AndrewBloom
CONTAINS SPOILERS5/10 2 years ago
[4.9/10] People come to Star Wars for myriad reasons. Some enjoy the epic tales of adventure. Some appreciate the spiritual story of choosing between right and wrong. But others just enjoy spending time in the world. One of the lasting legacies of George Lucas and company’s creation is the specific ecosystem they forged on the silver screen. Fans didn’t just want to see a farm boy save the galaxy or choose the side of the light. They wanted to hang out in this lived-in world of smugglers and scoundrels, knights and villains.
That's the best I can offer for *Ewoks: Battle for Endor*, the 1985 T.V. movie that sits in contention for the worst Star Wars movie of all time. Its plot, and I use the term generously, is bantha dung. There’s no real theme or broader point to speak of. But if you just like spending time with the Ewoks, and are a young child who wants to imagine a scenario in which you might be able to hang out in their wooded homeland, then this one's for you.
The film tells the story of Cindel, the young girl from the previous Ewok movie, who seeks refuge alongside Wicket after their families are killed or captured by a grisly race of monsters who are after the humans’ “power.” It is, shall we say, a bold choice to kill of Cindel’s parents and brother, who were so prominent and important in the last film, within the first ten minutes of this one. It establishes the villainous band who slays them and rounds up the Ewoks as particularly scary and dangerous in the early going.
But it never matters much after that. Cindel has one scene where she basically goes “Oh no! My family!” and Wicket responds, “We’ll be your family now” and that's essentially it. She shares one scene with a reluctant caretaker later in the film where she remembers her mom with some sadness, and nightmare that the monsters will return with legitimate spooks. The deaths of the three people closest to Cindel are effectively set dressing to an unrelated story, in a way that makes you wonder why they didn’t just introduce a new little girl instead of trying to tie this to the last film.
Most charitably, you can say it provides her a reason to grow attached to Noa, a woodsy hermit played by Wilford Brimley. Noa is a stock character, the grumpy, cantankerous, seemingly antisocial loner who secretly has a heart of gold. Yet, somehow, Brimley makes a lot out of a little, exuding genuine warmth and a plausible attachment to the irksome little moppet, both of which come off better than anything else in the movie.
Maybe it’s just that Brimley’s the only person in this film who can act. That is, perhaps, no great achievement. Poor little Aubree Miller is no better here as Cindel than she was in the last film, a detriment given her increased screen time. But that's on the director and producers for choosing to put so much on her little kid shoulders. *Battle for Endor* is, even more than the last flick, an “Imagine this was you, kids!” story, so presumably the choice was made so that she could be a blank slate for impressionable young viewers to fill in with themselves. But the results suffer, and almost everyone else here has to gesticulate and emote through layers of prosthesis or rubber masks or mascot costumes.
They are, admittedly, the best part of the film. Say what you will about the quality of the narrative or the rambling pointlessness of the movie as a whole, but production designer Joe Johnston and his team continue to do yeoman’s work. As generically evil as Turak and his monster crew are, the look of them rightfully does the heavy lifting here. The impish Teek is a new furry addition whose superspeed and miming make him the most endearing addition to the Ewok world. The coziness of Noa’s home, the junkiness of his old ship, and the imposing nature of the villains’ castle give this setting a flavor even if there’s nothing substantial behind it. The visuals and direction suffer in comparison to *Caravan of Courage*, given a greater reliance on immersion-breaking stop motion over puppetry and more conspicuous green screen effects. But there’s still inviting and evocative backdrops galore as Johnston brings the same attention to detail he did with the mainline films.
Still, to what end? The previous Ewoks movie was certainly aimed at a younger audience, but by god, it had an idea and a story by which to express it! Cyndel and Mace wanted to save their parents. The Ewoks wanted to help defeat the evil Gorax. The shared importance of family, whether of flesh or of fur, united the two unfamiliar groups. It wasn’t deep, but it was enough, and gave the film both some momentum and some heft.
*Battle for Endor*, by contrast, is completely rudderless. Cindel and Wicket never have a larger goal or personal concern. Once they escape from the villains, there’s never any urgency to finding help or rescuing the other Ewoks or grapple with the loss of family. Instead, they’re content to play house and make friends with a woodsman. The trollish villains want the “power” -- which turns out to be the fuel source for the human starship -- but it’s never clear what they want it for. And Charal the witch (a precursor to the Nightsisters), is under the thumb of Turak, the monster gang leader, but it’s never clear why she can’t just change into her avian guise and fly away forever.
Nobody has any motivation here. There’s no real story, just a series of set pieces and vignettes that roll into one another. It’s striking how much worse all of this is than in *Caravan of Courage*, which wasn’t exactly the peak of filmmaking, but was solid and sound in a way this movie simply isn’t. Even the major sequences, of tricking the monsters or going toe-to-toe with them in battle, are dull and interminable, with no real inventiveness or narrative propulsion to give them some charm or importance. Things just sort of happen in this movie, and few of them are worth caring about.
And yet, at roughly the halfway point, the film briefly stops pretending it’s an urgent story about fighting alien monsters or saving pals from an evil witch, and becomes a slice of life vignette about a grumpy old man finding his joy again in caring for a little girl. I cannot imagine why anyone over the age of ten would bother with this film, but it’s not hard to picture a tyke sitting in front of the T.V. in 1985, and feeling the warmth of a grumpy but ultimately kind good samaritan looking after them and their teddy bear best friend, at the behest of his own furry pal.
Millions of kids dreamed of living in the Star Wars universe, whether that meant fighting to destroy the Death Star or hanging out with Luke Skywalker’s cuddly allies. *Battle for Endor* doesn’t offer much, but it does offer another canvas, another sandbox, for young ones to project themselves into for ninety minutes at a time.
