BTS Moebius's Willow and TPM

Given what I posted above about Madmartigan actually being acclaimed as a King before visiting Tir Asleen, I now suspect that this Moebius drawing of a ruined castle...



....actually depicts a human castle, as opposed to the shining crystal spire of Tir Asleen. In which case, Madmartigan and Willow probably would have journeyed here after escaping Bavmorda's forces, and as at Tir Asleen in the final film, they would have found a bunch of petrified humans. Perhaps turned to stone, like the statues in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as opposed to the crystal prisons of the final film. As occurs in the third-revision script, Madmartigan would have had Willow resurrect twelve knights to go with him on a nigh-impossible quest (to find Tir Asleen), and the knights in turn would have acclaimed him as their king.

The number of knights (twelve) has strong resonance with the tale of Beren and Luthien in The Silmarillion. The mortal man Beren was told that to win the hand of his beloved Luthien, daughter of the Elf-king Thingol, he must steal a Silmaril, an impossibly beautiful jewel of immense value, currently imprisoned in the crown of the Dark Lord Morgoth. To fulfill this quest, Beren visited another Elf-king, Finrod Felagund, who was an old friend of his father. Felagund agreed to help, and he, Beren, and ten Elven knights (totaling twelve) set forth on this apparently hopeless quest.

However, Tolkien's Elf knights, and Felagund himself, were quickly killed off when the entire party was captured by Morgoth's lieutenant Sauron (hey, it's that guy from LOTR!). Likewise, in the third-revision script of Willow, five of the knights die immediately in the siege of Tir Asleen.

The idea of the heroes setting forth, possibly on a boat, on an impossible journey to the Otherworld also alludes to Tolkien's Silmarillion story of Earendil the mariner.

Earendil, who was half-human and half-Elven, made the perilous journey across the sea to Valinor, heedless of the fact that this would mean his own death. He hoped to plead with the Valar (the gods or angels of Middle-earth) to intercede and put forth their power to destroy the might of Morgoth. Earendil succeeded in reaching Valinor, and his plea for divine aid was granted. As symbolic punishment for his transgression, he was prevented from returning home to Middle-earth. However, his Elven wife Elwing was able to join him in Valinor. Earendil then set sail into the sky in a magical flying boat, where he took part in the war against Morgoth. Ultimately Earendil became the warden guarding Morgoth in his prison in the Outer Darkness. With the Silmaril of Luthien and Beren shining on his brow, he became known to mortal stargazers as the Morning Star.

So if I'm right about the ruined human castle and the Otherworld of Tir Asleen originally being separate locations, we can see that they were likely simply combined (to save money, no doubt) at some point in the writing process.

Originally Madmartigan and Willow would likely have journeyed to the ruined castle, Madmartigan would have been proclaimed as its next king by twelve newly-freed knights, and the whole group would set out to find Tir Asleen. In this scenario, Tir Asleen would not be a place full of petrified Elves that lay in ruins, but rather a shining kingdom that was cut off from the world, like Valinor, refusing to get involved in mortal troubles--until Bavmorda's army, following Madmartigan and Willow, came knocking at its door, like the Calormene army invading Archenland in The Horse and His Boy.

 

Given the entire Silmarillion-influenced scenario with the ruined castle I conjectured above, I also suspect that the character of Airk Thaughbaer and his surviving men may have been initially imagined as hiding out in the castle, among the petrified statues of its greatest knights. He and his tattered army, which would initially refuse to go with Madmartigan and Willow, would therefore fulfill the Silmarillion role of Celegorm and Curufin, two wicked Elf brothers who advise Felagund not to aid Beren, and who dissuade more Elven warriors from joining their quest. However, Airk would later get the chance to redeem himself.

In the final film, Airk is hiding out in the human village which shelters Madmartigan and Willow. He initially refuses to help them, but changes his mind when he sees that Bavmorda's troops are hot on their heels, and ends up leading a heroic charge to save the day at Tir Asleen. Which is reminiscent not only of the ride of the Rohirrim to relieve Gondor in LOTR, but also of Han Solo returning to distract Darth Vader during the trench run in ANH.

In the film Airk briefly mentions that the kingdom of Galladoorn, which he serves, has been overrun by Bavmorda--the novelization clarifies that the king is slain, and his castle destroyed. This subplot goes nowhere, and may actually be a remnant of the earlier idea where Tir Asleen and the ruined human castle were separate locations.

 

In the third-revision script, the curse upon Fin Raziel's island incorporates another idea besides the sea monster: a magic tree whose branches contain solid gold beneath their outer skin. Madmartigan takes as much gold as he can carry, but loses it all when the sea monster tips their boat.

The idea of sticks of wood with gold hidden inside them comes straight from The Hidden Fortress, where Toshiro Mifune's character disguises the treasure of the Akizuki clan inside sticks of firewood.

