Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Battle for Endor

The Star Wars franchise is home to many cinematic entries some consider to be unnatural. In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1985 made-for-TV film “Ewoks: The Battle For Endor,” starring Wilford Brimley and various forest monsters. (originally published 12/4/2020)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind Uh. This is
Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and we're out today,
but we're bringing you a classic from the vaults. This
was one of the early episodes of Weird House we did.
This is the episode on the e Walks movie Battle
for Indoor. Yeah, this is this is super fun film
for Star Wars fans and and non fans alike. I

(00:27):
will say that in this episode, I I at one
point refer to the fact that the movie is unavailable
on Disney Plus and I say, well, I just hope
that they added in the future while we are in
the future, and I can I can tell you it
is definitely on Disney Plus. So if you need to
watch this film, that is the place to go and
do so. It's a life day miracle. Welcome to Stuff

(00:51):
to Blow your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey,
welcome to Weird How Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb
and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're getting into that
Star Wars. That Star Wars gunk Uh. I got a question.

(01:12):
We we were sort of chatting about this before we
hit record today and I feel like, we've got to
recreate this moment. I was wondering. You remember when The
Force Awakens came out and there were some Star Wars
fans who were very angry about various things. And one
of the things they seem that some people were angry
about was that I believe the people who now owned

(01:33):
the rights to all the Lucas Star Wars properties had
declared that a bunch of extended universe stuff, so a
lot of the Star Wars books and all that was
no longer canon. It didn't really happen in the Star
Wars universe. And what I was, what I'm now wondering,
is were they also angry that the events of the
Ewoks movies didn't happen, or were the people who were

(01:56):
like just furious spamming the internet with spoilers for the
movie because like Wilford Brimley didn't really live in that
hut in the woods, and the like the beaver teeth
Ewalk creature didn't really run and fast forward and all that.
Take you mean, take Joe, don't act like you don't
know Teake's name. Well, I was confused about Teeth because

(02:17):
it sounds in the movie like they're calling him Teak,
but when I looked him up on the Internet, people
were calling him things like teach, like his name had
a J in it. So I'm very confused now. But
you're right, my ears, my ears heard Teak. Okay, Um,
well yeah, he's take to me. And I guess that
comes down to my feelings about cannon. When Star Wars,
which I think I've I've expressed here before. It's like

(02:39):
I'm kind of like, build your own cannon, you know, um,
you know, for the purposes of enjoying it all, like
just accept what you want and uh and you know,
be happy about it. But um, I have to have
a corporation tell me what really happened in the Star
Wars universe. Uh you know, I mean I can see
where it's valuable for storytelling purposes, and I understand why

(03:00):
they did it when they took the multi tiered Lucas
cannon system, where it's like, uh, you know, a class
cannon and beat like the film we're discussing today, I
think was technically c cannon, and instead Disney came and
just said, all right, we got cannon and we got legends,
and cannon is what is you know, the official story
that we're building new stuff off off but of course

(03:21):
they often go back into legends and draw things out,
pick out characters and events and weapons and things like
that and bring them in, bring them back into the fold.
And so I mean, you know, so I feel like
I feel like there's not too much to get upset about.
But but I try to be more easy going with
the Star Wars universe. Well, obviously see and see Cannon

(03:43):
stands for cool as hell, because this movie is really
really cool. Yeah, and it's fitting that we were recording
this shortly before Thanksgiving, because after we we picked it,
I realized, oh that this was the thing, like this
came out like on Thanksgiving or for the thing Giving
holiday on ABC television back in the eighties, back in

(04:06):
So really we're partaking of a of a holiday tradition
right now. Right So once again, like like last week
with Boggy Creek two and the legend continues, we're covering
a sequel uh Colon subtitle film without covering the original.
So the movie we're talking about today is the made
for TV Star Wars movie E Walks Colon The Battle

(04:28):
for Indoor. But that's actually a sequel to another e
Walks movie. I don't think I've seen this other one. Yeah,
I mean I can. I can give you the very
brief rundown of the first one, UM Caravan of Courage,
which came out the year before four UM on ABC
Television around Thanksgiving, and it had a pretty simple plot basically,

(04:50):
Um it followed Sindel. That's a little girl, the little
like super blonde Shirley Temple like girl that is in
both movies, followed her and her family and their adventures
after they crash landed on the forest moon of Indoor. Indoor,
for those of you who don't remember, is, of course,
the pivotal location in the second half of the Return
of the Jedi. This is where the Empire puts their
shield generator to protect the second Death Start that they're constructing. Wait, sorry,

(05:15):
so this is a moon, right, This is not a planet.
It's a moon of a planet right yeah. Um. Basically,
Indoor is a is a gas giant and this is
a habitable moon, like like a Hella habitable moon. It's
it's lush. But anyway, they crashed there. I think there
has always been some confusion about whether these films take

(05:35):
place before or after Return of the Jedi, like I
think they're sort of supposed to be taking place before.
But then there are questions like, well, how does how
does Wickett already know English or basic or whatever you're
calling it, um you know? Or does he forget it
and then have to learn it again from Princess Leah.
But at any rate um on one end of the
other of Return of the Jedi, this occurs. They crashed there.

(05:58):
The parents are kidnapped by a giant creature called a
gore Rox, which is is actually something that that McQuary
designed for Return of the Jedi, but it didn't get used.
It's like a giant ogre thing, so Corey who we
talked about in Boggy Creek Connections again many so so basically,
the e Walks and the kids have to go on

(06:18):
a journey to save their parents from this monster. They
pull it off, and that's the movie. It's it's it's fun.
It's a fun little film. But that is all you
need to know for this one, now, if that is,
if that is the Aliens of the e Walks canon.
Battle for Indoor is the Alien three of the Ewoks

(06:39):
canon because it starts off basically killing all of the
beloved characters from the previous film. Yes, it does. Like basically,
it starts off with the family hanging out with the Walks,
getting their their ship ready to go so they can
leave indoor, and then a bunch of marauders show up.
These these these humanoid or like creatures with with battered

(07:02):
like just you know, their blasters are just held together
with like dirty gauze and dirt, you know. Uh, they
come and they raid the village. They take e Walks
and the human children hostage, and all of Sindel's family
except for her are killed by the marauders. So it's
just really a brutal start to a kid's movie. Do

(07:23):
you like Paul Gleason? I hope not, because he dies
in the first few minutes. Yeah, and Seneraly, Paul Gleason
didn't play the dad in the first one. He said
he was cast in the role. Paul Gleason, for those
of you who don't remember, he was the principal in
the Breakfast Club. That was like his his his big role.
He was in some other things too, But yeah, he's
in it for just a very short stretch and then

(07:44):
he's dead. Classic jerk authority figure of eighties movies. Yeah,
but the movie also, So the movie, it sort of
begins like Alien three, it kills all the beloved characters
from the previous film, but then it also sort of
begins like Conan the Barbarian, because it starts with basically
space Thulsa Doom just raiding an Ewok village and then

(08:04):
taking a bunch of prisoners. Even some of the shots
look kind of similar, though in a slightly cheaper and
less dramatic, less Wagnerian way. Uh. I was thinking about
how the the bad guys in this. I like that
the look of them is kind of simultaneously like skeletal orangutan,

(08:25):
but it's also sort of insect oid, right, They've got
they've got faces that are across between like an ant
and an ape. Yeah, these the Marauders have, I think,
ultimately an interesting character design um In in later works,
I think they are also referred to as the Senate,
the senny assens Um, that's supposedly their species, but in

