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1985 American television film
- Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a 1985 American television film set in the Star Wars universe and co-written and directed by Jim and Ken Wheat from a story by George Lucas.
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Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a 1985 American television film set in the Star Wars universe and co-written and directed by Jim and Ken Wheat from a story by George Lucas.
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Is Ewoks based on a true story?
Nov 24, 1985 · Ewoks: The Battle for Endor: Directed by Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat. With Wilford Brimley, Warwick Davis, Aubree Miller, Siân Phillips. Marauders raid the Ewok village and steal a power supply they believe to be magical.
- (11K)
- Adventure, Family, Fantasy
- Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat
- 1985-11-24
- Overview
- Plot summary
- Development
- Release
- Reception
- Continuity
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a 1985 made-for-TV movie written and directed by brothers Jim and Ken Wheat from a story by George Lucas. It focuses on Cindel, a little girl who joins her friends Noa, Wicket and the other Ewoks in facing off against a band of Marauders. The film is a follow-up to 1984's Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.
The Sanyassan raid and tragedy
On the forest moon of Endor, Cindel Towani and Wicket Wystri Warrick are walking through the forest picking flowers. They reach a ledge overlooking her father, Jeremitt, who is finishing repairs on the star cruiser. She yells to him that she and Wicket are going back to the village. As they continue walking, Cindel and Wicket discuss the fact that she will be leaving soon, and how they are both sad about this. Wicket senses danger as they approach the village, and the pair run to investigate. When the pair reach the village, they find the Sanyassan Marauders attacking. They are immediately knocked down a hill by a Sanyassan with a staff, and hide behind a downed Sanyassan cart. Wicket tells Cindel to stay behind as he decides to join the rest of the Ewoks in defending the village. Cindel's life monitor reveals that her mother, Catarine's, life is fading, so she goes to investigate. The marauder shoots a bordok. She finds her brother, Mace, at the side of their dead mother. He tells her to stay back and to get help from their father. He tries to fight back against the Sanyassans, but is killed when a hut he is hiding in is blown up. During the battle, the Ewoks are all eventually captured and many of their huts burned down. At the Towani star cruiser, Jeremitt is confronted by Charal (a Nightsister) and Terak (leader of the Sanyassans). As they demand that he give them "the power," Terak's men tear apart the ship trying to find it. Jeremitt insists that he doesn't know what they're talking about and doesn't have what they are looking for, but one of Terak's men eventually finds what they are looking for. Cindel then reaches the ship, and Jeremitt attacks one of the men when he sees her. He attempts to escape, but is shot in the back by one of the Sanyassans. He picks Cindel up and they run into the forest. Meanwhile, Charal uses her ring to turn into a raven. As they hide at the trunk of a tree, Cindel tells her father that Catarine and Mace are dead. Jeremitt explains their situation by reminding her of a story about a young bird learning to fly. He tells her to find Deej and the Ewoks so that they can take care of her. She resists at first, but he hugs her and reassures her that he will always be with her. He sees Charal in raven form, who has alerted the Sanyassans. This prompts him to tell Cindel to run away, which she does as instructed. Jeremitt exchanges fire with the Sanyassans, but is soon killed. As Cindel runs away, Charal flies after and catches her.
Escaping captivity
At the captured Ewok village, Cindel is now being held prisoner with the Ewoks, but is happy to be reunited with Wicket. They are being held in carts being pulled by blurrgs, which then leave the village. Cindel explains to Wicket that her family is dead, but Wicket reassures her that he will take care of her and that the Ewoks are her new family. Some of the Ewoks tear a board out from the floor, but discover that they are too big to fit through. Despite this challenge, Cindel insists that she and Wicket could fit, so they slide on through and escape into the forest. However, two of the Sanyassans spot them, and shoot and chase after them. Cindel and Wicket climb up the side of a mountain, with the Sanyassans on their trail. They run into a cave. The Sanyassans shoot at the cave entrance, which causes rocks to fall and knock them off of the side of the mountain to their deaths. Cindel and Wicket realize that although they are safe from the Sanyassans, they are also trapped from the rock collapse. Wicket insists that they can find a way out. They walk through the cave until they find themselves at an opening atop a ledge overlooking the forest. Wicket then finds some materials to build a skin glider. Later, after they have built a fire, Wicket is almost finished with the glider. As he searches the cave for some final materials to put the finishing touches on the glider, he runs across a condor dragon. He runs from it and tries to hold it off with a spear and a rock. Cindel also throws a torch at it. However, this does not deter it, and it picks up Cindel and carries her away into the night sky. Wicket panics, but quickly gets on his glider and chases after it. He drops a stone on its head, which causes it to drop Cindel. He flies down and catches her, and then crashes the glider into the ground. They see the dragon overhead, which prompts them to run into the forest. When they stop, Wicket sees the dragon fly away, and tells Cindel that she is safe. They find a hollow tree trunk to rest in for the night.
Meeting Teek and Noa
The next morning, they are awoken by Teek, a very fast creature who annoys Wicket and amuses Cindel. Wicket tries to attack him, but Cindel insists he could help them. Teek leads them to a house, which they find to be messy and full of junk. Cindel assumes that it is deserted, and suggests that they clean it up and make it their house. Later, however, as they are preparing to eat, the house's owner Noa arrives at the door. He is very displeased with them being there, and sends them away. He then scolds Teek for letting them in. Cindel and Wicket sit down not far from the house, where they discuss how hungry they are. Noa finds the food they were making, and prepares he and Teek some of the food. Noa tells Teek not to give any of the food to Cindel or Wicket, but he does anyway while Noa isn't looking.
