People talk about what could Rogue One or Solo bring to IA but what about An Ewok Adventure: Caravan of Courage?! What can that cinematic masterpiece bring to Skirmish (or campaign for that matter!) The Gorax, first mega-sized figure (3x5)? A wistie companion for Rebels? Chuka Trok with a bonus against non-small figures? Caravan of Courage (which I just finished rewatching with my kids) is a forgotten gem that arguably rivals even ESB. Come on FFG! Tap this wealth of material and well written characters and bring out the CoC expansion box soon! CoC was the REAL first Star Wars Story.

BTW, totally kidding. Awful, awful experience rewatching that crap. And people complain about TLJ?! (I actually really liked TLJ). We have it so good these days. Now I want to try to find a copy of the fabled Christmas Special and make it thru a sitting of that. Only a true fan.

From my 80s childhood turned Netflix-era dad-hood, everything you just described totally sounds like it belongs in the Netflix Care Bears remake and not in a Star Wars flick...

we do have it pretty good these days.

@Mandelore of the Rings

The reason people have a bad relationship with TLJ probably has a lot to do with a perception of real-world political agendas creeping in to the movie, and having people like Rian Johnson and John Boyega attacking the fans (also known as the customers) on social media.

As bad as the Ewok movies are, Warwick Davis and Wilford Brimley aren't calling anyone out over it. They probably have better things to do.

That said, the Ewoks would be 100% welcome. There's some great design potential to account for their small size and guerrilla tactics. Like them or not, as a game mechanic, they have potential.

The Gorax would have to be a 2x3 or it wouldn't work on most maps.

If you really want to talk about bad, what about the real villain of bad SFX in that movie; the awful spider thing that one of the Ewoks defeats with a mesmerizing wave of a staff. Then if I remember correctly, it awkwardly falls off its web (which I'm pretty sure was cargo netting spray painted white) to its death.

Meanwhile, Mace could be a cheap ranged unit, and Noa should be a melee monster. Teek would have a Speed of 10, but be otherwise unremarkable.

Speed of ten . . . Sounds op.

Yeah, Cleardave, the Spider thing was pretty bad. I'm impressed that you know the names. I already forget what Noa was and I just saw it last week. Guess I'm trying to suppress the memory. Was Teek the Tinkerbell thing? I was actually experimenting with the deployment card maker app a couple weeks ago making a really fast character (faster even than Ahsoka) with poor attack and very poor health but with a double white dice defense, automatic Hidden, and some other stuff.

Also, you don't think any other Star Wars movies have real world political agendas in them? It was pretty heavy handed (and I didn't like that aspect of it either) but Lucas also had his own agendas in the first 6. Three main things I didn't like in TLJ (plotwise) were Canto Bight, Admiral Holdo and her conflict with Poe, and Luke dying (bit of a waste). There were tons of things I did like though and it's certainly better than any of the prequels.

Anyway, Caravan of Courage... I just read there was a sequel... do I dare? My kids are asking me to download it... And if there is a number two, will they ever finish the Ewok Trilogy? The completist in me wants them to.

@Mandelore of the Rings

Teek was the little creature that ran super fast in The Battle for Endor

Noa was in BfE as well, played by Wilford Brimley.

All movies can be interpreted to have agendas. The difference was a kid in the 80's could just enjoy their cartoons and adventure movies without having to hear about how woke the filmmakers and actors are. Maybe they show up in a television ad to get sponsors for some cause, but they're not engaging with *you* directly, to shake their finger and tell you how bad a person you are.

That was the preview of televangelists every Sunday, when Little Cleardave just wanted more cartoons.

The sequel to Caravan is The Battle for Endor. I'd say yes, watch it. It's a cute little piece of Star Wars history, and mercifully there is no third instalment, unless you count the animated series. It's easier to sit through than the Holiday Special, but you need to remember these Ewok movies are really meant for kids, whereas the Star Wars movies were an all ages event. I'm sure your kids will enjoy it, though I seem to recall it had a fair bit of nightmare fuel in it, but I guess if they made it through the Gorax and that terrible spider thing, they'll be fine.

