The Ewok Adventure (1984) and Redefining Franchise Canon

Hollywood is a business and, as such, works to make as much money as possible.  One way that the money is made is through franchises.  People will go see things that they recognize out of nostalgia for the previous installment.  Look at the theater experience now.  There’s not a week that goes by without some franchise releasing a new installment.  Deadpool 2 came out last week, continuing the journey of Wade Wilson while also showing more of the X-Men lore that has existed on viewing screens since 2000.  This week saw the release of Solo, the newest in the forty year old Star Wars franchise.  That brings us to this week’s movie.

The Ewok Adventure, also known as Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, was a television movie that aired on ABC in 1984.  It followed Wicket (Warwick Davis), returning from Return of the Jedi, as he helped Mace Towani (Eric Walker) and Cindel Towani (Aubree Miller) travel across Endor to save their parents from the evil Gorax.  They put together a band of Ewoks and caravanned to the cave of the Gorax to fight it.

One of the most interesting things about The Ewok Adventure is that it is not even be part of the Star Wars cinematic canon anymore.  When Disney bought out the rights to Star Wars and started producing the newer movies, they deemed that the extended universe was no longer part of the lore.  Only the theatrical movies and The Clone Wars television show from before the 2014 clean slate counted as part of the continuity.  Everything else was tossed out, leaving The Ewok Adventure as a lost part of the Star Wars legacy.

Star Wars is far from the only franchise in movie history to change continuity in an attempt to reboot the series while playing true to its roots.  Most of the time, this sort of thing happens in horror films.  Many of the examples that will be brought up will be examples that fit into the horror genre, since those are the ones that come to mind most easily.  Let’s start with Star Wars specifically.

Star Wars

George Lucas’s space adventure franchise began in 1977 with the release of Star Wars, later renamed Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.  It was followed by two theatrical sequels in 1980 and 1983 called The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, respectively.  Those could have been it, but the galaxy of Star Wars was expanded through three television movies about Ewoks and Wookies, as well as a myriad of books chronicling event that weren’t seen on screen.  In the books, people got to know the children of Luke, Han, and Leia.  The books dove deeper into the lives of supporting characters like Wedge Antilles.  There was even a history established in the world of Star Wars.  Then there were the theatrical prequels about Anakin Skywalker’s slide into the dark side, and the Clone Wars stuff.

Disney bought the Star Wars rights in 2012, and soon announced their plans to put out new theatrical movies that would, hopefully, go over better than the prequels had.  They did.  These new movies didn’t come without some controversy though, notably when it came to the lore that had been built since the 1970s.  Disney threw out all of the lore.  They didn’t erase it from existence.  The books, television films, and other story bits were collected into an offshoot called Legends.  But they took them out of the canon, essentially rebooting the franchise so it would be easier to do their own thing when it came to the new trilogy of movies.

Most of that rebooting worked for the Star Wars movies.  Episodes VII and VIII became two of the most successful movies of all time.  Rogue One was an interesting spin-off that brought in new characters, while still tying nicely into the original trilogy of movies.  Star Wars Rebels was a critically acclaimed television show, and there is a new universe of books that have been released since 2014, helping to set up the characters and story beats that people loved about the movies.  It was one of the more successful instances of rebooting part of a franchise to take other parts out of the canon.

Halloween

Halloween has been rebooted numerous times in big and small ways.  Of course, the most obvious was the third movie, which told a different story that wasn’t connected to the Michael Myers saga.  It told the story of a mask maker who was using his Halloween masks to cause a mass murder.  Then there was the Rob Zombie reboot that retold the origin of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.  But the one most notable to the topic of erasing lore through a semi-reboot is Halloween: H20.

After the second Halloween movie, the story of Laurie and Michael was supposed to be over.  John Carpenter wanted the franchise to turn into an anthology, where each subsequent movie would be a different horror story that took place around Halloween.  That’s why Season of the Witch happened.  When that didn’t work out, the producers went back to the Michael Myers well.  Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t come back, so they wrote around that with the character of Jamie Lloyd.  She was Laurie’s daughter, now living with a foster family after Laurie died in a car crash.  That would be the basis for Halloween 4 through Halloween 6.

Jamie Lee Curtis agreed to come back for the seventh installment, as a celebration of the 20^th anniversary of Halloween’s release.  This meant that there had to be a way for her character to be alive again.  That way was to brush the mythology that the previous three movies had built under the rug.  They were no longer canon.  Halloween: H20 was a sequel to Halloween and Halloween II, but not any of the other Halloween installments.  It was essentially rebooting the franchise at the third entry to create a new continuity.  It was a mild success, with Halloween: H20 being one of the better installments, especially coming off of the crazy mythology of Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers.  It wouldn’t be the last time that a horror franchise ignored some of what came before.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The film that kicked off this franchise came out in 1974 and told the story of a group of friends who were attacked by a family of cannibals.  The iconic character of Leatherface helped bring about three sequels, in 1986, 1990, and 1994.  Then the franchise went dormant.  It wasn’t a long franchise.  Other horror franchises at the time had many more movies in a shorter amount of time.  It was a memorable franchise, however.

