Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)

Sadly Over-hyped

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Marauders raid the Ewok village and steal a power supply they believe to be magical. Wicket helps Cindel escape the evil witch Charal, and they befriend a hermit who may help them save the village. Just like with the first film Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a film that except the fact that is boring and dull the Star Wars name is been butchered to death. There are so many characters like the old man that lives in the woods or the villain that looks like fish. And basically the entire film is uninteresting and i got bored a lot it's made for kids and kids will like it but hardcore fans of Empire Strikes Back and the original Star Wars Trilogy will get some Holiday Special flashbacks plus it feels cheap a lot like the Hercules TV Show with Kevin Sorbo from the acting to the characters themselves. Overall Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a movie that kids should see but everyone else? No!!

The Battle for Endor makes a number of improvements that luckily make it over-all a better film than the previous "Caravan of Courage". The film's mood is decisively darker and more serious, its cinematography is cleaner and for this it almost manages to capture the flavour of "The Return of the Jedi" and other bigger Star Wars films.Moreover, the film does away with the dreadful narrator of the first film by allowing Wicket to speak and simultaneously giving him more character. In all, the characters of BFE are far more colourful and interesting than those of the previous film. Additionally the aliens, the Marauders, add a nice sinister element which makes the film all the more dramatic.The only points of criticism for the film are undoubtedly its kid-friendly story and the character of Noa who delivers a number of unconvincing lines throughout the picture.None the less, The Battle for Endor is just exciting enough so that it wont traumatize the kids and will make the film fun for the adults as well.

Finally, I can connect the dots between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace. We see here where Lucas lost touch with what made the original Star Wars films great and began to descend into the plot less tripe that ruined episodes 1-3. This film is more like one of those cheesy low-budget 80s swords and sorcerer films than anything worthy of being associated with the Star Wars saga. As with the Jar-Jar character, this seems targeted at children (and the toy market). The battle scenes are particularly bad. It was depressing to see Sian Phillips' incredible talent go to such a waste, after her classic performance in I, Claudius.

This story of an orphaned girl and the lovable teddy bear ewoks is no masterpiece by far, but still is a great family movie. I loved the ewok movies as a child, and I believe that generations of children will love it in the future. 7.4 out of 10.