Bullied Nostalgia: Ewoks, Caravan of Courage & The Battle for Endor

So. Many of our fans to watch, oh look, now they're being. Bashed. I guess that's what we should expect. On the Bullied Nostalgia podcast, nostalgia hits different after 50 and you're turning into the 51st episode of the Bullied Nostalgia Podcast. The only podcast that I know of which re watches movies and TV shows from the 80s and 90s with a younger generation. I'm Tim and together with John. Hi, Yeah, I'm here. Chance. Present. And Kylan, yeah, we host a monthly podcast that revisits our childhoods with an analytical eye.

Before we get into today's episode, though, we should go through the housekeeping stuff. If you like our show, please like or subscribe. If you have ideas on how to make it better, send an e-mail to [email protected]. And finally, if you're a fan, feel free to spread the word with some of our merch on redbubble.com. And with that, let's get into the movie review. Or should I say movies review? My goodness. As you no don't have seen before clicking on this episode from the thumbnail, we watched both 80s Ewok movies.

How do you guys want to do this? Do you want to talk about them separately and then together? I think it makes the most sense to start with the first one, go into the second one, because then we're following the plot. Then we can talk about the two of them contrasted. Yeah. OK, chance. Let's start with 1984's Caravan of Courage. What was this movie about? A. Nuclear family of four crash land. On the planet of Endor family made-up of and These are real names, by the way, German, Katarina, Mace and Sindal.

I never picked up on German, that's awesome. Yeah, German, it's really good. Too bad you only hear him talk 3 times. Yeah. Mason Sindal The children get separated from their parents, their parents are captured and then it's up to the kids with their friends the Ewoks, to go and save their parents on a caravan of courage. What's an Ewok? I'm not explaining that an. Ugly looking. Teddy bear What's a caravan? An earth horse that has a cool Fort on it. What's a German? Hermit the frogs weird cousin.

Yeah, so I'm sure we're speaking to our audience here, but in the third Star Wars movie, retroactively, Episode 6, George Lucas introduced a war on a forest planet with the Empire, which was supposed to be the Wookies initially. But then what if toy sales? But then George Lucas found out that the only way to make money in Star Wars is to have a little creature. Yeah, they swapped for the Ewoks, which are little 3 foot bears. Teddy bear versions of Wookies. Yeah. And of course, they were the hot merchandising item.

In the years following Return of the Jedi, we would see two made for TV movies based on the Ewoks in 1984 and 1985. Did George Lucas write these? It says in the credits that he wrote. You want to tell me that he wrote these? Well, I think they probably gave him more credit in the credits so that it would give more credence to them, but I don't know how handsome he actually was. Well, let's not pretend like George Lucas is a superhero writing. I don't think he knows. Why Star Wars is popular? He's been quoted on saying that Star Wars is a movie for little boys and no one else.

Yeah, that's kind of what was happening here, although maybe also baiting the little girl audience with Cyndal being really cute. Yeah. This movie is not within the Star Wars lore in any world. Like somebody watched 20 seconds of Star Wars and they're like, OK, let's make a movie of this. And that's what I feel like this is this. Feels like every fantasy movie ever. They've got this band of heroes and they're walking along and then and there's. Lots of magic. Gifted magical items and there's all these traps along the way that Mace falls for every single one of them and there's an.

Earth, horse. There's always an Earth. Yeah, there are ferrets. There's crows. I was. Horse so mad about that. That's just a llama, and the next, that's just a horse. That's a rabbit. I kept getting more and more mad. Why have Jim Henson Company work on your movie if they're not going to do a single thing? They made. The Ewoks, Well, did they even? Because those are costumes. They're hyperstatic. Nothing moves on those things and it's so creepy. Did Jim Henson Company make this movie? Well, someone's looking that up.

I did want to say that the Ewok costumes in this movie, I don't know how similar they are to turn to the Jedi costumes. For some reason, because of the production value, it felt like Halloween costumes. Funny you should say that because in grade four or five I was dressing up for Halloween and we went to the store and they had a Wicket mask. It was like real fur and everything. Then we bought a big fur trench coat and I cut that up and and sewed it into a full body Ewok costume. I tell you, John, its quality was in line with the costumes of this movie.

Yeah, I'm not surprised. Whoa, that wasn't a diss. That was me talking about how good my sewing skills are. I don't think that this movie was made by Jim Henson. I don't see the Jim Henson flair. This was a made for TV movie so budgets will have to be considered. I always assumed that they recycled some of the costumes from Return of the Jedi, but who's to say? It just didn't seem to fit. They just felt a lot looser on the actors and actresses bodies. I think also it's just hard. They're marble eyes that just don't move.

They're bad. OK, so now we're getting into other stuff. What I was going to say about the costumes is I think it's the hardest with the ones that have the shortest fur. One of Wicked's brothers has really short fur, so it looks like a carpet. Then it looks really frumpy. It looks like it's a coat or something that he's wearing and not his furry body. But your statement, John, notoriously, George Lucas can't leave these movies alone. So for people. Who? Yes, for people who do not know, these movies came out in the 70s and 80s.