The mid-2000s saw a full reboot of the franchise from Platinum Dunes.  That’s not the one that’s important to this post, though.  What’s important is what came after.  Following the two Platinum Dunes movies, the franchise was half-rebooted again.  This time, it went back to the continuity of the first movie, but ignored anything that came after.  Texas Chainsaw 3D came out in 2013 as a direct sequel to the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  It ignored anything that was done in the second through fourth installments, and instead only continued from the first movie.  Leatherface came out in 2017 as a prequel to both The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Texas Chainsaw 3D.  It was a new continuity for a new generation.

Sleepaway Camp

The Sleepaway Camp movies are more known for the twist in the original movie than the actual quality of the slasher fare.  That twist helped garner the attention that created a five movie franchise.  The first four movies were all one single continuity, with the second and third films following Angela after her transition was completed.  The sequels were more comedic, playing on Angela’s morbid sense of humour.

Rob Hiltzic, the writer/director of the original Sleepaway Camp made his own sequel in the mid-2000s called Return to Sleepaway Camp.  This sequel retained most of the original’s tone.  It took out the dark humour that the sequels were known for.  It brought back a bunch of the original performers.  Most importantly, it ignored the events of Sleepaway Camp II through Sleepaway Camp IV.  It was a direct sequel to the original without any of the lore that the sequels had put into the franchise.  It wasn’t a huge success, having been made in 2003 and released in 2008 to little or no fanfare.  It was a return to the roots of the series, though, which was nice for the people who had come into the franchise with the first and gone through the different tones that were the sequels.

Those are only four of the franchises that were rebooted with later installments that picked and chose what parts of the lore to keep.  They would ignore entire works to try and keep a concise mythology as they moved forward.  Most of the time, it happened in horror.  Star Wars was one instance where it was a different genre.

What benefit do these soft reboots give to Hollywood?  In the case of Star Wars, it allowed the fans of a new generation to come into the movies without having to dig into the exhausting extended universe that had been built up for nearly forty years.  It let Disney create their own extended universe that people would be more likely to purchase because it was canon.  Things were easier for fans, and more money could be made by the studio.  Win win situation.

The Ewok Adventure was one of the works that was pushed aside in the Disney reboot of the Star Wars franchise.  The continuing adventures of Wicket were no longer canon.  They may have entertained a certain generation of children, but the Caravan of Courage would be forgotten in future generations.  It’s a shame.  This is basically what the Star Wars Story spin-off films are doing, only with different characters.  Maybe there will be a remake in the future?  Who knows?

Now let’s get to some notes:

• This post saw mentions of Halloween 6 (week 48) and the Sleepaway Camp franchise (week 150).
• Tony Cox played one of the Ewoks in The Ewok Adventure.  He was previously in Date Movie (week 164) and Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186).
• Wicket was played by Warwick Davis, who also played the leprechaun in Leprechaun in the Hood (week 120) and Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood (week 120).
• Finally, Debbie Lee Carrington was in The Ewok Adventure.  She made other appearances in Tiptoes (week 28), Howard the Duck (week 75), and Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186).
• Have you seen The Ewok Adventure?  What did you think of it?  What do you think of reboots that don’t reboot the whole series, but instead just remove some from continuity?  What others did I miss?  Let me know in the comments.
• The comments can also be used to suggest movies for me to watch in future Sunday “Bad” Movies weeks.  Twitter can be used for that, too.
• Sometimes when I watch bad movies, I share clips of them on my Snapchat (jurassicgriffin).  If that sounds like something you want to see, add me.
• Next week is another week of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  What I mean by that is that I’ll be checking out another bad movie.  This time, I’m going into the horror genre once again to check out a serviceable yet lackluster film called Intruder.  I have no idea what I’ll write about it yet.  Keep your eyes open in seven days’ time as a post will be coming your way.

Thumbelina (1994) and Passive vs. Active Protagonists

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there were a few big names in animation.  As always, Disney was in the picture.  They were putting out movies that have become classics that people my age grew up on.  Pixar started their run in the mid-1990s when they made Toy Story.  They had a few shorts before that, but didn’t get the mainstream attention that others got until Toy Story was released.  Then there was Don Bluth.  He started in Disney before going out on his own to build a studio and release movies like The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Anastasia.

One of the other Don Bluth movies was Thumbelina, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story about a girl the size of a thumb.  Thumbelina (Jodi Benson) was peacefully living her life when Mrs. Toad (Charo) came along and kidnapped her.  She excaped the toads and was taken in with Mr. Beetle (Gilbert Gottfried), who tossed her aside when she tarnished his image.  Ms. Fieldmouse (Carol Channing) gave her shelter in the winter and tried to marry her off to Mr. Mole (John Hurt).  During her adventure, the fairy Prince Cornelius (Gary Imhoff) journeyed to rescue her, take her home, and marry her.  There was also a bird named Jacquimo (Gino Conforti) guiding the audience through the story.

