Star Wars: Caravan of Courage, An Ewok Adventure (1984) - Ewoks, War Crimes, and Growing Up Star Wars - The Fandom Portals Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You should do a yearbook thing for the Ewoks.

(00:01):
It's just like most likely tosteal your car, that's Paploo,
most likely to steal your girl,that's Wicket.
Welcome to the Fandom Portalspodcast, the podcast that

(00:23):
explores how fandoms can help uslearn and grow.
Hello everybody, this week I'mjoined with Brash, as usual.
How are you going, brash?
Chub dub, chub dub.
That is Ewokies for good thanksand you.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Actually I could say I did actually try and learn a
little bit of Ewokies, mm-hmm,but there isn't really one for.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Look at us a major in college.
Does Google Translate do itinto Ewokies?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't know, maybe, but I will say Yumnub, that's a
good one.
Yumnub which means hooray.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you, hooray for being here.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yub nub, yub nub, hooray in Ewok.
The reason we're talking aboutEwok language everybody is
because this week well, lastweek, week of recording it has
been Star Wars Day, may the 4thand May the 5th and May the 6th.
I'm not sure what order they goin or how they're said, but I
know May the 4th is, may the 4thbe with you.
And as a result of that, all ofthe podcasts are doing all of

(01:27):
the different kind of Star Warsreviews.
So we thought that we wouldjump on the bandwagon or the
caravan if you will Jump on thecaravan with a bunch of teddy
bears, or Ewoks as they'recolloquially known amongst the
galaxies far, far away.
And this week's movie is theEwok Adventure Caravan of
Courage.
And we might also spice in alittle bit of the Battle of

(01:48):
Endor in there as well.
These movies were made in 1984and 1985.
But before we get into that alittle bit more, we're going to
do our ratitudes and I'm goingto go first this week because I
am grateful for my mum this week.
A shout out to Denise, ifyou're listening, which I know
that you are, because you're avery awesome mum.
I had a very personal crisisthis week, I won't go into it,

(02:09):
but who do you call when you'rein deep, deep trouble?
You call your mum and yeah, shewas able to really help me
through some tough stuff.
So thank you, mum, I appreciateyou, and thank you to all the
mums out there.
This is being recorded onMother's Day, so mums do a lot
and we appreciate you, Brash.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Gratitude, gratitude Also.
My mum also helped me out withan issue this past week as well,
so shout out to my mum.
I know she's probably notlistening, even though she knows
about the podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
That's all right.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
We'll send her the link and say thank you, mrs
brasha.
But, uh, my gratitude, uh, formy friends, like you, but
specifically this gratitude I'mgoing to highlight one of my
friends, mel.
Known her for a very, very longtime.
She's also a mother, so alsohappy birthday to mel.
But uh, not that we really everhang out with each other, but
we'll see each other every nowand then around town.
But the one thing that weconstantly do is every day send
each other about 50 000 reels ortiktoks me and mel.

(03:13):
We share a lot of reels betweeneach other and, um, I know it
really helps me get through myday always, um, grateful for her
at least thinking of me whenshe sees any reels or stuff and
sends them to me.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, good little injection of dopamine in your
day.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It's just something nice and something that we do
with each other.
I'm like I want to see a coolmetal reel or something like
that and write something dayevery day.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Very good, thank you, jamal.
And thank you Jamal.
We appreciate you All.
Right, getting into our episode, guys, we're talking about the
Ewok adventure, caravan ofCourage and the Battle of Endor.
As we said, made in 84 and 85.
these movies are old, brash old,very old we've only ever done
one movie that has beensimilarly old like this, and it
was the Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles, and it was as old as us

(04:00):
, made in 1990 these ones, theseones are even older, but these
ones, especially Caravan ofCourage that we're talking about
today, is about Wicket, theEwok, and his friends, who
agreed to help two shipwreckedhuman children, mace and Sindel,
on a quest to find theirparents.
And in the sequel to that, thebattle for Endor is about the
same Ewok village, but maraudersraid and steal a power supply

(04:23):
that they believe is magical,and Wicked once again comes to
save the day and Sindel is alsothere and she escapes the evil
witch Sharel, and they befrienda hermit who may help them save
the Ewok village.
In the end.
Now, in this podcast, in thisepisode, you're obviously going
to learn a little bit of theEwok language, which I've
already gone into, and that'sprobably the extent of it.

(04:44):
But we're going to learn alittle bit of the Ewok language,
which we've already gone into,and that's probably the extent
of it.
But we're going to look at thelasting legacy that these movies
have had on Star Wars, canon,if any.
We're going to look at ouraudience's reactions to these
movies because they are divisive, and we're also going to learn
a little bit about thetechnology and the visuals in
this movie that really made itsort of stand out for a TV movie
during the 80s.
And, lastly, we're going to gointo our MVTs where we talk

(05:06):
about not judging a book by itscover and we're also going to be
talking about the journey fromchildhood to adolescence and the
loss of childhood innocencethrough these movies that we
think that they depict.
So they strapped in, guys.
We're going to be talking aboutall that in the podcast today.
Brash, this movie was directedby John Cortey, but it surprised

(05:30):
me to know that both of thesemovies were actually written by
none other than the man himselfGeorge Lucas yeah, 100%.
And Bob Carr yes, yes, he hadsome help, but the main story
points were indeed made byGeorge Lucas himself.
They come off to me a lot likebedtime stories and I think that
they definitely were somethingthat he used to tell his
children and that he put into amovie sort of format.

(05:53):
I've also heard and read thatthis was almost like his testing
ground, for two things, onebeing that this was his first
test to see if Star Wars stoodbeyond its original core
characters of Luke, leia and Han, and it also didn't have any
lightsabers or mentionings ofthe Force or anything like that
in it.
So he was going to see if theStar Wars draw could go beyond

(06:15):
what he had previouslyestablished, to see if he could
build upon it.
And the other thing was that itwas almost like I've read that
it was almost like his test runfor Willow.
Now I haven't seen Willow.
Is that true, brash?
I don't know.
Good movie.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yes, we'll see.
And a lot of the all, some ofthe stuff they use, like the
fairy noise.
They use that in Willow and,yeah, I think a lot of.
They use Warwick Davis inWillow.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yes, yes, they do.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
In fact, I think he indeed plays Willow Well he does
.
I think this probably wouldhave been a good test film for
Willow.
I think they had a bit morestar power in Willow.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yes, yeah, val Kilmer being one of those, I do know
that one of the biggestcritiques of this movie was that
it did, in fact, lean prettyheavily, or more so heavily into
the fantasy genre than it didthe sci-fi, as what Star Wars
fans were expecting.
This movie takes place in ABY3,which, in Star Wars language,
is after the Battle of Yavin.
Three years after the Battle ofYavin and for those of you that

(07:16):
needed a little bit moreexplanation, the Battle of Yavin
is when Luke blew up the DeathStar.
That's basically year zero inthe canonical talk of Star Wars,
between Empire and Jedi Returns.
Yes, yes, so this one happens inbetween Empire Strikes Back and
the return of the Jedi.
So this is technically, thefirst time we see Wicket and his
people, but, chronologically,in the real world we obviously

(07:37):
saw him in Return of the Jedifirst.
But it's probably important toacknowledge, brash, that these
movies canonically, technically,technically, don't really exist
anymore.
Disney uh redid the Canon forstar Wars in 2014.
And so far, none of thesecharacters, except for, uh,
obviously, the Ewoks and wicketuh, who appear in return to the

(08:00):
Jedi, which is Canon and also alater cameo appearance in the
last Jedi, I believe he returnswith his son, pommet and um.
Other than that, these Ewokmovies, the Caravan of Courage
and the Battle of Endor, notmentioned, not canon, but are
part of the Legends uhcollection, a lot of good
stories in the Legendscollection of Star Wars, brash,
yeah, yeah.

(08:20):
One thing to mention about thismovie as well is that it was
made on two million dollars,about $2 million, which is no
$200,000 like our favoriteAustralian movie, gabriel.
But this one was a limitedcinema release.
It released in some places inthe cinema, but it was mostly a
TV movie, and this was back inthe days when they used to
advertise a TV movie and it usedto be a big event and affair

(08:43):
and you could watch it on yourlittle box with your family and
have a really good time.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
So one thing that surprised me about this movie
Brash, it was actually nominatedfor an award and it actually
won an award Outstanding VisualEffects for Primetime Emmy in
1985 for the Caravan of Courageit actually won and its sequel,
Battle for Endor, won the sameoutstanding special effects uh
in 1986 I mean to be fair,though, that that time period,

(09:12):
yeah, I can see it, because eveneven just watching it back
again like some of the effectsthat they use, I was like damn
with the shit they had back then.
How'd'd they do that?

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, I agree, and I think that looking back at it at
the humble year of 2025, attime of recording, I think some
of it kind of holds up Like youcan look at it and be like you
know what.
Some of the effects, likeobviously some of the physical
effects really really well done.
But then they use sometechniques which are going to a

(09:45):
little bit later that haveactually been adapted through
other movies and perfected, butyou can see the tiny little seed
that sort of started it here inthis little Ewok movie from
George Lucas back in 1984.
So, yeah, it was.
It was really kind ofrevolutionary as well in that
regard.
But before we jump into all ofthat, let's get into our hot
takes guard.

(10:08):
But before we jump into all ofthat, let's get into our hot
takes.
Our hot takes is where wediscuss our first thoughts of
the media and unpack the boldestopinions from what surprised us
but what split the room.
We'll also highlight your hottakes from threads, instagram
and Reddit.
So if you want to get involvedin that, make sure you check out
the show notes below and youmight have your little comment
read out on our podcast, and wethank all of our people that get
involved for the podcast.
We love reading your stuff outand having a little chat about
it as well.

