starhorsepax When it came out I was a kid and it was a good movie. It's true it doesn't have the high quality of the movies released in theaters, but it was made for TV and had a lower budget. But the story is great and a fun adventure. I still love it years later. I found it interesting to find that apparently Lucas made this for his daughter who loved the Ewoks. So that makes it a 'family' adventure for him too.

tomgillespie2002 George Lucas made a shrewd marketing move in the early eighties; changing the creatures to feature in 1983's Return of the Jedi from forest-dwelling Wookies, to small, cute and furry Ewoks. Lucas knew where the majority of his money was coming from: Merchandise. Ewoks were the cross-gender Star Wars 'commodity'. Figurines could be manufactured for the boys, so that they may interact with their existing toys; and a cuddly version could also be produced. However, after the release of Return of the Jedi, they no longer had a vehicle of promotion. So, Lucas pens "An Ewok Adventure" (story only), and cheaply produces a TV-movie.Mace (Eric Walker), a mini-Skywalker, and his little sister Cindel (Aubree Miller), a sickening Curly-f*****g-Sue, are stranded on the forest moon of Endor after their space cruiser crashed. Their parents Jeremitt (Guy Boyd) and Caterine (Fionnula Flanagan) have been kidnapped by the giant Gorax. The Ewoks discover the ship and take the kids back to their village. Eventually they join forces and form a quest to save the parents. This is aimed directly at kids of course. In 1985, both the "sequel" TV movie Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, and Ewoks: The Animated Series were produced, further exacerbating the kids "nag factor" element of toy marketing.Oh, how times have changed! Well, I can certainly see this crass cash-in for what it is now that I'm a pseudo-adult. But at the age of 8, this was related to Star Wars. It could well have just been Chewbacca shitting in a basket (or even The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)), but I would have loved it anyway. In hindsight, yes the Ewoks were rubbish anyway. But I admit this was not the case at the time (the shame!). What's even more shameful, is now that I've just watched it for the second time, I have now wasted three hours of my life on it. There are a few, good-for-the-time special effects. But this does not redeem a product of greedy capitalism.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

alecton99 It's not the worst, but it's certainly close. I bought the Double Feature DVD, and... to my horror... It was one of the worst movies I have ever seen(yes... even Direct to TV movies).It is very slowly paced, which only degrades the storytelling because it is a good story once you RETELL it in another medium, this slow pacing makes the movie seem to have almost no noticeable conflict in objectives and obstacles, it has vague character definition and you barely get involved with the characters, acting is as bad as it can get: When Cindel faints in a scene it seems like she just turned her head down so the director could yell cut; in another scene, Mace yells at some of the Ewoks, he screams at them, but the camera keeps rolling for seconds with the ewoks standing there doing nothing, which made him look less menacing (also badly paced).The casting was surely to blame for the bad acting performances. With the exception of wicket (Warwick Davis).The only upside may be the visual effects of 1985, which were not cheap, but not too expensive either. I checked out the DVD on my 27" TV and my PC monitor... the transfer is so incredibly pristine, it looks even sharper than other recent PAN&SCAN titles (and I mean recent). I'm guessing some enhancement was done, but not any I could notice (again, this is just a guess). The compression of the DVD is also the best I've ever seen (Attack of the Clones being in first place, Jurassic Park pan&scan being the last).On the Other hand, the sound is strangely low, you have to turn up the volume various times during the movie, I do not know why, but I doubt it's from the source.The technical aspects of the movie are very respectable, but the pacing and acting were completely overlooked at the time of production. The story is good (it would make a great kid's book), but the magic of film editing didn't do it's magic here.

staisil2 I know people say that the ewoks movies were a stupid waste of time and money, but I totally disagree. I think that if you are a child at heart, and still know how to use your imagination, then you would love these movies. 7.4 out of 10.