Unlike so many of Don Bluth’s other movies, Thumbelina isn’t considered a classic in animation.  It’s easy to see why.  There are a myriad of reasons that the movie ended up being a mess.  The story itself wasn’t all that interesting to watch.  That’s not Don Bluth’s fault.  That came from the source material where it was a tiny girl getting kidnapped before falling in love.  Hans Christian Andersen could be blamed for that.  The weird way that creatures of various species are romantically interested in Thumbelina was also weird.  A frog, a beetle, and a mole were all trying to be with her.  But the one reason that should be focused on more than most was the fact that Thumbelina was not an active protagonist, outside of one moment in the movie.

An active protagonist is a hero in a story that makes choices.  Their journey is of their own doing.  They move along from plot point to plot point because they take an active participation in what they are doing.  They must decide between two difficult choices in order to try and achieve their goal.  A passive protagonist is a hero who doesn’t make choices.  Everything that happens in their journey is because of other people doing things.  They react to what is going on without changing things by their own will.  They hope they’ll get to their goal without ever doing anything to take a step closer.

Thumbelina was a passive protagonist.  She spent the majority of the movie reacting to everything that happened to her.  When she got kidnapped, she didn’t try to free herself.  Jacquimo freed her.  When she was about to go over a waterfall, she didn’t do anything to get to safety.  The creatures of the forest got her out of the water.  The fish knocked her backwards in the river and the insects dragged her out.  She didn’t escape from the beetles.  Her costume came off, they mocked her, and she was sent away.  None of these things were of her own doing.  The other characters were doing things for her, and she went along with it to get through the story.

The problem with this kind of character is that the audience can’t connect with them.  They don’t have to make the tough choices that people make in life.  They go through a journey that nobody has been on and they don’t make any of the relatable decisions that get the audience invested in the most ludicrous of stories.  Say, for example, in the scene with the frogs, Thumbelina had to try to escape while they weren’t looking.  The escape would get her away from them, but then she would have to contend with the dangerous waterfall.  If she got caught, security would be tightened so that she wouldn’t be able to get away so easily.  The choice is left to her about whether or not she should attempt it at that moment.  The audience is more invested.

Dramatic tension.  That is the key element to an active protagonist.  Whenever they make a tough choice, like the admittedly flimsy example I made of the escape that never happened in Thumbelina, the audience becomes a little more anxious.  They don’t know if the choice will be good or not.  Most likely, they’re both bad choices.  At that point, the audience becomes anxious for the safety of the character.  This is the thrill ride that movies should be.  Thumbelina lacked dramatic tension.  For the most part.

There was one scene near the end of Thumbelina where the main character was given a choice to make.  For once in the movie, they were telling the story in a semi-compelling way.  During her time with Ms. Fieldmouse, Thumbelina was set up with Mr. Mole.  They were set to wed.  A wedding happened.  During that wedding, Thumbelina came to a tough decision.  She could marry Mr. Mole and be unhappy that he was not the person she loved, or she could leave Mr. Mole and be alone because the person she loved was dead.  That’s an actual choice.  That’s a decision that the main character had to make to move her story forward.  That was good storytelling.

The worst part of the whole active versus passive protagonist concept that plagued Thumbelina’s main character was that there was another character who had a more compelling story.  Prince Cornelius spent most of the movie trying to find Thumbelina.  He was being active, making choices for himself on his journey.  He overcame obstacles and had a clear goal.  Thumbelina was his damsel in distress, yet we spent the movie following her.  That was a bad decision.

Thumbelina was a problematic movie.  From the basic story to the interspecies love, there were issues all over it.  The most notable, however, was the lack of an active protagonist.  The passivity of her actions made for a story that felt like it was moving along with the character following, instead of the character pushing it forward.  Audiences aren’t as attached to these movies because it doesn’t feel like they, or the characters, are involved in anything that’s happening.  There’s a disconnection.  That all begins with the main character.  Thumbelina needed to make choices.  She didn’t, and the movie fell flat.

Maybe these notes will have more bounce to them:

• Thumbelina was suggested by @ImPABLO_i_WRITE, who also suggested Cabin Boy (week 173).
• The voice of Neil Ross was featured in Thumbelina.  He also worked on Son of the Mask (week 207).
• Other animated movies included in the Sunday “Bad” Movies include, but are not limited to, Foodfight! (week 143), A Car’s Life (week 2), Delgo (week 148), and How the Toys Saved Christmas (week 158).
• Have you seen Thumbelina?  What did you think?  Are passive protagonists as much of a problem as I think they are?  Let me know in the comments.
• The comments and my Twitter page can be used to let me know about the bad movies I haven’t seen and should check out.  There are many out there that just haven’t come to my attention, and if you let me know about them, I might look out for them and add them to the schedule.
• When I’m watching movies, I sometimes share clips from them on my snapchat (jurassicgriffin).  Add me if that sounds interesting.
• Next week is a big week.  A new Star Wars movie is coming out.  As such, I’ll be watching some old Star Wars.  Specifically, I’ll be checking out The Ewok Adventure.  I’ve not seen any Star Wars outside of the theatrical movies, so this should be a fun one.  We'll see this time next week.  Come on back now, y’hear?