(10:30):
I'll go first for this one,brash, because my story about
this is pretty boring.
I didn't know these moviesexisted until you said let's do
Ewok Caravan of Courage for thepodcast.
I was like what the heck isthat?
And then I looked at it andthen somebody also said when I
mentioned it there was like ohyeah, that's like the Star Wars
Christmas special, a TV movie.
I was like oh no, because thatis notoriously bad and very

(10:50):
critically bombed the Christmasspecial.
But that being said, watchingthese movies I have said to a
few people now that theyobviously have their flaws, they
have aged.
But what an enjoyable, nicelittle cozy movie.
To the point where I watchedthe first one and we're only
going to do the caravan ofcourage.
But I thought to myself I'mgonna whack on the second one
because that was just such a funlittle cozy ride in the forest

(11:10):
of endor.
And, um, I messaged you after Iwatched the first one.
I was like what a cozy movie.
Such a nice little little jauntwith the, with the ewoks, and
so good to be back in the starwars, little little place and
you know magic with all thesekinds of things.
And then you said, oh, we'llstrap in because the next one's
even more cozy.
And I was like, well, I'll getmy Oodi out.
And literally the next messageI sent you was 10 minutes in

(11:33):
Sindel's entire family getsmassacred and blown up.
And I was like, holy shit, thisis not cozy.
But from there that obviouslyinstigates her journey into her
adventure for the movie in thebattle of endor.
But uh, nice little trick youplayed on me.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Brash thanks for that yeah, yeah, yeah, I kind of
forgot how rough it was and itwas like it was pretty rough,
because even like a carryingcoach it's not really rough.
There's a, there's some sadnessin it, that's not too bad.
But then, yeah, I forgot how um, how much the battle for endor
was um a little bit more rougherI I'm not sure if actually I'm
going to look this up becauseI'm pretty sure the Battle of

(12:07):
Endor.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Do you remember, brash, when we talked in our
Indiana Jones episode about theTemple of Doom and what was
happening with George Lucas andSteven Spielberg at the time
when they made that movie?

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
They were both going through horrible relationship
crises and they took it out ontheir work.
So in 1984, they made thingslike this.
It was like a little bit kindof on the edge of your seat, and
that was one of the biggestcritical things that people said
about this movie as well wasthat it was advertised and
obviously represented tochildren being Ewok focused.

(12:38):
But then the second movie, theBattle of Endor, was obviously
full of themes like the death ofthis young girl's family and
then even more so, uh,throughout there were some scary
scenes through it as well.
But there was apparently amessage that went on before it
aired in 1985 that said this isa movie that you need to watch
with your kids.
Do not let them watch it alone.
Like it came on before theactual, like a pre-warning, just

(12:58):
like the old ones in australiaused to be you know, you
wouldn't steal a car, youwouldn't steal a handbag, don't
pirate a movie.
In this one it was sit with yourparents to watch this movie.
So that's interesting to noteas well that even though it was
targeted towards family andchildren and it was an adventure
movie, there's obviously somedarker themes through at least
Battle of Endor and somethroughout the Caravan of

(13:19):
Courage as well, and when Iwatched these I was was like
maybe this is my kids entrypoint into Star Wars, but I
think that the janky look of thestop motion would also kind of
freak my kids out too, becausethey're so used to pristine
animation these days in 2025,that that kind of wouldn't

(13:40):
wouldn't really sit right withthem at that moment.
But yeah, I had a decent timewith these movies.
What about you, brash?
What's your first hot takes ofthese movies?
The Ewok movies.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
So I love these movies.
They are like these are likeI'll watch it back.
It is, I'll watch it back.
And like I had goosebumpswatching it again, because it
has been a fair few years sinceI've watched it oh, a very, very
long time Because it was hardto sort of get it.
Yeah, like you couldn't justwalk into a store and go oh, I

(14:13):
want the Orc movie on DVD.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
I don't think they were VHS released.
No, I don't know where.
It's the same as the Christmasspecial.
I've never seen it because Idon't.
I've never seen it because Idon't know where to find it.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
It was released on DVD, but I mean, I'm not sure if
it was released on video.
It wasn't released on DVD inAustralia until like 2018.
And so, realistically, youcouldn't watch it again unless
it somehow appeared on TV again.
Or someone has a copy of it andput it onto, like, say, youtube
or something like that, or yougot it from LimeWire or

(14:43):
something like that, yeah, oryeah, you pirated it somehow,
which?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
we don't condone here at the Fender Potter Spotlight.
No, buying movies.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, buying movies or subscribe, or subscribe, yeah
, but no.
So my first soiree into thiswas even before I watched any of
the Star Wars was this yourVirgin Star Wars experience?
This was my intro into Star Wars, wow.
So I watched this one.
I was roughly four or five, Imean maybe, yeah, four or five,

(15:13):
so that being it would have beenten years, ten or eleven years,
but yes, my grandad actually,because they must have been on,
because the good thing aboutgoing around my grandparents
house was that they had Ozstaryep, my nan had Ozstar too.
It must be a nan thing, I don'tknow I think it was back in the
day, we just had normal TV andshit.
We couldn't afford OzTV.

(15:35):
But yeah, my grandparents did,but I think it was more so so my
grandma could watch cricket.
Oh wow, she was a big creativeman.
But yeah, my grandad, I don'tknow, he must have just had like
this, this sense, because,whereas my brother and that
wasn't so much like wasn'treally into it, must have
definitely wasn't into it.
He just knew that I was goingto be a big fucking nerd.

(15:56):
He's like this is the one yeah,so he.
So it was on Ozda and he tapedthem, recorded them on a tape
for me, both movies.
And yeah, every time I goaround to my grandparents' place
I'd watch Caravan of Courageand Battle of Lendor.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
That's so good, that's so awesome.
See, I remember the old days ofrecording a movie off the TV
and they'd still have the oldschool TV ads on the recording
as well.
It was almost like a littletime capsule there.
But that's so crazy to thinkthat this is your entry point
into Star Wars, and afterwatching it you thought to
yourself I want some more ofthis well, that's it.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
And like I don't think, like I don't actually
think I actually watched a StarWars movie.
I must have been like 8 or 9think I actually watched a Star
Wars movie.
God, I must have been likeeight or nine before I even
watched a Star Wars movie.
So from when I was about fourto six, when I was still down
south where my grandparents were, I watched Battle of Endor and
Caravan of Courage all the time,and then there was a big gap

(17:01):
where I didn't watch Star Wars,and then it must have been like
eight or nine.
And then I was like, and then Icaught up and I watched all the
Star Wars and then I justcompletely fell in love with
Star Wars after that.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
My first journey into Star Wars, my grandma and my
auntie, I believe, took me tothe cinema, because they just
re-released A New Hope incinemas.
I think it was digitallyremastered or something like
that, and I may have been six orseven when I saw it and it
literally encompassed my entirelife after that for the longest

(17:34):
time, because I would like sitdown at my nan's house
afterwards and write down playsfor Star Wars and just do all
kinds of nerd shit like that.
So yes, I was very, verysimilarly indoctrined into the
world of Star Wars as well.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Phantom Menace, oh 99 .
That must have been when,because that came out.
I must have saw that.
What the fuck is this and thenrealized it was attached to the
Ewoks and then went back andwatched it all at once because
I'm pretty sure I'm not sure Imight have watched the original
Star Wars before for a minute,but I don't remember that.
Also, I don't remember a lot ofthings when I was young, so

(18:14):
it's also a bit of an issue.
We're doing our best here at therandom horror yeah, my memory
from back when I was little isvery shoddy, but I was little is
very shoddy, but I do rememberthe important parts, like my
granddad taping Carry OnCourageful and sitting there
watching that with him.
But, yes, I'm not sure if Bearman has come out and I was like,
fuck, yes, that was.
I haven't watched this shitsince Ewoks.

(18:35):
And then, yeah, because you'relike where the fuck are all the
bears?
Where the fuck are the Ewoks?
Where's the Ewok withlightsaber?
Where's the earwax?
Where's the earwax with thelightsaber?
Because I don't think.
Yeah, because realistically,the only other person in my
family that I could really saypossibly would have watched Star
Wars is maybe my older brother,because my older brother was

(18:57):
born in 84.
Yep.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
I had action figures, I had toys, I had the bloody
lot, I was a Star Wars kidthrough and through and I'm a
twin, so my twin brother.
At the same time.
It was really awesome when we'dget action figures, because I
would get one and he would getone, but we'd just play with
each other all the time, so itwas almost like getting two
action figures, but you had to,you know did you ever dress up
as Star Wars characters?
I don't think so I think we hadlike Darth Vader masks.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Was one of you, luke, and one of you, leia.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
I always really liked Luke Skywalker as a kid and my
brother really liked Han Solo.
But the first action figures wegot, mine was a Luke Skywalker
and his was a Yoda, and that'sfunny because that's kind of the
relationship we had growing upas well.
He was always the one that kindof was educating me, pulling me
through things.
But we've digressed, we pullingme through things, but we've

(19:44):
digressed.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
We have digressed, but yes, no, but yeah, so I've
been.
I was introduced to Star Warswhen, through Ewoks, when I was
three, four, five, roughlyaround that time period, when I
was still down south and then,yeah, from now on I've got
fucking tattoos and all kinds ofstuff for Star Wars.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
It's set in from there.
All right, let's go to ourReddit to see what our community
has said.
All right, we have Chen Gellerwho said this and its sequel are
basically a dry run for Willows.
It's almost beat for beat.
It's essentially the Hobbitwith Ewoks.
George Lucas read at least apart of the books around August
of 1975.
So I can see that he's beeninspired by a few things there.

(20:25):
In the Hobbit especially,there's a scene in the Caravan
of Courage where the largequadrupedal beast chases Mace
and Sindel into a hole in a treeand then starts to scratch its
way sort of into them using thebest stop motion that 1984 has
to offer, and that reminded me alot of Bjorn the Bear chasing

(20:45):
dwarves through the forest andeventually them hiding in his
own house and doing somethingvery, very similar.
So there are some beats that Ican see that perhaps were very,
very similar, even to the pointthematically of like breaking
into a place and having a reallybig adversary in there where
the gorax was.
That can be synonymous withsmell the dragon, you might say.
So I I can agree with that,chengilla.

