The year after Return Of The Jedi hit movie theatres, a made-for-TV movie was released featuring the much-maligned furry stars of much of Jedis running time; Caravan Of Courage, about Ewoks helping two human children find their kidnapped parents. In 1985 came the sequel, Ewoks: The Battle For Endor. Both movies were created specifically for children, to take advantage of the Ewoks popularity. When putting together the deal for the first Star Wars movie, Lucas agreed with Fox that hed retain the merchandising rights for the movie and the rights to any sequels, in exchange for a lower salary as writer/director. As everyone and their monkey knows, the Star Wars franchise wrote the book on how to merchandise a family blockbuster film to children but that meant continuing to appeal to the kids. Hed already decided to feature a technologically inferior tribe of aliens in Return Of The Jedi: as the Wookiee race no longer met the criteria, he combined both objectives to create a short, furry cute version whod join forces with the rebels against the evil Empire. That led directly to the Caravan Of Courage and Battle For Endor TV films, both of which were essentially the worst parts of Return Of The Jedi, expanded to feature length and including human children. The objective was clearly to keep Ewoks in the public eye for as long as possible after Return Of The Jedi left theatres: had any other Star Wars movies been planned, they certainly wouldnt have included tiny forest-dwelling tribes of bears. The films were horrible, and even today barely qualify as a part of the Star Wars universe. Even discounting their worth to the ever-expanding Star Wars Universe, however, the films werent fun for their intended kiddie crowd. The first movie is all about the two children joining forces with the Ewoks to rescue their parents the second movie kills both parents and the older child in the first act to leave the little girl an orphan. Who does that to a pre-teen audience?!
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.