Amph "Forget all you know, or think you know." - The Willow Discussion Thread

Or possibly, Prince Caspian, where the Hag and the Werewolf are trying to bring back Jadis the White Witch.

 

There's a flashback scene in the second episode where she and Davis appear to be digitally de-aged. That scene really looks remarkably good.

 

Watched it, I agree that it feels like Nickelodeon/Disney Channel writing. Two minutes in and it was reminding me of this show my nephew watches called The Thundermans where the family has these twins with super powers, and lo and behold, the two sibling characters are twins. I think this kind of writing has a niche audience, kids aged 7-11 who are interested in seeing older teenage kids test out adulthood and push back against their parents. It’s a lot less sophisticated than even the original movie where Willow was a young man with a family, and it’s often annoying, but having watched a fair share of this kind of thing recently, I can accept that it’s supposed to be annoying for some kiddie rebellion. Would probably be for the best if Hollywood dropped this kind of stuff altogether, but I doubt that’ll ever happen, it is what it is.

As to production values, it looks pretty good. The creature effects were better than The Witcher imo, the sets and costumes are nice, banquet scene was lively, although Willow’s village seemed too small . . . no pun intended. The fight scene in first episode was shaky cam in the dark, not a combination that speaks confidence, but it was good enough, and a little old horse chase was more than I expected. It’s a pleasant thing to look at and all the young actors are cute if you tune out the relentless snark. What it doesn’t have is the dirtiness of the original, the Dark Age vibes, so there’s no room for substantial atmospheric shifts. This place is the perpetual, happy Renaissance Faire instead.

Some of Davis’ scenes were good, some pretty bad too like his village elder shtick, but it’s still fun to root for him. I’ll keep watching, and it might be easier to not binge as more than an hour per week is probably too much.

Speculating to “The Crone” . . .

Wasn’t Elora Doran played by Bryce Dallas Howard in the original? They could have her come back as the “evil reflection” or something. Would be fun to see her do a turn as a nasty sorceress for a change.

 

Glad you asked! No, Elora Danan was not played by Bryce Dallas Howard.

 

Ah ok, thought I heard that somewhere

 

Elora was played by twins Ruth and Kate Greenfield. They are 35 years old today and as far as IMDb is concerned, they didn't do any acting beyond Willow '88.

 

In the original film, they had several babies playing Elora.

EDIT: Ninja'd

 

I liked the second episode.

But yeah, everyone sorta has that sarcastic humor written way too often and unnecessarily into their lines. It's very teen-centric. And some of the characters feel way too modern and not from a fantasy medieval feudal time period.

I think I'll wait a few weeks and binge a bunch of eps together.

 

Never saw the film so gave it a look. KInd of surprising - did amyone see an old woman fistfight being part of the finale? Overall, it was all right.

This series? Not really feeling it. Poor characters, bad plot. Sorscha basically wants her kids on the throne so she screws the world over to do it.

And why do so many series now decide to do a poorly lit, massively murky fight sequence where you can't see the action?

It's on D+ so probably see how it plays out, but it needs to improve.

 

After rewatching the original film today to prepare for the series, I was reminded of how much I was infatuated with Joanne Whalley's Sorsha. I'm glad she'll be reprising her role in the new series.

 

Did you ever see The Singing Detective?

 

I have the Willow Blu-ray (and digital version that came with it), and in one of the special features, they interview Val Kilmer; who suggests that he'd always felt a little awkward in the romance scenes with his then gf and future wife - to the point where he was forgetting his lines. Personally, I couldn't blame him. I'd be the same with working with her.
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I watched the first episode of the series yesterday. I concur it definitely doesn't have that charming feel of the original film. I kind of like the twist in terms of who needs to be rescued from evil this time.

Spoiler

Of course it was extremely predictable who you-know-who really was. So all of a sudden we're supposed to be caring about some young kitchen cook who's infatuated with the Prince? Yeah, there must be more to it. I'll likely watch the second episode later today. Hopefully they'll have an explanation as to why Willow was the only one of two Nelwyns in his village. I had actually been looking forward to seeing dozens, if not hundreds of them. And the "well he just ran off to save Elora Danan" excuse as to explain where Madmartigan seems just too vague and concocted. Unless they explain something more, it just doesn't sound like something he'd do. I guess we'll see.

As far as the characters are concerned, I like Kit and Jade. As I've mentioned before, I'm glad that Joanne Whalley gets to reprise her role as Sorsha. Not sure what Graydon's role is after the palace scenes. IMO he's irrelevant and furthermore, expendable; but I could change my mind. Boorman is a weird character, he's important to Sorsha in some way. I take it that Airk has taken on his womanizer characteristic from his father. Obviously he was named after Madmartigan's red-haired, bearded friend from the movie.

I can't say I have.

 

Well ... Joanne plays a nurse and .. listen... see Michael Gambon has psoriasis , and ... he needs certain medical shall we say, and attention .. ..

 

Basically, McMedieval. If you’ve ever been to a Ren Faire in the United States, you’ll know the feeling.

Willow: The Way of the Well

 

dp

 

Yes?

 

I've just watched the second episode. It answered a handful of my questions from the previous episode; namely

Spoiler

where were all the Nelwyns and well vaguely...what happened to Madmartigan. It was nice seeing the dozens of little people; I was afraid they'd do the LOTR approach of just shrinking normal people down in size with special effects. Initially I thought on the possibility that Mims was being played by the same actress who played her in the film, but the one in the series was actually born about a decade after the movie filmed. What happened to Willow's son? I guess it's implied that Kiaya isn't alive for this series. She was a sweetheart in the film.

 

Episode 3 - They fired the lighting director before filming it.

 

Maybe for you, I saw next to nothing for a good half of the ep.

 

Well that was a little better,

Spoiler

Willow has plot magic. He has power but can't use it unless it's the only way out.

We meet two fun characters out in the woods who are far too quickly killed, but then Elora learns people will die for her.

 

The fight choreography was easier to see and follow. But I kinda wish it had been harder to see, cuz it wasn't very good.