This idea of the tree with cursed gold may have been somehow connected with the need to find an alternative curse for Fin Raziel's island, if the sea monster ended up being moved to guard the pathway to Tir Asleen instead. Possibly there was to be a different monster connected with the island--I've seen a Moebius sketch (sadly not online) of something large, brown and furry, with red eyes and bestial fangs.

 

There's one Moebius concept art piece I haven't uploaded yet, and that's this guy:



He sits on a throne in a hellish-looking chamber, possibly underground. I suspect he may be a troll king or a goblin king, who captures Willow before his rescue by the Brownies. If so, he would be the early-draft equivalent of the wicked diminutive Elves in the third-revision script--who probably emerged when the Elvish inhabitants of Tir Asleen were made into humans.

In which case, the scenes in question in the troll king's tunnels would have definite overtones of the similar scenes in The Hobbit, where Bilbo and the dwarves are captured by goblins and have to escape from their underground lair.

 

As for the character of Meegosh, the Sam/Obélix to Willow's Frodo/Astérix, I suspect that all along, Lucas may have thought about sending him back home after the visit to Cherlindrea (or the Brownie sage, in the early version illustrated by Moebius). This is, in fact, what happens in the final film.

In The Lord of the Rings, Elrond counsels sending either Merry or Pippin, or both, back home to protect the Shire, but neither of them are willing to abandon Frodo. The result is that, in their absence, the Shire is enslaved by Saruman, and the four hobbits have to take up arms once more and expel the wizard's cronies when they return from the war against Sauron.

The Cherlindrea/Brownie-sage character is an obvious stand-in for Elrond, in terms of setting up the greater narrative quest which awaits Willow. Lucas may therefore have opted to reference Tolkien in reverse: by following the advice of the Elrond-character and returning home, Meegosh is able to save the Nelwyns' village from Bavmorda's incursions, allowing for an unambiguously happy ending (Lucas's preference) and averting Tolkien's Scouring of the Shire.

Another homage-by-inversion occurs in the final cut of ROTS, where Anakin's turn to the dark side is precipitated by his overwhelming desire to prevent Padme's death. In Dune Messiah, the evil Bene Tleilax had hoped to enslave the Emperor Paul Atreides in a similar manner. Having foreseen that Paul's beloved wife Chani would die in childbirth (bearing twins!), they offered to use their cloning technology to revive her--on condition that Paul let them take over the running of his Empire. Paul is so greatly tempted by this offer that, although he manages to kill one of the Tleilaxu envoys, he cannot bring himself to kill the second--and must order his loyal retainer Duncan Idaho to do it for him. ROTS presents a version of Paul Atreides who did fall to that temptation, and joined the dark side as a result.

Interestingly, Meegosh doesn't accompany Willow in the third-revision script of Willow; in that version Willow sets out alone. Perhaps Lucas thought Meegosh's character was too similar to Sam Gamgee. In the final film Willow and Meegosh are initially accompanied by four other Nelwyns, who abandon the quest at the point when they meet Madmartigan.

 

Actually, looking again at this particular drawing...



...you can tell that on the left, there is a tall human next to some very tiny figures and their tiny houses. I would guess that therefore this is actually NOT Fin Raziel's island, but a different island, probably the home of the Brownies and their leader.

In which case, the two figures in the boat in the foreground are Willow and Meegosh, and the tall person on Brownie Island is likely Madmartigan, who would presumably be reunited with Willow here after Willow freed him from imprisonment earlier in the film. (In the final film their reunion happens in an inn.)

If both the Brownies and Fin Raziel lived on islands, perhaps the journey to Fin Raziel would have taken place on a river. In that case, Willow's boat would probably have been pursued by Bavmorda's troops, in the fashion of the chase down the River Anduin in The Fellowship of the Ring. The repeated pattern of the heroes sailing to different places also mimics the overall journey in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Narnia series.

Plus, the idea of a river chase interestingly prefigures Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which came out the year after Willow.

 

In fact, there's another Silmarillion similarity in Madmartigan's character arc that I completely overlooked--something borrowed from Tolkien's story of the mortal hero Tuor, father of Earendil and grandfather of Elrond Half-elven.

Tuor is a wandering human who receives a vision from the sea-god Ulmo. Ulmo tells him to find the hidden Elven city of Gondolin, and tell its king Turgon to abandon his city and send emissaries to Valinor pleading for divine aid--or else Gondolin will fall to the armies of the Dark Lord Morgoth. Later, Tuor happens upon the wandering elf Voronwe, who guides him to Gondolin where he delivers his message.

But before he meets Ulmo and begins looking for Gondolin, whose location he himself does not know, Tuor finds the abandoned city of Nevrast, Turgon's previous dwelling place. Inside the Great Hall Tuor finds a magnificent silver-and-blue set of armor, with a helmet that has white swan-feathers for a crest. The armor was left there by Turgon on Ulmo's instructions long ago, to mark the coming of a future emissary. Tuor dons the armor for himself.