Maybe the only issue, depending on their age, would be the beginning where Cindel's family is basically killed in an attack on the Ewok village in like the first 5 minutes of the movie.

The real mental exercise is reconciling those movies with Return of the Jedi. Presumably they take place after, since the Ewoks can speak English now. Considering what happens in BfE, you're left wondering what would have happened if the Empire set up shop near the Marauder base instead of the Ewok village.

On 7/28/2018 at 7:38 AM, Mandelore of the Rings said:

Also, you don't think any other Star Wars movies have real world political agendas in them? It was pretty heavy handed (and I didn't like that aspect of it either) but Lucas also had his own agendas in the first 6.

The original 3 had more what you'd call political inspiration, than agenda. He was using it with ideas from then-past events.

I reconcile the ewok movies/show/comics with ROTJ by seeing them as future stories told by the ewoks to each other, which may or may not be true. Wickett became some sort of ewok legendary character in the decades or centuries following the battle of Endor, giving rise to a whole series of myths in ewok culture.

On 7/28/2018 at 9:17 AM, cleardave said:

@Mandelore of the Rings

Maybe the only issue, depending on their age, would be the beginning where Cindel's family is basically killed in an attack on the Ewok village in like the first 5 minutes of the movie.

This is actually one of my big issues with the newer movies. They seem sanitized, no one has the believable tragic motivation that they did in the 80's*. Cindel and her brother rescued their parents only to have Cindel see them all killed. Leia saw the genocide of her entire world. Luke saw his family as charred skeletons. No one in the new movies has that kind of stuff going on. A few come close but ultimately miss. Rose is probably closest and the best thing to come out of the new trilogies as a result.

*The exception, as always, being Rogue One .

50 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

This is actually one of my big issues with the newer movies. They seem sanitized, no one has the believable tragic motivation that they did in the 80's*. Cindel and her brother rescued their parents only to have Cindel see them all killed. Leia saw the genocide of her entire world. Luke saw his family as charred skeletons. No one in the new movies has that kind of stuff going on. A few come close but ultimately miss. Rose is probably closest and the best thing to come out of the new trilogies as a result.

*The exception, as always, being Rogue One .

I agree. The new movies are more obviously trying to be soft. The original movies dealt with many issues, but in a more subtle way. This made them more about the action than the message in my opinion. But the messages were still there! We're all smart enough to figure them out and not have someone spell it out.

5 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

I agree. The new movies are more obviously trying to be soft. The original movies dealt with many issues, but in a more subtle way. This made them more about the action than the message in my opinion. But the messages were still there! We're all smart enough to figure them out and not have someone spell it out.

A softer movie for a softer generation. Too much realworld politics not enough Star Wars. The directors are turning SW into just another B rank science fiction film. Not to mention stepping on the white male fans for being toxic, or something...

*The exception, as always, being Rogue One  .

7 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

*The exception, as always, being Rogue One .

The entire cast of "heroes" were all walking dead people so their existence could be tidily written out of the series so as not to raise too many questions about continuity problems with Star Wars (thought they created a few of those anyways).

Worse than the who-cares protagonists, Krennic is treated like a total butt monkey. If this was a children's Saturday Morning cartoon, then a comically incompetent villain is fine, but in the "finally a gritty Star Wars movie so my adult self doesn't need to be embarrassed when I wear this tshirt in public" vein, it would have been better if he was actually a credible threat.

Instead he gets punked by Tarkin and Vader and you're wondering why anybody put him charge of anything. I'm sure the audiobook of Catalyst which I only half paid attention to explains it all better, but that's the problem; a hack-fraud tie-in novel shouldn't be required reading to get through the backstory to how the Rebels got the plans.

Meanwhile, over in X-Wing, Krennic is straight baller, and a highly thematic character. How embarrassing that a couple of sentences on a pair of cards fleshed him out more than an entire movie on the subject.

