SilverWook’s earlier comment about Battle for Endor being the Alien 3 of this franchise is spot-on, and is what I’ve always said about it as well. These films committed one of the cardinal sins of filmmaking, which is this:
NEVER make a film that kills off the characters you spent the entire previous film searching for and/or rescuing, especially when you kill them in the first 5-10 minutes. It renders the entire previous film pointless, and makes the viewer not want to watch any more.
Apart from that, I find Battle for Endor to be particularly solid (and actually Alien 3’s extended version as well once I get past the anger over its cardinal sin, and even though I will not consider it part of the canon). I watched both Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor again for the first time in quite a while recently, and I found myself enjoying both quite a bit more than I expected. I’ve always liked them to some degree, but this time around I found a lot more to appreciate. Maybe it’s the lack of things I dislike about the prequels and the sequels (which are completely different things). Or maybe it’s because it’s a little more like The Mandalorian in certain ways (which I just now realized), in that it shows the everyday life of nobodies on a backwater planet rather than the big name heroes of the movies. I also spotted quite a bit more Easter Egg material this time around while watching it upscaled on a 65" TV (Cantina band instruments, FX-7 in the background, etc.). Rather a fun romp.
It’s definitely a crime that these two films are not on Disney+, and not available on a better physical format. They are not problematic the way the Holiday Special is, so why the reluctance to make them available? Come on, Disney - these are your perfect kind of family fare! (well, apart from the family being murdered thing…)
–SKot