And then in the 90s, once computer graphics were a thing, George Lucas went back and he edited these movies with computer graphics and the fanboys will say couldn't create his vision when it was first created. So now that technology has caught up, now it more closely resembles what he had imagined all those years ago. Well that's true. The downside of it is it didn't happen just once. He keeps going back to the table and re editing it over and over again. So one of the edits he made was he gave that he walks eyelids and that's awful.

Does it look bad? I mean, they already look bad, so it's hard to say what's the lesser of two evils. They already stare through your soul. And I made the point of vocalizing that they don't really have working mouths either. They won't have working tongues. So their tongues move inside their mouths, but their mouths always being open, they're like. Slack jaws? Yeah. It's so bad, it's terrible. Did anyone else have a hard time distinct machine? He walks from each other, just the lady one, the magical one, not all the rest kind of look at the same.

It was Wicket and the other ones. So Wicket is of course played by Warwick Davis in the 80s. He was the most famous little person. He would obviously be in this movie. He'd be in movies like Willow. He is an integral part of the Star Wars universe. I always thought about how interesting that was that George Lucas made so much work specific to little people. Right? Like R2D2 in the old movies, there was a little person in that robot driving it. The jaw was in the first Star Wars movie. We're all, of course, little people.

Ewoks, I'm not sure. You just seem to have a fascination with little creatures. But I was able to differentiate all of the Ewoks. But. Most of them didn't add any value or anything. Yeah, most of them. What? The one guy got earmuffs as his magical item and one guy. Got to turn a rock into a lizard. He. Didn't even do that. That was Mace's gift. Oh, right. OK. No Mace on the other hand, that guy is unforgettable. He is the world absolute worst. To clarify, Mace is the older human brother. He's main character in the movie.

So they get given magical artifacts and then he throws his rock away. Instantly. He sees all the magical artifacts and he learns A valuable lesson and then he gets his rock back and he's like stupid rock and he tries to throw it away again. I don't understand. And don't even know what to say about Mace. It's like the only way they could think of to introduce a dangerous object. Was to have. Touch it, touch it, he always. Touches it with his hands. Too, and then too about that actor. If I was his age in 1984, Star Wars is the most amazing thing on earth.

I get a shot to be in Star Wars. I see my costume. He looks like he's right out of Star Wars. He's a really cool Star Wars aesthetic. I would be hyped. And then you find out that you're written as the single worst character ever. And. To be fair, he had no way of knowing that that lake wouldn't try to drown. Him I would stop touching things, period. So there's this lake that when you touch it, it teleports you under the lake and you can't escape. Unless you have a stick. Unless. Got a stick? What?

A bad movie? Why is there magic? What do you mean? Why is there magic? Why is there magic in this movie? I got upset about that and then dad was like, Oh well, Star Wars has witches in it. That's clearly not the same thing. This. They just do whatever they want whenever they want. Yeah, so we know all kinds of things about the Star Wars universe. We know that the Force is interpreted differently, species to species, planet to planet. So this sect of Force users have become the Jedi. Do you think that force users can teleport people under lakes and turn rocks into iguanas?

That iguana was just in the rock for a long time. Do you think that that's. Something that the force can do. You don't know everything the Force can do. They're just Disney. They're still figuring it out. Yeah. This movie is terrible, don't get me wrong, but the Ewoks practicing their forms of, for lack of a better term, witchcraft I think was always something that was accepted because they are from this primitive species that when they CC-3PO they worship him as a God. They see him levitate due to the Force, but they start worshipping him and there's always this undertone, even in Return of the Jedi, that they believe in the supernatural.

To have items that are part of that, to have a wizard in the group, does make sense. Their delivery on magic is absolutely terrible and dumb, but that is just tying it back to the fantasy roots. This is just Lord of the Rings. They're on their way trying to gather together a Bard and a wizard and a warrior barbarian. They're trying to get all these different people together on their party to go fight a giant. This is AD and D campaign. It's just really poorly written and most of them don't speak English, which makes it.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, my favorite part of this movie is when the narrator shows up and goes wicked and his brothers ventured into the forest to look for more. I forgot this movie had a narrator instead of a crawl. It's so upset, how annoying. That is you. Could understand a scene where the Ewoks don't talk and you'd be like OK that was good. And then the narrator would show be like, this is what you just watched happen. I think this was maybe the hardest part about this movie, watching these two human children try to explain to Ewok.

And that's not. How you would explain anything? You can't just say Starship 100 times and hope they understand what that means. They've never seen a Starship. Food. Eat, eat.

Eat, eat, eat. You are going to. Point at your mouth. You're just going to say the word eat, eat. You're just going to say the word eat 800 times. And I hope they understand that's not a Starship. That's a horse. We watch the kids trying to communicate to the Ewoks and the Ewoks to the kids. As the viewer, we already know what both sides are trying to communicate, so it's just a frustrating watching two people understand each other. It is a snore fest. It's just painful. It's like infuriating though.