(08:48):
here they're just basically they're the Marauders. Will probably just
keep referring to them as the Marauders. But yeah, they're
a little bit, a little bit apy, a little bit reptilian.
They ultimately make for really cool space works. You can
think of them as space works. It works. But wait, maybe,
maybe before we get too deep into the plot, I'm
sorry if I threw off the sequence here. Maybe we

(09:08):
should like give the elevator pitch and look some trailer audio,
a little bit of background, and then we can fully
break down what happens in this beautiful adventure. All right, Well,
here's the pitch. A young girl loses their family to
brutal space marauders and a witch indoor. We'll get into
the witch in a minute. She teams up with a
tribe of ewoks, an old hermit in a rabbit like

(09:30):
speed demon creature to survive. Or if you'd rather, you
can look at it the other way and to say,
this is a movie about a grumpy old man who
rediscovers his zest for life thanks to a little girl
and her two stuffed animal friends in space. In space,
it is Wilfred Brimley on the dank moon of Indoor. Yes,
let's hit that trailer audio. Somewhere at the end of

(09:51):
the galaxy. Two friends were about to say goodbye until
the forces of evil threaten their don't look, just run,
fast run, and together they face an incredible adventure beyond imagination.
You my little one home, all right. I like how

(10:18):
we got some roars in there, because there there are
there are a lot of creatures to roar in this film. Yeah. Oh,
there's some really good, big nasty creatures that are written
like like uh, you know, like Hannibal's elephants, but they
look more like Tyrannosaurus rex tadpoles, you know what I mean,
The Blurg's, is that what they're called. Yeah, yeah, they're

(10:40):
there are a lot of fun because this is an
example we were talking about things that were rejected from
Cannon and then brought are brought back in because this
was the Blurgs show up in this film for the
first time. And yeah, they're big t Rex guppy mounts
that the Marauders are using. They would later be brought
back in the Clone Wars series and then and they
were brought back in the first season of The Mandalorian,

(11:03):
so they effectively made their jump back into live action
Star Wars. Ian Cannon. Okay, I want to know how
this thing got made. He walks the Battle for Indoor.
We're so this came out after the original trilogy right,
it came out after Return of the Jedi. Right, That's okay,
So the whole the whole original trilogy had already been released.

(11:26):
Fans are already familiar with the dank forest Moon of Indoor,
They're already familiar with the e Walks, the qt S
space Bears. How do we get to this? Was George
Lucas involved at all? Yeah, Like he was the He
was definitely behind it. I believe he is the story
credit on both of these films. And uh, you know,

(11:47):
I'm not I'm not privy to the full the full
breakdown or the full Wikipedia entry on on how it
came to be, But I mean, basically, this was an
attempt to continue dipping into the Star Wars universe verse
cyphically Indoor and the e Walks, uh by telling smaller
stories with them in a way like that's the same brilliance. Well,

(12:08):
I don't know if it's brilliance here, but I would
say that the brilliancy you see in in the Mandalorian
where they're like, let's tell smaller stories in this universe,
Like this is a big universe with a lot of
cool stuff in it. Let's let's carve out a smaller
area and tell something they're sure. I mean, that's a
great way to expand on a on a setting, in
a world you've created. That's very nice. You don't always

(12:29):
have to be blowing up whole planets. You could just
have like a little spy stories set within that universe
or western. Yeah, and in this case it's I don't
know what it is. In this case, it's Conan the
Barbarian said in that universe, Conan the Barbarian for kids
set in that universe. Yeah, it's And again I think
it also is important you know that. Yeah, there's room

(12:49):
enough to tell not only different size stories, but stories
with different audiences in mind. So ultimately, like the Star
Wars universe is vast enough, you can tell the story
of Rogue One, which is you know, I think more
of a spy story in war story for older fans, uh,
set in the university. Then you can tell this story,
which is skewing a lot younger. Yeah, Rugue One is

(13:12):
more like John Leckay and space. And this is this
is Conan the Barbarian meets et. But it's a little
bit cheaper in space. Now. One thing I want to
drive home about these films, especially for Um, for anyone
out there who maybe isn't isn't my age or older, Uh,

(13:32):
you have to realize that, Okay, this came out in
eighty five, that's one year after the Caravan of Courage
movie that we just mentioned, two years after Return of
the Jedi, and there would not be another Star Wars
movie on TV or or in cinemas for fourteen years.
So to put that another way, three Star Wars movies
come out before the two ABC television Ewak films, but

(13:54):
nine films came out afterwards as of this recording. So uh,
if you're my age, these films we're just not things
you could ignore. Uh, these at the time comprised of
the Star Wars cinematic experience. Um. So that's one. And
and also as our producer Seth brought up like they
were on TV, so there's a good chance that you

(14:15):
or so many knew taped them so suddenly it is
a repeatable experience. And I'm certainly one of those uh
kids who who definitely had repeat viewings of the Battle
for Indoor. I probably saw it more than I saw
Um Empire or Jedi growing up. Wow, So did did
you also have the thing where it had certain commercials

(14:37):
that have been taped along with it, and you just
memorize those commercials, like the Holiday special with the Lady
Garment Workers Union commercial and the and Tobar. I don't
remember it. Uh so maybe we were savvy and edited
those out. I don't know, or or I mean I can't.
I can't imagine they actually presented it without commercials at
the at the time, But I don't remember the commercials.

(14:59):
I think I would because I have I finally remember
some taped VHS commercials. Okay, So we're living in a
world where this is of of Star Wars canon or
at least whatever c Cannon or whatever he's calling it.
Um So, who actually directed this thing? So it's a
team two brothers directors and writers here, Jim and Ken Wheat.

(15:22):
And there's some fun connections with these two because they
had previously worked with great on Clark on his film
The Return. They wrote the screenplay for that. I haven't
seen that, but if The Uninvited is any indication Graydon
Clark is somebody whose career is worth exploring. A couple
of other films that they they wrote the screenplay for

(15:44):
or involved in the evolution of the screenplay writing were
A Nightmare on Elm Street for The dream Master and
The Fly To Oh wait a second, Wait a second,
so the I forgot Graydon Clark directed the On not
the Uninvited, Uh without warning, the first cinema movie we did.
That completely slipped my mind. I'm sorry. Yeah, everything comes apologize.

(16:09):
He's the Alpha and the Omega. Um. So, so those
are two notable films, definitely not kids films, um. But
then another. They also wrote a screenplay titled Nightfall that
went on to become a film called pitch Black. So
anytime you watch a Riddick movie you will see their
names in the credit because they were involved in the

(16:30):
original screenplay. Oh that's really funny. You know. I wouldn't
say Pitch Black is a great film, but when I
actually went back and watched it, it was much better
than I was expecting. Uh. It has plenty of charms
that still hold up. Yeah. I'm not a fan of
some of the like the cuts and the edits and
the it feels it feels very um to me anyway.