(21:05):
I think that, uh, the hobbit wasprobably a bit of an
inspiration and we've alreadytalked about the fact that it
was a dry run for willow.
There's some shot for shotsthere and some, uh, some similar
sound effects used.
We have d caster that says Iabsolutely loved this is a kid
and the sequel was okay, as inbattle for endor was actually
just okay.
And then there is a ghost elderthat says I'm fairly certain

(21:27):
that wilford brimley says fuckat some point in the battle for
endor and I watched it afterreading that and I can see the
time when he actually, when he'strying to get his ship working
and he's finally got the uh, thepower cell in and he actually
says uh, oh, come on.
But if I didn't have thesubtitles on, it actually would
have sounded like he said fuck.
So as a kid watching this on TVand he seems like the character

(21:50):
.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
I was going to say he probably does say it in the
subtitle.
He says it a little differently.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, and then Fair Dance 7 informed us that it was
on Disney Plus, which it isindeed on Disney Plus.
It got there on 2001 due to fanpetition.
So if you want to go and watchthese movies, the people have
their piece in the Christmas,special Christmas special that
needs to be erased.
Yes, I just remember seeingChewbacca wearing clothes in an

(22:20):
image and I was like that needsto go, Isn't?

Speaker 2 (22:23):
he the only one that doesn't wear clothes.
I don't know his whole family'swearing clothes, I see.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Chewbacca in a red shirt or a red dress or
something, or a Wookie likegoodness me.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
I'm pretty sure I always finish wearing clothes
and he's not oh man, alright,let's jump over to our threads.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
We are at phantom portals on threads.
Come and say hello.
M brawn says I know I haven'tseen it.
Oh sorry, I know I have seen itbut I can't remember or tell
you much about it.
It was one with two crashlanded kids and they had to
fight off a giant monster withthe help of ewoks, right and I
said that's.
I said there's a sequel and hegoes there is.

(23:05):
I didn't know that.
And he said, no, I want to seethose as well.
So there we go.
We have Alt-Brash Brackham.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Hey, yes.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
You told us that this is your late grandfather who
taped both the Ewok movies foryou and you rewatched them lots
and lots of times and it givesyou goosebumps and a nostalgia.
We have Christine from Outsideof the Box Podcast who's guested
on our show.
Hello Christine, how are you?
Thank you for contributing toour threads.
She has said that I watchedevery Ewok movie and it was not

(23:32):
bad to me.
Not bad to me either, christine.
Thank you for commenting.
And we have Tales from theFandom.
He says I've watched it.
It was one of my firstexperiences with Star Wars,
before I knew it was.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Star Wars, so similar to you.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Brash, yeah, and our last one.
We've got Peruna2001, who saidwe had it recorded on VHS.
My sister watched this non-stopuntil someone stole it with our
VCR in a home break-in.
I think we ended up withanother copy plus the sequel.
I think we'd remember both morefondly if we hadn't watched
them so many times.
Thinking back, I like theaspects of getting another view
of the star wars universe withfamiliar characters like the

(24:06):
ewoks.
I think we're starting to getsimilar toned shows such as the
mandalorian and and or now.
Ultimately, I think this is thekind of story that star wars
fandom craves and I kind ofagree, because I do too.
Yeah, I know that lots ofpeople, when the acolyte came
out, for example, that was jediheavy and everybody kind of well
, there was a little pocket ofthe Star Wars fan that kind of

(24:26):
liked it, but there was a verynegative kind of reviews on the
Acolyte.
But stepping away from theSkywalker saga, and the
Skywalker name especially, issomething that people in the
Star Wars fandom really arelooking towards.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
There's been a lot of Star Wars shows out lately that
sort of don't really rollaround Jedi.
Yeah, started shows out latelythat don't really roll around
Jedi.
I actually didn't mind theAcolyte, I just think they
should go a step further andjust do Old.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Republic.
I think they dipped a toe inand everybody was expecting more
, and expectations versusreality never is a good
combination when it comes toadapting IP media.
But thank you, peruna, for yourcomprehensive comment there.
We really appreciate it and I'mreally sorry to hear about your
VCR going missing.
Yeah, that's sad, that's abummer, but hopefully you can

(25:15):
watch the Ewok movies with alittle bit more fondness now on
Disney Plus.
Okay, that is our community'svoice.
Now, one thing that also blew meaway with this, before we move
on Brash, is we've talked alittle bit about the visual
effects.
Now, as we said, some of themare a little bit janky by
today's standards, but theyactually pull off quite a few

(25:36):
shots that were stepping stonesfor movies.
Now, one thing, for example,was forced perspective tricks.
So obviously the Gorax isreally big and Ewoks are really
small, and the way that theypulled that off was using forced
perspective tricks.
And do you know another moviethat used that?
Most recently?
One of my favorites of all time?
You know it, of course you do.
Hobbits and Wizards.
Come on, bro.
Oh, really yeah, and that's whythey hold up today as such a

(25:59):
like when you're watching theLord of the Rings, it kind of
holds up seeing the smallhobbits next to the large sort
of creatures, because they useforce perspective instead of CGI
.
That seed was planted here inthe Ewok Adventure movies using
ILM, industrial, light and Magic, which is a company that we've
talked about a lot on thispodcast, but I actually think

(26:20):
that is George Lucas' visualeffects company.
Is that true?
Yeah, parent organizationLucasfilm Founder, george Lucas.
There you go.
So we've talked about it somuch and I didn't even realize
that it was George Lucas'scompany, because they're the
ones that were responsible forthe CGI on Draco and in this
movie especially.
They had to be very resourcefuland very thrifty because, as we

(26:42):
said, there was a budget of $2million.
They didn't have the star warsfeature films, uh extensive
resources to draw from, so theyhad to use innovative miniature
work.
They used matte paintings aswell as backgrounds, some of
them you can pick out in thelandscape shots as well.
I don't know if you did brash,but I definitely did the
landscape paintings.
Sorry, you've just made me deepdive.
Well, yeah, that's what we dohere on the Phantom.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Boys Podcast.
I remember about ILM, Tron Ares, the Fantastic Four, Superman,
Jurassic World, Rebirth F1, Leoand Stips they're part of all
these things.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, the.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Thunderbolts.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, ilm is.
It's Hollywood's leading visualeffects company, severance.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Stunt 3 Electric State Gladiator 2 all of it,
wicked Venom.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
That's why George Lucas is so rich and he could be
like yeah, you can have StarWars.
Yeah, because he knew he'dstill have a hand in it, because
everybody's using ILM Lord ofthe Rings.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Aqualad Ghost of Jackson Echo so yeah, mm-hmm,
acolyte Buster Jackson Echo.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
So, yeah, so ILM, even on that reduced budget,
they kind of were able to givethese TV movies a cinematic
polish and they don't reallystand that far, apart from Star
Wars and the Star Wars universethat people balked at it, except
for the fantasy vibe of it all.
But in terms of visual effectsI think they hold up just as
much as the Star Wars movies ANew Hope, empire and Return.

(28:05):
So that was really good to seeand probably very exciting for
people in the 80s when they werewatching them on their TV as
well, having these movieswinning an Outstanding Visual
Effects Emmy as well, so thatwas just another thing for my
hot take.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Think of the Rancor.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And the Rancor and the Gorax.
The Rancor, I, I think, was apractical effect, whereas the
Gorax was a cinematography.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
No, I mean like between the Rancor and the
Boarhounds.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yep, I know what you mean.
Being similar in a way, yeah,and I think that they did a
really sort of decent job,especially using the practical
creature effects as well.
It's pretty hard to pull offstop motion animation at the
best of times, but then couplingthat with real life actors is
just really difficult anddifferent to do.
So kudos to ILM.
You are a masterfulorganization, pioneer in the

(29:03):
industry.
Right, that was our hot takes.
Let's get into our Fandom FactFace-Off.
In the Fandom Fact Face-Off,hosts go head-to-head with
trivia about the focused medialearning new facts along the way
.
When the host collectivelygains 25 points together from
correct answers, we will giveaway another movie voucher to

(29:25):
someone on our mailing list.
Might come as a surprise to youI didn't flag this with you,
brash, but I enjoyed working asa team so much that we're going
to do it from here on out.
We're going to work as a team,we're going to get 25 points,
and when we get 25 points we'regoing to send one of our mailing
list.
Go towwwfandomportalspodcastcom and

(29:46):
join our mailing list and we cansend you the movies after we
get 25 points.
Our last winner from our lastgiveaway from last month was
Rhys.
So congratulations, rhys.
We've already sent you yourmovie voucher and hopefully
you're enjoying some popcornright now.
If you're not listening to theFandom Portals Podcast, ah, okay
, easy one for the first one.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Okay, where was this movie shot?