Not only is it boring, finish the scene. It's not that hard. Every scene takes five times longer because we have to wait for the characters to figure it out. Yeah, it's so frustrating. Well, if they had a narrator. Oh my gosh. Well, to be fair to this movie, 80% of the way in, when nothing has happened for most of it and suddenly everything starts happening, the narrator's gone. I'm watching right now show called Tchaikovsky's Primal. Very good but there is no English in that show. It's about a caveman and a dinosaur as they both lose their families and they try to survive because there's no spoken word.

You've 2 main characters who literally can't communicate with each other and yet there's still so much they communicate. You watch them fight over things and not understand why the other person's angry and it feels so painful when they can't understand each other. In comparison, this movie has literally none of those good parts. You don't empathize with them when they can't understand each other, you're just mad at them. It's just the. Worst, I made this note right after watching it. I said I don't care how well rested someone is, what time of day they watch this movie.

Sandman will come for all who watch. Is that a threat? The other character that we should talk about, though, is Syndal. Syndal is played by Aubrey Miller, and she was tiny. She was four years old when this movie came out. This movie is not good anyway you slice it. I would have a hard time coming up with a good thing about it. I've won the kick. But she's very cute and the fact that they got her to do as much as she did at her age is very impressive. She's a pro in the second movie that we watched.

I would say she's actually a pretty good actress for being four or five. But you can see the stunt double S. But there are very obviously stunt double S That's true. That's true. Get so tall. Speaking of stunt double S or dangers. Wait, I'm going to say the thing that's good about this movie, OK? The big monster thingy and the big stares. Just the fact that it's a big thing with little people. The perspective shots are the best. Yeah, we talked about this in a previous episode. Probably. Honey, We Shrunk ourselves.

Being small is a fascination that we, as audience members really buy into. There's a lot more interesting things when you look at things from a different perspective, and them crawling up a giant staircase is very cool. I will say the one problem I have with that is I'm a big fan of world's building and so like, oh, I wonder if they're going to get into his lair and see how's his home reconcile with what alien species he is. And they walk in. I'm like, is that a big ass dining table? It is. It's just a really big table.

It's one of those movies that really took me out of the film to realize a big. Monster. So we still don't even know his motivation. He didn't eat them, he didn't kill them, He captured them. And they were way too small to eat. I was thinking about that. They'd be like. 1/4 of a chicken nugget and he clearly had a motivation for why he did what he did, but none of it's ever explained. I'll tell you the only important thing about that giant. Is that he gets thrown down a pit. Is that he is defeated the same way every threat is defeated in this movie, and that's thrown off a Cliff.

They're climbing over this Canyon and there's spiders. Oh, no. And then they knock a spider down and you just get to watch it slowly fall down a pit chance. You know this, It's that one Kirby right back at you. Meme of Kirby falling down a pit. Oh. I know what you're talking about that. Meme happens four times in this movie. You just watch this. Stupid spider fall down a bit. Twice, John, you were saying that this movie gave you a fear of spiders. When you were little, I think it should have given you a fear of chasm.

Did you consider maybe just throwing them off a Cliff? I had it that seems to solve those problems. The giant is a real threat. You know this because they have to drop them off 2 cliffs. They have to knock you off a Cliff, the Whites. The Giants. The species is called Gorax. I was reading some trivia and I guess that's why Ewoks built their villages so high in the trees and have traps and catapults. Which is so good. Why don't you put that in your movie anywhere? Why do the only Ewoks in these movies live on the ground?

So that ties together then? Both of these movies take place before Return of the Jedi. Which doesn't make sense because Wicket can speak English. Well, let's get into that list. It does make sense that they started on the ground, got attacked by giants, They got it, didn't know about the giants. We don't know that. They talk about the giant. No, no, we can't speak their language. I'm done, actually. So they live on the ground, get attacked by a giant. Another threat comes in which we'll talk. Vote in the second movie and then when they rebuild, they rebuild in the treetops for Return of the Jedi.

All of that stuff does line up. As far as protecting themselves, you're a greater. Threat here dad, this is movie slop. They made this to make some money. There was number attempt put into world building. The only other thing I. Want to say about this movie is that Mace is arguably the protagonist and arguably, I guess George Lucas really liked that name because Mace appeared in the original draft of his Star Wars movies. It got shelved when he got rid of characters. He used it here, and then ultimately it would show up again in the prequels as Samuel Jackson's character.

He wanted to name everything Mace, but I'm glad that he had revisionist history and pretended this Mace didn't exist with the later 1. Do we want to make a list of everything Mace touches from our memory? No. He touches a bird. He touches a leg. Tinkerbell. Yeah, he touches a fairy. He touches the spider web. His whole movie makes me so mad every time. How does he touch? I did like their horse, the normal P Yeah, and for riding. They had like a spherical Hut on the back of the horse. It would only work for very little people, but I did think that was me, John.

