I expected to either be bored or have a good laugh while watching the made for television Ewok films. While there are indeed dumb moments and bad acting in some spots, these Ewok films are actually watchable and have an almost Grimms Brothers fairy tale like darkness about them. Out of the two, The Battle for Endor (1985) is much stronger.
The movie is dark from the start: the little girl from the first sees her entire family die in an ambush and has to rely on Wicket, a weird monkey with supersonic speed, and an old man named Noah who's been stranded on Endor for decades. The lot of them are menaced by a warlike clan of monsters and their sorceress accomplice.
Really the whole thing feels more like your typical 1980s fantasy movie than a Star Wars flick, but it's a solid work in its own right. You actually care about the Ewoks and hope they make it through their adventure. It touches on themes of family and even death in ways that move. Definitely rough around the edges (and it IS odd to hear Wicket speak English-- yes he speaks English in this), but certainly not bad.
The movie is dark from the start: the little girl from the first sees her entire family die in an ambush and has to rely on Wicket, a weird monkey with supersonic speed, and an old man named Noah who's been stranded on Endor for decades. The lot of them are menaced by a warlike clan of monsters and their sorceress accomplice.
Really the whole thing feels more like your typical 1980s fantasy movie than a Star Wars flick, but it's a solid work in its own right. You actually care about the Ewoks and hope they make it through their adventure. It touches on themes of family and even death in ways that move. Definitely rough around the edges (and it IS odd to hear Wicket speak English-- yes he speaks English in this), but certainly not bad.