Speaker 1 (30:09):
It was shot in one location and one location only
this movie was shot in the sameplace that Return of the Jedi
was shot.
It was somebody's ranch orrange.
It's a pretty famous place,marin County.
Home of the Skywalker Ranch.
Yes, home of the SkywalkerRanch.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yes, home of the.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Skywalker Ranch.
Hmm yeah, and much of theaction shots was shot in public
parkland in Roy's.
Redwoods as well, whichcontains a 300 year old sequoia
that is a really old tree olderthan these movies, definitely
but yeah, those Redwood treesare really brilliant background
for the forest moon of Endor.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Speaking of brash forest moon of Endor, with a
bunch of places that aren'tforests, a lot of biomes.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
On this forest moon including a desert and a rocky
outcropping a large river andmany, many castles.
One in minnows and fields.
Yeah, one in each movie,apparently.
But yeah, this one was shot inMarin County, skywalker Ranch.
All right, you ready for myquestion?
That's a point for me, the room.
So far, out of our 25 pointswe've got one because we're

(31:19):
resetting all of the month, so24 more and we get to send a
lucky mailing list person andlistener to the movies.
Go see us.
Alright Aubrey Miller was castin this movie.
She plays Sindel Tawani, theyoung girl in the movie.
She was remarkably young whenshe was cast.
Do you know how old she was?
Brash.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
I did look up a lot about her because this was her
first role and they actuallypicked her up from the town
itself as a local talent.
I think she's about the sameage as I was when I watched it,
like five or six.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Correct, she was five years old.
She was born in 1979, aubreyMiller was, and this was shot in
1984.
So that makes her five yearsold and they were looking for a
child who could be visibly youngbut also be emotionally
grounded and carry someemotional scenes, especially for
the second movie, the Battle ofEndor, where she takes a more

(32:15):
title role, whereas in the firstone she was kind of sick for
the first part of it and thereare a lot of techniques that
they use to reduce her filmingand screening time as well.
Jim Wheat, who directed themovie, remarked that Aubrey had
a remarkable intuitive sense ofthe screen presence, which is
good for somebody who's fiveyears old, and it makes her a
rare example of someone who wasvery young in a lead character

(32:35):
role in a live action Star Warsstory who actually did a good
job.
Her performance next to WiltaBromley also earned her lots of
praise from different kind offamily audiences as well, so I
think her performance definitelyimproved from the first movie
to the second movie.
Not to critically judge theperformance of a five-year-old,
but I have been a teacher for avery long time and I've seen
them trying to go home sick ondays when they don't really look

(32:56):
that sick and I can just saythat Aubrey Miller is
Oscar-worthy winning, for Iwould have sent her to the
office with a slip.
She was sick, she needed hermedicine, had to take her, got
to go.
Well done, aubrey.
All right, so that is a pointto you, that is a point to our
pool.
That is two points total.
Your turn, brash.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
In Return of the Jedi there's a whole bunch of Ewoks
Mm-hmm.
Two stood out so much that theywere given actual names in the
Battle of Endor.
Do you know the names of thetwo?

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Ewoks Two Ewoks Is Wicked one of them.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
No, that's none of the main cards.
Oh Okay, but I'll give you ahint.
Alright, one sounds very closeto a automated sucking device,
so Rhomba is one of them.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, Rhomba.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
And the other one named, closely, resembles Chief
Elder Chakatrok Chakatrok was awoodsman in this movie.
The Elder Logre.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Oh, logre, yeah, Nah, don't know, can't do it, what
is it?

Speaker 2 (33:59):
So it was Rhomba and Chubre.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Ah, Chubray Actually was one of those, the ones that
actually stole the speeder.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh, I see In the Return of Jedi they were unnamed
.
It could have been, but I'mpretty sure Wicket stole it,
Doesn't Wicket steal the speeder?
I thought it was.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Wicket that stole the speed yeah, he was also later
named oh, paplu.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
If only it was those people who play Star Wars Galaxy
Heroes and they're in the Ewokteam, they could be such a pain
in the ass.
Oh, paplus, paplus, and theirteam as well.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Paplu, wicket Logre no, paplu has more accoutrement,
you might say, on his headdress.
He's got some feathers and acouple of like acorns by the
look of it, whereas Wicket justhas a plain leather looking
brown.
But yeah, lots of famous Ewoksout there, guys, you should go
and look them up.
And, brash, we might talk alittle bit later about it.

(34:51):
But Ewok Hunt, have you playedthat on Battlefront 2?
Oh, that was such a scaryfucking mode.
I know, man, it was a cult hittoo.
I loved it.
We'll talk about that a littlebit later.
That's in store.
But yeah, it's funny how theseEwoks just overtook in various
different parts.
Anyway, all right, let's do thesecond question for me.
I didn't get that one.

(35:12):
That is one that I needed tolook up.
So Eric Walker he played Maceand George Lucas did something
intentionally to his characterin order to help young audiences
identify with his story.
What was that?

Speaker 2 (35:28):
I was going to say that he picked the actor because
he looked like Luke or lookedlike Buck Hamill.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Exactly right.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
That's exactly right, yeah, because even when I
watched it I was like damn, isthat Luke?
I'm like no, it's young.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, yeah.
So he picked him because he hedrew comparisons to luke
skywalker from a new hope, notonly in personality, because he
was.
He started out as frustratedand naive and he had to work
towards courage andself-reliance, which was mace's
journey throughout.
He had to work towards hisindependence, uh, working with
the ewoks as central guides.
They made him a teenagerbecause otherwise he wouldn't

(36:02):
really need the ewoks as a guide.
So that was the drawcard thereand, being a younger audience,
they still sort of had thatrelation to him as a story
element.
He kind of plays the part ofbeing the adolescent character
that is moving towardsindependence and moving away
from the family unit in terms ofa leadership space.
But he even looked like LukeSkywalker with the haircut and

(36:23):
even with the clothes.
Like, if you remember, at theend of A New Hope, luke was
wearing an orange jumpsuit witha sort of flight vest on and
that is literally his costume inthis movie.
And one thing I want to sayabout Eric Walker is his role as
Mace.
Ah, bro, zero to 100.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Oh yeah, he was all gas no brakes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was allgas no brakes.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, especially when we're first
introduced to this character inCaravan of Courage, he runs into
the place where the Ewoks arejust meeting Tyndale and he is
immediately, just like gun inhand, yelling at these creatures
.
And I understand, you know, heis being very protective of his
sister and he's very young.
But man is good expression allgas, no brakes.

(37:04):
I love it.
But yes, you are correct, lukeskywalker was his inspiration,
very intentional by george lucas.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
All right, that's three points so far, 21 to go
one of the one thing, which isanother reason why the ewoks was
reckoned though you're withewok movies was reckoned is
because there'd be a major plothole because of something
something Sindel does in themovies that would contradict the
Ewoks in the Return of the Jedi.
Do you know what that is?

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yes, Sindel teaches the Ewoks to speak common
language and they speak English.
That was a critical failure interms of the audience's response
to them as well.
They didn't like that the Ewoksspoke a common language.
I've always sort of thought ofit as, yes, they're speaking
English to our ears, but perhapsif somebody like an imperial

(37:50):
stormtrooper was down there theywould listen to them and hear a
different language.
So for the purposes of storyperhaps we hear them uh,
listening to and speaking inEnglish.
But I kind of liked in the firstone, in Caravan of Courage, how
there was that language barrierbecause it kind of drew me in
more to be intuitive, based onthe behaviors of the characters,
to interpret what was going on,what they were doing, who was

(38:13):
in a relationship with who orwho was talking to who and what
they were talking about.
And I think that forms a deepersense of storytelling.
Which is also why I reallydidn't like the narrator in the
Caravan of Courage.
I thought, even though it was anice little touch and it gave
it a storybook element, it kindof wasn't necessary because it
reminds me of the start ofWALL-E, the movie First.
25 to 30 minutes of that movie,zero dialogue, and we know

(38:34):
what's going on the whole timeand I think they could speak a
common language yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
And also the only part that I liked was when he
was introducing characters.
I think that's the only part ofthe narrative that I liked,
because them saying, say, wickedor anything like that I
wouldn't know that that's a nameof a character specifically, so

(39:04):
I like how it named it, becausethen they used to get Arkay,
that's Wicked, that's.
I don't think Cheap Churph isin it, that's Longray, like it
sort of gives them that thing.
Like that's Chup, chup, that's.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Weedle and Weechie, the brothers and Deej, the
brothers and Deej, the leader.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
The only person, the only one's name I knew was
Wicket.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, I actually.
The funny thing about it was inthe Return of the Jedi, the
word Ewok is never mentioned.
The only way that we know thatthey're Ewoks is a good segue
into my next question right here.
So here it comes.
So the Ewoks were designedspecifically and this goes
across all three sort it comes.
So the ewoks were designedspecifically and this goes
across all three sort ofappearances of the ewoks, in

(39:47):
terms of return of the jedicaravan of courage and also the
battle of endor.
That was specifically craftedbecause george lucas was
originally intending to use adifferent species very famous in
star wars, but had to changedirection due to production
costs and the story structure hewas going for.
Do you know what?
The original species?
Oh, the Wookiees.

(40:07):
Yeah, yeah, they wereoriginally going to be Wookiees,
but they changed it to Ewoks.
For the production costs, yeah,because Wookiees are big.
Yeah, they're big.
But it is also rumored thatGeorge Lucas did this
intentionally to specificallycraft them towards children for
and specifically design them formarketing.

(40:28):
So the only way that peopleknew that they were called Ewoks
is because, through all themerchandising and through all
the marketing drives and thesales to young children, and
through the ads and through thetoys and through the plushies
and the action figures and theanimated spin-offs.
They were called Ewoks andthat's when the names came out
as well.
There was one person in the StarWars cast who actually
completely hated the inclusionof the Ewoks and has gone on the
record to say that he said thatthe end of this climactic saga

(40:54):
and the Rebels fate should neverhave been dependent on teddy
bears and the climactic endshould never have ended in a
teddy bears picnic.
Do you know who would have saidthat in the original cast?
Who does it sound like?
It's Harrison Ford.
Yeah, mate, it's Harrison Ford,of course.
He literally sat there.
He's all mastered.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
I know.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
He's expressed his disdain for it on numerous talk
shows and he definitely thinksit was a marketing scam as well,
and I don't think George Lucashas ever really denied the fact.
But it kind of worked becausethe popularity of the Ewoks led
Lucasfilm to greenlight Caravanof Courage, for one greenlight,
the Battle of Endor, and theyhad a TV cartoon called Ewoks as

(41:32):
well, cementing their legacy.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Is that?
It, yeah, and it introduces somany of the other characters as
well.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
That might be my son's entry point into Star Wars
.
Yeah, it's, it's, I'm lookingfor it, I'm looking for it.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Um so, yeah, you got that one correct, I don't but I
can give you a bonus question gofor it.
So, in the battle of endor,when they're prepping for the
final battle against themarauders, those shots were
actually taken from anotherplace or another show or movie.
Do you know what movie theywere taken from?