Kane. I was thinking about this, why didn't the Ewok show up on a whole bunch of horses to fight in Return of the Jedi? Because they only had one. Movie is named after the fact that they have multiple. How? Many horses are in that caravan. It has to be more than one for it to be a caravan. I think I was confused because it was mentioned earlier how each of the characters were given this magical tool to go on their quest. Kind of like Galadriel gives the fellowship in the Lord of the Rings. The tools didn't always make sense.

Syndal gets this candle that will absorb all the fairies, but it's not clear why. Tease to absorb all the fairies. Are you questioning why that one guy got earmuffs? Yeah. Several of them got different colored earmuffs. Yeah, one of them was. Courage. That's what Mace was really upset about. He was like, oh, everybody else is getting earmuffs, They got a rock. Christmas, actually. Can you open up your big present? It's just a bunch of clothes. I love that Mace's thing though was you get a rock which you will break.

Yeah, they want to throw it on the ground, which he did multiple times. He. Did it perfectly. If he hadn't thrown it that many times, who knows if it would have broken when it was supposed. To when Mace is touching the water. That area that had that lake, it shaved off another layer and my suspension of disbelief was fully gone by that point. We're no longer on some alien planet. It just looks like a normal place so it just I want. To say most, this movie just looked like Alberta. It did look like Alberta.

That's what I'm saying. They went from a jungle to Alberta. Did anyone feel the weight of the one Ewok's death at the end? I forgot that an Ewok died. He was so much bigger than the rest of them, so just kind of seemed like he was just a guy in a bear suit. Dad, if you could identify them, which magic item did that Ewok have? That was the lumberjack. When they found him late in the adventures, he chopped a tree down that almost landed on one of their caravan horses. Because. He's very good at his job.

And then Mace tried to pick a fight with him. Because Mace. And then he so like. Iguana And so they handed him something that looked like a piece of bone or something like. It was a tooth. Sure. We watched it a few weeks ago, so I'm not exactly. Yeah, I watched it today. So you watched Caravan of Courage today. Oh no, sorry, I watched Caravan of Courage yesterday, OK. I wish. I wish I'd watched the two movies on different days. We watched the first movie and I was like, OK, I'm done now. And then Dad was like, no, you're coming back here and you're watching the second movie.

Told me out of my room that I could watch the second movie. Yeah, it was checked out for the second movie, which I will accept fault for Caravan of Courage is definitely the worst of the two in my opinion, but there's things to dislike about both, so let's jump into the second one. In 1985 SA year later, the sequel Ewok movie came out, The Battle of Endor Chance. Can you tell the audience what happened in the second one? So right off the. Bat all of single family dice all the so single and wicked who now speaks English thank the.

Lord. Escape to. The. Forest where they meet an old man named Noah who is also crash landed and with the help of Noah and some fast alien whose name is like a. Beep or keep. He's a Pokémon. He's a Pokémon and they save them from they say really bad. Dude from the Marauders. This they had a title. The Marauders are the plan of bad guys. This is the writing that George Lucas did. He gave them names and then gave. George Lucas's word. When I was watching this movie, it took about 80% of the way into the movie, maybe 90%, for me to realize Syndal's family is just straight up dead.

They're not coming back. This isn't going to be the reveal thing, Kai. Refused to believe the whole movie that the protagonist from the previous movie would be killed with less than 4 minutes of screen time in this. Movie. He didn't get close to 4 minutes of screen time I think. 33 seconds, yeah. 33 seconds. Didn't you see the Fitbit said they were dead. I didn't believe the Fitbit, Yeah. It was quite shocking because Mace was like the main character in the first one and. Why not just capture them?

I don't understand. Syndal is supposed to be in the same situation as Wicket because Syndal's parents and family died. She can relate to Wicket but Wicket's family didn't die. They could have just been captured parents. Are dead? Where are your family now? It's been like 30 seconds. I feel like Syndal moved on pretty. Fast. Oh yeah, she did. And the mom, you didn't even see her face. Her face was just down in the mud. These Fitbits, they're all wearing these bracelets that tell you when your family member dies, like.

Yeah, that's their person. Why would someone own that? And if they would, why don't we have them now? In current day and age, would any of you use a bracelet that would tell you if your family members are dead? I don't think so. Like oh, my wife forgot to charge her Fitbit. I guess she's dead. Yeah, in real world technology, that would just be way too finicky and they would just activate all the time. But I'm imagining it's just a normal Fitbit. It has other features, but if it thinks that you're dead, it'll send a notification to somebody.

Hey, just so you know, this person might be dead right now. It uses that terminology. Hey just adds up. I don't know if you're busy. Or something right now, but your. Wife might be dead. So. The. Only thing I enjoyed about this second movie. Was that more guys fall in the pit? One guy falls in a Moat. Oh no, I'm talking about the guys who had boulders rolled on their heads. Yeah. They did that to themselves. They just hit themselves with boulders and then died. Yeah, there's just a bunch of victim blaming over here.