1 hour ago, King_Balrog said:

Not to mention stepping on the white male fans for being toxic, or something...

If there's one thing you can give FFG credit for (as far as I know), is that the game designers don't spend all day on Twitter insulting their audience and blocking/muting them. Nothing brings people to your products to make sales more than calling everyone x-phones and knotsees.

Can you imagine how done X-Wing would be if someone like Frank Brooks got into a protracted Twitter beef with one of the many people upset about converting to X-Wing 2.0?

Companies that know that social media policies are a thing tend not to paint themselves into corners when SJW employees create PR disasters with the customers online.

FFG, keep it as apolitical as possible, and we'll all keep dumping our wallets our into your coffers every year.

As a recently assaulted at GenCon YouTuber often says; Get Woke, Go Broke.

1 hour ago, cleardave said:

Worse than the who-cares protagonists,

I cared about them more than anyone who's appeared in the prequels, TFA, or TLJ.

2 hours ago, King_Balrog said:

A softer movie for a softer generation.

Not so soft that they need censorship laws. People back in the day couldn't handle swearing in movies.

1 hour ago, cleardave said:

FFG, keep it as apolitical as possible, and we'll all keep dumping our wallets our into your coffers every year.

Your specific selection of complaints/examples does not leave an apolitical impression of you.

2 hours ago, King_Balrog said:

The directors are turning SW into just another B rank science fiction film. Not to mention stepping on the white male fans for being toxic, or something...

Yes they are, but so did the prequels and the cartoons. I can't recall being stepped on by any directors though.

5 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Yes they are, but so did the prequels and the cartoons. I can't recall being stepped on by any directors though.

? Just basing this statement on the prevalence of the movies "not being diverse enough according to the powers that be (Kathleen, directors/writers, and critics) due in large part to "toxic masculinity" and too many white people. Despite all the aliens, and multiculturalism found everywhere in the series. Star wars fans are all for multiculturalism, just not for bigotry. If you don't think there are a quite a few bigots creating these new films you aren't paying attention. Just read some headlines.

8 hours ago, King_Balrog said:

? Just basing this statement on the prevalence of the movies "not being diverse enough according to the powers that be (Kathleen, directors/writers, and critics) due in large part to "toxic masculinity" and too many white people. Despite all the aliens, and multiculturalism found everywhere in the series. Star wars fans are all for multiculturalism, just not for bigotry. If you don't think there are a quite a few bigots creating these new films you aren't paying attention. Just read some headlines.

You're right! I don't pay attention to Hollywood gossip about the new trilogy! Watched them in the theaters and never felt compelled to follow them afterwards, any more than I do for Cocoon or Gattica. Just another scifi movie to me really.

The OT wasn't diverse enough for me but that doesn't make them bad: nothing's perfect. Star Wars doesn't have a bigger diversity problem than Hollywood at large so it shouldn't be singled out.

Wookies aren't diversity if there aren't any in the audience.

9 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

You're right! I don't pay attention to Hollywood gossip about the new trilogy! Watched them in the theaters and never felt compelled to follow them afterwards, any more than I do for Cocoon or Gattica. Just another scifi movie to me really.

The OT wasn't diverse enough for me but that doesn't make them bad: nothing's perfect. Star Wars doesn't have a bigger diversity problem than Hollywood at large so it shouldn't be singled out.

Wookies aren't diversity if there aren't any in the audience.

Sadly these newer movies are venturing further and further into the realm of Hollywood; with all the benefits, and flaws, therein. George Lucas was very anti-establishment towards the Hollywood elite/ producers, (With good reason) and i'm sure he hates to see the ultimate destiny of his old franchise. They give him free screenings and he never speaks openly about his views- trying to keep his mouth shut.

Completely agree about the OT, but those diverse characters that are included have a real part to play and are loved by many.

Theaters are pretty dark- I doubt you could prove a Wookiee wasn't there. -If you don't want to take this for the joke it is, then you can use this instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin. People are getting more and more "wild" by the day...