BTS Moebius's Willow and TPM

When Chris Claremont wrote the sequel novels for Willow, Lucas said that he had always had in mind a sequel story to the original film. That may be true--but given the enormous difference between the final product and Willow as originally conceived, I'm willing to bet that his planned sequel varied even more widely from what Claremont eventually wrote.

Actually, I've been spending some time lately trying to figure out what this sequel outline would have looked like, and I think I've got something reasonably coherent, which continues the themes explored in the first film as originally conceived.

Obviously, any sequel to Willow would have followed the adventures of Elora Danan as a young woman. In this early version, Airk Thaughbaer's presumed son, Laiph, would also likely have been a major character.

The major influences on this story would have been Greek mythology, the Arthurian legend of the Grail quest (both big influences on Willow itself), CS Lewis's Narnia books, and Robert E. Howard's Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon--as well as, intriguingly, Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea.

The story would open in much the same fashion as The Hour of the Dragon. Around the time of Elora Danan's sixteenth birthday, a group of villains would gather in the ruins of Nockmaar. In this group would be a discontented nobleman of Galladoorn, who wants to usurp Madmartigan's throne, as well as the dark-skinned brother of the Caliph who rules a foreign nation to the south. (This nation is essentially akin to CS Lewis's Calormen: a stand-in for the Middle East of the Arabian Nights, with a non-white population that contrasts with the white heroes.) With them is a surviving priest of Bavmorda's order.

The trio have gathered with a fell purpose: use dark magic to resurrect Bavmorda, so she can defeat Madmartigan and elevate these two would-be usurpers to their desired kingdoms. They perform the ritual, but it has an unexpected result. Instead of Bavmorda, a beautiful young woman with flaming red hair appears, seeming to be about sixteen years of age.

This is the principal villain: as will be later revealed, she is a dark version of Elora Danan herself. It turns out that, in the climax of Willow, Bavmorda succeeded in exiling a part of Elora's spirit into the Netherworld, though she herself was defeated. That alienated part of Elora has now returned, full of evil malice and powerful magic.

(The idea of the dark side of the hero as the ultimate villain owes a big debt to Ursula Le Guin.)

Dark Elora uses her magic to cause a great plague to sweep the continent, creating much death. The kindly Caliph of the southern nation (for simplicity's sake, let's call it Sarras) dies, and his evil brother usurps the throne. The new Caliph of Sarras launches a war against Galladoorn, aided by the traitorous noble rebelling against Madmartigan. (Let's call him Valerius.)

At first Galladoorn does well in the war. Led by young, fair-haired and newly-bearded Laiph Thaughbaer, one of Madmartigan's armies delivers a resounding defeat to Valerius's troops, although Valerius himself escapes. Meanwhile, Madmartigan and Sorsha are preparing to take the field against the Caliph's men.

Laiph is on his way to join this battle, but as he rides through the forest, he is stopped by three old women, who turn out to be witches. They prophesy that Laiph will one day be a great king. (Macbeth, anyone?)

In Laiph's absence, Madmartigan and Sorsha prepare to do battle. Suddenly, however, black magic stops them: they and their entire army are turned into statues by Dark Elora's magic. The way is clear for the Caliph's armies to march on Galladoorn.

Laiph reaches the battlefield and sees what has happened. Realizing its implications, he turns and rides for Galladoorn with all speed. He beats the Caliph's army there. In the castle, he finds Elora Danan practicing her swordplay. Much to her chagrin, her tutor is teaching her to fight blindfolded, at which she struggles.

Laiph explains the situation to her, and the two of them flee the capital just before the Caliph's arrival. Pursued by enemy riders, they are not sure where to go--but then the three old witches appear once more.

The witches tell them to seek a crystal Crown of great power, an ancient artifact which was divided into three pieces and scattered across the land. While Galladoorn lies in the west of the region, the three crown pieces are elsewhere: one in the east, in the keeping of an academy of wizards; one in the far north, in the citadel of a frost-giantess (let's call her Brunhild); and one in the hot south, as a prized heirloom of the Caliphs of Sarras. With its parts reunited, the witches tell them, the Crown can restore Elora's parents and save her kingdom.

The witches also elaborate on their prophecy to Laiph: he will be king, but he will not have any sons to succeed him on his throne. With that, they disappear.

Elora and Laiph set out first for the Wizards' Academy, since the piece there should be the easiest to obtain. When they reach the Academy, at first its head, the Archmage, doesn't want to yield the Crown piece to them. But he is convinced to do so by an associate mage, who is currently studying there--Willow Ufgood. Willow asks the Archmage to let Elora have the Crown piece. (The Wizards' Academy is another bit taken from Le Guin.)

The Archmage agrees--if she can pass a test of character. If Elora succeeds, the Crown piece will be hers; if not, she will die. With little choice, Elora accepts.

The test sequence would likely have borrowed heavily from the cave scene in ESB. As Elora goes into the testing chamber, Willow advises her not to take her sword, but she does anyway. Inside, the Crown piece is guarded by a knight in black armor, covered from head to toe.

Elora duels the Knight, but she can't get an advantage over her opponent. Each time she attacks, she is parried, and the Knight's blows increasingly take their toll: Elora's front teeth are knocked out in the battle. At last, she lies exhausted on the ground. Realizing she has no chance of winning, she tells the Knight to get it over with and kill her.

The Knight removes his helmet--revealing "him" to be another doppelganger of Elora, who promptly vanishes. The test was like that Luke faced on Dagobah: Elora won by losing, and she would have been killed by continuing to fight. So Elora takes the Crown piece and staggers out of the testing room.

The Wizards heal Elora's injuries, and provide her with a new set of true-silver teeth. Willow bids her goodbye, and warns her to be careful. He gives her a present--a magical talisman that can ward off most evil spells. It has one weakness: it cannot protect the user's eyes.

Willow also has a present for Laiph: a helmet of invisibility.

Thus armed, Elora and Laiph set out for Brunhild's castle in the frozen north. The castle is surrounded by a wall of fire, but the flames die down at Elora's approach. Inside, the frost-giantess receives them. Brunhild tells Elora that to win the Crown piece, a warrior must defeat her in three tests of strength: throwing a javelin, throwing a shot-put, and a long jump. No warrior has yet succeeded.

Elora accepts her challenge, knowing it will likely mean her death. But Laiph has an idea: he will aid her secretly, disguised by his helmet of invisibility. (In case you hadn't guessed, this entire plot segment is lifted straight from the Nibelungenlied, specifically as dramatized in Fritz Lang's film Die Nibelungen.)

With Laiph's covert assistance, Elora wins at all three contests against Brunhild. But Brunhild then reveals that, in her shield, she saw Laiph's reflection. She knows Elora won only by deceit. Brunhild challenges Elora to single combat for the second Crown piece. When Laiph tries to intervene, Brunhild uses a javelin to pin him to the wall, preventing him from interfering.

The resulting duel is intense, but eventually Elora succeeds in getting the better of Brunhild. As Brunhild lies on the ground, she tells Elora to kill her. Elora says that if she surrenders the Crown piece, she will be spared.

"Fool," Brunhild says. And with that, she uses her own dark magic, directing a geyser of magical flame to envelop Elora. The fire is meant to kill her, but Elora remains alive and standing. Brunhild finally gives up, and withdraws her fire--and it is revealed that Elora's eyes have been burnt out. Like Paul Atreides in Dune Messiah, she is now blind, with empty sockets where her eyes once were.

But through the Crown piece in her possession, Elora can sense the whereabouts of the other piece, which Brunhild carries. This allows her to resume the duel and kill the frost-giantess, thus claiming the second piece of the crystal Crown.

Elora and Laiph proceed toward Sarras, at a much slower pace due to Elora's blindness. Elora's brush with death has made her more conscious of life. She comes on to Laiph, flirting with him. Laiph says that he cannot sleep with the daughter of his King. Elora asks in reply who would ever want her, disfigured as she is. Nonetheless, Laiph places a drawn sword between them when they lie down to sleep.

One day, Laiph realizes they are being followed. It's Valerius and his men! Laiph tells Elora to ride on to Sarras; he will stay behind and delay them. Against her will Elora does so.

Laiph stands his ground, but Valerius's men are too many. They overwhelm and capture him. Determined to exact revenge for his earlier defeat, Valerius and his men proceed to strip and sodomize Laiph. (Presumably this would be done largely via implication.)

Elora proceeds to the court of Sarras. Disguised as a blind beggar, she comes before the Caliph, saying that she knows the whereabouts of Elora Danan. The Caliph sees through her disguise, however, and reveals her identity. Horribly, adorning the Caliph's throne room are two statues: Madmartigan and Sorsha, Elora's parents, taken as trophies from the battlefield. They can see everything that happens in front of them, but are powerless to move.

The evil old Caliph has twelve sons, all of whom are present in his hall. Also present is the young son of the old Caliph, who should rightfully now be the ruler himself, as well as his twin sister. This young man and his sister are important characters who need names: let's call them Sharayar and Sharazad.

The Caliph commands his twelve sons, and his nephew Sharayar, to rape Elora. Sharayar refuses, at which the Caliph says that he will do so--as the first--or he will die. Sharayar stands his ground, but then Sharazad comes to her twin brother and tells him not to lose his life over a mere girl. With extreme reluctance, Sharayar submits. He begs Elora to forgive him as he has his way with her.

Meanwhile, when Valerius's men are encamped for the night, Laiph steals a horse and escapes. However, he leaves his helmet of invisibility in Valerius's possession. Laiph rides toward Sarras, seeking Elora.