Are we supposed to blame the boulders? They shoot at the kids and then the boulders come running down on them and they die. Lots of boulder blaming up here I just want to say. So I watched both these movies with my uncle who is very invested in the Star Wars universe. Was he invested in this? He never remembered watching these, so I guess maybe that's what your brain does after so many decades so we can anticipate forgetting that we ever. So we can come back. I thought you were going to say after experiencing drama, yeah.

The brain tries to heal. Yeah, time heals all wounds. I was glad to have him around because I had to keep him awake by constantly pushing him, and that's what kept me awake was that I had to keep him awake. This. Is like energy vampire, but you're so far into the negatives that you just need anything to stay up. So we're watching the second movie and we're like, Oh my goodness, this movie is way higher stakes than the first one. So much action and adventure. It's fast. Paced, it starts really good.

You think it's going to be good. It tricks you and then you. Remember that? And then they meet Noah. It just slows down and Noah has tiki or whatever. This little white rat that's a speedster like The Flash, despite having a very fast character movie, is at its slowest. I think actually John, it slows down. Before that I was almost asleep when Syndal was being attacked by the bird, ironically. Action was so low stakes that scene was. So bad it was like a dinosaur. It was a stop motion creature like most of the enemies dangerous creatures of these movies.

Whoa, did can I just bring up a dinosaur this season? Technically, the name for the monster is called the Condor Dragon. It's a dragon, OK. That's an awesome name for a stupid monster. Yeah, I think this movie goes downhill right after the two guys get hit by boulders. I think that was the peak of the movie. That was our peak. The previous movie felt at least somewhat grounded. OK, yeah, they're fighting a big monster and the Ewoks have a shaman. And then in the second movie full on, which shows up and starts performing magic everywhere and I'm like, OK, yeah, you should have expected that.

That was the next logical step. Oh. This movie's so bad. And then she got stuck being a crow. Yes, she felt the most out of place. I guess she's like a night sister according to the lore. So that's one of those Sith witches from Ethamir that you learn about in the Clone Wars and Rebels animated shows. But in this movie, she looks like a Power Ranger villain. Yeah, she felt like the bad guy from the live action lawn movie. Oh, that is a good. Allegory, actually, just because they both turn into birds.

No, every aspect of them is basically the same. Turning on the bad guy, they turn into birds. They just feel like the same character. That Noah the older man, the premise in this story is that he and his companion also crash landed on Moon of Endor and his buddy died. So now Noah this old man just become grumpy and and so at first he is quite mean to Wicket and Syndal, but then comes a loving father figure. But the acting and the set and the way they deliver their lines, it feels like a really cheap television programming from four and five year olds.

What are we calling the white rap? Pokémon. OK, that way that I feel like they react as soon as that Pokémon gets introduced. The next 20 minutes of the film are stuff like, oh that's that Pokémon doing its thing again. Sorry. He Lance the moon of Endor. Right, so the planet that this takes place on. Is not Endor, it's the moon of Endor. Well, it's the forest moon. We call it endor because that's the only thing we see of Endor. It's very unclear. I always thought it was the forest moon of Endor, as in speaking about a small moon of researching the larger planet.

But in this movie they refer to it as Endor. I think the narrator calls it Endor even in the first movie. So it does make me question if the moon is called Endor. I thought it was the bigger planet that this moon is around that was called Endor, but it's unclear. Might I pause it a suggestion? Yeah, this is a bad movie. They don't know. In Star Wars, Endor is technically a moon, specifically the Forest Moon of Endor or Sanctuary Moon that orbits a massive gas giant planet also named Endor. Oh. Sometimes.

Referred to as Tana. I think AI is also confused in this case, John. Did you do the AI summary? That's definitely what you just read. AI summary you go to Wikipedia if. You. Oh yeah, yeah, check Wikipedia. Endor Designated IX3244-A Also known as the Forest Moon of Endor or the Sanctuary Moon, the small Forest Moon. It's the 9th moon that orbited the Outer Rim planet of the same name. What? That's terrible. That seems to me like somebody got confused at one point. And. Whatever, let's just call it all indoor.

They're just like, well, they're both indoor now. What you didn't see when they landed astronauts on Earth. Earth is by. Anyone of Earth? Did anyone feel like the final chase scene and fight of this movie just dragged on? It did. There was an old man fight. So for context for our listeners who don't want to watch this movie. Because why would you these? Marauders seem to be part of a medieval caste system with that bearing. Yeah, and in their adventures they come across one of the space faring humans.

And they kill them. They torture him to find out about space travel. It doesn't really explain how they get so many laser guns because the implication is that they would have got those from him too. But but I don't know why he was packing 200 laser guns. No, I'm going on a journey to find out they so I'm taking 47 guns. I don't think they understand that it's space travel. I think sure. They just think it's some kind of magical artifact, right? That would give them power. Still all in the same vein.

