A couple of weeks ago, I posted two pieces on The Star Wars Holiday Special. After posting these, I was chatting with @sauravrungta and he said that he had never heard of this debacle and could not keep track of all of the different Star Wars side projects. He suggested I post about them.

Sauravrungta... your wish is my command!

Since 1978, there have been nine movies and TV shows that are not considered part of "the Saga". I've decided to tackle these in chronological order. Luckily, we already have the Star Wars Holiday Special out of the way. That is by far the worst one of the bunch.

After the epic embarrassment caused by the Holiday Special, it took 6 years for Lucas to try again. The first fiasco involved Wookies. The next two involved... Ewok.

The tag line is "You'll live the adventure... You'll love its heroes."
No you won't. No one will.

In 1984, ABC presented a full length made-for-tv movie called Caravan of Courage. The movie was also released in theaters in Europe. Why? I have no idea. On behalf of the U.S. I would like to apologize to Europe for exposing you to this garbage. How do I know it is garbage? First, I saw it when it was first run. Second, I own the DVD? Why? I have two young kids. Young kids sometimes like garbage... especially when it involves cute little bears running around.

The movie takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The movie centers around two children, named Mace and Cindel, who are stranded on Endor after their ship crashes there. Their parents have been captured by a monster called a Gorax.

I am the Gorax and I speak for the trees...
No I speak for the union of bad mask wearing "actors".

The children, with the assistance of some Ewoks, must find their parents Catarine and Jeremitt.

But it does not start out that smoothly. When the children first start looking for their parents, they are discovered buy an Ewok named Deej. Being such a fierce and formidable looking foe, Mace attempts to kill Deej. Luckily he fails. Deej and some other reworks capture the children and take them back to they village where they cook and eat them... wait no they don't. Instead, the little girl, Cindel makes friends with Wicket.

Holy smokes! Just look at those cold dead eyes. It's terrifying!
Whatever you do little girl, don't turn around!

Next, the Ewoks kill a monster and find the parents' monitor. This immediately causes an Ewok named Logray to deduce that the parents have been taken by the Gorax. The Ewoks form a "Caravan of Courage" to rescue the children's parents. How do they know the parents are even alive? Ancient Ewok secret????

Along the way, the caravan runs into Tinkerbell... I mean Izrina who is a "Wistie". My son's absolute favorite character, an Ewok named Chukha-Trok also joins the team. My son (who was 8 at the time) found this Ewok to be particularly entertaining and brave. Because my son couldn't wait to see more of him in the sequel, the writers decided it would be a great idea to have him die in a heroic battle with the Gorax. My son teared up at this. Luckily, Mace uses Chukha-Trok's axe to strike the final death blow to The Gorax. Then my son balled for thirty minutes. He would have rather seen every stupid human die rather than that one particular Ewok.

Can we get a closeup of this lifeless corpse? Timmy isn't hyperventilating yet.
By the way, where did the eyelids come from? Do they grow in when they die?

As my son continued to cry, the family is reunited and decides to stick around Endor for the sequel.

The acting is horrendous. The story is ridiculously bad. The special effects are terrible.

On a positive note, Burl Ives is the narrator for the story so you can have some fun picturing him as the snow man from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer... but on Endor.

Have a holly jolly Ewok celebration. it's the best time of ... never.

I am not going to get into the minutia of whether or not these movies are officially "canon". Instead I will simply say whether or not anything from the movies will help you to enjoy the main movies more.

This movie will not enhance your enjoyment of anything ... ever... in the history of time.

Should you see it? No. Please no.

Is there anyone else here who actually suffered through this?

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