It is night in the throne room of Sarras. Sharazad enters, and finds Elora crying after her ordeal. Elora is now in chains, and her forehead has been branded with a crescent, the symbol of the slaves of Sarras. Sharazad comforts her, telling her that she is not the first woman to be ravished by the Caliph's sons. (The implication here is that she herself suffered this at the hands of her cousins.) Sharazad gives Elora the key to her chains, but tells her not to use it until the right moment. In gratitude, Elora gives Sharazad her magical talisman.

The next day, Laiph enters the court of the Caliph of Sarras. He sees Elora, and is outraged by her plight. The Caliph opens a trap door in his floor, and Laiph plunges to the depths below, a watery dungeon where the sinister multi-headed Hydra lurks. (If you haven't already figured it out, the scenes in the Palace of Sarras would borrow heavily from the Jabba's Palace scenes in ROTJ.)

Overcome with guilt for his treatment of Elora, Sharayar decides that he must aid her now, by helping Laiph defeat the Hydra. Sharayar leaps into the pit. He tells Laiph that the creature can only be defeated by cauterizing the stumps of its necks after its heads are severed; otherwise, two heads will grow back for every one that is cut off. (Here Laiph and Sharayar are respectively standing in for Hercules and Iolaus, slayers of the Hydra in Greek myth.) Together they slay the beast.

While Laiph and Sharayar kill the Hydra in the pit, Sharazad grabs a sword herself, and attacks her cousins. Taking the cue, Elora unlocks her chains. As Sharazad slays her cousins, Elora takes up a sword and cuts down the evil old Caliph, taking all three Crown pieces in hand.

The victorious heroes reassemble. Elora connects the Crown pieces, which magically fuse. She puts it on her head, and Madmartigan and Sorsha spring to life. They embrace their daughter, lamenting over her wounds. Horribly, they watched helplessly earlier as the Caliph's sons assaulted poor Elora.

But now Valerius and his troops arrive in the hall. He promises to let the rest of them live if Elora surrenders herself and the Crown to him. To save the lives of the others, Elora accepts. But once she is out of the hall, Valerius reneges on his bargain: the hall is sealed with the heroes in it, and set on fire.

Sharayar and Sharazad lead Laiph, Madmartigan, and Sorsha out by a secret passage. The heroes decide to split up: Madmartigan and Sorsha will ride to their army, now also un-petrified, and lead an assault on Galladoorn. Meanwhile, Sharayar, Sharazad, and Laiph will slip into the castle by various routes to rescue Elora.

Sharayar and Sharazad lead Laiph to the Caliph's stables, where they present Laiph with a magnificent winged horse, which he can use to fly to Galladoorn.

Valerius parades through the streets of Galladorn in a triumphal procession, forcing Elora Danan to march naked in front of his chariot, like in a victory parade of ancient Rome. The citizens of Galladoorn, forced to turn out by Valerius's decree, look on with disgust and anger at his cruelty to their Princess.

In the topmost tower of Galladoorn, Dark Elora prepares for an evil ritual, which will destroy the true Elora forever, while giving Dark Elora the corporeal life which she craves. For Dark Elora is still a creature of spirit and phantasm. Elora lies helpless on a ritual table as her evil counterpart begins the rite.

Sharayar and Sharazad sneak into the castle of Galladoorn. As they pass through the throne room, they find it is guarded by one of Dark Elora's creatures: the vicious Medusa, a Gorgon. When Sharayar looks at it, Medusa turns him to stone and shatters him.

Sharazad tries to cross the throne room, but is confronted by Medusa. The Gorgon's gaze turns Sharazad to stone. But when Medusa moves to shatter her, the statue of Sharazad pushes her back! Elora's talisman has kept Sharazad alive even in statue form. Now impervious to Medusa's power, Sharazad takes up a sword and attacks the Gorgon, ultimately killing it.

Meanwhile, Laiph has ridden on the winged horse to the topmost tower of Galladoorn. Entering a window, he finds himself in the room below the ritual chamber... which is guarded by Valerius. Valerius and Laiph begin to duel, but Valerius puts on the helmet of invisibility, and Laiph can no longer see him.

Valerius first slashes Laiph's cheek, leaving a scar on his bearded cheek, and then delivers him a serious injury in the groin. As he lies on the ground in extreme pain, Laiph notices Valerius's reflection in his shield. Using the shield as his guide, Laiph duels and kills Valerius.

Having slain Medusa, statue-Sharazad unites with the wounded Laiph, and together they enter the ritual chamber. Dark Elora, wearing the crystal Crown on her head, confronts Sharazad. Meanwhile, Laiph, wearing the helmet of invisibility, snatches the Crown from Dark Elora's head. Perceiving him, she attacks, and Laiph drops the crown.

The heroes attack Dark Elora, even stabbing her through the chest with a sword. But she is incorporeal, and this cannot kill her. Summoning blasts of dark magic, Dark Elora drives Laiph and Sharazad to their knees. The sorceress moves in for the kill--and then Elora Danan, who has risen from the ritual table, intervenes. The Crown of Power is now on her head. "ELORA DANAN!" she cries out, and commands her dark doppelganger to go back where she belongs. Dark Elora is absorbed into her rightful place: within Elora herself.

Elora proceeds to heal Laiph's genital wound, and to restore Sharazad to human form. But while Sharazad had previously had black hair, her hair is now white, the color of the stone statues. (Think of King Midas's daughter, once turned back from gold.) Elora herself keeps the wounds she has acquired, but is now whole in a spiritual sense.

Later, a funeral is held in Sarras for Sharayar, which all the heroes attend. When it is over, Sharazad tells Laiph that he is responsible for her brother's death. She wants him to atone--by marrying her and becoming King of Sarras. But Laiph tells her that he is in love with Elora. Sharazad tells Laiph that this is no issue--in Sarras, a man may have two wives. Laiph still says Elora would have to agree. At that moment, Elora arrives. Laiph tries fumblingly to explain what Sharazad wants--but Sharazad explains it better, with a kiss on Elora's lips. Elora accepts.

Seven years or so pass. In Tir Asleen, the Elf King dies. Soon afterward, Sorsha comes to Sarras on a visit to her daughter. Barging into the royal chambers, she finds Elora, Laiph, and Sharazad--together in flagrante delicto.

We see soon after that the trio have thirteen children. The eldest is the posthumous son of Sharayar, born to Elora: the spitting image of his dark-faced father. The others are twelve daughters, six born to Elora and six to Sharazad. Three of Elora's daughters have her red hair, and three have Laiph's blond hair; while of Sharazad's daughters, three have black hair and three white. It seems that Elora's healing of Laiph's genital wound, just like her restoration of Sharazad's human form, had an unusual side effect.

Once the proud parents are dressed, Sorsha gets down to business. She and Madmartigan are sailing to Tir Asleen, to take up her father's throne. This means that Elora will become the Queen of Galladoorn. As a coronation present, Sorsha has brought a last gift from her father: a basket of golden apples from the life-giving golden tree of Tir Asleen.

In the final scene, Madmartigan and Sorsha set sail, seen off by Elora, Laiph, Sharazad, and their thirteen children. Also present is Willow, who by now has become the Archmage of the Wizards' Academy. Willow will not hold this position forever, though, since he will ultimately return to the Nelwyn village of his birth--just as Ged, the hero of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series, renounced his status as Archmage, and his magical power, as the ultimate capstone of his long career as a Wizard.

If I'm right in reconstructing this outline for a Willow sequel, the ending with Laiph marrying two women may owe something to the Arabian Nights story of Kamar al-Zaman, which has a similar resolution to its happy ending.

There is also an interesting parallel with the story of the Grail as told in Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. In that story, the knights Galahad, Bors, and Perceval bring the Holy Grail from Britain to its original home in a Middle Eastern country called Sarras. There the three rule as joint kings, before Galahad ascends to heaven. Perceval also has a sister, a holy woman who dies saving the life of a noblewoman. (Would you believe that I didn't even know any of that when I first came up with this outline?)

The idea of the evil Caliph usurping his nephew's throne has parallels not only in Hamlet, but also in CS Lewis's Prince Caspian. Significantly, in the latter story, Caspian and his uncle Miraz are of the Telmarine dynasty, which has long oppressed the native Narnians. Under Caspian's rule, however, the Telmarines become benevolent sovereigns of Narnia, much as here, Sharazad (as I've called her) turns from her uncle's evil ways and becomes a benevolent queen.

Another major influence--obviously enough, given the presence of the three old Graeae, the helmet of invisibility, and the flying horse--is the Greek legend of Perseus, whom Laiph embodies.

Perseus's helmet of invisibility also dovetails nicely with the references to the Nibelungenlied, whose hero Siegfried had a very similar "helm of darkness." Likewise, the burning of the hall with people trapped in it is also taken from the Nibelung legend: Siegfried's widow Kriemhild sets fire to the hall of her husband Attila, because the Burgundians whom she hates have barricaded themselves inside.

And just as Perseus's helmet is made to meld with Siegfried's, so the Graeae of Ancient Greek mythology are combined with their English Renaissance counterparts, the three witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Notably, in this reconstructed outline, all three major heroes suffer, or have suffered, gang-rape; and at some point, each of them must fight a battle against an adversary whom they cannot see. The association of blindness and physical trauma with wisdom is an ancient one, dating back to the Greek myth of Oedipus and the stories of the one-eyed Norse god Odin, who crucified himself to gain wisdom.

Interestingly, Elora's blindness has a Star Wars parallel, namely Han Solo's temporary blindness on coming out of carbon freeze in ROTJ. Like the case of Paul Atreides, Han's blindness is caused by exposure to dangerous technology--Paul's eyes melted out after he looked at a nuclear explosion.

Of course, the motifs of blindness and impotence (as seen with Laiph) go back to the symbolism surrounding Madmartigan and Sorsha in the early Willow.

 

It also occurred to me recently that a major influence on Willow, in terms of having an infant as the central MacGuffin, may have been the 1955 film The Court Jester, starring musical entertainer Danny Kaye.

Kaye plays Hubert Hawkins, a minstrel in the company of the Black Fox, a Robin Hood-type outlaw. The Black Fox and his men are working to restore the rightful king, an infant who is the only survivor of a massacre of the royal family by the usurper Roderick. Said infant is distinguished by a purple birthmark on his posterior--very much like the mark borne by Elora Danan. Much of the first half of the film revolves around the heroes' efforts to keep the infant king out of harm's way.

Hawkins, the hero, humorously ends up being knighted by King Roderick (who hopes thus to obtain an opportunity to kill him) against his own wishes. Of course, this being a comedy, Hawkins also gets the girl: Maid Jean (Glynis Johns), a captain in the Black Fox's army, who also ends up in Roderick's castle in disguise.

Jean spends most of the film in gorgeous dresses (designed by the legendary Edith Head), but she's almost always barefoot--rather like Sorsha was meant to be in the latter part of Willow. Which would make Hawkins the Madmartigan figure.

Incidentally, the recent book on the costumes of the SW original trilogy notes that Luke and Leia's swing off of Jabba's sail barge in ROTJ was inspired by a similar stunt that Danny Kaye performs in this film.

 

Cool Discovery!

 

Small update: I just watched the 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad on TCM. It was screened in the wake of the featurette documentary starring GL, and was one of the films shown as an example of the early fantasy movies which GL spent much of the documentary discussing.

Most relevant to Willow is the film's character of a Genie, who looks like this:



Pointed ears and a head that's bald save for a topknot. That of course brings to mind Sorsha in the early Moebius concept art.

Additionally, I postulated (on the extreme fringe of theorizing) that in a potential sequel to Willow, there might have been a magical flying horse in the possession of a Sultan of an Arabian Nights-style land. This may in fact have been a mechanical flying horse: just such a a clockwork horse is actually presented as a gift to the Sultan of Basra in the 1940 Thief of Bagdad. (I had no idea!)

The Sultan's gift also displays some influence on a particular scene in Last Crusade. The gift is presented to the Sultan by the evil vizier Jaffar, who knows of his weakness for clockwork automata: his price is the hand of the Sultan's daughter. The Sultan, desperate to have the world's finest collection of mechanical toys, agrees. Of course, in the third Indy movie, Donovan persuades the Sultan of Hatay to back his expedition to find the Grail via a completely unplanned gift: a Rolls-Royce Phantom II, which the Sultan appreciates because he is a car nerd.

Other inspirations for bits in Indiana Jones appear elsewhere in the 1940 movie. For instance, the hero, Prince Ahmad, and his girlfriend, the Sultan's daughter, are captured in the climax by the villainous Jaffar and are sentenced to death. They are saved through the intervention of Ahmad's friend, the thief Abu, who arrives on a magic carpet. The film's ostensible hero and heroine are helpless in the villain's clutches, and are saved by another's intervention--rather like Indy and Marion in the finale of Raiders, although in that case it's actually divine wrath that provides their (literal?) salvation.

Abu obtained the magic carpet from the people of the Land of Legend: a race of ancient sages who long ago turned to stone, but who revive whenever one with the heart of a child comes among them. The leader of the sages proclaims Abu to be his successor and the land's new king. Abu, however, refuses the honor, and takes from them a magic carpet in order to return to his friends at their hour of need. Likewise, the Grail Knight in Last Crusade tries to get Indy to take over his job, but Indy declines because he needs to get the Grail back to his wounded father.

 

Today I sat down and watched the original 1924 silent version of The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. I figured I might as well see how it compared to the 1940 version--in fact, they're essentially two different movies with the same general inspiration. However, this movie too has some very interesting points which I should note here.

The climax of the 1924 film features three princes racing to save the deathly ill Princess of Bagdad, whose hand they are each vying to win. Seven months ago, her father the Caliph decreed that whichever man brought back the rarest treasure would marry her. One prince located a magic crystal ball; another found a flying carpet; and the third, the King of the Mongols, obtained a golden apple with miraculous healing powers. When the princes reunite on the return journey in a hostel near Baghdad, a glance into the crystal reveals the Princess's illness. The trio race to Baghdad on the magic carpet, and the Mongol King uses the golden apple to save her life.

So far, so familiar: this is all taken from the opening section of the fairy tale Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou. But the movie version has a twist: the evil Mongol King secretly had the Princess of Baghdad poisoned, in order to arrange things so he himself would be the one to save her. That puts him in prime position to ask for her hand--but even if that fails, he has an army hidden within the walls of Baghdad, built up secretly over seven months, ready to seize the city. The Princess refuses to give an answer immediately, so that very night, the Mongol King orders his troops to strike. Baghdad is his, and the Princess is told she shall wed him, willing or no.

A fourth suitor has not yet arrived, however: the titular Thief, played by Douglas Fairbanks. The Thief met and fell in love with the Princess early in the film, and the feeling is mutual, so he too desires to win her hand. He also went on a quest to the world's end for a magical treasure. In a temple high in the clouds, he found a silver box, filled with a magical wishing powder that can conjure desired things out of thin air. The chest itself came wrapped within a cloak of invisibility, which he also took.

The Thief returns to Baghdad, first descending to Earth on a magical winged horse, then riding on a land-bound horse conjured with the wishing powder. Once at the city gates, he uses the powder to summon an army, and breaches the walls easily. Riding at the head of this army, the Thief is greeted with jubilation by the citizens of Baghdad.

The Mongol King initially despairs, but soon resolves to kidnap the Princess and escape on the flying carpet. Mongol guards still protect the Caliph's palace, but the Thief uses his cloak of invisibility to sneak past them. Once in the palace tower, the Thief easily overpowers the Mongol King and his lieutenants, and saves the Princess. In the finale, at the Princess's suggestion, the Thief covers them both with his invisibility cloak, and the two sneak past her family to take a magic-carpet joyride in the clouds.

Quite a lot of the stuff I just described is actually in my earlier outline for a possible Willow sequel. In both you have a set of characters approaching the Princess's palace in the film's climax via a flying carpet; another character, the male romantic lead, going to the same destination at the same time, on a magical flying horse; a hero's procession through the city streets as the citizens watch (albeit reversed, as a moment of mourning instead of triumph); and the male lead using his cloak/helm of invisibility to overpower the guards, reach the topmost palace tower, and save the Princess. (Not to mention the carpet joyride being used as a metaphor for sex in the final scene.)

I feel I ought to reiterate that, when I wrote my earlier post, I had no idea whatsoever about any of this stuff being in the 1924 Thief of Bagdad movie. Until today I'd never even seen the film. Maybe that crazy speculative Willow II outline isn't so far off after all...

 

I'm still on a kick of watching notable fantasy films on TCM, with an eye to their relevance here. Here are some highlights:

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The Sheik (1921), starring silent-film heartthrob Rudolph Valentino. A strong-willed Englishwoman, Lady Diana Mayo (played by Agnes Ayres), goes on a trip into the Arabian desert, where she is abducted by Sheik Ahmad bin Hassan (Valentino). The Sheik initially plans to rape her, but thinks better of it, and instead tries to woo her honestly. Eventually they do fall in love, and it's revealed that Ahmad is actually the son of English and Spanish parents, who was adopted as an orphan by the old Sheik--so all ends happily.

This film was essentially the Twilight of its day: a smash-hit film based on a bodice-ripper novel penned by a female author. Notably, in the original book, Sheik Ahmad isn't as nice of a guy--he actually does rape Diana. Not that it makes one whit of difference in the outcome of the love story.

Valentino later went on to make The Son of the Sheik (1926), his final film before his premature death that year. In this sequel, Valentino and Agnes Ayres reprise their parts as Sheik Ahmad and Lady Diana, now twenty years older and with gray-streaked hair. But Valentino also does double duty as the Sheik's son, young Ahmad, just grown to manhood.

Ahmad junior is the central character in the second movie. He meets and falls in love with Yasmin, the dancing-girl daughter of a ne'er-do-well French expatriate. But the gang of robbers led by Yasmin's father capture Ahmad, flog him, and demand ransom for his release. Ahmad escapes, but, having been falsely told by one of the robbers that Yasmin was in on the plot, he vows to have his revenge on her. So, in true Sheik fashion, he kidnaps her and takes her to his desert camp--at which point the filmmakers do what they didn't dare five years previously, as Ahmad Jr. proceeds to rape Yasmin.

Once again, though, that doesn't have any bearing on the story's ending: Ahmad begins to feel guilty, even as Yasmin falls in love with him despite herself. Eventually, of course, Ahmad learns that Yasmin didn't betray him after all--just in time for her father's vicious gang to take her back. With his father's help, Ahmad rescues Yasmin, and the film ends on a note of happily ever after that presumably made a lot more sense in 1926.

I postulated that an outline for a Willow sequel might feature a Sheik-like character: a noble Fantasy Arab prince who nonetheless rapes the heroine. As I suspect Lucas may have proposed it here, however, the trope is brought more in line with modern sensibilities: the prince only commits the rape when he himself is under duress from his evil uncle, and he ultimately ends up being killed off in symbolic retribution.

Additionally, the general pattern of the two Sheik films--in which the protagonists of the first movie return in the sequel, as the gray-haired parents of the new hero--is precisely what would have been seen in any Willow sequel.

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7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), starring Tony Randall. Screened earlier this week on TCM in the wake of the featurette starring GL and focusing on fantasy films. Dr. Lao, an ancient Chinese wizard, comes to the small Southwestern US town of Abalone at the turn of the 20th century, where his arrival interferes with the plans of a land baron. Dr. Lao, who is able to take on other appearances, including Merlin, Medusa, and the Abominable Snowman, uses his various guises to put on a circus for the amusement and edification of the townsfolk.

Really the most notable bit in regard to Willow comes at the middle of the film. Dr. Lao invites the crowd to look at one of his attractions, the fabled Medusa--who is hidden behind a curtain, but can be safely observed via a handy mirror. One townswoman, convinced that Lao is a fraud, looks behind the curtain, and is promptly turned to stone. As the frightened citizens flee, Merlin appears and uses his magic to restore her to normal.

I've noted the probable use of Medusa in a Willow sequel. I'm not actually sure this particular example is all that relevant, but I thought I'd still mention it since it's found in a film GL likes.

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La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast), from 1946. Directed by Jean Cocteau and filmed during the Nazi occupation of France, this is easily the most famous live-action version of the classic fairytale.

The set design is quite surrealistic: a striking feature of the Beast's castle is a corridor with candelabras held by human arms, which sway whenever anyone walks past them. (Andrew Lloyd Webber shamelessly borrowed this for his Phantom's lair.) Other parts of the castle are alive as well--the stonework of the fireplaces features carved human faces, which turn to gaze at the rooms' inhabitants with open eyes.

The most notable instance of sentient statuary occurs in the finale. Belle, who has been away from the castle, returns to find the Beast dying of heartbreak. She begs him to get up and live, but he lies still on the ground. Meanwhile, Belle's good-for-nothing brother Ludovic and his rakish friend Avenant are trying to break into the Pavilion of Diana, which houses all the Beast's treasure. Earlier in the film, Beast had warned Belle never to go in there while he was alive--not even he could do so in safety.

Avenant breaks through the Pavilion's glass roof. As Ludovic lowers him down into the treasure house, a stone statue of Diana within the chamber suddenly comes alive. Fitting a marble arrow to its bow, it shoots Avenant in the back. As he dies, he transforms--taking on the shape of the Beast.

Meanwhile, the Beast suddenly revives, revealing himself to be the transfigured Prince Ardent--whose face is strikingly similar to that of Avenant. (All three roles were played by Jean Marais, who in real life was Cocteau's lover.) Belle professes her undiminished love for him, though she says she'll have to "get used to" his new face. The Princes promises to take her to his kingdom, where her aged father can live in peace--and her vain, conceited sisters shall have to carry the train of her dresses. The film ends with the Prince and Belle flying up into the clouds, Superman-style.

Obviously the most relevant part here is the living statue of Diana, which kills Avenant--who transforms into the Beast as he dies, even as the Beast himself becomes human.

In the idea for a Willow sequel that I outlined earlier, I suggested a fight between Medusa--a Beast if there ever was one--and the Princess of the Arabian land, who has been turned to stone but remains alive due to magical protection. If GL indeed ever thought of such a sequence, I highly doubt that Cocteau's film would have been his sole inspiration--Ray Harryhausen would have been an equally important influence--but it certainly might have got him thinking a bit.

One other really notable thing occurs at the very start of this film. Cocteau opens the story with a handwritten note in white letters on a black screen, where he urges the audience to adopt the uncritical wonder of the children who listen to fairy tales. In translation, the note ends thus:

I ask of you a little of this childlike sympathy and, to bring us luck, let me speak four truly magic words, childhood's "Open Sesame":

Once upon a time...

Very much in the vein of "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," isn't it?

 

SW Insider issue 146 has a feature on Chris Claremont, who among other things wrote the Willow sequel novels.

Claremont first met with Lucas to discuss the project in April 1994. Of particular note is the major constraint GL placed on the project:

Among other things, this explains why the novels' version of Willow Ufgood was renamed to "Thorn Drumheller."

However, after Claremont delivered the first book, Lucas apparently decided it was too detached from the original film after all. "...after Claremont had turned in the first draft, the editorial team saw the need for greater connection to the film. So Claremont wrote an extended prologue that brought Madmartigan back into the story and tied up loose ends with the film."

So it appears Lucas originally asked Claremont to write something that was connected to Willow in name only. Presumably Lucas thought that his new fantasy story would sell better if he put the established Willow name on it. The books' connections to the film were largely an afterthought, it seems.

This is pretty good support for my contention that if Lucas did initially plan for a sequel to Willow, it would've featured a story quite different than what Claremont ultimately wrote. (Otherwise, it wouldn't have been much of a sequel.)

 

I increasingly suspect that what evidently passed around Hollywood in the early 1990s was not a script but an outline--a detailed early outline for what became Willow, which also contained information about the proposed sequel film I've reconstructed here.

Previously I noted that many, many aspects of the early Willow show up in Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel Stardust. Among these: people being transfigured into birds, goats, and mice, like Fin Raziel; the long-lost heiress to a kingdom in Faerie as a major character; an attractive but evil woman who is gradually disfigured over the course of the story, while also undergoing a change of heart; a hero who burns his left hand and a golden-haired heroine who gets a permanent limp; a fabulous jeweled necklace which is the marker of Faerie kingship; and an ancient wizard who has turned into a tree--the original form of the Nelwyns' High Aldwin, and the fate ultimately destined for Willow Ufgood himself.

However, a few aspects of the sequel film as I've reconstructed it also clearly show up in Stardust. So in Stardust we have a magical unicorn which saves the heroes' lives (by detecting poison in a drink served to Tristran, who then rescues Yvaine from the witch), versus the winged horse ridden by Laiph to save Elora in the putative Willow sequel. And Neil Gaiman's novel features a flying galleon, instead of a flying carpet, but in both cases as a means to transport a hero and a heroine. Not only that: the novel opens by focusing on the meeting of Tristran Thorn's parents, Dunstan and Lady Una, before skipping ahead to the next generation--just as a Willow sequel would have had to do.

Another work majorly influenced by the early Willow, apparently, is George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. (Never let it be said that GRRM hasn't been amply repaid for GL stealing the design of Chewbacca all those years ago.) Like ASOIAF, the early Willow featured a great swordsman losing his right hand and replacing it with a golden prosthesis; an evil sorceress who dresses in red; a diminutive apprentice wizard who is destined to become a tree; a spooky castle ruined by dragons (Harrenhal vs. the desolate Galladoorn); and a fierce blonde warrior woman, romantically linked with the one-handed swordsman.

I suggested that a secondary villain in the second Willow film would have been a female frost giant, residing in the far North--rather similar in concept to the White Walkers/Others of the ASOIAF world. And of course, a flying winged horse is functionally equivalent to a dragon in terms of fantasy transportation. Frankly, I suspect the similarities here will become more apparent if GRRM ever finishes his series: it's likely in my view that we'll see one of Martin's major female characters become a White Walker, and another be blinded and impregnated by rape.

In which case, I'm pretty sure I would be justified in my proposition that an early outline for two Willow films leaked around Hollywood in the early 90s.

---

I do have one revision to make to my earlier proposal for the story of a Willow sequel. I had suggested that, when the fantasy-Arab princess (whom, for want of a name, I called Shahrazad), visited the captive Elora in her father's palace, she would give her the key to her chains, in gratitude for which Elora would hand over her protective talisman.

In fact, I think the object Shahrazad gives Elora was not to be a key--rather, it would've been a pair of sapphires, magically enchanted to provide vision. Elora would put them in her empty eye sockets and use them as replacement eyes, her originals having been burned out in her battle with the frost-giantess. In return, Elora gives her magic talisman to Shahrazad as a present of equal value.

This would of course harken back to the entirely "blue-within-blue" Fremen eyes, the marker of melange consumption, in Frank Herbert's Dune. In Dune Messiah mention is also made of artificial Tleilaxu eyes--these are entirely silver, metallic, and faceted like an insect's. Although Paul Atreides loses his own eyes to a nuclear blast, he declines to get such replacements for himself, fearing that the nefarious Tleilaxu could use them to control him. Instead, he relies on his prescient vision to see. However, he buys Tleilaxu eyes for any of his Fremen subjects who have lost their own.

Echoes of this idea for a second Willow can be found in both Stardust and ASOIAF. In the latter work, Bran Stark's nurse tells him a story about the legend of Symeon Star-Eyes, a blind knight who put star sapphires in his empty sockets, and thus managed to see. In Stardust, meanwhile, the first thing Dunstan Thorn hears at the Faerie market is "Eyes, eyes! New eyes for old!" When Dunstan meets Una, the lost faerie princess of Stormhold, he notes her striking violet eyes, and thinks that they outshine the color of a purple crystal flower she offers to sell him. And the book's principal heroine, Yvaine, of course has blue eyes (and is dressed entirely in blue, a fitting color for a fallen star).

Additionally, I suspect that the magical monastery/university where Elora obtains the first piece of the magical Crown would have been located on an island--like its model, Ursula K. Le Guin's Roke in the Earthsea series. So this island academy would have been sited in an ocean to the east of the story's principal continent. Rather like the Narrow Sea that divides Westeros from the lands to the east in the world of ASOIAF.

 

A couple further points of clarification about the likely plot of this conjectural Willow sequel:

Laiph Thaughbaer would likely have received a cloak of invisibility (as in the original Germanic legends of Siegfried), rather than a helmet (a Wagnerian invention).

The cloak, and Elora's protective talisman, would have been gifts from the Archmages of the magic school in the East--including Willow Ufgood, who by now might sport an impressive wizardly beard. They would probably have gotten a third gift as well: a magical silver rope that does its owner's bidding and can defy gravity. Like the silver Elven rope Galadriel gives to Sam in The Lord of the Rings, or the magic rope in the 1924 version of The Thief of Bagdad.

When Laiph and Elora arrived at the castle of the frost-giantess in the far North, it would undoubtedly have been surrounded with a wall of fire, like the castle of the shieldmaiden Brunhild in the legend of Siegfried (particularly as dramatized by Fritz Lang). Elora and Laiph would therefore use the magic rope to climb over the fire and onto the ramparts of the castle, just as in The Thief of Bagdad Douglas Fairbanks uses the rope to clamber up into the Caliph's walled palace to see his daughter.

The frost-giantess would later conjure more of this same fire during her duel with Elora, melting out her eyes--though her talisman would spare her further damage.

I noted earlier that the synthetic Tleilaxu eyes in Dune Messiah were segmented like an insect's. This may explain some of the thinking behind Elora getting new eyes that are actually faceted gemstones. Their color of course derives instead from the "blue-within-blue" eyes of spice addiction in the Dune universe.

Another source for this idea was probably Michael Moorcock's series of fantasy novels about Prince Corum, a hero who early on loses an eye and has it replaced with a magical gemstone. I'm currently looking into the very likely possibility that Moorcock's novels were an important influence on George Lucas--not just for Willow but even on the SW OT, given that Moorcock published prolifically in the late 1960s and early 70s.

 

Another Moorcock connection to the early Willow is evident in his series of fantasy novels The History of the Runestaff. The novels are set on a far-future Earth, in which the evil Empire of Granbretan is attempting world conquest.

The series' protagonist is the golden-haired Lord Dorian Hawkmoon, a German exile whose homeland was conquered by Granbretan. In the opening of the first novel, Dorian is captured by the forces of Granbretan, and a sinister black jewel is implanted in his forehead. This magical device functions as a remote camera of sorts, allowing the Granbretanians to see what Hawkmoon sees.

Hawkmoon is ordered on pain of death to carry out a reconnaissance mission in the Kamarg--a territory we would know as southeastern France--which the Emperor of Granbretan wishes to conquer. However, when Dorian goes there, the ruling Protector of the Kamarg short-circuits the black jewel, granting him freedom from his oppressors.

I speculated months ago that in the early Willow, the golden-haired Sorsha would have had a forehead tattoo, a black sun, symbol of her status as a member of Bavmorda's army. This idea evidently takes some inspiration from Moorcock's work. However, I knew nothing whatsoever about the Runestaff series when I made that prediction. I swear! This prediction business just gets spookier and spookier.

 

Another correction to an idea for the conjectural Willow II: it's likely that Elora, Laiph, and Shahrazad would have had a total of eight children--not 13, as I earlier guessed. Elora would give birth to a son by Shahrayar, and three daughters by Laiph, while Shahrazad would bear Laiph four daughters.

The revised total--eight--is actually another reference to William Morris's fantasy novel The Well at the World's End, whose epilogue mentions that the heroine Ursula bears eight children to the protagonist Ralph of Upmeads.

The number of the Sultan's children, meanwhile, would likely have been seven: four evil princes, one not-entirely-evil prince, and the youngest, the twins Shahrayar and Sharazad. (With the revised numbers, it seems likely to me that, after all, Shahrayar and Shahrazad were the children of the evil Sultan.) The six princes and their father would all take part in assaulting Elora--though Shahrayar would agree only under threat of death.

I also likely got reversed the actions of the twins in the battle of the Sultan's hall. It was likely Shahrazad who would've leaped down to help Laiph fight the monsters of the pit (beginning their mutual attraction), while Shahrayar would have turned on his own father and brothers. One of his brothers, now feeling remorse for mistreating Elora, would probably have joined him in this fight--but would himself succumb to the blades of his four siblings. Shahrayar would survive, but would later be killed by the gaze of the Medusa in the final battle, leaving his sister as the sole heir.

In fact, the birth order of the Sultan's seven children (the five eldest born individually, the youngest two as twins) was likely modeled on that of the seven sons of Fëanor in Tolkien's Silmarillion.

In Tolkien's legendarium, not only were Fëanor and his sons the architects of the Elves' sorrow-filled return from the paradise of Valinor to the mortal realms of Middle-earth: Fëanor and his seven sons each swore a terrible, blasphemous oath to recover the Silmarils, three priceless shining jewels stolen by the Dark Lord Morgoth, come what may. This oath frequently drives Fëanor's children to commit atrocities on both Men and other Elves who stand in their way.

Shahrayar's brother, the prince who wavers in his commitment to his siblings' villainy, was likely modeled on Maglor, second eldest of Fëanor's sons, and the only one who tries to desist from fulfilling his family's oath.

Meanwhile, the three pieces of the crystal crown, the MacGuffin which Elora sets out to recover, probably derive from Tolkien's crystalline Silmarils, which Morgoth kept in his Iron Crown atop his head, as he sat on his throne in the fortress of Angband far in the icy north of the world.

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Most of the above new speculation about family sizes actually became apparent to me from scrutinizing Neil Gaiman's Stardust--which is in many places a really transparent reflection of its seeming source material.

In Gaiman's book, the old Lord of Stormhold fathered eight children--seven sons and one daughter--on three different wives, and he slew his four older brothers to ensure his own rise to the kingship. When the novel opens, four of the Lord's sons are already dead, killed in a similarly violent fashion by their three remaining brothers. Of the three living sons, one (the third eldest, Tertius) is killed by his youngest brother early on, and the other two (first the eldest, then later the youngest) are slain in succession by the witch of the Lilim. With all seven Princes of Stormhold dead, their sister Una claims the throne for her own son, protagonist Tristran Thorn.

Compare this projected Willow sequel: we have a Sultan who has six sons and one daughter. Four of his sons are slain by their youngest brother, with the aid of a sixth brother who also dies in the fratricide. The youngest brother is the last son to survive, but he too dies later on in a battle with a female adversary, who then tries to kill his sister. She survives, inherits the throne, and marries, becoming one of her husband's two wives. Among them, the trio have eight children--seven daughters and one son, who will himself inherit.

One other interesting bit I noted just today in Stardust is the threat uttered by the traveling witch-woman and flower-seller, Madame Semele/Ditchwater Sal, who has just mistaken Tristran Thorn for a thief:

"I shall turn your bones to ice and roast you in front of a fire! I shall pluck your eyes out and tie one to a herring and t'other to a seagull, so the twin sights of sea and sky shall take you into madness!"

I posited some time ago that the second Willow would've featured a frost-giantess using magic fire to melt out Elora's eyes. Here too we have a protagonist being threatened with ice, fire, and blinding all at once, in that order. Once again, I must stress that I had totally forgot this when I wrote down my ideas for the Willow sequel.

 

A couple more notes on this conjectural outline for a second Willow film:

Elora's magic talisman would likely have been a silver crystal of some sort, which glowed with its own inner white fire--basically a riff on the Phial of Galadriel which Frodo Baggins uses to battle Shelob.

In fact, the whole scene with Laiph and Elora receiving their gifts from the Archmages--the talisman, the cloak of invisibility, and the magic silver rope--harks back to the gifts given by the Elves of Lothlorien to the Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's Elvish cloaks don't offer invisibility per se, but they are unnaturally good at allowing their wearers to blend into the natural landscape.

(In Stardust, these three gifts are paralleled by the gifts of the "little hairy man" to Tristran: a new suit of clothes, a magical silver chain, and an enchanted Babylon Candle. The last of these saves him and Yvaine from being killed by the witch, at the expense of leaving Tristran's left hand permanently burned and mostly useless. As well, another echo of Elora's benevolent talisman shows up with the white crystal flower Dunstan Thorn buys from Lady Una at the Faerie Market: this meeting leads to a sexual encounter and Tristran's conception.)

Also, in the beginning, Laiph's first encounter with the three Macbeth-esque witches would very likely take place when he was hopelessly lost in a forest. In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth meets the witches on a desolate heath. However, in this case the setting is drawn from the version presented in Akira Kurosawa's film Throne of Blood, which transposed the story of Macbeth to feudal Japan. There, General Washizu (Toshiro Mifune, in the Macbeth role) and his friend Miki (the Banquo part) are lost in a sinister forest when they encounter the evil spirit who delivers ominous prophecies.

(Again there's a parallel in Stardust, as Tristran and the "little hairy man" become trapped at one point in a "serewood," a sinister forest from which it is nearly impossible to escape.)

The second encounter between Laiph and the witches would likewise probably riff on Macbeth. In a variant of the witches' prophecy that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth," Laiph would probably be told something to the effect that no man visible under the sun or the moon could kill him. Of course, when Laiph duels Dark Elora's evil lieutenant in the finale, Laiph's foe is wearing the invisibility cloak he'd stolen from him earlier.

The witches would also prophesy to him that, as with the sons of Banquo succeeding Macbeth, Laiph's heir would be another man's son. So Laiph would suffer a groin injury in the climactic duel. Elora would heal his wound with magic, but Laiph would sire only daughters as a side effect, while Elora would bear the posthumous son of Prince Shahrayar.

I projected earlier that Dark Elora would guard the castle of Galladoorn with a Medusa in the finale. However, this may actually have been a basilisk, a giant snake which has the power to turn those who look upon it to stone. (As anyone knows who read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.) In Stardust, Prince Septimus is killed by the bite of a snake (actually the witch of the Lilim in animal form), just as the basilisk in this projected second Willow would kill Shahrayar.

Meanwhile, the creature in the Sultan's monster pit may have been a griffin, or something similar. A brief paragraph in Stardust mentions an incident where Tristran and Yvaine battle a giant eagle intent on seizing them for its young to eat, and which is afraid of "nothing at all, save fire." Laiph and Princess Shahrazad would have ended up in much the same position in respect to the griffin, and would undoubtedly fight it off in the exact same manner.

 

It's probable that in this conjectural Willow sequel, the Sultan's eldest son (who would die at his younger brother Shahrayar's hand) was an enormously tall, fierce warrior. After all, the eldest son of Tolkien's Fëanor, Maedhros, was commonly known by the epithet of "the Tall."

This carries over into Stardust--where the dying Lord of Stormhold is said to have slain his eldest brother at the tender age of twenty, despite his sibling being "almost five times his age and a warrior of great renown." A similar likeness exists in A Song of Ice and Fire, with the enormous, brutal warrior Gregor "the Mountain" Clegane, whose younger brother Sandor "the Hound" hates him more than anyone else in the world.

Additionally, I suspect that, after being transformed into a statue, Shahrazad would bleed thick black blood from cuts suffered during her duel with the Medusa/basilisk creature in the finale. A couple of references in Stardust associate black liquid both with magical transfiguration and with statuary, and in ASOIAF, a character is saved from a normally fatal wound by being transformed into a Frankenstein-type monster with black blood.

 

It's likely that statue-Shahrazad would have suffered a slit throat in her climactic battle with the Medusa creature. This is why she'd be seen bleeding black blood. Later, after being turned back into a human, she would have a scar on her throat, and would speak (in a very mechanical, computer-ish voice) via a mechanical nightingale that perched on her shoulder.

This combines a reference to two Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales: The Little Mermaid, in which the titular mermaid loses her voice when she transforms into a two-legged human, and The Nightingale, in which the Emperor of China, entranced by the singing of a nightingale, has a clockwork nightingale constructed after he fails to capture the real thing.

There's also a shout-out here to the first Mad Max film, where one of the Main Force Patrol officers suffers a serious throat injury in the film's opening chase, and is later seen using an electrolarynx to talk. (On a more tangential note, a clockwork owl shows up in Ray Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans, which Lucas also drew on for the sea monster that was ultimately cut from Willow.)

Neil Gaiman was apparently aware of the fairy-tale references at play here: in Stardust the ancient palace of the Lilim features a statue of a mermaid, from whose mouth black liquid gushes. And after the witch of the Lilim kills Lord Primus (by slitting his throat), his ghost is frequently described as speaking in a voice that resembles the calling of a bird.

Compare also A Song of Ice and Fire, with Lady Stoneheart: the revenant of Catelyn Stark, who cannot speak due to having her throat slashed, and whose hair has turned white as a result of her transformation.

 

Since the island of the Archmages' academy apparently lay in the seas to the East of Galladoorn, Elora and Laiph would have had to find passage there via a ship. The most probable outcome of this journey would be that the sailors, recognizing them, would try to hold them captive for a reward. But Elora would conjure a magical storm--a tempest in a teacup?--which would force the ship toward the island they sought.

This idea has roots in Ray Harryhausen's film The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad--where a mutinous crew takes over Sinbad's ship and imprisons him, but the wizard Sokura conjures a tempest to force them to go to the island he and Sinbad want to visit. A similar situation occurs in Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, where young Ged earns passage on a ship to the mages' island of Roke as a weather-worker, and a storm ultimately drives the ship to Roke despite the captain's inclination not to go there after all.

(In Stardust, there is a reference to "storm-filled eggshells," which Dunstan Thorn wonders why anyone would ever need.)

For their return journey, it's likely that Elora and Laiph would be given some sort of magical flying beast by the Archmages. The wizards would intend for this beast (a Tolkienesque Eagle?) to carry them all the way to the frost-giantess's castle in the far North.

However, as they approached the eastern shore of the mainland, their beast would likely be felled by an arrow shot from the coast below--quite possibly by Dark Elora's lieutenant, the treacherous Galladoorn noble. Elora and Laiph would tumble into the sea and have to swim for shore. As a result Elora would lose her boots, and would end up walking barefoot in the snowy mountains--like Gerda in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen (or, for that matter, the original Little Mermaid, whose human feet bled whenever she walked.)

The heroes' flying steed being felled by a villain's arrow fired from the ground is an inversion of a similar scene in The Lord of the Rings: on the river journey south from Lothlorien, Legolas uses his bow to shoot down the flying steed of a Nazgul, causing the Ringwraith to tumble to earth.

 

Actually, the beast that Elora and Laiph ride back from the Archmages' island was likely a winged griffin. Which means that the monster in the Sultan's pit, killed by Laiph and Shahrazad, was probably a multi-headed Hydra after all--so they would use fire to prevent it regrowing its severed heads.

In Ray Harryhausen's second Sinbad film, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, a griffin shows up to aid the heroes against a rampaging Cyclops in the final battle. However, the griffin is killed when the film's villain, the sorcerer Koura, stabs it in the rear flank--leaving Sinbad to defeat the vicious Cyclops on his own.

As Elora and Laiph struggled to swim to shore, they would likely have been helped out of the water by a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl who appeared to be a peasant--later revealed to have been Shahrazad in disguise, enjoying a respite in incognito from her royal status (as Sultan Harun al-Rashid often did in the Arabian Nights). Later, when Elora came to the Sultan's palace as a blind beggar, Shahrazad would be the one to recognize her and thus ruin her disguise.

Laiph's encounter with Shahrazad at the coast is another moment based on Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid: Andersen's Prince falls in love, not with the mermaid who saved him from a shipwreck, but with the girl who found him lying on the shore afterward.

There's also a bit of homage to CS Lewis's Narnia book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where the seafaring young King Caspian rescues Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace after they fall into the sea when they are first sucked into Narnia. (Lucy loses her shoes in the water, and remains barefoot for the next several chapters.)

 

As I noted in my initial conjectural outline for the second Willow, the first injury Laiph would likely suffer would be when he was speared through the shoulder--nailed to a wall by the frost-giantess, in order to prevent him from interfering in her battle with Elora.

Later, when Laiph was captured by the treacherous Galladoorn noble and his men, they would flog his back (in all likelihood before implicitly sexually assaulting him off-screen). Meanwhile, Elora, who herself would suffer a similar assault as the Sultan's prisoner, would also be branded on the forehead with the crescent symbol of the Sultan's kingdom. These treatments would echo the flogging and branding Madmartigan would have suffered at Kael's hands in the first Willow.

(The idea of having the hero and the heroine both be raped at the same time probably derives from the original novel version of Logan's Run.)

In his climactic duel with the now-invisible evil nobleman, Laiph would likely suffer three wounds: a slash on the cheek that would leave a scar, a wound to his sword hand, and finally an injury to the groin. The second injury--to his right hand--would likely have involved losing the tips of his fingers.

This idea recurs in A Song of Ice and Fire with Davos Seaworth, whose feudal lord Stannis Baratheon removed the end joints from the fingers of his right hand, as penance for Davos's past as a smuggler. (Not to mention the character of Qhorin Halfhand of the Night's Watch, who suffered a similar injury fighting a wildling.)

As well, at one point in Stardust, Madame Semele threatens to turn Tristran's fingers into razors, and then to make his skin burn with itching, so that he'd scratch it and tear it open--thus mutilating his face and his hand at the same time.

It's also more likely than not that, during the battle with the Hydra, the beast would've scratched Shahrazad's chest with its claws, leaving scars on her breasts similar to the ones Sorsha would've received in the first Willow.

Once again there's a debt here to CS Lewis's Narnia: in The Horse and His Boy, a lion pursues the protagonists Shasta and Aravis as they ride through the desert, and severely scratches Aravis's back before running off. Of course, the lion was really Aslan, who was merely repaying Aravis for the flogging she'd earlier caused a servant girl to suffer.

Also, again, Gaiman's adaptation of this idea in Stardust shows an awareness of Lucas's source material: the unicorn in the story fights a lion at one point, and the lion both claws at its flanks and bites at its neck.

 

A really strange, unlikely thought just occurred to me, and yet it has enough evidence in its favor that I can't simply dismiss it.

Namely, it's just possible that the early outline/script for the two Willow films also influenced another seminal fantasy series from the late 1990s: Harry Potter.

Now, ordinarily even I would say at this point that I'd gone stark raving mad. But consider:

- Harry Potter has a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt (similarly celestial in nature to a sun or a moon).
- He has a cloak of invisibility.
- He studies at a magical academy of wizards, the traditional approach to which (for first year students, at least) is made via boat.
- Harry's best friend, Ron Weasley, comes from a family of seven siblings, only one of whom (the youngest) is a girl--Harry's destined love interest, Ginny. Ron himself is the second youngest. His next oldest brothers, Fred and George, are twins, and one of them dies in the final battle of the last book.
- In the first book, Harry has to safeguard the Philosopher's Stone, which in the original script of Willow was Willow Ufgood's tool for doing magic.
- In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry's principal adversary is a basilisk, a giant snake whose glance turns its victims to stone--and one of those petrified is Hermione.
- In the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, the story climaxes with Harry and Hermione riding on a hippogriff to rescue the titular Prisoner from a tower in Hogwarts castle, where he awaits execution.
- Prisoner of Azkaban also features a rat who turns out to be really a transfigured human, Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail, in hiding (like Fin Raziel in mouse form).
- The fourth novel, Goblet of Fire, features Voldemort's servant Wormtail losing a hand in a magical ritual, and receiving a working silver replacement.
- In The Order of the Phoenix, Harry's right hand is permanently scarred when Dolores Umbridge makes him write lines with a quill that magically carves the words into his own flesh. This motif also recurs in The Half-Blood Prince, when Dumbledore's right hand is left charred and withered due to a magical curse (like Madmartigan's burned hand in the first Willow script).
- The final book, Deathly Hallows, ends with Harry recovering the three Deathly Hallows: legendary magic objects which sage wizards have long sought to reunify, in order to gain power over death. And one of them just happens to be Harry's own invisibility cloak.

