Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (originally released as The Ewok Adventure) is a 1984 made-for-TV movie that focuses on the Towani family, who were been stranded on the forest moon of Endor after their space ship crashed. Jeremiit and Catarine Towani are kidnapped by the Gorax, forcing their children&mdash;Mace and Cindel&mdash;to team up with the Ewoks in a quest to rescue them. Its success led to a sequel&mdash;Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.

Plot summary
The Towani family's starcruiser has crashed on the forest moon of Endor, leaving the group stranded. The children&mdash;Mace and Cindel&mdash;have disappeared, and the parents&mdash;Jeremitt and Catarine&mdash;cannot locate them. Jeremitt and Catarine desperately search with flashlights and call out Mace and Cindel's names. However, in the midst of their search, the parents encounter the Gorax...

The children are found by the Ewok Deej Warrick. After Mace tries to kill them, the Ewoks subdue him and take both children to the Ewoks' home. There, Cindel and Wicket Warrick become friends. Shortly thereafter, the Ewoks kill a beast only to find a life-monitor from one of the Towani parents with the creature.

They seek out the Ewok Logray who informs them that the parents have been taken by the monstrous Gorax, who resides in a deserted, dangerous area. A caravan of Ewoks is formed to help the children find their parents. They meet up with a wistie named Izrina and a boisterous Ewok named Chukha-Trok as well as the Ewok wizard Kaink before finally reaching the lair of the Gorax. They engage the Gorax in battle, freeing Jeremitt and Catarine, but Chukha is killed. The Gorax is thought destroyed when he is knocked into a chasm, but it takes a final blow from Mace (using Chukha's axe) to kill the creature, who tries to climb back up after them. Thus reunited, the Towanis decide to stay with the Ewoks until they can repair the starcruiser, and Izrina leaves to go back to her family.

Development
Some time after the release of Return of the Jedi, George Lucas had an idea for a "one-hour television special dealing with the Ewoks." This "one hour" eventually was expanded into one and a half hours, however. This production would be more fantasy-and magic-oriented than the Star Wars films that came before. Joe Johnston, an art director at Industrial Light & Magic for years and one of the key concept artists of the classic Star Wars trilogy, acted as production designer. Prior to this movie, Johnston had written and illustrated a book about Ewoks, The Adventures of Teebo: A Tale of Magic and Suspense. This gave him a background to the arboreal aliens that was crucial in designing new Ewoks and their surroundings.

The film was directed by John Korty, from a story by George Lucas and screenplay by Bob Carrau. It was shot mostly in Marin County, California, and also in the California Redwoods. The film shot for eight weeks, with a shooting schedule structured around Davis' school schedule. He also had a tutor on set, with whom he studied for four hours per day. Lucas himself directed the film's re-shoots and edited some of the film's scenes. A scene shot for the film but deleted had Mace come across a group of large flowers. He sticks his hand in one of them, which then tries to pull him underground. This was replaced in the final film with a scene of Mace sticking his hand into a tree. The film also originally had a different ending in which the characters dance in snow.

During production, Lucasfilm provided Warwick Davis and Eric Walker with a film camera, feeling that it would be educational for the two. Their on-set tutor had the idea for them to make a documentary about the making of The Ewok Adventure. Davis and Walker, calling themselves W&W Productions, proceeded to shoot behind-the-scenes footage, which they edited in their hotel room using Lucasfilm equipment. The documentary wasn't publicly released at the time, and was thought of as a private "home movie" for the two. When the Ewok films debuted on DVD in 2004, Eric Walker expressed his disappointment with the DVD's lack of extras, and felt that the Ewok Adventure documentary should have been included. In July 2006, Walker announced on his website that he would publish a book about working with George Lucas entitled Growing up on Skywalker Ranch. In 2011, he opened a Kickstarter project to raise funds to complete the book&mdash;by then retitled Growing Up in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. The campaign was successful, raising well over the original goal. One of the gifts for donating to the project was a DVD of the Ewok Adventure documentary.

Release
The Ewok Adventure debuted on ABC on November 25, 1984. Some radio stations broadcast a simultaneous audio track in order to create a stereo experience for viewers. The film was also given a theatrical release in Europe with the title Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.

Merchandising
Beginning in 1984, Random House released a series of tie-in children's books that continued the adventures of the Ewoks from the film. Each book used the film's subtitle "An Ewok Adventure". In 1985, Random House released The Ewoks and the Lost Children&mdash;a children's book adaptation of Caravan of Courage by Amy Ehrlich. 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.

In 1986, Lucasfilm released an official soundtrack LP, Ewoks. It included much of the original film score composed by Peter Bernstein for both Ewok films. At one point in the film, a few notes from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi's "Parade of the Ewoks" can be heard.

Home video
The Ewok Adventure was released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1990 through MGM.

On November 23, 2004, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox released the film on DVD&mdash;this time with its theatrical title of Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. 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 its sequel, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The disc itself is double-sided, featuring one film on each side. The DVD release featured no extras, only the films themselves.

Reception
The film won two Emmy Awards: one for "Outstanding Children's Programming", and another for "Outstanding Special Visual Effects".

A sequel&mdash;with a working title of "Ewoks II"&mdash;was filmed in the summer of 1985, and aired that November on ABC as Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The sequel picks up not long after the first film, and focuses on Cindel and the Ewoks' battle against a group of pirates who have attacked the Ewok village, killed Cindel's parents and brother, and captured many of the Ewoks. 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. ABC also expressed interest in having the film be a pilot for a TV series, depending on the film's success. Lucas however wasn't interested.

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. In 2009, StarWars.com celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Ewok films with a series of articles covering various aspects of each.

Continuity
The Ewok films are officially set in 3 ABY. However, there is contradictory internal evidence:
 * In the film, Wicket's youngest sister Winda is a cradled Wokling, whereas in the animated series she is a much older Ewok, capable of independent speech and movement.
 * In the film, Chukha-Trok is killed by the Gorax, while the character is seen to be alive and well in the Star Wars: Ewoks animated series which takes place after the film.
 * In the film, there is no Imperial presence visible on Endor, suggesting the films take place before the Death Star operation began in earnest. However, producer Thomas G. Smith has pointed out that a young Ewok has a toy Imperial walker, which indicates that "the Imperials have been there."

In the 1996 novel Tyrant's Test', Cindel is shown to have become a reporter on Coruscant. During the Yevethan crisis, Cindel receives the so-called Plat Mallar tapes from Admiral Drayson, and leaks the story of the only survivor of the Yevethan attack of Polneye. In the novel Fury, Allana's entertainment monitor is displaying an entertainment broadcast, "In which Ewoks spoke Basic and befriended shipwrecked little girls". Star Wars: Ewoks—Shadows of Endor is set 8 months prior to the Battle of Endor, appears to retcon the events of the animated series to prior to the events of the films. Due to events contained therein, Star Wars: Ewoks is now chronologically followed by Star Wars: Ewoks - Shadows of Endor‎ which itself precedes Ewoks: The Battle for Endor due to the inclusion of Charal.