The Battle for Endor (1985)

 

Well, the first made for tv Ewok spinoff wasn't exactly a resounding success. Sure, kids might like it, but it was still boring, bland, tedious and irritating, thanks to some incomprehensible choices made. Therefore, I'm delighted to tell you that the sequel is a much better film. It's not high art or anything special, but this at least feels like a fairly competent film for television. 

The film is off to a running start: marauders attack the Ewok village where Cindel and her family have made their home for the past few months. Heck, her father has nearly finished repairing their starcruiser (which looks remarkably like one of the shuttles from 'Star Trek', by the way). Many of the Ewoks are taken prisoner and the leader of the marauders called Terak, wants 'the Power' from Cindel's father. It is the powercore for the ship, apparently. Cindel's entire family is killed and she is tossed in with the Ewoks. She and Wicket manage to escape and eventually meet a grumpy old hermit called Noa and his superfast creature friend Teek. Imagine a fluffy cross between a bunny, hamster and the Flash and you pretty much know what he looks like. Noa acts all angry and brutish, but of course he is a big softie. Turns out he was stranded on the Endor moon many years ago, but because the powercore to his ship broke during the landing, he can't get away. 

Wait, what's that? Coincidence? Never!

I forgot to mention that Terak also has a shapeshifting witch called Charal, who kidnaps Cindel in order to reveal the secret of the powercore, as neither she nor Terak understand anything about this technology.

A bit weird that the marauders have laserguns, then. They work according to the same principle, yet they don't get how a battery works. Plot hole much? 

Now Noa, Teek and Wicket head to Terak's castle in order to free Cindel and the Ewoks and get the power core back, so Noa can get off the planet at last. 

You know there's going to be a happy end of sorts, so you also know what will happen in the end.

In contrast to the first outing, this one has much better pacing and writing. Heck, this one has better actors in the 'humanoid' parts anyway. Cindel is still a little off, but Aubree Miller was very young, so that's okay. At least her incredibly annoying brother gets offed in the first two minutes, so we won't have to listen to his whining anymore. There is no redundant voice over anymore and to make things a little easier for a young audience, Wicket now speaks basic English sentences. That's okay and a good choice, as it feels as though Cindel and Wicket have been playing together a long time, so he could have picked up some of her language anyway. Noa is played by Wilford Brimley and even though his grumpy nature is quite exaggerated at first, you know he is a decent actor and he gives it some effort. Not award-winning by any means, but it's fine. 

The villains are a bit of a mixed bag, as they apparently were asked to overact considerably. Sian Phillips is passable as Charal, although it feels creepily close to her portrayal of Mother Gaius Helena Mohiam from 'Dune', which she performed a little before this. Maybe it's just Sian Phillips' style, I don't really know. Terak is played by an unrecognizable Carel Struycken, whom you might know best as Lurch from 'The Addams Family' with Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston. The make-up for him and the marauders doesn't do him justice, as the masks are rather stiff rubber and you can tell they had to enunciate in an extreme fashion just to get the mouth to move just a little. But hey: tv films don't have an exorbitant budget, so there's that. The stop motion animals (of which there are few) are passable, but nothing special. Again: budget constraints. 

All in all, this is an okay film for kids to pass a little time. It's nothing special, nothing extremely memorable, but it is better paced, better written and better performed on all fronts in comparison to the first one.