They don't really understand. And so that seems to be the driving force in everything that they're doing. They kidnap the Ewoks because the Ewoks are adjacent to this family that knows about space travel. Long story short, Noah and the kids rescue the Ewoks and then they make their way back to Noah's ship and Noah uses the laser cannons on his ship to shoot most of the bad guys in Return of the Jedi. Ewoks are bloodthirsty killers. They murder and probably eat most of The Imperials that they fight.

And I was actually leaning into this idea that they get guns for the first time in this movie. Where did all the guns go between the two films? They must have used them up. They shot them. Right now. As I'm telling you, they got addicted to killing. And then they went savage and forgot how to speak. OK, I see that. But it also explains in Return of the Jedi, one of them sneaks over to a speeder bike and just flips it on and takes off. And so they have. Experience with technology. Yes, this was all preparing them to be the perfect killing machines that we see in Return of the Jedi.

Because in this movie, they just suck. They're worthless. After this movie, a hyper conservative Ewok rises up and explains why they need to garner their own self-defense. That's why we get the hyper violent Ewoks that we get. Yeah, I'm a Triceratops. Conserve the water. Yeah, I'm an Ewok. Conserve the guns. I mean, Ewok, they can't take our guns away from us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dang. It they could. Be on a. Shirt. I know I'm going to see that on a shirt. That's so upsetting, I know that. The Ewok Rifle Association.

You're gonna. Spend the next week making this. Shirt I guess it'd be the indoor Ewok is better. It's still the ERA either way. And am I talking about the moon or the planet? Oh. Wow, you know, you have to do you have to make one of those shirts where it's like my Harley, my gun in my life, but it's just a speed or a blaster and an Ewok.

Yeah, this movie sucks. The very end of the movie, Syndal gets on the ship with Noah and they fly away. Was that the plan the whole time? I felt surprised. Weird. Because Syndal's like the Ewoks are my family now. OK, bye Ewoks. We do know that it was planned to be a trilogy, so. They were definitely supposed to stay. On either, yeah, that was changed at the last minute when they were like, well, maybe we won't do another one of these or they would come back later. They come back after the stormtroopers.

Yeah. Oh my God. Seen. That seen that? I'm kidding. Funny man. You watch the news. Is your childhood best friend essentially a serial killer of 38? That would definitely be on The Republic News. So after this movie, instead of doing a third movie, he did the two seasons of the Ewok cartoon. It's true. And you guys had seen the Ewok cartoon? Maybe? Yes. Which is why I was actually excited to do this episode. And then I learned that we wouldn't get to watch a cartoon from my childhood and instead we watched this.

I don't remember actually ever watching the Ewok cartoon so. These are the same characters as in the cartoon though, Hey Chance. With the exception of the humans, obviously. Oh, I was going to say, do they bring back the dead people or? They just puppet them around. Oh yeah, like the helmet thing, right? Those helmets definitely have heads in them. Yeah, this movie ends with the crow lady getting stuck as a crow because her ring got stolen or something. And the bad guy getting turned to stone. Yeah, the bad guy faces the wrath of the magical stuff that he stole.

So, Tim, you were the oldest when you would have watched these movies. My nostalgia for them is pretty faint. I have snapshots, I remember the parents being in the bone cage, I remember the spider, I remember the Condor dragon. Just very vague memories. What were your memories like and what was it like rewatching it? I would have seen Battle for Endor when I was quite young. I don't think I watched Caravan of Courage initially. It wouldn't have been until I was older and you were around that we would have maybe rented it or something.

I don't even really know how we accessed that first movie. By all accounts, Battle for Endor is the better of the two on a. Technicality. The low bar. 1% better does not necessarily mean that it's a phenomenal. Movie. But I really wanted to do both for this podcast because I felt like there needed to be the weight of these characters before they killed them in the first 30 seconds. Yeah. And I mean, it kind of worked because Kai refused to believe that. They were dead. So shocked that this children's movie would be like OK these characters are dead now they're dead.

Good luck living with that trauma, kid. So we watched on Disney Plus and Disney Plus is very deceiving because for whatever reason, the cover or the image that comes up when you pull up Battle of Her and. Or yeah, that's the other thing. I saw the picture of the movie and it had the kid front and center like. What is some type of male protagonist? It might be someone. Else there's if it was somebody else. Who was it? There were like characters on the box that didn't identify in the movie. So I was just waiting.

For more humans to show up. We got 1 old guy in his pet rat and that's all that we get. So I'm just waiting for the characters to come back and then 80% of the way through the movie I'm like, oh wait, they're actually dead. I also was confused because of that poster on Disney plus because Mace the boy is older in the picture and he's the biggest part of the picture. Exactly it. Takes up 80% of the poster. Would you rather that just be as carcass be more? Honest, at least let the kids. Know what they're coming into.

As an adult, I've since learned that Star Wars fandom didn't like Ewoks, kind of similar to how people didn't like Jar Jar Binks. But did you love Ewoks? As a kid? You had Ewok toys. What was your process with Ewoks? Yeah, that's fair. I don't think I realized that they were supposed to be. He hated. I mean, Returning the Jedi came out the year that I was born, so I don't know what my first introduction was to it. I have memories from when I was really little, like being in Ireland with my cousin and him showing me his Star Wars toys.