(16:50):
It feels like music videos at that time in a
way that can be jarring. But that being said, I
think it's a solid space monster movie with a little
a little maybe the cheese mo is is ratcheted up
to a level that is not not my go to level,
but but I enjoyed it. But it also is an
early indication you get that glimmer of Whyven Diesel would

(17:13):
turn out to be such a big movie star. I mean,
he he is. He's just imminently lovable, even when he's
playing a really bad dude. Yeah. And of course the
cool thing about Riddick too, is it I mean the
first film it was that it was a pitch black,
was a necessary precursor to Chronicles of Riddick, which, as
you know is is my favorite than Diesel film. I
know your love of Chronicles of Riddick. We actually watched

(17:35):
this one together and the what are the they called
the Necromongers in it? Yeah, where the bone armor. They
kind of like Space Kurgan's. It's really good. But okay,
we we we've been we've been burying the lead here. Okay,
so the really important thing about this movie personnel wise
is the big WB Wilfred Brimley. Yes, that's right, Wilford

(17:59):
Brimley places his character Noah Um in it. This is
the grumpy old man. That is key to the film.
Um Brimley is a is interesting casting in this and
and it it is it's it's kind of weird to
think about Brimley as a cinematic icon because when you
think of him, you think of oatmeal, you think of

(18:20):
cowboy hats, you think of these rugged everyman roles. Perhaps
that's the thing that it's the thing here is that
I feel like I mostly know him from the big
science fiction films that that he was in, namely John
Carpenter's The Thing, but also he was in Cocoon, Um
he was Also he's in some horror movies here and
there as well. Um and get granted, he had some

(18:43):
huge roles and some totally non weird films like Sydney
Pollock's The Absence of Malice for example. He's he's he's
really great in that he's in the firm. He plays
like a like a bad hinchman for the evil lawyers. Yeah.
He so it's weird. He's like he's great at playing
like a rural grumpy rural dude or like a grumpy
lawyer dude. Like it's weird. How how how a character

(19:06):
actor will will you know will will fit two molds
that in real life or maybe a little further removed.
I don't know, but yeah, in this he's clearly intended
to be some sort of Heidi's grandfather's sort of character,
a grumpy old man whose heart is melted by a
little kid. And he's the This is interesting. He's the
rare Star Wars character who wears spectacles. Oh, I did

(19:27):
not think of that. That's an interesting point. Yeah, there
a no one. No. I mean, there are characters that
sometimes wear strange goggles and whatnot, you know, sort of
sci fi goggles. But in terms of someone who's just
straight up wearing glasses, I can't think of one offhand.
It's like a class of two. It's Wilford Brimley and Maskatana. Yeah. Yeah,

(19:52):
I don't know. Maybe there's some extended universe stuff where
he his eyes because the thing is his character is
stranded on the planet as well. We come to learn
that he and his buddy with Seak crash landed on
Indoor some unspecified number of years ago. Uh, like it
seems like maybe like twenty five years maybe, um, but

(20:15):
maybe in that time he his eyesight went bad and
he had to like find like ancient ruins on the
on Indoor and find eyeglasses that had been constructed by
by a long dead civilization I don't know, or maybe
he just wore eyeglasses I don't know in the Pyramids
of Indoor. Yeah. Well, so you say he's like Heidi's

(20:36):
grandpa kind of character. He absolutely is that. But I
would say the actual closer analogy within the Star Wars universe.
And this is gonna sound strange at first, but he's
the Han Solo character in this movie. He's the person
who is initially gruff and grumpy and self interested but
comes through in the end because he made friends and
he's he saves the day. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. Yeah,

(20:57):
he's he's kind of the Han Solo and older rounder
Han Solo with um, but certainly has that journalist flare
rather than that, you know, he's not a specialist. I
would I would think if he was a Dungeons and
Dragons character, his class would be action grandpa, because yeah,
he's he's good at just fixing stuff and tinkering with stuff,
but he's also really good with a with a walking

(21:19):
stick and a grappling hook gun. That's right. Uh, Yeah, Yeah,
so he's walking stick guy. But then at the end
he busts out some real martial arts. Yeah, he's able
to hold his own against an alien warlord that seems
to be about eight feet tall. So, uh, you know,
he's he can he can come through in a pinch. Now,
this movie also has we mentioned I guess this might

(21:40):
be the only character that is carried over from the
actual films. It has Wicked the e Walk. Who. I
don't mean to be mean about this movie, because I
did really enjoy it, and you know, I'm sure it's
great for kids and all that, but something looks a
little bit wrong with Wicked in this movie. In Return
of the Jedi, Wicked the e Walk is cute. In
this movie, he has manson family eyes. I'm not sure

(22:03):
exactly what's different it. I guess it's the same costume,
but he has this terrifying blank stare that I don't
recall from Return of the Jedi. Huh, I don't know.
I didn't pick up on that as much. Bee bee
beep beep. We have an incoming message from Seth. Seth
has has knowledge we don't have about Wicked Eyes. Guys.

(22:24):
I'm very, very very sorry to interrupt, but I know
that's just from watching uh too many documentaries about the
many small changes that have taken place in the updated
versions of all the Star Wars movies. You know, one
of the big things they did for a Return of
the Jedi was no, no, I'm sorry, it's not even
the right name of that movie. Which one is the

(22:44):
third movie? Return of the Jedi, Return of the Jedi.
You gotta I'm gonna have this correct in my head,
Return of the Jedi. One of the big changes they
made was they went in and very subtly made all
of the Ewalk's eyes less creepy, to give them very
subtle blinks that gave them lie so they weren't actually
looking like a little buttons. So so, Joe, this is
fascinating to me because you might actually have a vision

(23:07):
of the Special Editions updated in your mind their eyes
look less creepy, when in reality, maybe this version of
Wickets is the true version of Wickets. Oh my god,
what we this is what we actually knew perhaps back
in the eighties pre Special Editions, I don't know. Oh,
thank you, Seth. Well, now I consider myself just fully

(23:28):
shamed because I'm on record not let Well, then again,
I don't like a lot of the stuff they did
in the remasters, but a lot of the changes they made,
for example an Empire are good, you know, like the
new Wampa and all that. That's good stuff. So maybe
this is one of the good ones too. Well. And
if it's done right, you wouldn't notice, right, and so
that this is one where you don't notice, So makes sense.

(23:50):
But is Wicked in this movie still Warwick Davis? Yeah,
it's totally Warwick Davis. Um. Warwick Davis is wicked and
and always will be. Um. But but it is interesting
to watch him in this film knowing it's Warwick Davis
because in in when he's playing Wicked, there's really not
much to the role, right, I mean it's it's a

(24:11):
physical role. Uh you know, he's doing a fair amount
of tumbling and whatnot. But considering Warwick Davis's place in
uh you know, his subsequent career, uh, he feels kind
of wasted in this because of course he would go
on to to be you know, he would be Willow,
you know, the star of that Lucas fantasy film. He
would be the Leprechn and the leprecn horror films. He

(24:33):
was in the Harry Potter movies playing various I think
goblin creatures. Uh So he has all these other roles,
sometimes not even playing a magical being, just playing a person. Um.
You know, he has proven himself to be, uh you know,
a good actor, a solid actor. Uh So, it's it's
interesting to watch this and and know that he's you know,
there's there's this, there's this future acting talent just sealed

(24:56):
in this suit. I mean, he does a lot more
with this role than you would then you would expect
to be possible because, to be fair, Wicked, there's not
much on the page for Wicked in in this story
if we were watching uh Rachel commented halfway through the movie,
Wicked is a yes man, and that is absolutely true.
Wicked mostly in this film, uh is just there to

(25:17):
be like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, this is true.
But but he also is kind of like he has
his Jack Burton moment at the end because he comes through.
Oh yeah, it's needed, he comes through. Oh yeah, well
it comes through more than once. There are a few
times where he proves himself, you know, the fighting powerhouse
of our adventuring party here. So despite the scary, glassy