Speaker 1 (42:06):
yeah, yeah, yeah, I read this one.
They they were actually rippedstraight from the return of the
jedi, whether they were used orthey were made for the return of
the jedi and never made theuncut.
I know that they were used forthat and it's funny, it's
actually.
That's a really good point tobring up, because I really
wanted to talk about the factthat george has gone on record
to say that Star Wars, theReturn of the Jedi, is an
allegory for America versusVietnam in the Vietnam War, with

(42:27):
the Ewoks using their guerrillatactics, their traps and their
use of the natural environment,which is exactly what Ewoks did
is very reminiscent of the VietCong, and he kind of got a
little bit of backlash aboutthat.
So George Lucas, after Returnof the Jedi and getting this
backlash, thought to himself I'mnot going to do it once, I'm
going to do this twice.
They're going to do the samething against the Marauders.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
I thought it was really interesting because it's
good and I reckon it's a gooduse of what couldn't be used in
the actual movies.
So, instead of them wasting allthat footage that they've done,
they're able to reuse it in acool way on another project,
just like in Kyra and Courage.
The ship that they crashed onwas actually reused.

(43:11):
Wings of Snowspeeders fromEmpire Strikes Back.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah, and that's also a way that they could have cut
down costs, because the budgetwas only $2 million for one.
But I also like that.
George Lucas has said beforethat he uses sci-fi as a really
good, and star wars specificallyis a really good vehicle to
tell stories about humanity andabout the human condition and
about things that are going onpolitically and around the world
that you can't really do in areal life way because you ruffle

(43:35):
too many feathers.
So I kind of like that.
He's caught, he kind of spun iton its head where the imperial
forces and even the marauders inthis one were more
technologically advanced.
They were larger, they had morefirepower or beast of burden
power, but through ingenuity andthrough the use of technique
over technology they were ableto defeat their superiors, which
also kind of drives thenarrative of the underdog

(43:58):
succeeding over the.
What's the opposite to anunderdog Overdog, the one that
was like the one that's expectedto win.
Yeah, the favorite One of thescenes where I saw it most
prominently, especially in theBattle of Endor, was when the
marauders were trying to go fromtheir plains or desert
environment to walk through theforest where the Ewoks were
running into and all of theirstuff kept getting trapped, like
all of their technology, all oftheir big monsters and things

(44:20):
like that.
So they had to get down on footand they had to chase.
So they drew them into theirown environment, they drew them
to the ship where they knew thatif they could power it up, they
had guns to use.
Very, very clever, very smart.
All of this in a movie that wasdirected towards children in
the Battle of Endor.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
And they use it in the Caravan of Courage too.
It's a literal David versusGoliath.
Yeah, yeah, because of theGorak being like 30 feet tall.
No, not tall, it was like.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Gorak.
Yeah, it's about 30 feet tall.
Like 30 feet tall, yeah, andthey lure him into a space
that's advantageous, before theythen defeat him eventually, Not
without loss.
Rip Chook Chook Good man.
All right, let's go on to ourset secrets segment.
This is where hosts look behindthe scenes to focus on the

(45:03):
movie and give you all theinformation about what went
right, what went wrong and whatwas interesting about the way
the movie was made.
This week, Brash, I wanted toget into some of our characters
and look at where they are now,and by that I mean what happened
to Sindel Tawani after she leftEndor with Noah.
That's what I wanted to look atand then also what sort of
happened to the Ewoks after theBattle of Endor as well.

(45:26):
So obviously, this is notcanonical anymore in terms of
Star Wars, but it is still cool.
So do you have any idea whathappened to Sindel?
She joined the Resistance.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
No, she became a political power Close.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
And she became princess.
No, very close Boy, you're veryclose, because Sindel actually
ended up becoming a journaliston Coruscant, yes, so after she
left Endor, she ended uptraveling around the galaxy with
Noah for quite some time andthen she ended up going to
school in Coruscant because Noahdecided to settle down

(46:03):
somewhere in the mid rim andretire as um as he, as he should
.
Years later, after the battleof Endor, she eventually started
to get into some educationalprograms to do with journalism
and in around 17 ABY, which isabout 15 years after the events
of Caravan of Courage uh, shewas a reporter for the news grid
service known as the LifeMonitor.

(46:24):
During something called theBlack Fleet Crisis she received
leaked tapes from the NewRepublic Admiral Hiram Drayson
which she used to break thestory of Platt Malar, who was
the sole survivor of theYvithian attack.
Now all of those sounds likelots of Star Wars words, but
basically she is a politicalreporter who leaks human

(46:46):
interest stories to the people.
So although the Life Monitor hada limited readership, the
article really picked up somespeed and some larger news
agencies gave Tawani some creditfor that original story and she
was able to then go on tobigger and better things and
eventually started investigatingthe lost prophet, who was a

(47:08):
holy man whose pronouncementswere attracting pilgrims to the
desert and in the brick sector.
And she got enough evidence onthis lost prophet to find out
that that person was a clonetrooper who had suffered lots of
head injuries in a starfighterincident.
And eventually she, in 41 ABY,she released a memoir or a

(47:31):
doctorate or a journalist reportcalled Portraits of the
Galactic Civil War, where sheactually interviewed survivors
of the Battle of Endor and puttogether the most comprehensive
journal view of the Battle ofEndor during that time.
So imagine being her at thattime thinking to yourself wow,
just one year later I'd havebeen stuck on that planet and a
galactic war would have occurred, getting out at the right time.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
It would have been so cool to tie them with the
action movies?

Speaker 1 (47:55):
I think so too.
I think it would have been wellto do that.
They actually would have had tocome out beforehand.
But I think what they did inthis legends arc was where she
sort of was still involvedvicariously and was obviously
still impassioned throughwhatever happened at Endor,
because she interviewed somebodycalled Hume Tal, who was a
sergeant during the battle ofEndor, who was a stormtrooper

(48:16):
that survived, and thatstormtrooper, hume Tal, actually
took the position of the factthat the Ewoks were extremely
brutal and the rebellions, orthe rebels, were really brutal
towards their treatment of thestormtroopers, down to the point
where it actually talked aboutsome of them were really badly
killed in spike traps and leftto die in various different

(48:39):
inhumane circumstances, and someof them went on to say that
some of the stormtroopers wereactually cooked and eaten by the
Ewoks as well, which is yeah,yeah, apparently that's actually
canon, because if you see theend of the Return of the Jedi,
the Ewoks are playing on thehelmets of the stormtroopers,
but then you know, there's lotsof different things that are
going on that might suggest thatthey're not so nice to humans

(49:00):
because they were going to eat.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Well, that's what I thought they were going to eat,
until I see the Europe 3POstopped them.
I'm pretty sure they were onthe menu.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Also, that's a question of like they helped the
kid.
It's really cool.
It's been a meal ticket forthem.
Live happily ever after theydon't have to go fight some big
monster.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
That's the thing for me as well.
Like that would have been easyroll credits.
But maybe we were too harsh tojudge old Mace Tawani when he
rolled in with his guns ablazingbeforehand, because we don't
know what he would have seenprior to.
But yeah, apparently Ewoks havea tendency and a taste for
human.
Brash Dudley Bears they are.
They are not Our most famousEwok, wicked Thoughts on him.

(49:42):
Brash, I love Wicked, he's goodas me.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
I love him Because I really liked him in the Caravan
of Courage and, I think, inReturn of the Jedi.
Seeing Wicked again, I thinkfor me, because I watched the
Ewok movie before I watched theactual Star Wars movie, seeing
Wicked in Return of the Jedi wassuch a huge high for me.
Well, basically, seeing theEwoks again in Return of the

(50:06):
Jedi was a huge high for me.
So yeah, and all three primaryschool teachers, me and my mates
, we'd all just make Ewok noisesjust randomly.
We'd just be walking along andsomeone would be like yeah,
that's how it goes.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Hey, you pick up on something like that Looking at
Wicket's Wookieepedia page ifyou click because Wookieepedia
has a cannons side and they havea legend side and you can click
on to filter what theinformation is like and if you
click on the legend side hisWookieepedia page is literally
like as long as your arm.
It's huge, because books, comics, yeah, all kinds, yeah, exactly

(50:46):
like he had a whole thing uh,through through morag and
through the tulag witch and he'sdone lots of different kind of
adventures like that.
But then if you click on thecanon side he's literally been
reduced to a third of what hisadventures were.
So I I think that it wasawesome for for wicket at least
in the 80s when he he actuallygained so much popular appeal
through the children and throughthe marketing of return of the
jedi that he was able to to thenyou know, warwick davis return

(51:10):
and reprise the role as wicketin the uh, in the courage of
caravan of courage and battle ofendor, which was really cool.
Do you know full name?
I didn't know he had threenames.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
he has a full name oh , wicket does, yeah, yeah well.
Three names, he has a full name.
Oh, wicket does, yeah, yeah,well because I know they have
the last name it's Wicket.
Oh my God, they named him afterthey did.
He's Warwick Davis they did.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
His last name is Warwick.
Yeah, wicket, wisteria Warwick.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
They named him after Warwick Mysterio.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Warwick, which is awesome, like.
Imagine being named after aStar Wars character, let alone
one as cool as Wait.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
doesn't that mean like it's Deej?