"Everything about working with Lucas and the people at ILM was fun. Even when things got completely crazy, it was still more like play than work... Not the norm, I'm afraid."
―Ken Wheat on making the film[4]
Following the success of Caravan of Courage, George Lucas decided that he wanted to create a second film.[5] He hired Jim and Ken Wheat as directors for the film after they told him that they thought Caravan of Courage had been flawed and disappointing.[6] Lucas then met with the Wheat brothers in two four-hour story conferences.[4][7] The brothers first proposed to him a story involving the entire Towani family.[8] However, Lucas had viewed the film Heidi with his daughter Amanda prior to the sessions, and told the Wheat brothers that he wanted the film to center around the young girl character of Cindel Towani, who would be orphaned and come into the care of an old man in the woods. Inspired by various adventure films they had seen as children, the Wheat brothers suggested the Marauders as villains, which Lucas felt should be seven feet tall. Joe Johnston and Phil Tippett took part in the second story conference.[4][7] Though the Wheat brothers were originally only hired to direct, it was judged that the original script was poor, so they were given screenwriting duties as well.[9]
The film was shot under complete secrecy.[10] During production, Lucas would visit the set three times per week, often to look at art and costume designs. He would voice his opinion of the designs using a set of rubber stamps made for him by Johnston that read "Great," "CBB" (could be better) and "86" respectively. According to Ken Wheat, Lucas's involvement was mainly in pre-production and editing: "He'd given almost no notes on the script at all, but after our first cut, he came up with an assortment of new scenes and shots for us to film and cut in. Apparently, that's the way he likes to work, and although we hadn't been tipped off in advance, producer Tom Smith had scheduled and budgeted this 'George Factor' from the beginning."[4][7] Warwick Davis explained his shooting schedule to Starlog magazine: "I did seven weeks from May 11 and then I went back to England. Two weeks later, I did a few more weeks." […] "We did quite a lot of location stuff in the Redwoods around San Rafael and then we went to ILM to do some of the special FX and most of the indoor scenes inside the cottage and castle." Davis performed several of his own stunts, including parts of the moat scene at Terak's castle.[10] Wilford Brimley did not like working with the Wheat brothers, so his scenes were shot by Joe Johnston.[11]
The film debuted as a holiday television special on ABC on November 24, 1985.[12][13] It was accompanied by a "parent's discretion" warning due to the violent nature of the film and the distressing theme of the death of Cindel's family.[14] The end credits rolled over a still image of the final shot (whereas all home video releases have the end credits rolling after the final scene, over a traditional black background).[15] The film later aired on the Disney Channel in 1991.[16]
When Cindel has a nightmare about the Marauders coming into Noa's house to get her, the scene where Terak pops out of Noa's bed was cut in a version for television. In this television version, she wakes after the men break in. In a home video release, two scenes were deleted: When being chased by Terak's men, Wicket races for Noa's house only to have Noa tell him their only chance is the star cruiser; in the other scene, Terak's men burn down Noa's house. On the DVD release, Cindel's line "Do something, Wicket! Use your sling! You hit the ring!" is instead "Do something, Wicket! Do something!"
In late 1985, George Lucas told Starlog that further Ewok films were planned,[19] and both Warwick Davis and Eric Walker believed that a third film was in the works.[10][8] However, as Lucas later recalled, "We made two, and were going to do a third, but they became very expensive to make."[20]
Lucas biographer John Baxter described Ewoks: The Battle for Endor as "a dry run for Willow."[21] The film was voted the favorite of the two Ewok films by fans in a 2001 StarWars.com poll.[22] In 2009, StarWars.com celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Ewok films with a series of articles covering various aspects of each.[23]
The film was classified as C-canon in the Holocron continuity database.[26] However, Lucasfilm's canon system was completely reorganized following the 2012 Disney buyout in anticipation of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. From April 25, 2014, only the six episodic films, The Clone Wars TV series, and anything going forward were to be considered canon.[27]
There has been some controversy as to the story's placement in continuity; A timeline published in Star Wars Insider shows the Ewok films occurring a short time before Return of the Jedi.[28] Although the films make extensive use of Ewokese, the language developed by Ben Burtt for the Ewok species, Wicket appears to learn Basic in The Battle for Endor through his association with Cindel. This would seemingly create a continuity error with Return of the Jedi, since Wicket is shown to not understand Leia Organa's Basic in that film. StarWars.com suggests that Cindel and her family are actually speaking a different language from Basic, and that it was translated into Basic (English) for the benefit of the viewing audience.[29]
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. Hermit Noa (Wilford Brimley), Ewok Wicket (Warwick Davis) and furry Teek rescue a girl (Aubree Miller) and an Ewok family from a witch's dungeon. Disney+. Watch...
- (10.9K)
- Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat
- Kids & Family, Fantasy
- Wilford Brimley
Dec 16, 2023 · All you need to know is that little girl Cindel’s (Aubree Miller) family was stranded on Endor and they befriended the Ewoks. Their village is attacked by the forces of Terak (Carel Struycken ...
The army of the Marauders, led by King Terak and the witch Charal, attack the Ewoks village, killing Cindel's family. Cindel and the Ewok Wicket escape and meet Teek in the forest, a naughty and very fast animal.
In this sequel to the greatly-admired "The Ewok Adventure" which premiered a year earlier as George Lucas' maiden television venture (directed by John Korty), these imaginative, adventuresome furry creatures team up with a little girl marooned on the forest moon of Endor where her family's starship.