(25:39):
eyes and the lack of substance for the role on
the page. I think Warwick Davis does a great job
playing Wicked in this Now, another person of note in
this film is the Witch Charles I believe her name,

(25:59):
is played by Sean Phillips, probably the most seasoned actor
in the whole production. She's a she's she's a Welsh actor,
probably best known for playing a reverend mother Guius Helen
Moham in David Lynch's Dune. You remember her, Oh yeah,
you will, you will feel my com jabbar. Yeah, yeah, she's. Yeah,

(26:21):
she's fabulous in in Dune, a weird movie we should
probably come back to, because even even if you strip
away the dune in Dune, there's plenty of just additional
lynch In weirdness in that film. But yeah, she's she's
great in that. She was also an eye Claudius. She
played Cassiopeia in Clash of the Titans. And she also

(26:42):
just did a ton of British TV work, seemingly, you know,
most of it historical sort of stuff. So I have
a question about this character. She shows up, she's wearing
like a metal corset and she she looks kind of like, um,
what's that. There's a character in Mortal Kombat who she
kind of reminds me of. I'm not quite sure what
what she was called, but she's got like long hair

(27:03):
and she's evil and well, confusingly, the character you're thinking
of in Mortal Kombat is uh Sindel, which is also
Little Girl Sindal. Sindl is the girl Sindel is the
evil version in Mortal Kombat. Okay, but yeah, so she
looks kind of like that, but then she's a witch

(27:24):
like she she has sorceress powers and so that makes
me wonder in the context of uh Star Wars, does
that mean she is a force user? Yes? So okay, yeah,
so this is where it gets complex and geeky again
because within the context of this film alone and It's time,
she just seems to be a magical witch thrown in.

(27:45):
She's the Witch of Indoor, get it, you know exactly
so she should be calling up the prophet Samuel to
give a give an omen for the battle, I guess. So,
I mean it's kind of what she does, that's kind
of her role here. We can sort of see the
inspiration here, um, but subsequently it has been rhet cond
I think to understand that she was a rogue Night Sister.

(28:08):
So Night Sisters are female um practitioners of the Force,
female force sensitive individuals who use the Dark Side uh
and are capable of of of great magic. In many cases.
They're native to the planet Datamere, which is also the
planet that m Darth Maul species comes from, and basically

(28:29):
in the Clone Wars animated series, and I think some
in Rebels I don't recall exactly. Mainly in Clone Wars
we see these Night Sister characters showing up and playing
an important role and at times working with or working
against the interests of of the Sith. But so there,
she's got powers that no other Force user ever has

(28:50):
in Star Wars, like she can transform into animals. An
sky Walker couldn't do that. Even I don't think Yoda
could transform into an animal. Now, I mean this is
but it it does feel in keeping with Night Sister magic.
Like the stuff that the Night Sisters do in the
Clone Wars series are more are more like straight up magic,
you know, like bringing things back to life, necromantic acts,

(29:14):
that sort of thing. That being said, I I do
admit like in this film she feels she feels like
something other than the Force, even if she's ultimately using
the Force. I don't recall anybody in this film mentioning
the Force. You wouldn't know the Force exists, right, Yeah,
she's she's like a straight up which in this film.
And and I say that Phillips isn't given a ton

(29:35):
to do with this role. But but she's good. I
would have liked to have seen more from her character,
but she still she plays a great which she has
a really awesome costume and the effects are really nice
when she transforms into a raven because she already has
like a rave any feathery cloak in all. And and
she has this magic ring that seems to contain the

(29:56):
magic she uses or focuses the magic she choosing We
were not sure, but it plays an important role later
on in the film. So she's one of the main villains.
But then the other main villain is the leader of
these marauder aliens. I was when we were watching it.
I kept calling him Thuls of Room. So he's the
guy who leads the bad guys who show up at

(30:17):
the village at the beginning and screw everything up. And
he wants power, and he wants. There's like a I
don't know how to explain the plot, but I guess
we'll get into that in a minute. But there's this
piece of technology from a spaceship that he wants because
he thinks it will give him power. So he's the
same species as these other marauders, meaning he looks kind

(30:37):
of like a reptilian insect orangutan skeleton type creature, but
also with with certain angles his silhouette and his facial
hair because he's got this cool beard. He looks like
James Randy looked in the eighties. Did you notice this
comparison picture of the amazing Randy like on Johnny Carson

(30:59):
the seventies or eighties. It's it's this guy. It's Terek. Huh.
I didn't get that as much as I got kind
of a faint like George C. Scott vibe from him.
Oh wow, that's a very different direction. But yeah, this
is this is Terek, the towering war lord of the Marauders. Um.
I also say that, even though all the Marauders tend

(31:21):
to look pretty good, clearly Terek, when you're the ruler
of a of a group of marauders, you're gonna get
more screen time, you're also going to get more of
that FX budget. So so while sometimes the guys in
the background or look maybe you know, they look all right,
Terek looks really good, like the makeup effects are are
really well done on him. I agree. And he's played

(31:44):
by the towering Dutch actor Carl Strucken, who would who
went on to play Lurch in both nineties Adams Family
movies as well as the Giant on Twin Peaks, and
he's been in a ton of stuff, and I think
he did the voice of Terek as out. I was
looking at the credits to see if they were doing
that thing where they have a different voice actor for

(32:04):
a very physical role, but I think this is Stroken
doing the voice as well, and it's you know, there's
his deep, you know, giant voice, and uh it's it's
quite effective. You know. Where he really looks great, even
better than in the movie, is in this poster you
showed me for the movie that you found where it's
like holding a big sword. He's like the Darth Vader

(32:26):
in the original Star Wars poster, towering over everything, looming
in the background. Though, I have to say also, and
I know you pointed this out as well, this poster
is extremely misleading about what's in this movie. Yeah, and
and apparently this was like the home video video version
of the poster to like this, this was not just

(32:47):
pre production stuff like this. They were like, it's good,
put it on the VHS and send it out, because
it does have a whole bunch of weird things that
clearly show that it was created prior to the completion
of the movie. Um, Like, I don't know where to
begin here. For instance, Um, it has a giant Terek,
It's gotten multiple spaceships in the background, even though there's

(33:09):
only ever one. It has the space patals in this movie,
but you know, it makes it look like there's going
to be Yeah. It also shows a han solo looking
character with a blaster on the front that I think
it's supposed to be the dad from the first movie.
But yeah, it makes no sense here because he played

(33:29):
even the dad in this movie plays no real role. Yeah,
whoever this is, this is not somebody in the movie. Yeah.
And then you have you have Wicket and Tek they're
standing batt already, but then you have a Sindal there
holding a big old knife like a big dagger. Like
she's ready to jump into combat and start stabbing rodders
in the neck. That is not indicative of what happens

(33:50):
in the movie. And she it looks like I don't know.
I wondered if also in this depiction they're trying to
make it more ambiguous that she might be a boy. Yeah, yeah,
I can see that too, Like if they were like, oh,
we need to make sure that boys want to watch this,
so I don't want to give them the impression that
the main character is a girl. I'm glad the blurd

(34:12):
made the cover to the blurs in the background. And
there are these mountains that I don't recall being in
the movie, these like snow capped peaks. Is that in
the film? I don't think, so, I don't remember any mountains.
Now there's like a cliff at one part, but I
don't know we can get into that. Okay, well, maybe
we should just give a brief outline of the whole plot. Uh,

