Ewoks: The Battle for Endor

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor is a 1985 made-for-TV film set in the Star Wars galaxy. The film focuses on Cindel, the little girl from the first film, who&mdash;after being orphaned&mdash;joins her friends Noa, Wicket and the other Ewoks, in protecting their village. Together they must defeat the evil Marauders who have taken control of the forest moon of Endor. Described by author John Baxter as "a dry run for Willow," the film is a sequel to 1984's Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.

Plot summary
On the forest moon of Endor, the Towani family (Jeremitt, Catarine, Mace, and Cindel) prepare to leave. Repairs are nearing completion on their crashed star cruiser. As Jeremitt works on the ship, the Ewok village is attacked by a group of marauders (the Sanyassan Marauders, who had crash landed on Endor from Sanyassa) led by Terak and his witch-like sorceress (a Nightsister who escaped from Dathomir, according to earlier Imperial survey by Pfilbee Jhorn) Charal. Many Ewoks are killed, along with Catrine and Mace. Terak confronts Jeremitt at the ship, wanting "the power," the crystal oscillator for the star cruiser. Terak takes the device and kills Jeremitt. Cindel escapes while Ewoks are gathered up to be taken back to the Marauders' castle. Cindel's escape is short-lived, though, as she is captured by Charal and placed in a prisoner carriage, where she is reunited with Wicket W. Warrick.

With the other Ewoks' help, the two escape from the carriage, pursued by a few marauders. They hide out in a cave in a nearby mountain. Wicket builds a hang glider for them to escape from the only other cave opening. A Mantigrue (possibly one of Morag's) in the cave is disturbed by their activities and attacks them, taking Cindel as it flies from the cave mouth. Wicket follows with the glider and saves her, though they both crash back to the forest below. They hide again in a hollow tree and awaken the next morning to meet Teek, a speedy creature also native to the forest moon. Learning that they need food, Teek takes Wicket and Cindel to the home of Noa Briqualon, a Human man who has also been stranded there. When he arrives home to find Wicket and Cindel in his house, uninvited (at least not by him), he is angered and throws them out. Teek sneaks them some food, using his incredible speed, which Noa allows, since he really is not the "mean old man" he had appeared to be. When Wicket and Cindel try to start a fire for warmth (which, uncontrolled, could burn down a lot more than just a few trees), Noa invites them in, using that as an excuse. That night, Cindel has a dream that the marauders have come for her. She awakens with a start, and once again, Noa shows his fatherly nature in calming her.

At the marauders' castle, Charal tries to use her magic to draw "the power" from the energy cell, to no avail. She is ordered by Terak to find Cindel, for she must know how to use "the power." Noa returns home later in the day with a surprise&mdash;a new bed for Wicket and Cindel. They return the favor with a surprise of their own&mdash;enough of a type of flower to make a pie. He allows them to stay another night. When Noa leaves the next day, they follow him and discover where he goes each day. Noa has a starship of his own, which he is repairing. It appears that he and his friend Salak crashed on the planet years before. The crash destroyed the crystal for their power drive, and Salak went to find another, never to return. Now, Noa has the ship repaired as best he can. All he needs is a power drive crystal&mdash;an energy cell like the one Telak captured from the Towanis.

That evening, Cindel tells Noa of her family and their adventures thus far on Endor. As Noa, Wicket, and Teek sleep the next morning, Cindel is awakened by the sound of a woman singing a song her mother used to sing to her. She follows the voice to find a beautiful woman. Wicket finds that Cindel is gone and he and the others race to her, but arrive too late. The woman transforms into Charal, who takes Cindel prisoner. Cindel is taken before Terak and ordered to activate "the power," but when she cannot, she and Charal are both imprisoned with the Ewoks. Noa, Wicket, and Teek make their way to the castle to free Cindel and the other Ewoks. In the cells, Charal tells Cindel that it was Noa's friend Salak (now lying dead, as a skeleton, in the cellblock) who spoke of "the power" to be found in the energy cells. Terak killed him for not turning over that power. Outside, the trio of unlikely heroes sneaks into the castle. They make their way to the cellblock and free Cindel and the other Ewoks. A marauder sounds an alarm bell, and the marauders head for the cellblock, even as Noa blasts a hole in the wall to escape through.

As they are escaping, Cindel mentions the fate of Salak, prompting Noa to take the energy cell with them. Terak frees Charal to help him find the ship Noa is repairing. The marauders trace them back to the ship, where Wicket leads the Ewoks in defense of the ship and Noa tries to get the ship up and running using the energy cell from the Towani family's spacecraft. The Ewoks put up a valiant effort, but are being beaten until Noa gets the ship running and they use the ship's laser cannons to fend off the marauders. When Cindel goes to save Wicket, though, she is captured by Terak, even as the other marauders retreat. Terak and Noa meet. Cindel is released, but Noa and Terak will fight for the energy cell. Noa is nearly killed, until Wicket fires a rock from his sling, striking the ring Terak is wearing on a string around his neck. The ring is the one that allowed Charal to change forms. He took it from her to keep her in raven form so she could track the group without betraying him. Now it proves to be his downfall, as its power burns him to a crisp. Charal swoops down and reclaims the ring. Shortly thereafter, goodbyes are said and then Noa and Cindel leave the forest moon of Endor aboard Noa's starship. They will travel the stars together until the Battle of Endor before later settling down in a modest home as a "family" in the Mid-Rim. Cindel will go on to become a successful reporter and editor for Coruscant NewsFeed and Noa will later retire from trading.

