Ewok Month Part 3: Caravan of Courage

“Caravan of Courage” was my first Star Wars film. I was not aware of Star Wars until 2nd grade. It doesn’t seem possible, but I turned 5 in 1989 and there was simply no Star Wars merchandise in the toy stores. Six years after “Return of the Jedi” and there was no Expanded Universe yet. That wouldn’t come for a couple more years. So for me, entering kindergarten, there was just “Caravan of Courage” and Ewoks and I was not aware of the existence of Luke Skywalker or Chewbacca or Darth Vader or Yoda.

Anyhoo... I watched “Caravan of Courage” a whole bunch when I was a kid and I wanted to know what it would be like to watch as an adult- as an adult who was a Star Wars fan. A fan who has more knowledge of the Star Wars universe in general.

The first thing that struck me was the voice of Burl Ives as the narrator of this tale. The man is also famous for narrating, “Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer” which was another huge TV film from my childhood. I didn’t notice the connection as a kid, but as an adult it was pure nostalgia in a warm mug of cocoa.

So let’s start in with the Towani family. All we really know is that they crashed on Endor quite recently. Their ship looks small, like Winnebago small, so maybe they were just on a family “road trip” through the stars. The exact details of the crash are not clear, but I sort of pieced together a theory using clues from the film and it has to do with Mace.

Mace Towani is the teenaged son of the family and he’s sort of a giant fuck-up. Mace is not very bright, he’s a pessimist, he makes terrible decisions, and constantly gets him and his family into mortal danger. Taking clues from the film, I think that it might have been Mace’s fault that the ship crashed in the first place. Then he had a big argument with his parents and took off into the forests of Endor. Eric Walker who portrays Mace is a pretty dismal actor and I cannot fathom how the casting director decided on him.  Despite all of this, Mace is likable enough.

Now in the first minutes of the movie the Towani parents (Jeremitt & Catarine) are kidnapped by a giant ugly-ass creature known as a Gorax. Cindel is still hiding in the Space Winnebago when she is discovered by the Warwick clan (Deej, Weechee and Widdle). Mace shows up with his blaster and threatens the Ewoks, but they don’t take any shit from anyone, so they capture his blaster and take Mace and Cindel home with them.

So the Warwicks (including the mother Shodu, the youngest son Wicket, and the baby Winda) have some sweet digs on the forest floor away from the treetop village of Bright Tree. Not sure why, but it might have to due with the fact that they watch over many domesticated animals that wouldn’t normally be found in the treetops. These animals including chickens, horses, goats, rabbits, llamas, and even a ferret.

Now, the Warwick family are real nice to Cindel and Mace, giving them food and medicine, even going out into the forest to collect more medicine, but Mace still has a chip on his shoulder, so in the middle of the night he takes off with Cindel and his blaster and tries to get back to his star cruiser. Bad decision because now he’s got a giant Boar Wolf up on his ass trying to eat him and baby sis. Mace and Cindel hide in a tree and the Warwick family shows up the next morning and rescues them again!

Now, the Boar Wolf is terrifying in all its stop motion glory. Worthy of any Sam Raimi monster film. But finally Wicket takes the thing out with some kind of poison dart and the dart must be hella poisonous because the Boar Wolf has got all sorts of smoke streaming out of its mouth.

But this isn’t just any Boar Wolf. This Boar Wolf must be some sort of pet to the Gorax that took the Towani parents because it’s got a life monitor strapped to its neck. Now this is where I start to lose the logic of the plot. Because the way the life monitor should work is that as long as it is being worn by the owner it keeps track of the owner’s vital signs and alerts other people in the “life monitor network” by sending a message to their life monitor if the life monitor owner is in any danger. But for some reason, Mace and Cindel look at their mom’s life monitor and determine that she must still be alive even though she isn’t wearing the damn thing. 

Anyhoo… The Warwick family takes Cindel and Mace to Bright Tree Village to meet with Logray, the medicine man. Even though it’s the same Logray character as “Return of the Jedi” the character design is totes different. But Logray uses this weird dreidel which shows images of Jeremitt & Catarine caged up in the lair of the giant Gorax. So the Warwick family being decent people decide to help Cindel and Mace rescue their parents.