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Warwick as well, mm-hmm, yep.
And Whittle J Warwick as well.
Whittle Warwick, whittleWarwick, whittle Warwick there
was actually like comic booksassociated with the Ewok cartoon
and the actual cartoon itselfas well went for three seasons,
I believe.
So very, very well loved partof the franchise the old ewoks

(52:09):
there.
The only other canonical andthis is what I wanted to talk to
you about a little bit laterwas the only canonical inclusion
of the ewoks since the returnof the jedi and the last jedi,
where you see a little flash ofWicket and his son watching the
Imperial Star Cruiser bedestroyed.
The only other time is inBattlefront 2 in the modded game

(52:32):
Ewok Hunt.
Ewok Hunt, yes, and I thinkthat that was such a cool little
inclusion into the game becausein that game you can either be
a stormtrooper who is looking tosurvive or you can be a little
Ewok who is on the hunt tryingto kill all of these
stormtroopers, and it plays intothat lethalness of those tiny
little teddy bear creatures somuch.
And it's like if you're astormtrooper you can only see

(52:54):
through the lens of a circularspotlight, which is absolutely
terrifying because these Ewokwarriors just blend so well into
the greenery of the Endor moonand I can tell you, and their
spears like one shot and oh yeah.
And I can tell you very muchthat I have screamed a lot in
games, but not as much as I havein just the Ewok.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
I'm like a blank picture of Wicket's face and I'm
like god, look at your littlemurderous.
I know they're so, they're so.
I've actually fashion runninginto that, like at night time in
the jungle.
It's like it's like it's what Iwould think.
A drop bear, yes from Australia.
I think Australia that peopletalk about that's what I see
when I see these.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
I see little murderous drop bears yes, I love
that too, because they're kindof a mix between a wombat and a
koala.
Yeah, in the koala, yeah.
Anyway, let's get to our mostvaluable takeaways.
Our most valuable takeaway isthe heart and soul of the
podcast, where we break down theone thing that hit the hardest,
stuck longest or taught ussomething new from what we just
watched.
It is our moment to spotlightthe takeaway that made us think,

(53:54):
feel or see things differently.
This is what we learned fromthe E courage Brash.
I liked your most valuabletakeaway of this movie.
Yes, don't judge a book by itscover.
Yes, and you know, looking atthat, when you first said it to
me, I thought you meant in termsof these movies as a whole,
because looking at the covers,looking at how old they are,

(54:15):
somebody might look at me likeI'm a pass on that, but it's
actually like a nice littlecomfort watch.
Technically, in terms of, youknow, movie going standards,
might not be the best movie thatyou ever watch but, you know,
story wise, it's very comforting.
It's like it's a it's an oodiein a rainy day kind of movie.
But you actually meantsomething different.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
You meant it in terms of Mace, the character of Mace
yes, because Mace in this moviedoes a lot of judging, does does
a fair amount of judging andinstead of um, you know,
accepting the help and and sortof going with the flow, he is,

(54:52):
uh, pretty negativeprofessionally the whole way
through the movie, um, up untilup until he realizes that the
little rocky because they're allthe ewoks and um, both Sindel
and Mace all got items to startoff with Wicket with his magic
stick, weedle yeah, weedle andthe other brother got the

(55:12):
feather headbands.
The father got.
What did the father get?

Speaker 1 (55:16):
He got a headband.
He got the white headband.
At leadership there was the oh,that's right the leadership
that's right the leadership.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
yeah, yeah, the little tooth, the white, one of
the tooth Courage I think yeah,courage.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Or the red one was courage, those three headbands.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Yeah, blue or white and a red.
The white one was leadership,the red one was courage and the
blue one was For being theyoungest.
Yeah, he didn't actually doanything.
And then, yeah, you've got thetooth and the crystal and then
the rock yes, and the rock wasgiven.
And the candle oh sorry, andthe candle which was given to
the signal and the rock wasgiven to Mace, saying this is a

(55:49):
special magical rock that's partof the group.
And he was like it is just arock.
But even I, when I saw thatrock when I was a young kid,
went there's something specialabout that rock Because that
rock looked so smooth.
I would just want to keep thatrock purely just because how
smooth it was.
What a little rock like, Iguess.
But he throws away the rock.
Luckily Wicket picks it up.
Mvp.

(56:10):
He sees him, throws it away.
And yeah, exactly, mvp rightthere, because it is used later
on to find the secret entranceto the castle.
So that is one extremely goodexample.
Example of don't judge a bookby its color.
Because it's a rock doesn'tmean it's not magic quote, but
yeah.
And then again, at the verystart, when the Ewoks find
Sindel and they're like, oh, weneed to help her.

(56:30):
And they realize it's a littlegirl and they don't want to stab
her, which realistically,they're like, oh, this is an
easy meal ticket.
They decide they're going totry and help her.
And then he comes in gunsa-blazin'.
The Ewoks tackle him andrestrain him, hog-tie him up,
take him back and they startlooking after him and he's still

(56:53):
very distrustful, though afterthat isn't he, yeah, very, very,
very distrustful, and he's verydemanding, especially when they
need to heal Tyndale when she'ssick Food.
And when he starts yelling andscreaming at Sindel when she's
sick, food and medicine, whenhe's like food, eat, eat, food.
And he just keeps yelling thesame words at them constantly
and to the point where I'm likedude man, you guys got to do
something different.

(57:13):
They're not getting it, buteventually they give him all the
food and give him all themedicine that they had to help
Sindel.
They even go out of their wayto go and then help get some
more medicine.
Or for Mace to then say toSindel when she's feeling better
hey, let's just leave.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
And go off and then get themselves into trouble, and
then the Ewoks come and savethem again.
So yes, I reckon this movieheavily relies on the Don't
Judge your Book Buys cover,because the Ewoks are actually
quite friendly once you get toknow them.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah, there's a lot of sort of things that point
towards that as well with theRock.
For me and it sort of digressesinto my most valuable takeaway
as well with this one the mostimpactful scene to me in this
movie was when they were runningaway from the Ewoks and Mace
and Sindel sort of sat down forthat moment because, you know,

(58:08):
sindel was tired and then Macedecided to light a campfire.
And it's in that moment wherehe starts to renounce his
childhood ways and he vows to bethat little bit more protective
and he says I just wish I wasthe best kid ever and I never
made any mistakes at all, and Ijust wish that we could go back
to the time when everything wasall good.
And that's a very sort ofchildlike mentality and you can

(58:29):
see that that's what he wasacting like previous to that
moment.
You know he was very rash, hewas very stubborn, he was really
reflective of that preteenangst that we see in the early
adolescence.
He's resistant to change, he'svery afraid of everything that's
unfamiliar, and he tries toassume that protectorate role.
He says I'm mom and dad, nowI'm going to look after you.
It's like he knows that's whathe's supposed to do, but he

(58:49):
hasn't made the emotionaljourney yet at all, because he's
still very cynical and veryskeptical, especially when it
comes to that rock.
And I think that that rock waskind of like a metaphor for him,
like, looking at him, it's justlike a rock, it's a normal rock
.
Looking at him, it's just likea rock, it's a normal rock.
He's just like a normal kid.
But he has what he needs on theinside to complete this mission
, which is exactly what wasinside the rock.
He knew what he needed to do tofind his parents on the inside.

(59:11):
He just needed to access it,which is the same as what he had
to do with the rock.
And do you remember what he hadto do with that rock in order
to access that part of him thatwas able to complete the mission
?
Break it, no.
Before that, before he had tobreak the rock, oh no, he had to
listen to it, oh he shook itand he listened to it.
And that's the thing when you'rea teen, when you're a teenager,

(59:31):
what does your parents try totell you to do?
To, to teach you things and to,to learn advice and to develop
into an adult?
They tell you to listen, listen, exactly.
So I think that that rock islike a metaphor for the teenage
journey that he's going on.
And you know, one of the reallyfunny scenes to me was when
they found Canik, the shamanwoman, and she had the staff and

(59:54):
she sort of gave it to Mace andwhen she gave it to Mace it
changed into a lizard.
He was like, you know, becausehe was demanding.
He said you need to come andhelp us.
We can't do this without you.
And then he did the test and hekind of failed.
But then Sindel did it and shesaid can you please come and
help us?
You know, and there's that storyabout the innocence of the
child and in this movie she isdefinitely very hopeful.

(01:00:16):
She's very emotionallyvulnerable, she's very reliant
on her older brothers and herprotection comes from Noah and
then later the Ewoks as well.
She is this symbol of warmththroughout the movie as well and
also the symbol of earlychildhood innocence.
Now, throughout the movie,these two movies the Caravan of
Courage and also the Battle ofEndor they're really her stories

(01:00:38):
.
They're Sindel's stories abouthow she grows from the innocence
of a child to the independentsurvivor.
And you do that through beingthrust into circumstances that
require you to survive.
But she loses her entire familywithin minutes of the caravan
of courage.
So she has to learn to trustherself and I think that mace's

(01:00:59):
role previously was veryimportant to that because he was
her first view of a quoteleader or someone who's going to
take charge.
So she was able to sort ofmodel her growth off of that in
many sort of aspects as well.
However, you know, she's stilla child and she's still learning
as best that she can.

(01:01:20):
But I think my MVP for this oneis that, you know, through those
events she ends up becoming alittle bit more self-aware, a
little bit more emotionallyresistant and she's kind of more
ready to face uncertain eventsof the world alone.
Because by the end of both ofthe movies she's lost everything
but she's gained a lot more.
And she's nervous but alsohappy to go out and explore
space with Noah and start hernew adventure and become a

(01:01:43):
world-renowned journalist,apparently.
But I think that that'simportant to sort of think about
in terms of that journey thatshe goes on.
And it's the journey that a lotof kids go through when they hit
their teenage years.
They sort of look at thedestruction or destruction is a
bit of a harsh word but thebreakdown of their idea of a
family, because they becomesomething else in that sort of

(01:02:05):
aspect and that's what Mace wasbecoming and it's sort of like
the traditional coming of agestories and you can think about
any kind of child centered movie.
Something always happens to thekid's parents and they're
forced to grow on their own andinto independence.
And there's so many children'smovies about it.
I can think of the Land BeforeTime Lion.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
King.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Yeah, a New Hope.
Literally A New Hope.
Yeah, a New Hope.
Star Wars it happens to Luke aswell.
All these coming-of-age storiesthat require the protagonist to
move beyond their circumstancesbecause of something adverse
that happens and I think that'sthe message that comes through
these movies the most is thatthey they really highlight the
fact that this child is going ona journey, and that's one that

(01:02:47):
can be only led by the childrenwatching as well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
You know, you go through hard things, but you can
get through it especiallyspeaking of um, star wars and in
this sort of trope as well, italso shows, uh, well, if you
look at it, a lot of the young,because what?
Luke was 15, I believe, when hisuncle and aunt uh were killed
and he had to go off withluckily he had everyone there
with him and had to go off andsort of grow up right then so

(01:03:11):
that no more speeding aroundtaking out rats and messing
around with your friends on theweekends.
It was now you're a part of arebel force.
Whereas if you look at anakin,who was an adult when he found
his mom and lost his mom and heslaughtered an entire village of

