Warwick

…gets billed third despite playing the main and title character. Can you believe that? (Unmarked Spoilers)

Willow was a 1988 fantasy movie starring Warwick Davis, between his other two most famous roles of Wicket and the leprechaun. The film was the brainchild of George Lucas, who came up with the story. The film was written by Bob Dolman and directed by Ron Howard. I’d be curious to find out how much they were following an outline and how much was them trying to emulate Lucas’s most famous work.

Willow Ufgood (Davis) is a Nelwyn, think Hobbit, farmer, and aspiring sorcerer whose children find a baby, Elora Danan (Ruth and Kate Greenfield), floating down the river Moses style. After Death Dogs attack his village looking for the child, Willow is tasked by spiritual guide High Aldwin (Billy Barty) to deliver Elora to the first Daikini, a regular-sized human, he finds.

The first Daikini he finds is Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), a roguish knight errant, the medieval equivalent of being a cowboy. After a lot of back and forth, Willow lets Madmartigan out of the cage he’s locked in on the condition that he looks after Elora. Right when it seems like the movie should be over, Elora gets taken by brownies, and Willow is brought before forest entity Cherlindrea (Maria Holvöe).

Cherlindrea informs Willow that Elora has a great destiny and has chosen him to be her guardian. He must take her to the kingdom of Tir Asleen, where a good king and queen will look after her. So that makes Willow a farm boy (farm man?) and sorcerer trying to rescue a princess. That seems familiar, if not precisely the same.

To assist Willow, Cherlindrea gives him a magic wand and two brownies to guide him. Rool (Kevin Pollack) and Franjean (Rick Overton) are probably meant to be the equivalent of C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker). Instead, they come off as two precursors to Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) in that they’re meant to be funny and whimsical but more often than not come off as annoying.

Elora’s great destiny is that she’s prophesied to bring the downfall of Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh). Bavmorda is the evil ruler of an empire who possesses magical powers. She is to Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDermont) who Mom (Tress MacBeille) is to Mr. Burns (Harry Shearer). Conveniently for the heroes, she needs Elora brought back alive so that she can destroy her soul in a magic ritual.

Bavmorda tasks her daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) with finding Elora. Along the way, Sorsha and Madmartigan develop this combative relationship that’s code for these two are deeply in love with each other. Making her the equivalent of if Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) started out serving the empire before switching sides.

General Kael (Pat Roach) is also hunting Elora on behalf of Bavmorda. He’s like how Darth Vader (David Prowse, James Earl Jones) was portrayed in Episode IV, being a scary, masked enforcer without any hidden depth or tragic elements. Except less memorable due to lacking a connection to any of the heroes or Vader’s sheer coolness.

I could go on, but I think you see my point by now. The filmmakers basically took Star Wars, changed up some of the character and plot details, cut out the sci-fi and western elements, and replaced the missing pieces with more fantasy tropes. Of course, there are worse things than being derivative, like having a bad story structure.

Willow gets sent on his quest by two mystic beings. What? Why wouldn’t they have combined High Aldwin and Cherlindrea into one character? That seems like it would have made the story flow better and shave 10-30 minutes off the movie’s runtime. Allowing them to keep in the scenes that would have fleshed out Madmartigan and Sorsha’s backstories, the latter of whom could have used that.

Lucas supposedly wanted Willow to be the start of a trilogy, like Star Wars and Indiana Jones (was), but the box office numbers stopped that. Was the film a flop? No, it grossed a total of $167 million against a budget of $35 million. Except it was meant to be “the next E.T,” which grossed… let’s just say a c**pload. However, a sequel series starring Davis has been announced to be coming this year to Disney+.

So what did I think of the movie as a whole? Well, it doesn’t meaningfully distinguish itself from any other fantasy movie beyond casting a dwarf in the lead role, which was pretty cool. However, it’s by no means a bad movie, and if you like Lucas but have never seen it, I would give it a shot. I will also be watching the series because I’m a Warwick Davis fan, and I did enjoy his performance in the film.