Fishing in the Discount Bin - Ewoks: The Battle for Endor

Here we go again with Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I blog about one of the many movies I own.  We're taking a brief look at George Lucas's Ewok TV movies, and today we do The Battle for Endor.  This is in my notes at May 15, 2015.

I have more vivid memories of the second Ewoks TV movie, The Battle for Endor, probably because it has the more brutal beginning. 

It's a few months after The Ewok Adventure.  Cindall's father almost has their star cruiser fixed, and they're getting ready to go home.  But then, a band of Marauders attacks!  Cindall's mother...dead.  Mace, Cindall's brother and the hero of the first film...dead.  Cindall's father makes the ultimate so Cindall can get away.

Let me make it clear:  THE MOVIE BEGINS WITH THE ENTIRE FAMILY FROM THE LAST FILM DYING.

According to the directors, when they sat down with George Lucas to hammer out a story, Lucas had just re-watched Heidi and was in love with the premise of an orphan girl going to live with her hermit grandfather, and thus drawing the grandfather out of his shell.  So this meant our heroine Cindall had to become an orphan. 

And we need to introduce our hermit grandfather.  That would be Wilford Brimley as Noa.  He's got a bit of an interesting back story.  So Noa and his partner Salek were a couple of young entrepreneurs out to take on the galaxy, when their star cruiser crashed on the forest moon of Endor.  Salek went out to scavenge for parts to fix their ship, and Noa has spent a years-long vigil waiting for his friend to return.  So...he's essentially Han Solo, alone on a deserted planet, waiting for Chewbacca to return. 

And the disappearance of Salek kind of sets up the story.  The Marauders, led by Terrak, captured Salek and were convinced that the power crystals he sought to repair their spaceship were some kind of great magic talismans that would bestow ultimate power.  So with Salek's blueprints having become ancient texts, and his scavenged parts mysterious talismans, Terrak is eager to decode their mysteries and gain this ultimate power.  Eventually, he's convinced Cindall is a sorceress who knows how to make it work.

Now I mentioned last time that these films delve a lot more into fantasy, and that's more so here in this second film.  Here, we get a straight-up witch.  Charal, Terrak's court sorceress, who has a magic ring that lets her turn into a raven.  She sadly doesn't have that much to do, aside from kidnapping Cindall at one point.  It's kind of out of place and makes me wonder if Lucas was simply doing a dry run for Willow. 

This one is definitely a lot more intense than the first one.  There's more action, Brimley proves to be a rather cantankerous yet capable action hero, and are villains seem more villainous.  It's mostly fun, if still suffering from a lower TV budget.  All I remember is that 8-year old me really loved it, so that has to count for something.