I really must say that this list of similarities has me quite baffled. Based on the above evidence, it would seem plausible that Harry Potter is in fact another major fantasy work of the late 1990s which owes its genesis to the selective leak of Lucas's initial plans for Willow earlier in the decade. What is much harder to explain is why JK Rowling should have come upon this material--after all, she wasn't anyone famous at the time. I wonder if she had any friends in high places...

 

One more for the "films that inspired GL" department: the 1981 Canadian animated movie Heavy Metal, which I just got around to watching rather belatedly.

The recent featurette starring GL on TCM featured a few clips from this movie, as a representative of 1980s fantasy films. The snippets in question were quite selectively chosen--the film is quite adult, and chock full of nudity. This goes hand-in-hand with the idea of the original conception of Willow having been much more adult in nature: much of the visual aesthetic of Heavy Metal derives from the art of Jean "Moebius" Giraud (the guy in the thread title, see?).

Aside from the overall aesthetic and tone, though, only a few specific points stand out as really striking influences on Willow. One: the film's principal villain is the Loc-Nar, a glowing green energy sphere of unalloyed evil. This was one of the major inspirations for the name of Bavmorda's realm, Nockmaar (the other evidently being Angmar, the ancient realm of the Witch-King, chief of the Nazgul in The Lord of the Rings).

The other influences on Willow virtually all come from the final segment of Heavy Metal, arguably the most famous: Taarna. (Compare that double A with the spelling of Nockmaar above.)

This segment features as protagonist the eponymous Taarna, a silver-haired woman with an unusual red marking on her neck, who rides a pterodactyl and wields a golden sword. Called by the destiny inherent in her bloodline, she sets out to avenge the murder of a tribe of humans by a race of green-skinned mutants created by the Loc-Nar.

When she goes to confront the leader of the mutants, she is captured, stripped, and flogged. Taarna escapes on her pterodactyl, but the beast is shot down by the mutants, and she is forced to fight her pursuers on foot. She kills the mutant leader in a one-on-one duel, and then takes out the sphere of the Loc-Nar itself, at the cost of her own life. Notably, the mutant leader is dressed in striking red robes, with a horned helmet.

In the film's final scene, a girl on near-future Earth inherits the mantle of Taarna. As she takes flight on a pterodactyl of her own, her brown hair turns silver in color, and the distinctive red mark of Taarna appears on her neck.

The red robes of the mutant leader were quite likely an influence on Bavmorda's red outfit as originally envisioned. As well, Taarna's silver hair, which is passed on whenever a new woman inherits her mantle, clearly chimes with something I predicted for the second Willow film. I will probably sound like a broken record when I say once again that I didn't know this when I wrote the synopsis, having not yet seen Heavy Metal at the time.

Incidentally, Futurama fans should definitely check out this movie, as two of its characters are clear antecedents of Bender and Zapp Brannigan.

 

And another fantasy movie I've just now checked off my "to watch" list: 1981's Dragonslayer, by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins. As it happens, the duo are old friends of GL--they were in fact the ones who first introduced him to Ralph McQuarrie back in the 1970s. (Barwood later took a job at LucasArts, where he co-designed the seminal graphic adventure Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.)

Dragonslayer was one of the movies name-checked in the recent featurette with GL on TCM. Nevertheless, aside from the general premise of a hero who wants to be a sorcerer, Dragonslayer apparently has little in common with Willow or Lucas's other work.

...Except for one moment in the film's finale, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail. The great wizard Ulrich, aged mentor of the protagonist, is battling the fearsome dragon implied by the film's title. Ulrich stands upon a barren mountaintop as the dragon swoops down in passes to attack him.

At one point the dragon spits fire at Ulrich, engulfing him in a torrent of flames. The wizard emerges apparently unscathed, and the dragon turns about for another attack run. But then we get a close look at Ulrich's face, and we see that his eyes are now blind and clouded over.

You know the refrain by now: having not seen Dragonslayer at the time, I had no idea about this when I wrote my earlier conjectural outline for a Willow sequel. (I really wish I had a dollar for every time I wrote some variation of that phrase.)

 

A couple more small notes on the conjectural (is it, really, at this point?) second Willow film:

As Shahrazad would be the one to pull Elora and Laiph out of the water on the Eastern seashore, she would later be the one to recognize Elora at the Sultan's palace (despite Elora having since lost her eyes). It would in fact be Elora's distinctive silver teeth that give her away--replacements for the teeth she'd lost in her battle with a magical doppelganger on the Archmages' island.

Also, one more change to the details of family sizes: Laiph, Elora, and Shahrazad would probably have a total of nine children in the finale. Elora would have one son, by the late Shahrayar, and four daughters by Laiph, while Shahrazad would have given Laiph four daughters as well. Thus, Laiph would have a total of eight offspring of his own.

Most probably, two of Elora's daughters would have her red hair, and two would be blonde like Laiph; and two of Shahrazad's daughters would have her original black hair, but the other two would share her new magic-induced white hair.

 

A few more Willow sequel thoughts:

It's likely that Elora would have started out with red hair and green eyes. Her replacement eyes, made of sapphire, would be competely blue--just as Paul Atreides in Dune starts out with green eyes, which turn entirely blue as a result of his time on the spice-infused world of Arrakis.

Dark Elora, on the other hand, would have green eyes that turned red when she used her dark magic. (In Harry Potter, both Harry and Lord Voldemort were born with green eyes, but Voldemort's turned red, with slitted pupils, when he began using magical ritual murders to make himself immortal.)

Laiph and Elora's quest would begin in earnest when they visited the Three Witches in their forest lair, to learn how the curse that had petrified Madmartigan and Sorsha might be undone. The witches would tell them--for a price. Elora would likely have to give up to them a physical symbol of her royal status--probably a valuable necklace, like Sorsha's own--in order to buy this knowledge. This scene is also when the witches would utter their second set of prophecies to Laiph (the first having been said earlier in the film, when he encountered the trio as he rode toward the opening battle).

(In Stardust, the evil "serewood" in which Tristran is trapped has trees with yellow leaves. This is a reference to a line from Macbeth, where Macbeth laments that the hours of his life have reached their autumnal stage: they have fallen into "the sere, the yellow leaf." The three forest witches in the second Willow would of course be modeled on their counterparts in Shakespeare's play.)

The test of the Archmages, by which Elora would claim the first piece of the Crystal Crown, would likely involve sending her into an underground chamber, bare except for a mirror. Like Luke Skywalker in the cave on Dagobah, she would probably be told to leave behind her weapons, but would disregard this advice.

Elora would stare into the mirror, seeing her own reflection. Suddenly, the mirror's surface would ripple, and a figure covered head-to-toe in black armor would emerge. Elora would try to do battle with it, thinking to defeat it and claim the Crown piece. The guardian would soundly defeat her every attack, though, and knock out her front teeth in the process. Only when Elora admitted defeat would the guardian take off its helmet, revealing it to be her own doppelganger--who would give her the Crown piece.

The lesson, of course, would be that one cannot hope to destroy one's own dark side, as it if were an outside force; only through acknowledging it and thus taming it can one achieve self-mastery. This is a very Taoist notion, and one that pervades the evident source material here: Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. (The bits with the three witches and the fight scene around the Mirror actually also owe a great debt to Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain books.)

(Of course, in Harry Potter, the Mirror of Erised is the magical device which protects the Philosopher's Stone; Harry's mirror double is the one to give the Stone to him.)

Elora's forehead mark, a symbol of her slave status when she is captured by the Sultan, would no doubt actually be a tattoo: a red crescent. This detail comes from the identifying mark of the witch Salome, evil twin of good Queen Taramis, in Robert E. Howard's Conan short story A Witch Shall Be Born.

When Shahrazad fought the Basilisk in the finale, her eyes would be the only part of her that remained human when she turned to stone. Preserved by the power of her protective amulet, she would still be able to battle the great serpent. Unable to harm her further with its gaze or its teeth, the basilisk would instead use its venom. It would spit the venom at her face, leaving Shahrazad blind in one eye. However, she would still manage to kill the beast, most likely by beheading it.

Meanwhile, Laiph would sustain two wounds of his own in battle with Dark Elora's lieutenant--a slash on the cheek and a wound to the right hand, likely losing all his digits except his index finger and thumb. He, too, would kill his opponent, using the reflections in his shield to defeat his foe's invisibility cloak.

Once statue-Shahrazad and Laiph had defeated their respective antagonists, they would team up to take on Dark Elora, and rescue the normal Elora from her sacrificial ritual. It would be Dark Elora who gave the duo their most grievous wounds, slashing Shahrazad across the throat (releasing black blood) and stabbing Laiph in the groin with her knife. However, they would manage to distract Dark Elora long enough for the good Elora to reclaim the crystal crown, and defeat her evil half by merging with it.

 

I've continued watching 1980s fantasy films (in particular those featured on the recent TCM documentary with GL) to better understand the genesis of Willow.

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One film I'd never even heard of until I watched the TCM doc was Krull, from 1983. Princess Lyssa, heir to one of the two major kingdoms on the planet Krull, is kidnapped on her wedding day by "the Beast," an alien Dark Lord, who wishes to marry her himself. Lyssa's betrothed, Prince Colwyn (of the other kingdom), must rescue her, with the aid of a band of companions.