(34:32):
so you know the shape of the thing. So we
we talked about how it starts. You know, this cone
in the Barbarian beginning. The village is rated the humans
Sindel the little girl. By the way, I don't know
if I mentioned this already, but I had to look
it up because they've got this actress named Aubrey Miller
playing Sindel, the main character, the girl, the blonde girl,

(34:53):
And clearly they wanted Drew Barrymore. Right. This came out
two or three years after ET, and they were like,
let's get Drew Barrymore but maybe they couldn't afford her something,
so they were like, well, get us the Berry morrist
kid you can find, And I think that's how we
ended up with with this main character here. You know,
there's apparently a fan theory um that Cindel grows up

(35:18):
to be Captain FAsMA from the sequel trilogy. What I mean,
there's there's nothing cannon or anything here, but but some
fans put that together and I think they what's her name,
Gwendolyn Christie. Yeah, they was like, yeah, they're both blonde.
Maybe the math works, I don't know. And also, this

(35:38):
does seem like the kind of experience that might harden
you towards a life serving the first order. Um, so
it kind of makes sense. I don't know. Oh, right,
So the idea is she's exposed to these roving bands
of marauders she's like, it's just chaos out here. We
need order, we need orders. So she's just signed up
with the Empire. Try to bring along ordered into this

(36:00):
traumatic experience and what direction do you go? And she
ends up going going that direction. So I don't know,
I don't think it's I don't think anybody's gone so
far as to do a treatment of that, uh in
you know, in novel form or anything, or short story form,
but that would it would be interesting to see how
that might be stitched together. Yeah, okay, that's very interesting
now my mind is set on it. So Sindel her

(36:21):
human family, they're living with the e walks there, Paul
Gleason and her dad is working on this spaceship, trying
to repair it or something, and and then they get
attacked by the marauders and then just all the humans
except Sindell are killed and uh and and and so
the leader of the bad guys, Thulse of Room, he
obviously wants some kind of canister from out of Paul

(36:45):
Gleason's spaceship. And when he you know, he tries to
get it, and he's like, the power, I have the power.
And then this is also where we meet the sorceress,
and then Sindel and her ewalk buddies are captured by
the by by the marauding creatures, and Wicket promises to
take care of her. He says, Wicked, take care of Sindel,

(37:06):
so he speaks in the third person and invokes his
own name. He's like a very cute teddy bear, Bob Dole.
And then the ewoks escaped the marauders who have captured them,
Wicked and and Sindel get away. And this movie very
much continues on the theme that's established in the Return
of the Jedi that while the e Walks may look

(37:26):
extremely cute and like living teddy bears, they are also
highly resourceful jungle guerilla warriors. They're they're like the Viet
Cong of Indoor. They know how to use the environment.
They set traps, you know. They they've got very clever
tactics for for the landscape. Yeah, when they're fighting on
on their own terms, on their home turf, they just

(37:49):
can't be beat. They can they can take out the
Galactic Empire as long as they're fighting within the forest
of Indoor and using guerrilla tactics. Yes, uh so, Wicked
and Sindel escape and this escape sequence involves what appears
to be teleportation. Do you remember this spart where they're
just running through the woods and then it just cuts
to them most of the way up a cliff face.

(38:11):
I don't know if something was edited out there or
if they're like people get the point. It feels like
that was this cut for time a little bit there. Yeah,
But but it's otherwise a great escape sequence because there's
like this, you know that they cut a hole through
the bottom of this cart. They have this cart that's
being pulled by a blurg and the cart seems to
be made out of blurg bones and hide. So I

(38:31):
was like that, and yeah, then they're on the run
and two marauders are after them, and um, and they
managed to like duck into a cave and like wick
it basically like straight up like murders. The two marauders
that are after them like the well, now I guess
he does. And I think the marauders, through their own
reckless violence, managed to to dislodge some boulders that then
fall on them and you know, make them fall to

(38:52):
their deaths. Yeah, that's right. They get knocked off of
the pass of cads. Yeah, then they encounter a dragon
condor her and have to battle that, and she gets
snatched away by They go into a cave and it
is Wicket trying to build a hang glider. I think
he's just building one out of bones and hides and stuff.
Very cool. Yeah, I mean that's the other thing to

(39:13):
keep in mind about the Ewoks, Like, yes, they're using
like stone age technology, but they have mastered nonpowered flight,
Like they can build a functional glider and just go
for it. Yeah. So he builds that, and then they
accidentally disturb a dragon. Uh. And then what is the
deal with this dragon's chest? It looks like it's wearing
a vest of some kind. Do you remember this? I

(39:35):
don't remember the chest to the drag mainly, just remember
it's you know, it has kind of like a snaky
condori head. Uh. Well, okay, So the dragon grabs Sindel
and flies off with her, and then Wickett has to
rescue her, which he does by like making the dragon
drop her and then flying down and catching her after
she's been dropped in a physically implausible scene. But it works.

(39:57):
You know, it's fun. But one of the things that
I noted, Uh, this may be extremely brief Monster Science note,
when they watch the Dragon flying Away, there's this part
where they show a planet looming over the horizon and
it takes up literally half the sky. I guess that's
supposed to be the gas giant that this moon is
a moon of. But but I was like, that just

(40:19):
looks too big. That is implausibly big. Though it did
make me look up, and I think we've sort of
talked about this on the show before when we were
talking about the moons of Jupiter. But there are moons
you could stand on in our Solar system where if
you look at the planet that this is a moon
of the planet, would look much bigger than things we're
used to seeing in the sky. For example, if you

(40:40):
stand on the surface of the innermost major moon of Jupiter,
the Galileean moon Io, which is very yellow, sulfurous hell,
lots of volcanoes erupting all the time. You stand on
the surface of Io and you look at Jupiter, Jupiter
would not take up half the sky, but it would
be very big compared to like stuff where you used
to sing, like the Sun or the moon. You can usually,

(41:02):
I think, cover up the Moon if you extend your
armfully and you can like cover it up with one finger.
To cover up Jupiter from the surface of Io, you'd
probably have to use your whole hand. So it's bigger,
but it's still not the whole sky, right, Um, I
guess I did. I didn't notice as much. Maybe, I
mean I didn't think about it. But I've been playing

(41:24):
this game No Man's Sky a little bit. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's yeah, fun, beautiful game. You're exploring planets landing on it.
But there's a lot of that in this game, where
you land on it on some strange, beautiful world and
the horizon is just ridunculous, like gorgeous. But yeah, if
you start thinking about the relative size and distances involved,

(41:45):
it's a bit much at times. But so Wicked and Sindel.
They're out in the woods here after they've escaped, and
then then they meet the real star of the film,
which is a tricksy beast with scruffy fur and beaver
teeth that runs on fast forward and this teak who
we've already alluded to tea teak is just the best
teak is. Yeah, he's awesome. Um My, my wife thinks

(42:07):
he has frightening teeth and I don't think he has frightened.
He has. He has very He's very rabbit like um,
both in his dental mechanics but also in just his
overall form. He's this kind of like little rabbity fella
that runs around at speeds that must make him the
fastest creature in the Star Wars universe. Here's the real question.

