Star Wars-Ewok Adventures (Caravan of Courage/The Battle for Endor) (1984)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1984
Running Time	185:54
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Version Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Korty
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Aubree Miller Eric Walker Warwick Davis Fionnula Flanagan Guy Boyd Burl Ives Daniel Frishman Debbie Lee Carrington Tony Cox Kevin Thompson Margarita Fernández Pam Grizz Bobby Bell
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Peter Bernstein

    In the 1980s, George Lucas led his annoying Ewoks on an invasion of the small screen, with two Star Wars spin-off tele-movies. Like the Ewoks themselves, these movies were designed for kids who aren't too discerning.

    Anyone who read my review of the Star Wars Extras Disc would know that I'm a Star Wars nut. That said, I'm also one of the many people who were disappointed with Lucas' weak, teddy bear creation, the Ewoks, who debuted in Return of the Jedi. I understand that originally the forest moon of Endor was to be inhabited by Wookies, but some family-friendly marketing got in the way (the same marketing that brought us Jar Jar Binks no doubt), and these cute and furry critters were born.

    Ignored by most Star Wars fans, the two spin-off Ewok tele-movies have now made it to DVD:

   Caravan of Courage (92:55) tells the story of a family marooned on Endor. With their parents captured by a giant creature, two children, Mace (Eric Walker) and Cindel (Aubree Miller) enlist the help of the Ewoks to rescue them.

    This is basically a road movie with Muppets. Filled with attempts at slapstick comedy, the cute and cuddly Ewoks arm themselves with spears and blow darts and battle various obstacles. In the end, it degenerates into a boring episode of Land Of The Giants, when they eventually find the giant creatures' cave.

    The Battle For Endor (92:59) has a different feel, with strong themes of fantasy, witches, dungeons and castles. In a bizarre move, Cindel's family are all killed in the opening minutes by Terak's invading army. Cindel teams up with Wicket (Warwick Davis) to rescue the captured Ewoks from the evil Terak. Along the way they are helped by the gruff Noa (Wilford Brimley). By the way, there's no Battle for Endor in the movie -- the two sides end up fighting for control over a small battery-like power generator.

    Anyone complaining about Lucas 'fixing' the SFX in Ep IV-VI should be forced to watch both of these films back-to-back. Both films suffer from some of the most dated effects I've seen in recent times. There is a mixture of dodgy matte painting, awful stop-motion animation, some very basic blue-screen work, and some cheap Ewok suits, where the zips are very obvious.

    Furthermore, the child actors (who are the leading actors in the stories) are terrible. Also, the Ewok faces have no expression - their eyes and mouths don't even move. So both movies rely very heavily on Burl Ives' lacklustre narration and the pedestrian score to convey any emotion, which simply does not work.

Video

    The sometimes grainy transfer is limited by its dated source material.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Pan & Scan. I'm not sure what the original aspect ratio would have been, considering that this was made for television, but it had a limited theatrical run in a few countries (outside the US).

    The image is soft throughout. The shadow detail varies, and at times, such as inside the hut at 14:00 Caravan of Courage, or inside the dungeon at 57:28 The Battle For Endor, it's very poor.

    The colour is acceptable for its age, but the skin tones appear far too orange.

    There is no problem with MPEG artefacts, although some scenes, such as at 44:29 The Battle For Endor, display a little pixelization. There were no problems with film-to-video artefacts, except for some telecine wobble at 32:38 The Battle For Endor.

    Film artefacts appear throughout, and while most are small, some are quite large.

    There are English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles present, and they are accurate. Each movie is divided into 17 chapters on this single-sided dual-layered disc. I assume the layer change is between the two movies.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Overall, the audio is quite flat and lacking fidelity.

    There is one audio option on this DVD: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine, (but obviously the Ewoks' lips do not move).

    The musical score is credited to Peter Bernstein, and very occasionally it pays homage to some of the Ewok themes of John Williams.

    As a stereo track, there is no surround presence or LFE activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras, not even a trailer.

Menu

    A simple menu with audio.

    This DVD has been released on DVD in Region 1.

    The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• Flipper Disc.

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Dual-Layered disc

    It's pretty even, but I would favour a dual-layered disc.

    If you didn't already hate the Ewoks -- just watch these two tele-films.

    The video quality is disappointing, but the kids might not mind.

    The audio quality is flat and limited.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall