Movies - Willow

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	Movies - Willow

Willow is a 1988 fantasy film directed by Ron Howard, based on a story by George Lucas.

Plot synopsis

The story is known as Lucas' attempt to imitate Tolkien: a young farmer named Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis), one of a halfling-like people called Nelwyns, who is drawn away from his sheltered home to save a baby girl with a destiny from the evil queen who would see her destroyed. Willow is aided by the disillusioned master swordsman Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), turned to a life of roguery after the fall of his kingdom to the evil queen. They are initially thwarted but later joined by the queen's daughter Sorsha (played by Joanne Whalley, later Kilmer's wife).

Box Office Performance

Unfortunately for George Lucas, the film got spectacularly bad reviews and equally bad box office performance. This may have been due to the previews, which were badly designed and vague. Over the years it has developed a cult following and is now considered one of the best made films of its genre.

Cast

Music

The music in the film was composed by James Horner, in what is considered to be a very strong musical score.

Spinoffs

Video game

The film was the basis of the video game Willow, which was released in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Capcom. Capcom also created a Willow arcade game which played much differently than its console cousin, being a side-scrolling platformer rather than a Zelda clone.

Novels

The film was eventually followed by a trilogy of fantasy novels written by Chris Claremont (again from a story by George Lucas), with the grown-up destiny girl as the central character. These stories were originally to be made into films themselves, but following the unsatisfactory box office performance of the film, the stories were instead turned into novels. The entries to the trilogy are:

Shadow Moon (1995)
Shadow Dawn
Shadow Star.

TV series

In April 2005, during the Star Wars Celebration III, George Lucas hinted that given his company (Lucasfilm) was moving into television production again, there could be a Willow television series.

Trivia

This film featured the very first detailed computer graphics morphing scene.
John Cusack
and Matt Frewer
were both considered for the role of Madmartigan.
Warwick Davis
was only 17 when he was cast as Willow.
Joanne Whalley
's natural hair color is dark brown; she had to dye it bright red for this film.
Val Kilmer
had to train intensively to create a unique sword fighting style for the Madmartigan character. He even studied juggling and came to incorporate juggling movements into the action sequences.
Val Kilmer improvised and ad-libbed much of his dialogue.
While filming the crossroads cage scene, Val Kilmer was being let out of the cage one day and, while he was half way out, the chain holding up the cage broke and the cage, made of real iron, fell right on his foot, nearly breaking it. Later in the film Kilmer can clearly be seen walking with a slight limp.
The original script had more information on the backgrounds of Madmartigan and Sorsha. Madmartigan had been a knight of Galadoorn (the city mentioned as having been destroyed by General Kael) who disgraced himself by having an illicit love affair, and although he had the chance to redeem himself in battle, he ruined the opportunity by going off on his own, which is why there was so much antagonism between him and Airk (Gavan O'Herlihy
). Sorsha was the daughter of both Queen Bavmorda and the good King of Tir Asleen, which meant that she already had the capability of being good, and during the battle at Tir Asleen, she was supposed to see her father encased in stone and he would slowy but surely reach out to her for help, which was what provoked her to join the forces of good. This information was cut from the film but featured in the novelization.

DVD release

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