(42:28):
Is Teak an ewalk? I don't think so. Um No.
I look, according to Wikipedia, his species is Teak. So
maybe the new season of The Mandalorian will have a
baby Teak. Oh man. I would love Fatigue to show
up again in some form or another, because I feel

(42:48):
like he was an absolute joy. It's, you know, very
much a It's an interesting story with Teak because it's
very much a little person in a suit, very well done,
very well acted. The suit is in the like the
puppetry that that moves. The facial features is just very
well done. I totally bought Teak as an actual creature
in this. But uh, the some of the lore apparently

(43:11):
is that brim Wilford Brimley apparently can be difficult to
get along with and for starters. I don't think he
liked the directors on this, and so somebody else had
to direct him in all of his scenes. But on
top of this, Teake was going to originally be either
exclusively a puppet or was gonna be a puppet more
of the time, and Wilfred was just having none of this.

(43:33):
He's like, I'm not acting in opposite a puppet. Do
you get a you get a person in here in
a suit, I'll act against a person, but get that
puppet out of here. That's just perfect. Well he's he's
like the puppet that's witchcraft. You know, he doesn't like
it at all. But anyway, this alludes to the fact

(43:53):
that the Teak and Wilfred Brimley are are a duo.
In this movie. Teake leads Sindel and wicked E walk
to the home of Wilfred Brimley. Again. The character's name
is Noah, and we meet Wilfred Brimley and he's very
ornerary and he tries to send them away. He's like,
you can't stay here, get out of my house, and
the little girls just like, well, he's just a mean

(44:14):
old man anyway. But he makes them depart the Kingdom
of Brimley, so they sit outside being sad and pathetic.
They're like, we're cold, we're hungry, and he's like, well,
I'm a mean old man and I don't care. But
then his heart with with some urging from Teak, his
heart eventually melts and he lets them into the house
and and they share a fire, and then he becomes

(44:35):
he becomes nice grandpa instead of me and Grandpa. Yeah.
I was watching this movie with my son and he
was he was initially not having any of this. Uh,
this Noah character is like, Yeah, this guy's awful. He's mean.
I don't like him. But then he he has a
rapid change of heart and then he's all in for
the rest of the movie. Speaking of the resourcefulness of

(44:57):
the e Walks, one of the things that I really
enjoyed was there's scene where wick It makes a fire
with a bow drill. Yeah, it's weird. The domestic scenes
in this film are some of my favorites. Like they
just warm my heart in a way that I can't
fully explain. But just the scenes where they're just sitting
around eating or cooking or or playing music together, like

(45:18):
these are just I don't know, they're just they're just
totally warm experiences. Yeah, I think I like those more
than anything else. There's a lot of puppets eating food
or I don't know if the I guess the facial
puppetry of of of Teak and stuff that I guess
that would still be puppetry, um, even though there's an
actor playing Teak. But like the uh there's the scene

(45:40):
where they're eating a pie made out of flowers. I
didn't fully understand that, like they gathered flowers. They're like,
we're making a pie and okay, um. But then so
after all this that you get these nice domestic scenes.
They share a fire, they eat flower pie, and then
we finally cut to the Castle of Pain. It shows

(46:01):
these these stone towers. I don't know what castle they
used to film this at, but it's this uh nasty
castle where the skeleton orangutan insect creatures live and the
raven sorceresses there and they're all hanging out trying to
do some kind of magic spell on the canister from
Paul Gleason Spaceship. I didn't really understand this either, but

(46:24):
maybe it wasn't supposed to make sense. Um. I don't know.
I probably thought about it way too much because I
think what we have here is that the Marauders at
some time in the past themselves crash landed on indoor,
and at this point they no longer I. I suspect
that the Marauders were like more of a primitive society

(46:47):
on their homeworld, like maybe they had achieved uh, you know,
like iron age or um or maybe Bronze age technology
before they got sucked up into galactic affairs, you know,
forced to be a warrior, cast by some group or another, uh,
and just thrown in over their head given technology that
they don't really understand but figure out how to use effectively,

(47:09):
like the blasters that they have, you know, that are
all just again held together with dirty gauze. There are
a couple of scenes of one of them sitting around
drunkenly tinkering with some sort of electrical contraption and electric
uniting itself in the process. So yeah, you get that
sense that that they sort of know how the technology works,

(47:30):
they know it well enough to use it, but they
don't understand other concepts. So at some point in their
past they might have understood that they need a power
cell to give them the power to return to orbit
and return to galactic affairs. But at this point, you know,
maybe it's generations. Afterwards, all that has survived is this
idea that if they get ahold of a power cell,

(47:51):
that is the power. And so Terek believes that he
no longer understands it in terms of technological power, but
in terms of like personal cosmic our, personal magical power.
Through the decay of the lore over the years, what
was initially a technological utilitarian need has become a religion.
We need this object of power in order to give

(48:12):
us basically the magic to do what we want. Right,
And as far as the castle goes, um I interpreted
that as being like ruins that they found, like those
are the ruins of some even you know, some previous
Indrian civilization that was snuffed out or or or expired. Okay, yeah,
I guess that would make sense. So so they're trying

(48:40):
to work their magic and it's not going well. And
then as we come back to Wilfred Brimley, Sindel and
Wicked and Teak and and they're in the province. Actually
they find out that Wilfred Brimley himself has a crash spaceship.
Seems that there are a lot of crash spaceships around here,
and he's been trying to repair it, right, is he's
like been working on it for all these years. Yeah. Basically, Again,

(49:00):
the comparisons between this movie and No Man Sky are
tremendous because you land on a planet No Man Sky
and they're just crash spaceships everywhere, and that's kind of
how it is here. Yeah. So he has a crash spaceship,
but he has he's been working to repair it, but
he does not have a power cell. Uh So. And
then in the process of discovering this, the characters just

(49:22):
get more and more sappy toward each other. Wilford Brimley
gets all sweet and he opens up to the child
and the e walk. He gets Sindel to sing a
song at one point, and I don't mean to be
mean to this child actor, but it is so bad,
like Wickt can barely pretend to clap at the end
of the song. Um. Another thing I noticed that. So

(49:42):
you mentioned that the cart made by the Marauder creatures
looks like it's made out of bones, and you're right
about that. Maybe it's made out of the Blurg bones.
Sometimes Wilfred Brimley's hut in the woods also looks like
it's made out of bones like that. Uh, like that's
stone age amath bone hut we talked about in an
episode not too long ago. Well, I mean, it seems

(50:04):
like they're various megafauna on the planet that can be
um butchered and made into houses. But it's the forest
moon of Indoor though, Like they're not hurting for lumber.
Yeah that's true. Yeah, why there's wood everywhere? Why build
anything out of a bone? Interesting, I wonder. But anyway,
so one morning you get the third act kicks into

(50:25):
gear because one morning Sindel is lured out of the
house by something that she thinks is the sound of
her mother singing. And then Wicked and and Wilford Brimley
go after her, and Sindel comes across this weird fairy
type lady in a flowing white dress who's out in
the forest with a white horse. But of course it's
a trap. This is the Sorceress, the witch from the beginning.