And one of them being. Ewok. He had the Ewok village. Oh. To be fair, the village was pretty cool. Very cool. So cool in fact that they resold it later for the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves set of toys. Just the Ewok Village repackaged as a Robin Hood village. But yes, he had a rancor and he had all the coolest stuff. I remember we went to the store and I got to buy a Star Wars toy while we were there, and then months later he would ship me a care package of the Star Wars toys he didn't want. That's how we got John the Millennium Falcon and the 88 in this.

You were. Oh wow. Good. From scraps. That's right, those best leftovers of all time. Our best Star Wars thing were like the servants eat the best because they get everything the king doesn't care about or whatever. I remember as a kid, The Return of the Jedi was my favorite Star Wars movie when I was really young, just because there was so much flashiness and creatures with Jabba's Palace, then with the Ewoks. And he had the best space battle. You know, like the duel between Luke and Darth Vader was slow was my least favorite part, but the space battle outside where they go inside the Death Star was so cool too.

Yeah, so I agree, John. Those were things that I didn't really pick up on. And I liked Battle for Endor as well. By the time Episode 1 came out I was in high school and I I did not like Jar Jar Binks. There was enough to like about that movie that I didn't hate it, but Jar Jar Binks really frustrated me and turned me off. But I actually was telling John. I watched episode 1 about a week or two ago and gosh Jar Jar Binks is worse than I remember. Even he is atrocious. Whoever thought that Star Wars needed more poop and fart jokes?

I can't even wrap my head. I'm gonna kill him. Like, it's so bad now watching these movies and as an adult watching Return of the Jedi, there's no way those little teddy bears could kill any of the Imperial soldiers, let alone Palpatine says they're a legion of his greatest soldiers. There's no way. Yes, Return of the Jedi, you know, as a kid, it was my favorite Star Wars. As an adult I just can't really get past the Ewoks, they are really hard to watch. I think that they could take them down. If there were a lot of them, hundreds of thousands of Ewoks in the forest, I think that they would wear you down.

Like one of those things where it's like 1000 Kermits versus 10 Iron Man, yeah. No, I've seen those videos and there's like a mountain of dead. Kermits every time. No, what I was saying is the one of every Pokémon versus a trillion lions, but the current one is 1 gorilla. Versus one gorilla versus on. Yeah, which wins. Who's to say if you had 200 humans, 300 humans, 1000 Ewoks? This is the gorilla. Getting done. Whoops. I don't think all of the Ewoks need to know technology. But The Imperials had guns.

OK, cool. You shoot an imperial. With a bug and. Then somebody else picks up his gun and shoots somebody randomly. I want to point out these guys are wearing armor. Have you seen a stormtrooper get shot by a blaster bolt? They die instantly. Do they die or do they just get hit really hard? They just don't. They never get up. They're all getting shot with sleeping darts. Those Ewoks were hitting them with sleeping hammers. Oh, the. Sleeping pit that they were dropping them into. I see the pit of big.

Sleepy Shine fell in the pit of Big Sleepy twice. He's a little bit bigger, so it's harder. To put him down for a nap. Let's go to closing, folks. Actually wait before we do what happened to the? Witch I got turned into a crow. Did she stay a. Crow. Yeah, she needed her ring to turn back and forth, so. She flew towards the ring, but then it was gone, so she just left. The force works in mysterious ways. Sometimes you get turned into a crow for life. Is she normally a crow? That's right, she's a crow that learned the Force.

No, just like that Pond learned how to use the Force and sucked Mason. Why she? Take that ring around and put it in the swamp and turn it into a person. If you could give that ring if you. Put that ring on somebody's finger and then took it off. Would they turn into a crow? Is that the implication? Or maybe they would turn it to her. Oh, in reality. The Crow and the. Person are two separate people. They just swap out via the ring. Yeah, it's like Shazam. Yeah, she's trapped in the. Ring curtain.

Sorry, Chance. The Crow. Is a person. Yeah, and they're free now. Do you want to? Clarify because they don't have this. The crow in Ewok law is defined as having rights, and being a person is what refers to those of sound mind and body able to make conscious thoughts. Yeah, Crowbius mortis, everyone knows. This. Yeah, yeah, we can tell it. Has sound mind because it calls for the bad guys to come fight them when they're running away, so we know that they understand what's going on. The Crow really seemed to want that ring though.

Yeah, this was all. Actually explained in the original draft of this movie when it had a narrator. John complained so much about having a narrator in the first movie that they took it out. Yeah, in the third movie there were no visuals. And it was all narrator. It was just a black screen and an audio book. Yeah, yeah, the. Narrator would just tell you what happened the. Cave of the Big Sleep. No, it was a pit of big sleepy. OK, so big sleepy tell. Us what I would change.

