of course the first two we see in the very first movie, and so the scene was set for the first spin-off of the franchise.


Title: Droids
Year: 1985 - 1986
Format: TV Series
Broadcast Chronology: After Return of the Jedi
Universe Chronology: 4 years after Revenge of the Sith, 15 years before A New Hope
Basic premise: The adventures of R2D2 and C3PO before they meet Luke Skywalker
Number of episodes: 13 (plus one special)
Status: Finished
Starring: (The voices of) Anthony Daniels as C3PO, Ben Burtt as R2D2 (wait, what?)
Directed by: Ken Stephenson, Raymond Jafelice
General reaction: Meh
Personal reaction: Meh
Rating: 4/10

Let’s be honest: we’re not expecting very much here, are we? This is essentially for kids, so I don’t imagine we’ll have any great galactic concepts or sweeping sagas, but hopefully it will be less than R2 learning that it’s nice to be nice or some shite like that. Let’s hope the show has at least something about it, and can hold its head up rather than cringe in the corner and wonder why it was born. I’m not looking for miracles, and my expectations are very low, but if I can come away from this not feeling embarrassed for the show, then that will be something.

Yeah, well two episodes in and I’m ready to haul ass out of here. The music is annoyingly limp-wristed and insipid, there is at least a basic plot arc revolving around the theft of a super weapon from galactic gangsters, and it’s not entirely cartoony, but there is an element of something like Scooby-Doo about it. It’s hard to care, and I don’t. Probably, to be fair, a little better than I had expected, and even though I would prefer to avoid the (groan) Ewoks, who are up next, I’m not prepared to watch any more of this. So while it’s not a pile of Sarlacc crap, it’s not something I want to get into in any sort of serious way.

And speaking of things I do not want to get into…

Title: Ewoks
Year: 1985 - 1986
Format: TV animated series
Universe Chronology: Prior to A New Hope and also prior to Caravan of Courage
Basic premise: Adventures of Ewoks
Number of episodes: 26 (2 seasons)
Status: Finished
Starring: (Voices of) Jim Henshaw, Denny Delk, Cree Summer, Jeanne Reynolds, Erik Peterson
Directed by: Raymond Jafelice, Ken Stephenson, Dale Schott
General reaction: Meh
Personal reaction: Puke
Rating: 1/10 - no, fuck it: 0.5/10. Doesn't deserve the 1.

Given that I’ve already suffered through the bloody Caravan of Courage, and further, given my already noted dislike of these pointless characters, you’ll understand I hope that I’m not about to sit through two fucking seasons of this rubbish. I read, anyway, that it was more seen as a marketing ploy to sell toys to kids (never! You do surprise me!) than a serious attempt at a series, so I doubt there’s going to be much there. I’ll check out one episode, see what it’s like, and we’ll move on to more serious, important stuff. Okay, well first they look more like chipmunks or something than Ewoks, and second, they’re speaking bloody English! Sigh. And they have their own song. Of course they do. Did kids fall for this?

Well, according to the comments on YouTube, yes, they did. Lot of fond memories, apparently. Not for me though. Music sounds a little like the Mister Men to my ears. Well I guess give them credit for having the big spiders and the sparkly Tinkerbells from the movies. Yeah I lasted about ten minutes then lost interest. It was as poor and bland as I expected. How in hell did this ever get two seasons? Oh yeah: the Star Wars brand and the merchandising. Right. Well, we will be returning to the TV later, when Star Wars got taken a bit more seriously, but for now, speaking of serious, it’s time to return to the main franchise, the movies, as Lucas finally got up off his arse and wrote, and had released, the second trilogy.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018