(50:48):
She snatches Sindel and rides off on a horse to
the Castle of Pain. Yeah the horse turns black and
then process oh yeah uh and then fuls off Room
wants Sindel to use her magic to make the stolen
canister work, and she of course doesn't know how to
do this, and then he has a melt down and

(51:08):
throws her in a prison cell. But there's a there's
a rescue scene that kicks off, so Wilford Brimley Wicket Antique.
They sort of gear up and they go to the
castle on a mission of rescue. There's a grappling hook infiltration.
This whole infiltration scene with with Tiak. I think it's
really fun. It is it's it's it's a lot of

(51:28):
fun because you got you got the grappling hook going in.
It's you know, Teak is your stealth specialist flying ahead.
There's ah, there's a there's a wonderful scene where where
once they are inside and just getting in, it is
pretty exciting. But then they they all three stack up
on top of each other and put a cloak over
themselves to pretend to be one marauder too in order

(51:49):
to pass unnoticed through their drunken mead hall. Yeah. Well,
the bad guys are doing this thing where I guess
this sometimes happened, especially in kids movies, where the bad
guys are all hanging out and they're having a big
old feast and they're eating and drinking, and they're just
constantly emitting NonStop, growling, maniacal laughter. Uh, and it makes

(52:10):
you wonder, what are they talking about? What's so funny?
It's just NonStop? Yeah, Yeah, I don't know what they're
they're talking about. I mean, clearly they're they're talking about.
I mean, there's that one guy that's working with electrical equipment,
so maybe that's a lot of like insider techy humor
on his end, But everybody else is just drinking and laughing. Yeah.

(52:32):
But then Wilfer, Brimley, Wicket Antique free the e Walks
and Cindel from the Castle prison. The escape sequence reveals
that e Walks once again, they're pretty handy with blasters
and a pinch, and everybody escapes via a zip line
and then they do the thing they do, the thing
that Kevin McAllister does in Home Alone, where the bad

(52:53):
guys try to come on the zip line after them
and they cut it so they fall into the mode,
the acid mode. Oh is it? Is it acid or
does it have some kind of creature in it? I
couldn't tell if it was supposed to be piranhas or
if the liquid itself was harmful. Oh yeah, they're a
little they're a little vague on that point. There's something
in there that bubbles and and messes you up. Oh

(53:13):
and there's a great line I love when they're reunited.
So we find out that Wilfred Brimley had a friend
that he crashed landed on this planet with and uh,
and his bones are there in the Castle of Paine.
And when they when Sindel and Wilfred Brimley back up,
Sindel says to him, I'm sorry about your friend, that
they killed him for the power thing. And there there

(53:36):
is Serah's bones, like just bones, just basically it's been
a high school science display. Yeah, like really dry bones,
like they look fossilized. So I don't know how along
Wilford Brimley supposed to have been there, but yeah, now
and when they're when they're freeing the ewalks, an important
thing is that there's a second there where the witch.

(53:57):
The witch is locked up too. We've learned in all
this are the which is is is as much a
prisoner as they are in many ways, like Karen keeps
asking her to release the magic and she can't do it.
And there's this confusing scene when they're still locked up
where the which is like like talking to a Sindel
and says, well, why didn't you release the magic when
he asked you release the magic? Did you try waving

(54:18):
your hand over it or something? And it seems it's
a confusing sequence that, more than anything in this film,
forces me to do a lot of mental gymnastics to
make work. Because if she she's like this magical being,
like where does she come from? Like the night Sister? Uh?
Excuse Like that seems to work for a lot of this.

(54:41):
You can say, well, she's a you know, a fourth
sensitive individual from another planet like everybody else in this scenario.
She got stuck on this planet or got stuck with
the Marauders at some point or another. But she clearly
knows about spaceships. She that's revealed later. She you know,
she's she, I guess knows about a a wider universe.
So doesn't she realize this is a power cell? The

(55:03):
best I can do to understand this is maybe she's
just been in with the Marauders so long. She's like
she's gone mad. She's like bought into Terek's madness, into
thinking that the power cell has has magical properties. I
don't know. That is an admirable con You've come as
close as a person could come, because otherwise it's a

(55:24):
real I say, it's a real weak point in this
particular script. But at any rate, they were Cindel refuses
to let Wicket free her says no, she's evil and
swats the keys out of his hands, and then go
down to the sewer. And then uh. And then once
the good guys have escaped, the marauders come back. They
act for a second like they're just gonna gun down
the witch in the cage, but instead they free her

(55:46):
and and they're like, yeah, come with us, and you're
gonna we're gonna get this thing back. She transforms into
her raven form, but after she does so, Terek takes
the magic ring off of the ravens claw there um
and and puts it on a necklace around his own neck. Uh.
Presumably this means she cannot change back into her human

(56:07):
form until she gets that ring back from Terek. Oh, okay,
I didn't understand that at the time. Now did that
makes sense? But Terrek also seems to maybe is he
getting power from the ring or something? I don't know,
is it like, what is it like the one ring.
I don't think he gets anything out of it until
in the very final scene with him, uh, he gets

(56:27):
it in all the wrong ways, which will So the
marauders then chase our heroes. They chase Wilfred Brimley, Sindel
and the e Walks Antique uh and and the heroes
are going to remember Wilfred Brimley has a space ship
that's up on cinder blocks in his yard. They're they're
going to that, and Wilfred Brimley is going to do
something with the power cell. I think he's going to

(56:48):
repair his ship, and I don't know they'll escape or something.
But there's of course there of course has to be
an e walk battle, just like in Return of the Jedi,
and there is one. So the e Walks battle the
marauders and woods and they use traps and they use
the environment and it's much like the Return of the
Jedi scene. Yeah, it's it's marauders versus e Walks, and

(57:12):
it's pretty good. Lots of traps going off, and then
eventually Noah gets the ship's defenses running. Uh so he
starts busting out. First of all, there's like this enormous
um blaster cannon on the side of the the the
ship that like folds out and starts taking down the enemies.
And then there are also these two what seemed to

(57:32):
be open air gunnery positions, Like they're they're not completely enclosed.
So um, either that's a flaw in the whole design
or they're only intended for use steering like while the
ship is in an atmosphere or something. But at anyway,
they've got like three gunnery positions now I think, adding
to the use of traps. And they have a catapult
which of course ends up firing an e walk at

(57:54):
a marauder at one point, Um, he gets in on
the action. There's a wonderful scene where he starts a
little fire underneath one of the Blurg's feet and starts
a blurred stand taine. I mean, since he is essentially
the flash, he would think he would be pretty useful
in a fight. He can like fast forward run to
any position. Oh yeah, then he wraps he fast forward

(58:14):
vine wraps the marauder to a tree at one point. Yes,
there are lots of vines that That also makes me
think about how the spaceship is not only so the
spaceship that's up on cinder blocks is covered in vines
that look very flammable. When they start shooting the lasers,
it looks like, I don't know, it looks like a
fire hazard. Um. But of course, the as you might expect,
it's a yub nub. The humans and the Ewoks win

(58:37):
the battle against the marauders and and and you. But
then the bad guy Terek. He even after the battle
is over, he captures Sindel and he tries to bargain
with Wilfred Brimley. He's like, give me the power, defy me,
and she is doomed. And then Wilfred Brimley and Tulsa
Tulsa room duel, so it's sword versus walking stick, and

(59:01):
for a second it looks like Terek is gonna win,
but then Wicket uses his sling and hits I guess
the jewel on the ring on on Terek's necklace that
he got from the witch, and for some reason, hitting
that with the sling or the stone from the sling
makes Terek get just crispified. He he just sort of

(59:24):
like burns up and turns into an ash husk. Yeah,
it's a great petrification scene because it's like it hits
the ring and then Terek has this moment. You know,
he's wanted power this whole time, he wants magical power,
and now he's gotten it, and uh, you know, not
from the source he was after, but here's the power,
and it just just fries him like a char Royl,

(59:47):
like just charbroy like it like you you just put
him in the microwave too long, just turns him to
this smoking ashen stone, and uh, it's it's a pretty
great sequence. And then afterwards, like the wickets trying to
get too close to it, and Noah's like, don't, don't, don't,
don't even look at it, don't get close to it. Um,
it's just like just an unwholesome affair. It doesn't taste

(01:00:09):
as good as he smells. But then of course they
fly away, Wilford, Brimley and Sindel evacuate the planet. Uh.
The Sindel is now a child of space. And I
don't know what happens after that. Maybe they go on adventures,
or maybe Sindel joins the Empire. Yeah, like that would
make sense if you go the Captain Fasman direction. I

(01:00:30):
think they were going to do a third one of this.
I've seen rumblings about that that originally there was gonna
be a third e Wak movie, but it never never
came to fruition. So one can only wonder, and so
that's the end. Yebnob yubnub. I can't just Teak stay behind.
I don't remember, I should know that. I think take stays.

