If you go to the International Movie Database (IMDb) page for Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985), you will see a movie poster for it in German.  The fact that you see this makes about as much sense as anything else in the film.  But why stop there?  On that same image, you see front and center Jeremitt Towani (Paul Gleason).  Why was this character recast from the movie’s predecessor, which had only come out in the previous year?  Was the oh so memorable Guy Boyd too busy to reprise his role?  Who knows?  Paul Gleason is the biggest name in the cast, which is probably why he is front and center. He is also in it for roughly five minutes.  I guess he had to make it back to the set of The Breakfast Club (1985)?  At any rate, please enjoy this review of Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, an obscure Star Wars entry that should likely be even more obscure . . . as in never heard from ever again.

If you saw (and somehow remember) Caravan of Courage: An Ewoks Adventure (1984), or simply read my review, you will remember that the Towani family had been allowed to stay with the Ewoks while they repair their ship.  Ewoks: The Battle for Endor picks up just as this task has been completed.  Little Cindel Towani (Aubree Miller) is saying goodbye to her favorite sentient teddy bear, Wicket W. Warrick (Warwick Davis), in preparation for their family leaving.  Everything is sad but peaceful until the Ewok village is attacked by Terak (Carel Struycken) and his band of marauders.  Somehow, he has learned of a spaceship in the area and has decided to take the “power.”  This has something to do with the Towani’s vehicle, but Terak is convinced that it is a magical talisman that he wants for himself.  To do so, he kidnaps a whole bunch of Ewoks and murders all the Towanis, except for Cindel.  She learns of their passing from her “life monitor” on her wrist.  Sorry, little Cindel, your family has fallen and they are not getting back up.  Though Jeremitt tries to help his daughter escape, she is captured by Terak’s shape-shifting witch, Charal (Siân Phillips).  It would seem that she is to suffer a life of captivity with the rest of her Ewok friends until her and Wicket are sprung from the cart in which they are being transported.  They flee into a cave, but they discover that it is occupied by what can best be described as a pterodactyl.  Cindel is in the process of being carried off until Wicket takes off after the flying lizard in the hang glider he has conjured from left over animal bone and hide and saves her.  They are soon greeted by what I am going to call a speed monkey named Teek (Niki Botelho).  He, she, it, whatever brings them to a house.  Thinking it is abandoned, Cindel sets about making some soup and biscuits, you know, as eight-year-old children do.  As the meal is being served, the house’s resident, Noa Briqualon (Wilford Brimley), arrives, grumpy.  At first, he protests that he wants nothing to do with these strangers, promptly telling them to leave the premises.  Somehow, it is the inarticulate Teek that gets Noa to change his mind.  So, now this ornery, middle-aged man has two more people for which to care.  He is also harboring a secret.  Being a human being, he is not a native to the forest moon of Endor, the setting for this and Star Wars: Episode VI – The Return of the Jedi (1983).  Like the Towanis, Noa had crashed on the planet and had been working to repair his ship since that time.  For Cindel, staying to help could mean that she might be able to finally get off this planet.  For some reason, though, Terak has decided that the child Cindel has the answer to unlocking the magic of the “power,” which is the tube he took off the Tawani’s ship.  To get what he needs, he sends Charal to locate Cindel.  When she does, she uses more of her witchcraft to lure the girl to her, taking Cindel back to Terak’s castle.  Now the aged Noa must mount a rescue, which he does with Teek and Wicket’s assistance.  He also makes off with Terka’s precious device, which, of course, is the last item he needs to make his own vehicle operable.  Oh, yeah, and he frees all the Ewoks, too.  This proves useful when he and the diminutive creatures make a mad dash for his spaceship.  He and Cindel go aboard to get it started while the Ewoks keep Terak and his thugs occupied outside.  If you have seen The Return of the Jedi, then you get the picture.  While there is some footage used from that movie, it gets really silly when a number of Terak’s cronies are defeated by rolling log slices . . . which the Ewok’s somehow had the time to cut it to perfectly even and smooth sections.  It comes to a showdown between Noa and Terak, though what defeats the marauder leader is Wicket using his sling to destroy the ring that gave Charal her magic.  For some reason, this turns Terak to stone.  Cindel and Noa are now free to depart. Before leaving, though, she promises Wicket that she will return.  The ship’s doors close with her waving goodbye, and Teek and Wicket watch as it zooms into space.  The end.

Again, I am not sure where to go from here with this review of Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.  Should I comment on Noa’s hospitality?  The silliness of Charal’s magic?  The blind villainy of Terak?  The problem is that everything in the film is cartoonish, while being live action.  The definition of the word “cartoonish” is telling: “the characteristic of or resembling a cartoon, especially in being unrealistically simplified and involving humorous exaggeration.”  I do not think you can find a better description of this movie, or its predecessor.  This is a problem because Faith is a serious matter.  That is not to say that Christians lack a sense of humor, no matter what its detractors will tell you.  Yet, when something does not seem to take itself seriously, how can one relate it to a serious matter like Faith?  Still, since it is me, Catholic reviewer, talking about it, I will tell you that there is nothing really inconsistent about the film with theological matters.  The good guys win, and the bad guys lose.  This is something that God promises to creation in the end, and a theme that is found all over Western culture as a result.  Ultimately, it really is that simple.

If you are a huge Star Wars nerd like me, then watching Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a box you might want to check, if for no other reason than to say you have done it.  Then again, I have an extra layer of nerdiness in that I can say I read the book in which Cindel Towani appears.  It is now a part of what the franchise refers to as “legends,” which means that all those novels I consumed in my teens and into my twenties were rendered obsolete by Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015).  Does that also apply to Ewoks: The Battle for Endor?  I do not think it matters because this movie should not be watched, anyway.