Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been inspired. The source of that inspiration? The Gentlemen’s Guide to Midnight Cinema podcast.
“Oh,” you might be thinking, “we don’t need any of THAT sort of inspiration here.”
But it’s totally not what you’d think! And besides, they weren’t responsible for any of that nasty salsa waffles business anyway.*
It just so happens that I was a-listening to the GGtMC’s most recent podcast and the topic got onto what movies The Samurai intends on showing the new edition to his family (Mrs Samurai is expecting! FTW!!). It got me thinking about the films that helped me grow into the she-geek extraordinaire you see before you. Now that I’m 30, you see, I feel I’m allowed to say things like “you know what’s wrong with kids these days?” I also feel like the answer of “they watch the wrong movies” is actually a pretty good one.
So I’ve decided to start going through the old movies I used to watch repeatedly as a youngster. I plan to make this a regular feature. Hopefully I can give some future parents some ideas, or at least get some nostalgia juices flowing. Yes, I know what I just said there…
The first film I’m going to talk about is the result of yet another twitter conversation. I recently mentioned the term Caravan of Courage and was immediately rewarded with recognition by Emily, creator and owner of the XTREEEEEM Deadly Dolls House of Horror Nonsense. Yeah. She cool, yo’. She then reminded me of the other Ewok title.
The Battle for Endor
This film is the sequel to The Caravan of Courage. It centres around Cindel, the little blonde girl with the ace headband and totally rad curly hair, and Wicket W. Warrick, Ewok. The basic story is a group of nasty marauders led by King Terak and the witch Charal attack the Ewok village, killing Cindel’s family (thank God, that snarky teen brother is infuriating) and capturing the Ewoks. Cindel and Wicket escape and manage to find the only other human on the planet, Noah. Noah also has a funny, furry friend named Teek (not an Ewok). They join forces to defeat the baddies and save the other Ewoks.
*Smile* I love this movie. It’s dodgy as all bollocks. The acting is absurd, the dialogue more wooden than Keanu Reeves and somehow Wicket can talk, which is funny because this supposedly takes place before Jedi where he meets Leia and can’t understand English. But Teek is disgustingly cute with a spectacularly addictive giggle and the monsters are genuinely monstery. Not the sanitized, plastic attempts at scary you get in kids films today (sans Pixar). On top of that, you’ve gotta admire Warwick Davis and Niki Botelho. Both of them ran around in the summer wearing teddy-bear suits. Forget. That.
*Sigh* Meeeemoriiiies. Light the cooorners of my miiind…
* Not for public consumption.
Love it, as you well know. For me, this was the VHS on constant loop and a big part of that is the very fact that Cindel is the center. Growing up with older brothers, it was sometimes hard to find films I could genuinely identify with and as much as I adored (and still do) the Star Wars trilogy, I always had a more intense connection to a fellow 4 year old blond having an adventure.
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