Prominent among Colwyn's band is Ergo the Magnificent, a sorcerer. He isn't terribly competent--in fact, his chief ability lies in transforming himself into various animals. (Just like Fin Raziel.) Over the course of the movie, he becomes a goose, a pig (!), a dog, and finally a tiger. (Fin Raziel briefly becomes a tiger in her final morphing sequence in Willow.)

Once Colwyn reaches the Beast's castle, he faces the Beast using "the Glaive," a deadly five-armed spiked boomerang. With it he wounds the Beast, causing it to bleed with black blood, but he fails to kill it. Only by using the magic fire that is part of wedding ceremonies on Krull (go figure) does Colwyn defeat the Beast and save Lyssa.

Lyssa has red hair and blue eyes, while Colwyn is blond, with a short beard. (Rather like my descriptions of Elora and Laiph, come to think of it.) The film opens and closes with the prophecy that, while they will rule Krull together, their son will one day "rule the galaxy." This is probably where that line in Willow about Elora Danan being the destined future ruler of "all kingdoms on earth" comes from.

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I also watched Ridley Scott's Legend, from 1986. Given its release date, Lucas probably wouldn't have seen the finished film in time to write Willow that same year, but he may have read the script, which was apparently written in 1984.

The film's heroine, Princess Lily, is kidnapped, along with the world's last unicorn, by the Lord of Darkness. Darkness wants to corrupt her, so he can make her his bride--and also to slay the unicorn, which will end daylight forever and let him reign eternally.

One scene in particular stands out as possibly (though, given the film's date, not certainly) relevant. Trapped in Darkness's throne room, Lily sees a vision of a faceless figure in a beautiful black dress, dancing in front of a large mirror. The figure sweeps her up into its frantic dance. Lily begins to enjoy it, and then--in a flash--she has become the dancer in the dress, and is dancing on her own. As she stops to gaze at her black-clad reflection in the mirror, Darkness emerges from it, as if it were water. He courts Lily, arguing that she is just like him: "Darkness is within us all."

Lily subsequently appears to fall for Darkness's wiles. But of course, in the end, she was just pretending all along, so she could foil his plan to kill the unicorn.

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A third significant Eighties fantasy film is The Neverending Story (1984). Truth be told, I don't think there's too much here that bears directly on Willow. However, one of the film's most famous sequences has a direct bearing on the film GL did right afterward: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The film's hero is Atreyu, a young "noble savage" type who is actually the fantasy avatar of real-world boy Bastian Bix. (With a name like that--how many American boys are named "Bastian"?--it's pretty clear that the film originated in a German YA novel.) Bastian is reading about Atreyu's adventures in a mysterious book, found in a dusty old bookstore, and we see Atreyu's journey through Bastian's eyes.

Atreyu must speak with the legendary Southern Oracle, in order to learn how to heal the ailing Childlike Empress, and save her land of Fantasia from destruction. But the Southern Oracle is guarded by two deadly gates.

The outermost gate is the Sphinx Gate--a path between two colossal winged sphinxes. Whoever passes through it must be absolutely confident that he or she is worthy to pass; otherwise, the sphinxes will open their eyes and fry the intruder. No one, it seems, has so far passed the Sphinxes successfully; in fact, as Atreyu watches, one such person is roasted before his eyes.

Atreyu approaches the Sphinxes, initially confident. However, as he passes by the charred skeleton of the last person to make the attempt, he begins to doubt himself. The Sphinxes' eyes begin to open--and Atreyu runs through the gate, determined to get through before they can incinerate him. He makes it, as the lightning bolts spatter harmlessly behind him.

Now consider the Three Trials of the Grail Temple in the climax of Last Crusade. We are introduced to the Temple's dangers by seeing the failure of a Turkish soldier to navigate the first trial: a hidden blade severs his head in a sudden moment. But because his father is dying of a gunshot wound, Indiana Jones must pass through the trials and retrieve the Holy Grail to heal him.

Guided by his father's Grail Diary, Indiana Jones learns that the first trial is the Breath of God: "only the penitent man will pass." Indy advances into the chamber, pondering this riddle. As the deadly blade approaches him, he realizes what it means: "the penitent man is humble before God.... Kneel!" He does so, and the blade sweeps harmlessly over his head, leaving him free to advance.

In both cases, the hero has to pass through a deadly gate, which no one has yet solved (as graphically demonstrated to the audience), and figures out its solution--a matter of physical exertion--just as it is about to kill him. But of course, in both films, this is only the outer gate, and other perils await beyond.

(Also possibly relevant: the second gate Atreyu passes through is the Mirror Gate, which reflects your true self. When Atreyu enters it, he sees Bastian, who is reading about his adventures in a book in our world. Meanwhile, Bastian is understandably freaked out by seeing his own name in the book.)

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Finally, I watched Brian De Palma's 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise, a Seventies rock-and-roll update of The Phantom of the Opera. I'd been aware for some time that this film might have been an influence on GL, but I hadn't actually sat down and watched it until just two days ago.

The film's protagonist is Winslow Leach, an aspiring composer who naively shows his music (a modern take on Faust) to Swan, a filthy rich mega-producer. Swan proceeds to steal the music and deprive Winslow of credit. When Winslow protests, Swan arranges for his arrest and imprisonment.

In prison, Winslow's teeth are forcibly extracted and replaced with new teeth of shining chrome. He breaks out of prison, and tries to destroy the factory where Swan's records are made. As he prepares to smash a record press, a security guard sees him and opens fire. Winslow is thrown into the record press, which activates. One side of his face is burned, leaving him blind in one eye, and his voice is damaged, forcing him to use an electronic voice box to communicate.

Donning a black costume and a silver helmet, Winslow returns to Swan to seek revenge. Swan, unperturbed, counters by offering to give Winslow proper credit for his Faust, and even to let him select the female lead for its premiere at Swan's nightclub, the Paradise. Of course, Swan has his own devious plans in mind, which Winslow, now costumed as the "Phantom" of the Paradise, in turn sets out to foil.

Winslow's distinctive facial injuries--namely his silver teeth and blinded eye--are extremely similar to what I suspect Sorsha would have suffered in the first Willow film as originally scripted. Actually, I was previously aware of the similarity, but avoided mentioning it because I hadn't yet seen De Palma's film. What I wasn't aware of, until I saw it two days ago, was Winslow's throat injury and subsequent use of an electronic voice box--in line with predictions I'd made that very week for the second Willow.

A few years after Phantom of the Paradise, Brian De Palma made Carrie--for which he sat in on joint casting sessions with George Lucas, who was looking for young new talent to star in what was then called The Star Wars. After an early test screening of SW 1977, De Palma also provided suggestions that led to Lucas rewriting the opening crawl for the final film.

 

As I noted earlier, Shahrazad being clawed by the Hydra is a detail modeled on Aravis's wounding by a lion (actually Aslan) in CS Lewis's The Horse and His Boy.

In the Narnia book, Aravis's wounds on her back are symbolic punishment for her having run away from her father's house, which caused her servant girl to be flogged in exactly similar fashion. Here, too, Shahrazad's wounds are penance for her ill treatment of Elora Danan. After all, it seems she'd have been the one who convinced her twin brother Shahrayar to save his own life by submitting to their father's evil plans for Elora.

It just occurred to me that this action scene may have been the original seed of Padme's battle with the Nexu in the Geonosian arena in Attack of the Clones.

Given the apparently more adult nature of the early Willow with respect to SW, it's quite possible that Shahrazad would've suffered clothing damage like Padme does in AOTC--but in this case, likely leaving her bare-breasted. In fact, a few of Ed Natividad's storyboards for the AOTC arena scene, as seen in the PT Storyboards book, do show Padme as topless; however, one of these appears to have been altered subsequently to add in a bikini.

 

One other Eighties fantasy film I watched in the last few days was 1985's Return to Oz, directed by Walter Murch--who created the sound design for American Graffiti. (Murch was GL's first pick to do the sound mix for SW 1977, but owing to a prior commitment he had to decline, and instead recommended his protege Ben Burtt.) GL himself receives a "special thanks" in the end credits of Murch's movie.

Return to Oz features actress Jean Marsh in the role of the secondary villain; this is probably where Lucas got the idea to cast her as Bavmorda in Willow.

In Murch's film, when Dorothy first arrives at the Emerald City, she finds it lifeless and desolate, with all its citizens turned to stone. The effect is rather similar to the scene at the ruined castle of Galladoorn/Tir Asleen in Willow, where Madmartigan and Willow Ufgood find its former inhabitants magically petrified. Of course, such scenes would naturally be similar in nature anyway.

More interestingly, the villain in Return to Oz is the Nome King: a creature of stone and rock, who has petrified the citizens of Oz, in revenge for what he sees as the unlawful theft of the gemstones that lie buried in the earth. As a stone monster, the Nome King is of course made of gray rock--but his eyes are human, and quite blue. (He was played by the late Nicol Williamson, most well-remembered these days as Merlin in John Boorman's Excalibur.)

The Nome King challenges Dorothy and her companions. He has turned the Scarecrow, King of the Emerald City, into a lifeless trinket, and placed it in his treasure chamber. One by one, Dorothy's friends enter the chamber. Each is allowed three guesses as to which trinket is really the Scarecrow, and if they guess rightly, he will be restored. But whenever one of them makes three wrong guesses, they are themselves made into a treasure object.

As Dorothy's friends fail in turn, the Nome King becomes progressively more and more human, visibly transforming in front of her. He would, in fact, become completely human should Dorothy herself, the last opponent, exhaust her guesses. Fortunately, she guesses rightly in the end, and the Nome King is defeated.

The Nome King, as a stone monster with human eyes, was quite likely an important influence on Shahrazad's petrification in the probable second Willow film.