Can I? Wonder what I would change? The movie doesn't have that many things that need changing. I would look at the script and then I would laugh the person who made it out of the room, George Lucas. I would laugh, George. Lucas out of the room. Get out of here, George, the characters. Are not compelling the narrator. In the first movie sucks. I would just have to completely rewrite this movie. What do I say? I just wouldn't make this movie so I quite the. All right, John. Over to you. Yeah. I guess I would just change everything I would.

Just make a better movie. You are with your folks. Kai's making a new movie. Coming this fall, a new Ewok movie. OK, wait, wait. You remove the Ewoks. You. Remove all the. Magic stuff and you. Make it in space. There's a giant artifact that's going to destroy planets, and then you make it all about trying to go stop that because you have a robot that has a disc in it. That's the last hope for the plans for it. That's my movie. Like the Grinch. Yeah, Yeah. Sounds a little. Derivative if you ask me, but well.

It's based off of the concept. Of the Grinch, yeah. I'm pulling. Ideas from all of the SU. Stories OK and I was taking notes on the movie The. Only positive things I could say what the first movie were tent on the back of the horse and that the movie poster had some cool artwork. What positive things can you say about the second movie? Well, the second one I created the space for I. Called them commendations, like positive things. Oh yeah, it remained empty. This movie.

Really hard for something. Good, and you will not. Find it John, the fact that in the first movie you. Were willing to. Praise anything that made you think for half a second and then in the second movie you weren't able to find anything that's so funny. Do you think the. 1st movie's better than the second movie, John. Yes. And then the Ewoks went to the village. To look for I think at least in the 1st. 1. Bad guy. It's just a mysterious giant and these trials in their journey. The second one actually has bad guys, but it's worse off for it because the bad guys do it just suck.

And that grandpa and speedster white Pokémon, they're just horrendous. I think any kind of merit I take. Away from these. Movies is I learned that I have a lot of growing to do in being more patient when you have that. Much time for. Introspection, you know, learn a lot about how you can grow as a human. Yeah, John would. You rather watch the. First half of the first movie or the second-half of the second movie? Those are the worst parts, yes. Which is worse to you? Is narrator worse? The speedster is terrible, John, but I don't think the second movie reaches.

As. Low of lows is my Mace is unbearable in that first. Movie that kid is so whiny is worse. I think the only thing. That. Would give the second movie in Edges that Wicked can speak English so you don't have to sit through those terrible scenes well and also every character in. That movie is so bad. But the only ones who speak English are the worst ones. Yeah, like Wicked Speak English is so good because Wicked is bearable. That's the bar we needed to cross, you know? Are you saying that you don't like food?

Eat, eat. Food, Food. Eat, eat, eat, eat. I think that's our callback to the. Unfortunately, right. Well, John had a. Really. Glowing review for these movies chance over to you. You know it's. Bad this review is. I can't find. Anything. So bad I truly hated. This experience, I want you guys to know that, Yeah, The way I don't think I can actually describe, Yeah, I hated these movies. So much. There's like no redeeming quality I think. This is gonna be two ones. Bordering on zero. I really hated +1 or -1.

Sure, +0 or. -0. +1 because if a movie. Is a negative. I enjoy watching it with other people. I watch this as my wife and I felt bad for her. I. Thought you were gonna say you were. Embarrassed to watch them and you didn't want anyone to know that makes it good. That makes it a better movie. Is that you felt bad for someone else? I so bad you guys. I really. Hated this movie. I'm genuinely curious where this. Would rank in our scale of worst movies we've had to watch for this podcast. Like, I think that this is less bad than Dougal, less bad than Fast and the Furious 35.

But how much less bad? Well, I think that both of these movies are. Not as bad as things like Lamb Before Time movies have been. However, Lamb Before Time, we typically are in and out in an hour. This was you were like, oh. It's OK, it's a short movie. Terrible. OK, well, I guess over to me. I don't think I'm going to watch this movie again. What? Yeah. So. I don't have much. To add to that, we all had an amazing time and do we finish this season strong? We only have one episode left of this season and that'll be our season 4 in review.

You guys, four years isn't that wild? That's crazy. You know, that's the only. Good thing about. Bad movies is that when we review them, we get to have fun making fun of how terrible they were, you know, healing from trauma and all that. I don't think that's how that works. Chance did you? Enjoy your time here today. Did you enjoy your podcast experience more than you enjoyed the Batman podcast experience? I mean, that's a low bar because. John was asleep. Yes, that's true. The one time. The one.

Time. No. I'm. You were asleep during. The podcast. John, I know we make fun of me, but nicely on the movies we aren't making. Fun of you for. That one, we're just making that the benchmark for the worst episode. So I was asleep. Yeah. John, we need you here. You're the. Most likable person on the podcast. You can't be asleep even chances life likes you. Most. OK, well, let's call her there. Lookout for weirdos and don't forget to breathe in and out. That's right, foodie. Eat Grandma John, do you have one?

Praise Beethoven. Nice classic.

Game plan