Film / News
The Star Wars spin-offs you’ve never heard of
Released in cinemas everywhere on December 15, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is certain to become one of the year’s biggest box office hits. Directed by Gareth Edwards, of Monsters and Godzilla fame, this tale of a band of rebel spies who set out to steal the Death Star is billed on the official Star Wars website as “the first of the Star Wars standalone films”. Except that it isn’t. There are, in fact, two previous Star Wars spin-off movies that George Lucas would rather forget. Unhappily for him, the Bristol Bad Film Club is dusting these down and presenting them as a double bill on the eve of Rogue One‘s release.
Shot back-to-back and released in 1984 and 1985 respectively, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and its sequel Ewoks: The Battle for Endor are both nipper-oriented made-for-TV vehicles for the teddy bear-esque Ewoks from Return of the Jedi, with Warwick Davis reprising his role as Wicket.
“I don’t think many people are aware of them,” says BBFC supremo Ti Singh. “The Ewoks films have been lost in the mists of time. Even Warwick Davis doesn’t really talk about them. He talks about Harry Potter and Return of the Jedi. But in all the interviews I’ve read with him, nobody brings up the Ewoks spin-off films.”
That’s a shame, because there’s no shortage of entertaining stories to be told. Like the fact that, even by the low standards of child characters in the movies, the little boy in Caravan of Courage proved so annoying that he was killed off at the start of The Battle for Endor. But what of those who claim that these are not actually bad movies? Are they blinded by nostalgia? “I’d say the films are very entertaining for what they are – which are TV movies,” says Ti carefully. “I re-watched them recently and they’re good fun. You get the feeling that George Lucas is building up to Willow, which he wrote, so they’re appealing to the younger audience. But I think anyone who really, really loves them is wearing rose-tinted spectacles – in that same way that I love Hawk the Slayer and Krull. You adore them when you’re young, but you’re blind to their flaws.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the Ewoks films are not the only Star Wars spin-off. Something of a holy grail for Star Wars nerds is the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, which was broadcast once on US TV in 1978 and never repeated or released on video or DVD. Only bootleg copies survive, and George Lucas has done his best to stamp them out. Ti had originally considered screening this when The Force Awakens opened last year, but having gone back to watch it again he was reminded that it was not only bad but also very boring indeed. “The awful thing about it is that it’s a three hour variety show rather than a film, and lots of it is awkward 70s sketch comedy. There are a few scenes of interest: you meet Chewbacca’s family and there’s a cartoon section which is the first time you see Boba Fett. But lots of it is just really slow. There’s a cookery scene and a bit where Chewbacca’s dad is watching a burlesque show. I think the audience would just lose interest.”
It’s been another hugely successful year for the Bristol Bad Film Club, with most events selling out. One of their biggest coups was bagging Greg Sestero, co-star of the notorious The Room. With confirmation coming at the last minute, Ti had just two weeks to book a venue and sell tickets for this one. He needn’t have worried: they sold out in four days. Wearing his other hat as the founder of Bristol Sunset Cinema, he put on six outdoor screenings at Ashton Court over the summer, which proved to a something of a learning curve. The Goonies sold out almost immediately, with a reserve list of 300 people waiting for returns. But The Matrix struggled to shift 50 tickets and was eventually cancelled to make room for another Goonies screening. “What I quickly realised is nostalgia is the key. People will always go to see films they’ve seen hundreds of times already. I was loath to choose the films that all outdoor cinemas do – Mamma Mia!, Grease, Dirty Dancing, Top Gun – but they all sell out for a reason: people love those films. So I think I’m going to have to sit down over Christmas and decide whether I want these things to always sell out or to show films that people don’t often get to see in an outdoor setting.”
The good news is that there’s no shortage of bad films to delight Bristol audiences in 2017. The only challenge, says Ti, is in getting the rights to screen them and finding suitable venues. “I’ve got a massive list of films. There’s one called Iced, which is about a group of friends who go on a skiing holiday and are hunted by a mad serial killer skier. Then there’s The Divine Enforcer, which is about a vicar who’s also a vigilante…”
The Ewok Adventures double-bill screens at the Redgrave Theatre on Wednesday, December 14. Tickets are £6 in advance. All profits go to Little People UK, whose patron is Warwick Davis. See our full listing here for more information.
Further out, man!
Following Bristol Sunset Cinema’s successful joint venture with the Cosmic Shed podcast, which brought two Star Trek movies to the At-Bristol Planetarium with accompanying science talks back in September, they’re doing it all again this month with a one-off screening of the best Cold War science fiction drama. Robert Wise’s 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still screens at the Planetarium on Tuesday, December 13, followed by a podcast recording. The panel of scientific experts includes special guest Bruce Hood, Professor of Development Psychology in Society at Bristol University, who will be discussing the psychology of supernatural belief.