Development
"Everything about working with Lucas and the people at ILM was fun. Even when things got completely crazy, it was still more like play than work... Not the norm, I'm afraid."

- Ken Wheat on making the film

Following the success of Caravan of Courage, George Lucas decided that he wanted to create a second film. He hired Jim and Ken Wheat as directors for the film after they told him that they thought Caravan of Courage had been flawed and disappointing. Lucas then met with the Wheat brothers in two four-hour story conferences. He had viewed the film Heidi with his daughter Amanda prior to the sessions, and told the Wheat brothers that he wanted the film to center around the young girl character of Cindel Towani, who would be orphaned and come into the care of an old man in the woods. Inspired by various adventure films they had seen as children, the Wheat brothers suggested the Marauders as villains, which Lucas felt should be seven feet tall. Joe Johnston and Phil Tippett took part in the second story conference.

During production, Lucas would visit the set three times per week, often to look at art and costume designs. He would voice his opinion of the designs using a set of rubber stamps made for him by Johnston that read "Great", "CBB" (could be better) and "86" respectively. According to Ken Wheat, Lucas' involvement was mainly in pre-production and editing: "He'd given almost no notes on the script at all, but after our first cut, he came up with an assortment of new scenes and shots for us to film and cut in. Apparently, that's the way he likes to work, and although we hadn't been tipped off in advance, producer Tom Smith had scheduled and budgeted this 'George Factor' from the beginning".

Release
The film debuted as a holiday television special, airing on ABC on November 24, 1985. It was accompanied by a "parent's discretion" warning due to the violent nature of the film and the distressing theme of the death of Cindel's family.

In the original TV broadcast of the film, the end credits rolled over the final scene, but all home video releases of the film have the end credits rolling after the final scene, over a traditional black background. When Cindel has a nightmare about the Marauders coming into Noa's house to get her, the scene where Terak pops out of Noa's bed was cut in a version for television. In this television version, she wakes after the men break in. In a home video release, the following two scenes were deleted: when being chased by Terak's men, Wicket races for Noa's house but Noa tells him the only chance they have got is the star cruiser. Then a scene that happened shortly after where the men went inside and burned down Noa's house. Cindel's lines: "Do something, Wicket! Use your sling! You hit the ring!" have been altered to "Do something, Wicket! Do something!" for the DVD release.

Marketing
In 1986, Random House published a children's book adaptation of The Battle for Endor called The Ring, the Witch, and the Crystal: An Ewok Adventure. The book was written by Cathy East Dubowski and illustrated by Toni Scribner The same year, Buena Vista Records published a read-along storybook based on the film. It fills in some of the gaps in the story and at times contains different dialogue than the film.

The film's soundtrack was released as the 1986 LP Ewoks. Peter Bernstein&mdash;who had composed the music for Caravan of Courage&mdash;returned as composer for Battle for Endor. Like its predecessor, the score features a reprise of a few notes from John Williams' "Parade of the Ewoks".

Home video
The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1990 through MGM. On November 23, 2004, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox released the film on DVD. The DVD presents the film in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio with a Dolby Digital 2.0 English audio track and English subtitles. The release was billed as Star Wars Ewok Adventures, a "double feature" of Caravan of Courage and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The disc itself is double-sided, featuring one film on each side. Eric Walker has expressed disappointment with the DVD's lack of extras.

Reception
In a 1985 interview with Starlog magazine, Warwick Davis speculated that a third Ewok film was in the works, but such a project was never produced.

The Battle for Endor was voted the favorite of the two Ewok films by fans in a 2001 StarWars.com poll. In 2009, StarWars.com celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Ewok films with a series of articles covering various aspects of each.

During the Celebration IV opening ceremonies, the cast of "Star Wars in 30 Minutes" performed a skit called "Lucasfilm in Five Minutes 1983-2005", in which they re-enacted segments or imitated elements from all major Lucasfilm productions from 1983 to 2005. Both Ewok films were included in the act. Bonnie Burton listed Noa Briqualon and Teek as #7 on her list of "10 Unlikely Unleashed Figures", though she felt that Teek would make a better figure than Noa.

Continuity
Although George Lucas wrote the story and was quite involved with the production of the Ewok films, they are classified as C-canon in the Holocron continuity database. Disputes in Star Wars fandom have arisen over the fact that the official Star Wars continuity places the two Ewok Films before Return of the Jedi; a timeline published in the Star Wars Insider magazine shows the Ewok films occurring a short time before Return of the Jedi. Although the films make extensive use of Ewokese, the language developed by Ben Burtt for the Ewok species, Wicket appears to learn Basic in The Battle for Endor through his association with Cindel. This would seemingly create a continuity error with Return of the Jedi, since Wicket is shown to not understand Leia Organa's Basic in that film. StarWars.com suggests that Cindel and her family are actually speaking a different language from Basic, and that it was translated into Basic (English) for the benefit of the viewing audience.

The use of what is seemingly Basic by the Ewoks was also seen in the Star Wars: Ewoks animated series, but is understandably "dubbed" Ewokese.

On page 155 of the Legacy of the Force novel Fury, Darth Caedus goes to check on his daughter Allana in a secret compartment of the Anakin Solo, in which he finds her asleep and an "entertainment broadcast in which Ewoks spoke Basic and befriended shipwrecked little girls" playing on a viewscreen.

An Abyssin ornament as seen in Jabba's Palace in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is seen in Terak's fortress as an alarm bell holder.