Now comes the “Council of Elrond” scene where Logray is going to send off the Fellowship. All the male Warwicks get gifts to help them on the journey including these awesome feathered headbands that will give them +1 to Strength and Dexterity and shit. And Wicket gets this walking stick and Cindel gets a candle and Mace gets this rock which he throws away because he’s an idiot and doesn’t realize that it will come in handy later because that’s how adventures fucking work, Mace! Read a goddamn book why don’t you? But it’s okay because Wicket notices what Mace has done and secretly pockets the rock.

Now there are two other gifts still in the circle for the Hero Ewoks that the regular Ewoks have to convince to come on the journey and this is where shit gets really good because we meet up with Chukha-trok and Kaink!

Now, Chukha-trok is just the coolest Ewok in the world. He’s this fucking bad-ass woodcutter that kind of reminds me of Tormund Giantsbane (Red Bearded wildling from GOT). He has a pretty upbeat demeanor and sings these incredible trail songs as they go along. Mace doesn’t get along with Chukha right away but Chukha-trok is easily loved by everyone he meets, so eventually Mace and Chukha hit it off pretty good.

Kaink, obviously doesn’t have the best character name, but the character design is great! She’s sort of this wandering-loner woodwitch Ewok with a magic staff. I forgot how much of the story she was in and how her magic is so vital to the survival of the party. Obviously a Force User.

Now that the whole party is together they ride off with a train of horses and Wicket’s horse house is fucking awesome because it has this little hut built right into the saddle like a sweet-ass fort for Wicket and Cindel so they don’t have to walk as much and so the film crew doesn’t have to teach Aubree Miller, the five year old that plays Cindel, how to ride a fucking horse.

So that brings us to the part where Mace touches this magic water, but then he gets trapped under the water and can’t get out which terrified me as a kid because no matter how hard he swims the water has him trapped. And every time the ewoks try to put a stick or something into the water the stick just vanishes until Cindel reminds Wicket that he has this bad-ass magic stick that Logray gave to him and, of course, it works!

Then there’s this night time scene where everyone is camped out and these firefly lady-shaped creatures fly out of Cindel’s candle and everyone comes out of their tents to check out the “wisties”. But when Widdle comes out of his tent with his blanky in his hands, he very obviously decides that Wisties are fucking lame and goes back to bed.

Finally, the next morning, the "Fellowship of Eight" finds the Gorax’s mountain home, but they can’t find the entrance because Mace threw out his rock, which was really a compass, but then of course Wicket saves the day again because he has the rock and they get into the cave and leave the children (Wicket, Widdle and Cindel) behind.

Everyone else starts climbing across this giant spider web to get to the other side of this giant pit but of course the spiders come and they are fucking terrifying and they try to eat the Ewoks but Kaink hypnotises the spiders with her staff and saves the day.

Next they find the Gorax’s kitchen table and the Tawoni parents are being held in this giant birdcage. But just what in the hell is the Gorax going to do with the Towani parents? They’ve been in that cage for days. Are they food or does he just like looking at them? So then while Weechee distracts the Gorax everyone else saves the Towani parents from the cage which royally pisses off the giant Gorax.

So everyone tries to escape but Chukha-trok covers their asses by taking on the 70-foot-tall Gorax with his tiny axe. And the thing is that Chukha-trok is so bad-ass that he could have probably take that Gorax.

But then Mace (being Mace) has to go sick Izarina the Wistie onto the Gorax and the Gorax flips out, causing the cave to collapse and this big rock falls on Chukha-trok. So Mace gets down to Chukha and they have this sweet moment where Chukha passes his axe to Mace even though it is really Mace’s fault that Chukha bites the dust. But in the end Mace uses Chukha’s axe to shove the Gorax off of the giant pit so that’s all well and good.

And that is pretty much it. That’s the “Caravan of Courage” in all of its glory. The moral of the story is this… You can call Ewoks teddy bears, but don’t underestimate their ability to fight. They are brave and fierce. They are inventive and resourceful. They live on a planet of countless dangers and they thrive at it. Ewoks may look cute, but they aren’t cute. They wear skulls and other scary shit and they're bad-ass. Okay!?!

Tomorrow I will review the second Ewok film, “The Battle for Endor”. Don’t miss out!

Ewok Month Part 1: Ewoks in Comics

Ewok Month Part 2: The Top 15 Ewoks

Ewok Month Part 3: Caravan of Courage

Ewok Month Part 4: Battle for Endor

Ewok Month Part 5: Aliens of Endor