Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure - Film Review
Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure is directed by John Korty, and stars Eric Walker, Warwick Davis, Fionnula Flanagan, Guy Boyd, Aubrey Miller, and narrated by Burl Ives.
Plot
Set before Return of the Jedi, Wicket the Ewok (Warwick Davis) and his friends agree to help two shipwrecked human children, Mace and Cindel (Eric Walker, Aubrey Miller), on a quest to find their parents.
Review
Not entirely sure where to start with this one. I was going to review this for the Forcethon I held last year in hype for The Last Jedi, but I couldn't find them. But I found these online and I figured I would review them before I see Solo: A Star Wars Story.
According to the now defunct Expanded Universe webpage on the Star Wars website, this film and it's sequel are set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. That's when I was going to watch them during the marathon.
It seems that this movie is canon in the Star Wars Legends timeline, as the character of Cindel is referenced in the Black Fleet Crisis novel trilogy (are those books any good?) and the events are referenced as a character watching a TV show (or the galaxy's version of TV) in the novel Legacy of the Force: Fury (also, are those books any good? I have a couple of them).
These films were actually released in theaters in Europe, but over here they were just TV movies on ABC. George Lucas was actually pretty involved with the making of these movies as he has a story credit. I guess he wanted to redeem himself from the Holiday Special.
What do I think of Caravan of Courage itself? It's boring and rather dull. I'm sure this will be amazing to little kids, but if you're as old as I am (I am a teenager), it's one of the most dull and boring Star Wars movies ever made.
If you take away the Ewoks, blasters, and Endor, it's just another made-for-TV fantasy movie for kids. It's got a lot of stuff that just doesn't feel like Star Wars. It feels more like a fairy tale than a Star Wars movie. Instead of the Force and other science-fiction tropes, we have fairies and Magic and stuff.
I learned that ponies, rabbits, ferrets, owls, and horses exist in the Star Wars galaxy. Well then again we saw Anakin cutting up a pear in Attack of the Clones so whatever.
The most entertaining part of this movie is the scene of two Ewoks just beating each other up.
Instead of an opening crawl, we get narration by Burl Ives, who some of you may know as the snowman from Rankin/Bass' Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. I guess Lucasfilm learned their lesson from The Star Wars Holiday Special because in that, we have Wookiees talking to each other with no subtitles, or not much human interaction so you don't know what's going on, but in here Burl Ives pretty much explains what's going on for us.
This is a hard movie to review because a lot of it doesn't make sense. Like there's one scene where Wicket, Mace, and Cindel visit a "mystical Ewok" who spins a top and it tells Mace and Cindel where there parents are and that they're being held captive by a giant Gorax. Then they perform some Ewok ritual where they're all given a specific item, and Mace's is a rock but he tosses it aside but Wicket picks it up and it turns out to be important later. With all their items, they get on their caravan of courage and are off to the Gorax's hideout.
Another weird, pointless, throwaway scene is when Mace and some Ewok are having an axe throwing contest. Why? There's also a part where another mystical Ewok puts something in Mace's hand and it turns into a lizard and then Cindel picks it up and it turns into a mouse. What?
There's also a pointless "action" scene with a horse with the caravan attached to it runs away because it was startled and Cindel was inside it. It's like they needed something to fill time with.
There's also a scene where Mace is looking at some water, touches it, and then somehow gets teleported under the water even though you can still see his reflection. Even though he was trapped underwater, I didn't care that much.
There's also a scene with all these fairies flying around and Cindel sits a candle on the ground and then the fairies form a fairy tornado, go into the candle, and come out as one fairy. Yeah I don't get it either.
When they get to the Gorax's lair, they fight a giant spider and than Wicket literally stabs a giant spider multiple times until it falls into the trench and dies. Then they get to where Mace and Cindel's parents are being held and then Mace catapults to his parents and rescues them. Then they kill the Gorax and the day is saved or whatever. But that scene has the best part of the movie where an Ewok is crushed by rocks.
This movie is quite forgettable that I'm having trouble thinking of stuff to say.
Let's talk about the characters. I can't find much reason to care about them though.
Wicket is an Ewok who accompanies these kids on their journey to their parents. I can't think of much to say about him or the other Ewoks.
Eric Walker ranges from mediocre to awful in his performance as Mace Towani. There's a part where the Ewok from the axe throwing scene I mentioned chops down a tree in front of the caravan and Mace gets angry at him, but he takes a few seconds to start reacting. He 's also just bad at delivering his lines. When the Ewok dies near the end he has to act sad and you can just see how fake he looks.
Aubrey Miller isn't much better as Cindel, she's just Mace's younger sister and to some people, Captain Phasma from the sequels as a child. That just doesn't make sense, like Cindel seems like one of the nicest people in the movie, why would she serve the First Order? That just doesn't make sense. Can't think of much else to say about her or the movie so I'll just end it here.
Overall, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure is not as bad as the Holiday Special, it's just dull, boring, and very uneventful. This isn't a movie I see myself watching again anytime soon. Come back tomorrow for a review of Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure gets a 4.5/10. Just realized that's slightly higher than my review of Attack of the Clones. At least there's no cringeworthy romance.
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