(01:00:50):
I think Teak is a child of indoor like the
walks and should not leave. If teakes had been uh
made to fly, they would have been born with power cells. Also,
what happens if Teak is on board a ship traveling
at warp speed and then he runs at full speed
back through the hallways. Oh that's one of those good
relativity questions. Man, I wish I thought of this ahead

(01:01:12):
of time. We could have worked that out. That's homework,
homework for your listeners who who who want to do
some some uh some deep thinking there. So in terms
of you know, deep thinking about this one again, I
think my main area of contemplation is just about the
role of different species at different technological levels within the

(01:01:34):
galactic community of Star Wars, because just in this film,
just think of all the different technological levels we encounter,
Like there's there the e Walks, which again seemed to
have just peak Stone age technology at their hands. We
have we have the Marauders, who again probably didn't have
a tremendous technological achievement level before they were seemingly thrust
into galactic affairs. So you almost kind of almost have

(01:01:56):
to pity the Barauders, you know, because did they how much, say,
did they have in the current state of their species.
You have the possible medieval level technology that we see
in that castle of some i guess forgotten or um
extinct species that may have lived on Indoor at one point.

(01:02:17):
You've got people like Sindel's, Sindel's family and Noah who
are part of the space faring um community at large,
but having crash landed, having lost some of their technology,
are well on their way towards just being um, you know,
at a living at a lower level of technological achievement,
you know, like like Noah has become an old man

(01:02:37):
in a hut cooking over fires instead of a space
faring adventurer. Well, this makes me wonder if maybe Indoor
at the time of the Star Wars movies is in
a dark age kind of like after the late Bronze
Age collapse where you'd had these big empires that were
developing urban centers and trade and technology, and then something happened,

(01:03:00):
some kind of environmental collapse. Maybe there's a collapse of
you know, just a confluence of different factors, uh, you know,
military invasions, famine and that kind of stuff that leads
to civilization level collapse and then a lot of knowledge
of how to do things is just lost. Yeah, and
and you know that the Marauders may have played some
role in that, either as you know, as a faction

(01:03:21):
or you know, mercenaries who were brought in to be
a part of this. Uh uh, this this situation. And
of course eventually the Galactic Empire itself does show up,
you know, they they show up in Return of the Jedi.
But they have a very strategic and surgical interest in
the Moon of Indoor. Like they are seemed to be
only interested in establishing a shield generator base to protect

(01:03:44):
the second Death Star, which is being built within that system. Otherwise,
I don't think they particularly care whether Ewoks are doing.
They don't care if there happened to be a band
of Marauders on the other side of the moon doing
their thing. They don't care if there's some other random
shipwrecked individuals they have attacks to take care of. So anyway,
that's just that's some just additional stuff I was thinking
about as well as just wondering how fast teak is

(01:04:06):
in relation to everything else. I will say that this,
of course is a topic that gets a lot better
treatment in an other works, you know, I mean, it's
part of the whole prime directive thing in Star trek Uh.
I know, Ian In Banks gets into this affair amount
in his culture novels. It's, you know, once you start
populating a galactic fictional galactic community with different species at

(01:04:29):
different technological levels, and then interacting with each other, you're
gonna get a lot of these questions, you know, and
a lot of it A lot of the the reason
I think that we contemplate that, of course, we see
examples of similar interplace having happened on our own planet
and in human history. What happens when, um, you know,
from when one more technically technologically advanced society interacts with

(01:04:53):
another one. You know, typically, uh, it's it's not a
good situation, especially for the lower technological levels society. But
you see some interesting scenarios happening, such as the cargo
cult scenario that we mentioned previously on the Stuffable Your
Mind episode in our interview with Werner Herzog. You know,
you know, the idea of people encountering a higher technological

(01:05:18):
level society, a higher technological system, and then being changed
by that, but also surviving that encounter as well. So, yeah,
there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of
deeper thinking here to consider in terms of you know,
very very technological level interaction in a galactic community. Really,
don't we all just want the power. We all just

(01:05:41):
want the power thing. Give me the power thing, all right? Well,
you know, in terms of where to watch this film,
I really wish I could tell everybody that you can
just just sign up for Disney Plus and and watch
a you know, a nice remastered cut of of the
of both Ewok movies alongside all the other Austin Star
Wars content there. But the thing is you can't. Yeah,

(01:06:05):
you can't get it on Disney Plus. I think you
can still pick these films up on DVD and a
cool double pack. I was looking around, and yet you
can you can buy them, and some of the prices
are not unreasonable if you if you know where to look.
But I had to watch this on Russian YouTube, so
um that sadly might be your only option. Yeah, as
long as we're admitting bootleg experiences, I watched this movie

(01:06:29):
a while ago on one of those versions that tries
to avoid uh, copyright detection by like putting it in
a window within a window and having like fish swimming
around it all the time and weirdly zooming in and
moving on stuff. So so so kudos to the people
who put that amount of effort in to steal movies.

(01:06:51):
But I mean, check around when you're listening to this, hopefully,
but if you're listening to this like a month later, uh,
Disney Plus will have added these films. I hope that
they you, or that some other legitimate means of watching
it will be available I think at some point on
Amazon Prime. Yeah yeah, I mean I I I would
I would have I would have bought these suckers though

(01:07:11):
earlier if I could. Uh. So yeah, good luck finding it.
But people want it enough that it's going to continue
to be available one way or another, hopefully legitimately available
in the near future. All right, Well, on that note,
we're gonna go ahead and uh finish up this episode
of Weird House Cinema. Uh Again. Weird House Cinema is

(01:07:32):
our our special Friday UH episode. Our core episodes of
Stuff to Blow Your Mind are still very much science
and culture and those are still publishing on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
This is a little extra fund that you get at
the end of the week, uh to listen to if
you want, or you can skip them, or you can
note what the movie is, go watch the movie, come back. Uh.
You know, they're multiple ways to enjoy Weird House Cinema

(01:07:54):
or not. Of course, we want to hear from you.
Are you enjoying what we're doing here? Do you have
recommendations for the future, but especially if you have thoughts
on the e Walk movies, particularly the Battle for Indoor.
Did you watch it as a kid like I did.
Did you have have a well worn VHS copy of it?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, your thoughts

(01:08:15):
about how it fits into the broader Star Wars universe. Um,
everything is up for grabs. Huge thanks as always to
our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would
like to get in touch with us with feedback on
this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for
the future, or just to say hello. You can email
us at contact That's Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot
Com Stuff to Blow Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio.

(01:08:45):
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