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Starlog: The Ewok Adventure

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Those cuddly, furry little space creatures who helped Luke Skywalker and his companions defeat the dreaded Empire are returning to celebrate the holidays. And best of all, this time you won't have to pay five bucks to see them cavort across the screen.

The Ewoks are trooping into your living room for two hours of holiday cheer this month, courtesy of George Lucas and ABC television. The special, entitled The Ewok Adventure, is a multi-million dollar visual-effects extravaganza, featuring the furry race in an all-new adventure that has almost no reference to the characters or events in Return of the Jedi, the movie which introduced them.

Tom Smith, formerly the General Manager of Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic visual-effects house, is the special's producer, while Lucas serves as executive producer. And Smith promises that The Ewok Adventure will be unlike any story you've ever seen on television.

"Nothing, with the possible exception of Battlestar Galactica, has had as many special effects as we are putting into this film," Smith says, quickly adding that "this is not a spacey movie with a bunch of ships flying in and out of starfields. Ninety-nine percent of the action occurs on Endor, the Ewoks' planet."

As with most Lucasfilm projects, its storyline is shrouded in secrecy. Smith does reveal that a spaceship piloted by a human family crash lands on Endor. The parents are separated from their two children and captured by a hideous monster, the Gorax. Left on their own, the children, a four-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, must now try to survive in and around the damaged spacecraft. Fortunately, they are befriended by Ewoks, who lead the kids on a trek to rescue the adults from the Gorax.

The cast is filled with mostly unfamiliar faces. Guy Boyd plays Jeremitt, the father, while noted stage actress Fionnulla (How the West was Won)Flanagan is Catarine, the mother. And 15-year-old Warwick Davis reprises his role as Wicket, the friendly Ewok who first encountered Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi.

Aubree Miller, who plays the human daughter Ciindel, has never acted before. Miller - only four years old - was discovered in one of the open auditions Lucasfilm conducted in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fifteen-year-old Eric Walker, who has had several bit parts in movies, is her brother, Mace.

"Most of the Ewoks are played by Little People. The tallest is less than four feet high," Smith says. "There's much more acting involved for the Ewoks this time. Individual characteristics have been developed for each Ewok."

And, like the Klingons in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, these alien creatures mouth their own unique language.

"The film is in English, but the Ewoks will speak Ewokese," the producer explains. "If someone pays careful attention, as with Shogun, one can begin to learn the language. We have a staff of linguists who developed it. Randy Thom, our sound designer, is doing an incredible job on this aspect."

The Ewok Adventure utilized many of the same costumes and sets created for Jedi. It was shot entirely in Northern California by director John (Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman) Korty. "We have every piece of real estate within a block of here filled with Ewok sets," Smith laughs. The screenplay is by newcomer Bob Carrau from a story by George Lucas.

"George liked the Ewoks and decided he would do a small TV special on them," Smith recalls. "He had this story in mind and he wrote it with Bob Carrau. Bob is in his early 20s. He has never done anything like this before. Bob worked for George as an aide and now, George is giving him a break."

As the writing progressed, so did the scope of the once "small TV special."

"George had in mind a kind of one-hour family story. Now, it has turned into a wide-screen adventure involving Ewoks, teenagers, parents and several monsters," Smith says. "It will be released as a theatrical feature overseas."

Although The Ewok Adventure is billed as a "Christmas special," don't expect reindeer, Santa's castle or Burl Ives warbling about the holidays. The program is slated - at this time - for airing this month, probably on Sunday, November 25. (Check your local listings.)

"It's Christmasy only in the sense that the family is rejoined at the story's end and there's a very warm feeling," Smith says. "This isn't a Santa Claus, snow-on-pine-trees type of movie."

Filmed as The Ewok Movie with The Ewoks of Endor and Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure as alternate titles, the project has been occupying Lucasfilm's attention since March. In mid-August, the filmmakers were still working on special effects and some live-action scenes while editing continued, to meet an October delivery date. Among the work still unshot in late August was a "totally animated, magical pixie character" and a live-action Ewok hang gliding sequence (partially previewed in a photo in STARLOG #88).

"There are a tremendous amount of ambitious effects," says Smith. "It is, by far, the biggest project that ILM has going right now. There are at least 25 matte shots and 50 blue screen and other FX shots. And as we edit, we keep finding places where we can insert more effects. It's so easy to do, since we have the biggest FX house around right here. We're trying to resist that temptation.

"We are dealing mainly with problems of scale. Much of the film takes place in this complex with a gigantic creature and the only way to achieve that is with blue screen effects and through matte paintings. We're also using some stop-motion. Phil Tippett, who won an Oscar, and John Berg are doing some marvelously articulated creatures for this film."

Smith stresses that ILM is concentrating on developing effects which will "work well on the small screen. With Star Wars on TV, in some respects, we had problems. What looks bad on TV is when you have multi-element shots and have slight color differences between those elements," he explains. "These differences are accentuated on TV. That won't happen on The Ewok Adventure.

"But we are giving this project the feature film treatment because we don't know any better right now."

The theatrical treatment includes a full, 80-piece orchestra performing the soundtrack. John Williams will not be scoring The Ewok Adventure. Those responsibilities have been awarded to Peter Bernstein, son of conductor and soundtrack veteran Elmer (The Magnificent Seven) Bernstein. This is Peter Bernstein's first major movie after scoring a string of low-budget flicks, including Bo Derek's BO-lero.

For his part, Smith is enjoying his return to active film production after four years spent heading Lucasfilm's ILM facility. There, he supervised the special FX teams sculpting the Star Wars saga as well as Dragonslayer, Poltergeist, Star Trek II and III, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and E.T.

"Four years of doing visual effects is enough for me," he says. "The experience was very good, but it began to get repetitious."

Smith produced 30 to 40 16mm movies for Encyclopedia Britannica before joining Lucas. He was eager to return to similar duties. "Being at ILM," he laughs, "it was like producing films which where always stuck in post-production. I do enjoy it, but now I get more of a sense of authorship, of steering the course of a film. Before, I was always serving the needs of the production."

Smith has no screen projects in the offing as of yet. Instead he's using his free time to craft a book for Doubleday recounting his experiences at ILM. "It will have lots of photos and discuss the special effects achieved, step by step, film by film during my four years at ILM," he explains.

Thanks to the Star Wars track record, The Ewok Adventure is expected to garner huge ratings, despite the heavily competitive November ratings sweeps environment. Beyond its network commercial success, Smith sees The Ewok Adventure as the kind of entertainment product that Lucasfilm will concentrate on creating in coming years.

"It's very difficult doing a Star Wars or a Jedi that involves three years of work," Smith says. "I suspect we will be doing more things like this movie for television. They will be projects that can still use the story ideas of George Lucas and the talents of ILM, but these movies will be less ambitious. They won't be three-year projects."

The Ewok Adventure, he says, was a nine-month effort. "It was a lot more manageable than a Star Wars film. In two or three years, George can get his ranch [the Skywalker Ranch filmmaking complex] done and get a bearing on what kind of activities he wants to be involved in."

ABC, of course, would like to see more exploits on Endor with the Ewoks - perhaps as one special a year or as a regular series.

"That's the first thing the network asked us," Tom Smith concedes. "They said: 'Can this be a pilot for a TV series if it works out?' We're not approaching the project that way. This is a one-of-a-kind story and I know I'm not interested in doing a series. I don't think George is interested in churning out a TV series, either."

But, and there are always buts, "if it works, and the audience likes The Ewok Adventure , maybe we will do more."