(01:03:33):
women, men and children, itsort of shows that uh, and
especially star wars and a lotof other movies, the children
having to cope with that andgrow up real quickly, always
generally grow up doing theright thing because they're, I
suppose, trying to, even thoughtheir parents or their guys are

(01:03:54):
not there.
They try and make them proud ofthe people who they can become
through that growth, whereas ifyou're already an adult, like
Anakin, it can sort of go theopposite sort of way.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Well, that's kind of drawing it back to how I would
use this in terms of parentingmy kids.
You know there's always that youalways want to make sure that
your kids are okay, but you wantto give them enough freedom to
explore things on their own andthat's the balance of a parent,
isn't it?
And you kind of look atdifferent sort of situations and
you don't want to overstep whenthey're exploring something new

(01:04:26):
because they won't develop anyskills to get through it on your
own.
So you slowly have to withdrawyour level of support in things
so they can build up theirmastery.
And doing that in a slow andcontrolled way, in a safe way,
is how lots of children matureand kind of grow, and that's
kind of the development thatwe're seeing in terms of this
movie.
For one, I know that there isan abrupt sort of loss of family

(01:04:49):
unit there, but Sindel also haslots of different support
networks that she goes throughand works with.
Yeah, that help her take thoserisks safely so she doesn't have
to go and leave endor in a bigspaceship on her own.
Yeah, she has that support andthat supervisor or that, that

(01:05:12):
that caring sort of individualto help her take these steps and
and move through that coming ofage journey with some
assistance and support.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
I think having that sort of still having that um,
childlike wonder within you,going through that trauma, will
also be a massive help becauseif you look again, like you look
at anakin when he loses quagganyep, he doesn't flip out
straight away then because hestill has obi-wan as a support
network and I guess he still hasthat sort of even though he's

(01:05:40):
lost someone important.
He's about to embark on a newcrazy adventure of becoming a
jedi, which he's sort of, in away, sort of fantasized and
endeavored to be like Qui-Gon asa sort of, because he was sort
of like the father figure toAnakin, that he still had
Obi-Wan, but because he was anadult instead of like us all us
adults instead of us going andseeking help from others, we

(01:06:09):
just either boil over or bottlethat shit up, which is sort of
what he did.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
I think that's what he was doing the whole time.
I think Qui-Gon's death wouldhave definitely affected him,
but he would have bottled it andbottled it, and bottled it, and
bottled it and to the pointwhere he was facing so much
adversity and he wasn't reallytaught or told how to deal with
that kind of thing.
Because the Jedi doctrinedoesn't really give you avenues
to deal with emotional,conflicting thoughts in a

(01:06:37):
positive kind of way.
I think that the Jedi doctrineon like a whole probably does,
but I think it's just the wayit's presented.
Sometimes, as you know, hateleads to anger, anger leads to
fear, fear leads to destructionand loss.
That's just, and not dealingwith those in the proper way
that we know.
We like us, as people know now,it's great to talk about those

(01:06:57):
kinds of things and having thosesupport networks there in terms
of, especially for caravan ofCourage and the Battle of Endor
In every movie.
These kids are in trouble, butthat's what the Ewoks are,
that's their support, that'sthere.
They're not the ones goingthrough the trouble and the
trauma, except for when theMorals come and destroy their

(01:07:18):
village, but the kids are thevehicle for them, helping the
Ewoks, helping them through thatmoment.
Alright, let's rate it onFenneportals on a Board.
All right, it is time to rateit and rank it.
Each host gives the movie ascore out of five and we take

(01:07:39):
the average and add it to ourofficial Letterboxd on a Board.
If you want to follow alongwith that, you can find it on
Letterboxd.
We are always everywhere atPhantom Portals.
We're talking about a newrating system that we're going
to use because our PhantomPortals on a board is getting
pretty hefty at the moment andLetterboxd only lets us rate
things out of 5, which is fine.
But we feel like we have a lotof 3 and 3.5 movies, which isn't

(01:08:01):
a bad thing.
But we needed to sort of revampand refresh the way that we do
things and we've decided to lookat these movies in terms of
five characteristics and thissort of mirrors what we used to
do in terms of the real dealsegment, where we picked an
element and talked about it andrated it good or bad.
But in this way we're going tobe looking at the story in the
script, which one, thecharacters and the performance

(01:08:24):
as another direction and tone asa third, visuals and sound as a
fourth and just overallenjoyment as a fifth, and what
we're going to be doing is we'reeither going to be giving our
star of approval for that aspect, we're going to be withdrawing
our star if we don't think itdeserves it, or we'll give it
half a star if we think that airwas okay.
By the end, you'll have a fiverating, I'll have a five star

(01:08:50):
rating and we can talk aboutwhere it might sit on the honor
board as well.
So test running the first time.
The phantom portals ratingsystem 2.0.
First of all, the story and thescript.
This is the bones of the filmthe plot, the world and the
writing.
What do you think of this brash?
Are you giving you a star, areyou giving half, or are you
giving it no stars?

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
I would give this no stars, but I think the only
thing that saves it is thesymbolisms behind the actual
story, Because the pacing's, Ithink for me the pacing's like
way off.
Sorry, it doesn't spend a lotof time in the middle of the
movie.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
No, and the time that it does, spend a whole lot of
walking.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Yep, a lot of walking , which actually I do.
The one thing I do love, sorry,the one thing that always gives
me goosebumps is the littlebee's nest on the back of the
horse.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
I love that thing.
Fun fact you know why they usethat.
Why they use that?
Because child actors have acertain amount of hours in the
day that they're allowed toshoot and because Sindel was so
young, they could only have heron set for a certain amount of
time.
So in order to explain herabsence not being on screen but
still being on screen they hidher in the back of a beehive on
a horse instead of sitting heron the horse.

(01:10:00):
So that was really clever.
I thought too, that was awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Oh, that'll be.
I think I'll warrant one.
Um, uh, but yeah, that middlepart there.
Like they, um, the meat, allthe characters, like, uh, the
other two characters so quickly,so abruptly, all right, here's
took a truck and here's Kenickthere, horsecoat runs off with
Sindel and Chookatruck goes tochase him down.

(01:10:23):
I love that scene, the scenethat I was like huh, and that's
the scene when Mace falls intothe water in that magical water.
But the thing is you've gotWicket and Sindel playing off in
the distance, ages and agesaway, and he touches the water
and just blinks into the waterand then Sindel's there, not
even looking at him, goes myblinks into the water and then

(01:10:45):
singles there, not even lookingat him, goes.
My brother fell into the waterand it's like how did you know
that he fell into the water?

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
a, there's no splash and b went from looking in that
direction well that, yeah,that's exactly what they would
have done it for, but also Ithink it helps in mace's journey
trust and a bit more yeah, andand his recklessness.
So from he was reckless to goand be curious and dip into the
pond.
And then you know afterwards helearns okay, they had to come

(01:11:09):
and save me.
I shouldn't do that anymore.
I shouldn't go and poke thebeehive or poke the magical pond
, or don't touch things youdon't know about.
Every single scene you could putdown to a lesson that parents
would tell their kids.
So on the surface you couldtell that that water one is like
telling kids don't go near thewater, don't play near open
water.
That's dangerous, you mightdrown.
But also you could look at itand say reckless choices could

(01:11:32):
put you in danger.
Yeah, and then when you'retalking about the scene with
Canik and how Mace went in andjust ordered her to join and
then Sindel came in and askedher to join, there's ordered her
to join and then Sindel came inand asked her to join.
There's a difference betweendemanding something of somebody
and asking them nicely.
So there's that lesson as well.
So every single little scenethat you're looking at, there

(01:11:52):
could be a little parentallesson, because this is
dedicated towards children aswell.
But I think that the overallstory, the plot structure of the
story, extremely simple, verylong-winded and paced.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
I give it half a star .

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Okay, so half a star for you.
I'll give it half a star aswell, because I think that
generally the plot is verysimple, and it's meant to be
because it's a children's movie.
But I think that I'm giving ithalf a star because of the
little micro lessons that youcan take out of it, like what I
talked about before, and I thinkthat it definitely isn't worth
a full star because thatmarriage would have been good

(01:12:25):
between the actual plot and thelittle lessons that it's trying
to teach, but unfortunately thatwasn't there.
All right.
Next one Characters andperformance.
This is who we're following andhow well they were played by the
actors in the movie.
So for this one, for me, theacting performances don says
don't mean to shit on childactors woeful, bloody, terrible.
Um, I think that, uh, the linesin these movies were delivered

(01:12:48):
by kids and experienced kids andas a result of that, it
probably does play to a children, a child viewing this, but for
me it was just like you couldtell that they were reading it
off the script and that is it.
I feel like a dick saying,saying no star.
But for me, for theperformances and the characters,
I think I, I think I do lovethe.
I do love the Ewok characters.

(01:13:08):
I do like that they chose eventhough it's probably based on
marketing I do like that theychose Wicket to use because he
wasn't a Skywalker, he wasn't apolitically invested character.
They chose to bring it rightdown to the forest moon of Endor
and just have it isolated onthis one place, which is what we
told and said before that StarWars really kind of needs to do.
So I think I'll probably giveit half a star for the use of

(01:13:31):
Ewok characters and I will notcomment any further on the child
actors.
What about you?

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
See, I want to give it half a star because of the
Ewoks, like you said, but to behonest I have to give it zero.
But to be honest I had to giveit zero, no stars, because like,
yeah, the child actors, butyeah, their lines were just
always so dreadful, but that wassort of common in that sort of
time period.
Back then it was fine and for,like, the kids it would be fine,
but for me, watching it again,I was like God, these guys are

(01:13:58):
annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Yeah, what a dry delivery.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Mace always yelling all the time.
I liked how the characterslooked, both Mace and Sindel,
because Mace definitely givesoff that Luke Galka vibe which
helps sort of tie in that sortof Star Wars-y theme.
And even Sindel with theclothes she's wearing white
reminds me of the white thatLeia wears on Hoth.
So it sort of reminded me ofLuke and Leia sort of pairing.

