Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure was one of four films to be juried-awarded Emmys for Outstanding Special Visual Effects at the 37th Primetime Emmy Awards. The film was additionally nominated for Outstanding Children's Program but lost in this category to an episode of American Playhouse.
Likewise, Eric Charles points out that the television films Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984) and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985), intended for children, are "fairy tales in a science fiction setting", featuring magic and other fairy tale motifs rather than the Force and science fiction tropes.
The sequel film, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, was released in 1985. It was originally intended to be released as "Ewoks II".
The musical score for Caravan of Courage was composed by Peter Bernstein. Selections from the score were released on LP by Varèse Sarabande in 1986. The release was known simply as Ewoks and also contained cues from Bernstein's score to the sequel Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
The Ewok movies proved an opportunity for ILM to hone a technique from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The technique, used in photographing matte paintings, is called latent image matte painting. In this technique, during live action photography, a section of the camera's lens is blocked off, remaining unexposed, and a painting is crafted to occupy that space. The film is rewound, the blocked areas reversed, and the painting photographed. Since the painting now exists on the original film, there is no generational quality loss.
The film was released on DVD as a double feature collection with its sequel, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, on November 23, 2004. The release was a single double-sided disc, with one film on each side. For this release, the film bore the theatrical release title, Caravan of Courage.
During the production of Caravan of Courage, the children in the cast had to balance their school work with acting in the film. During their time on the set, Lucasfilm decided that it might be an educational and rewarding experience for the older children, Eric Walker (Mace) and Warwick Davis (Wicket), to be given their own camera to use between takes. So, calling themselves W&W Productions, Eric and Warwick shot a documentary of the making of the film, which was released to Eric's YouTube-channel in 2014.
They seek out the Ewok Logray who informs them that the parents have been taken by the monstrous Gorax, which resides in a deserted, dangerous area. A caravan of Ewoks is formed to help the children find their parents. They meet up with a wistie named Izrina and a boisterous Ewok named Chukha-Trok before finally reaching the lair of the Gorax. They engage the Gorax in battle, freeing Jeremitt and Catarine, but Chukha-Trok is killed. The Gorax is thought destroyed when it is knocked into a chasm, but it takes a final blow from Mace (using Chukha-Trok’s axe) to kill the creature, which tries to climb back up after them. Thus reunited, the Towanis decide to stay with the Ewoks until they can repair the starcruiser, and Izrina leaves to go back to her family.