(01:14:24):
They both don't have parentsanymore and stuff and they have
to sort of grow up and do theirown thing, basically like Luke
and Leia have to do.
So I do like all that and I dolike the Wicket and then they've
got Log Ray in it but like Iwish they had like Chief Chir
Paplu, instead of just beingWicket and his family, it could
have been Wicket and it didn'tnecessarily have to be his

(01:14:45):
family, it could have beenWicket Paplu.
I don't think Lodray could havejoined them, but there's a
whole bunch of other Ewoks thatthey could have used.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
But yeah, I think that half a star is probably
generous for me and I think yougiving it zero stars kind of
evens it out really really well.
All right, all right directionand tone for this one.
For me I'm going to give itzero and that is because, uh,
for me, unless it's a creativechoice, the tone kind of has to
be consistent throughout.
And for me I was looking atthese thinking is this my kids
entry point into Star Warsbecause these are targeted

(01:15:20):
towards children is a children'smovie.
It is full of, like family,adventurous themes and caravan
of courage.
You know, maybe, except for the, the sort of cgi that might
scare him a little bit, but thebattle of end or death, like the
, the tone will change and thethemes that are in that, and the
themes even in the caravan ofcourage as well.
Just, if you're gonna set it forchildren as a tone, then you
need to sort of maintain andkeep it as as a children-centric

(01:15:41):
tone for me.
Uh so, and then the director'sstyle.
There was nothing really thatsort of stood out to me in terms
of amazing direction.
They just kind of told thestory as best that they could
for two million dollars, whichwas, which was decent, they
pulled it off.
Uh, the narrative pacing aswell was absolutely just sort of
drawn out.
It was an hour and a half whereit could have probably been an
hour, maybe, maybe 40 minutes.

(01:16:02):
So for me I'm giving it zerofor director and tone.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Yeah, I'm just saying zero for me as well, Like you
were saying how you didn't likethe narrator.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Yeah, the narrator too.
That's another point for me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
But I wish they had.
I mean, if they're going to godown the narrator path, they
should have had the whole thingsort of narrated, not just
certain parts to try and helpyou explain.
Because narrated, not justcertain parts to try and help
you explain, because you canwatch the whole entire movie
without a narrator and you getthe gist of the movie.
The narrator just comes inevery now and then to clarify
parts and you're like oh, I sortof already got that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
Well, yeah, but that might be because it is a
children's movie and maybethey're thinking the children
won't get it.
The adults will, but thechildren won't get it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:40):
Well, this is a children's movie, so I should
have thought of that before theymade the movie yeah, so zero
for you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Yes, alright, let's go.
Visuals and sound this is whatyou see, what you hear and how
well you think it hits.
So for me, I think I'm actuallygoing to give this one half a
star.
I think the soundtrack is okay.
It definitely sounds like StarWars, even though it is not John
Williams.
I think that all the time thespecial effects were pretty well
used in terms of the forcedperspective, the little minis

(01:17:08):
that we used.
The stop motion is a little bitjanky, but still okay for a TV
movie.
For their budget that they usedpretty, pretty decent, not too
bad.
But the biggest thing for me,set design.
Endor looked great, like everylittle piece of knickknack.
All of the costume designs forthe Ewoks are very consistent
with Star Wars.
So I think I'll give it half astar.
The only sort of thing againstit again is that sort of janky

(01:17:31):
by today's standards.
Stop motion and yeah, that'sprobably it.
So half a star for me for thatone.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
Yeah, I 100% agree.
Half a star for me as well,because at For for a time, like
all the groundbreaking stuff wasmade.
Yeah, it's on.
You see the things like whenthey're fighting the spider?

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
Yes, you can see the fishing lines.
That was so hilarious.
Yeah, you can see the fishinglines attached to it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
But then I mean that sort of added to the enjoyment
of watching it.
I was like I just love Ewoks.
They're amazing creepy littlebears.
They are Like I'm so glad theygave them, but I'm not sure if
this helped or hindered the factthat they gave them like
eyelids for this movie, becausein the Zalhors they don't have

(01:18:19):
eyelids so they never blink,which is crazy enough, as it is
so.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
they never, they did, they never blink, which is
crazy enough as it is, butinsane night vision needed to
hunt stormtroopers in ewok hunt.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
They give them.
They get my lids in this andI'm not sure if that made it
worse or not, but I just lovethe creepiness to them as well,
as I'd like they like.
You can see some photos on andyou're're like oh, it looks
adorable.
And then you see like close-upsof them and you're like, oh my
God, that's nightmare feel.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
I actually feel like Muppets and puppets and things
like Ewoks like that.
They're really either hit ormiss with people.
People either look at thingslike Labyrinth or this or
anything, jim Henson, and theythink to themselves I'm not
watching it because that isuncanny, I cannot see it.
I can't see something thatlooks real but is alive.
No way, no, how.
But then there are other people, like myself included, that

(01:19:09):
look at anything that's like.
That's like really comfortingand nice and endearing, like and
yeah, I, I think for me that'sthe.
That's the half a star that I'mgiving it there.
All right, let's go forenjoyment.
How does this land?
Uh, how does it land then andhow does it land now?
So this might include likerewatchability scores for you.
I'm going to give it a full starfor this because, even though

(01:19:31):
it is not the best movie in theworld, I really enjoyed sitting
down with this cuddly teddy bearpicnic on the forest moon of
Endor watching just like I'm notgoing to say mindless, because
there's a lot that you can sortof glean from the movie and just
watch a movie that was from atime before I was born and see
what it was interesting to me tothink about, the things that

(01:19:51):
the children were watching inthe early 80s and the 90s and
things like that.
So for me, I had a good timewith this.
It was good to see a differentsort of element of Star Wars and
I actually loved that.
This was probably the bedrockfor what Star Wars is today in
terms of the stories that arecoming out, the expanded
universe, all that kind of stuffto see.
If it landed and it definitelydid there was lots of marketing
involved with it.
I think that for me, I'm givingit a full star for my personal

(01:20:15):
enjoyment of the movie.
What about you, brash?

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Oh, 100% a star For me when I watch this again just
goosebumps.
There were parts that came uplike the me I watched this, when
I watched this again justgoosebumps, like, absolutely
good.
Like then there were parts thatcame up like the um nest on the
back of the horse, or even eventhe rock how it made a trail
through the sand.
Just re-watching that,something like for me to stir up
so many like emotions in mybecause, like there's, there's

(01:20:41):
things in this movie that I canalways remember and I always
remember, like and like Goraxwalking down this, like just
that, how they slowed it downwhen he's trudging down the
stairways to make themselves, tomake all the people look like
they're faster than a bighunking monster is, and like I
just yeah, this movie is alwaysgoing to be one of my like top

(01:21:03):
movies that I'll always cherish.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
yeah, so definitely one star for me.
All right.
So that means a total formyself for the movie the caravan
of courage an Ewok adventure.
For me, I gave it a 2.5 out of5 and for brash you gave it a 2
out of 5, which means ouraverage for this movie is 2.25,
which, if you want some context,we both rated Captain America

(01:21:27):
Brave New World 2.5.
That's it by it.
That's it, that's it by it.
Alright, so let's put it on ourhonor board.
That means that it is going tosit 2.25.
Let's see where it goes.
It is going to sit underDragonheart and above Gabriel.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Above Gabriel or under Dragonheart.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
It'll be 16th on our on-the-board list.
Yeah, all right, I would haveasked you because, technically,
indiana Jones, gabriel and thishave scored the same thing, but
I think I know where you sit.
On Indiana Jones, I reckon itshould be lower, lower.
It's almost at the bottom ofour list, the only thing below
it is red one.
I'm actually starting to thinkthat it should be lower than red

(01:22:04):
one.
Alright well, with it rated, itis going to sit at the 16th
position on our fandom portalson a board.
Let's do our sign-offs, alright, guys?
This has been Aaron and Brashat the Fandom Portals Podcast.
Thank you so much for joiningin on our episode on the Ewok
Adventure Movies.
Now, remember, you can get allof your Fandom Portals goodness,

(01:22:25):
wwwfandomportalspodcastcom, andon that website it includes
access to our monthly newsletter.
Now, our first newsletter wentout to all of our people that
have subscribed so far, and itis in that newsletter where
we're going to first announceall our giveaways when we reach
25 points for our Fandom FactFace-Off.
And you can also get amongstour community by following us on

(01:22:48):
Threads, instagram and Reddit,always at Fandom Puddles.
Now, next week, brash, we'regoing to change it right up.
I'm going to start officiallydoing horror on the podcast, and
by horror I mean I'm going tosort of dive in nicely.
We're going to be doing Readyor Not from 2019.
It's technically a slasherthriller, but I've been looking

(01:23:10):
at it on my Netflix and it's satin my library for a little
while and I want to give it atry.
So next week we'll be doing anepisode on Ready or Not from
2019 and hoping to come withclean underpants.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
And maybe one day I can work you up to watching all
of the Conjuring saga, all theConjuring's, all the Annabelle's
.
That is a hard the nuns likeall of that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
I have seen one nun movie.
I haven't.
I didn't make it 20 minutes, soseen as a is a very you know
loose word.
I didn't make it 20 minutes, soseen is a very you know loose
word.
Anyway, if you guys wouldn'tmind, small podcasters like us
absolutely thrive on word ofmouth.
So if there's somebody whoyou're thinking, oh shit,

(01:23:58):
remember that Ewok adventuremovie that we used to watch,
send it to them, because we'retalking about it here on a
podcast and I actually don'tknow if any other podcast has
talked about this ever.
So send it to everybody.
Go on, uh yeah, send it toeverybody and make sure you're
supporting the geek freaksnetwork as well.
All right, keep learning, keepgrowing, keep loving fandoms
brash which is ewokies or thankyou, goodbye that's so sweet.

(01:24:21):
Bye everybody.

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Star Wars: Caravan of Courage, An Ewok Adventure (1984) - Ewoks, War Crimes, and Growing Up Star Wars

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Star Wars: Caravan of Courage, An Ewok Adventure (1984) - Ewoks, War Crimes, and Growing Up Star Wars