Although Turgon does not heed Ulmo's warning, he invites Tuor to stay and dwell in Gondolin. Tuor falls in love with, and eventually marries, Turgon's beautiful blonde daughter Idril. When Morgoth's forces do attack, Tuor and his family supervise the Elves' escape from the city. With Turgon killed in the battle, Tuor becomes the leader of the Gondolin Elves in exile. Ultimately Tuor's son Earendil will sail himself to Valinor and complete the quest set forth by Ulmo.

Tuor is also known as a mighty sailor. In old age, he sails with his Elven wife Idril to Valinor, and it is said that he alone of Men was granted the immortality of an Elf.

Madmartigan also finds a ruined castle, and within it a magnificent suit of armor which he dons, marking him as the future King of the restored realm. From this point in the earliest version of story, he, like Tuor, would set out on an impossible quest to find the hidden Elf city of Tir Asleen.

Presumably Lucas wanted to combine the Nevrast element of Tuor's story with the scenes in the underground Elf city of Nargothrond from the Tale of Beren and Luthien. Nargothrond's King Finrod Felagund leads Beren and a band of ten warriors on a journey to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown, but the other Elves of Nargothrond, daunted by the warnings of Celegorm and Curufin, stay behind. This last role would presumably have been played by Airk Thaughbaer and his army, staying behind to hide in the castle as Madmartigan, Willow, and twelve de-petrified knights set out for Tir Asleen.

Instead of being crowned like Madmartigan in the ruined human castle, though, Felagund removes his silver crown when he sets out, telling his brother to keep it until he should return. He never does.

 

The twelve knights are also reminiscent of Thorin Oakenshield and his twelve travelling companions, and the twelve paladins of Charlemagne, which are generally considered to have borrowed their number from the twelve apostles of Jesus.

 

Madmartigan's status as the greatest swordsman in the land, who has nonetheless fallen out of favor, may have something to do with the Silmarillion story of Turin Turambar. Turin is a similarly great swordsman fostered at the court of King Thingol, who flees into outlawry after his involvement in the accidental death of an Elf. Despite this Thingol pardons Turin, realizing that he is really blameless in the matter, but Turin refuses to return. Later, Turin takes up service with the King of Nargothrond, but fails to prevent the kingdom's destruction by Morgoth's forces.

Of course the similarities here are not nearly as pronounced as in the other examples, so it may have been more a subliminal influence in this case.

 

So I think I finally figured out a couple more of the lingering mysteries about the original outline of the plot of Willow.

First, it's obvious in retrospect that this image...



...actually shows the tail end of a chase scene, when Willow and Meegosh arrive via boat at the Brownies' island.

Let's follow my guess that in early outlines, Willow and Meegosh were captured by trolls (as opposed to the Elves of later revisions) and imprisoned in their underground lair. The Brownies are the ones who break them out in both cases.

Now, mythologically, Scottish Brownies are traditionally water sprites, so it makes sense for them to use a water route to rescue the two Nelwyns. The trolls would, of course, pursue them in their own boats, but would fail to catch up with them. Possibly the trolls would die of sunlight exposure when dawn broke, or maybe there would be a magic flood of water called up by the Brownie sage, like the one Elrond summons to defeat the Black Riders in LOTR. (Regardless, this is clearly the precursor to the Venice boat chase in The Last Crusade.)

At that point Willow and Meegosh would reach Brownie Island, where they would be reunited with Madmartigan, and would be told by the Brownie sage to seek the sorceress Fin Raziel. The sage would give Willow three magic acorns, in a scene that occurs much earlier in the actual film.

Since the trio would likely be traveling overland, the Brownies would probably not come with them. I'm assuming that at this very early stage, Meegosh was a more central character to the quest, and would continue to be present throughout the film. Presumably his later excision was to avoid hewing too closely to Tolkien's mold--he's absent almost entirely from the third-revision script, but has a somewhat more visible role in the finished film.

Now, if the idea of a magical island in the center of a lake was reserved for the Brownie home at this early stage, then some other idea must have been planned for Fin Raziel's dwelling place. We know that at this early stage, it was thought that the heroes might reach Tir Asleen by water, and would have to confront a sea monster guarding the way. In later scripts this sea monster is transferred to Fin Raziel's island, and the way to Tir Asleen is through a subterranean cave, guarded by a dragon, located in the barren mountains beneath Bavmorda's castle.

Suppose that in this early outline those two guardian monsters were reversed. So that Fin Raziel's dwelling place would be a lone tree in the midst of a barren wasteland, at whose roots lies the opening of a cave that houses a ferocious monster, possibly a two-headed dragon already.

In the third-revision script Fin Raziel, currently incarnated as a tree-dwelling rodent, perches on a magical tree whose inner core is made of solid gold. This is an obvious borrowing from The Hidden Fortress, where the gold bars of the Akizuki clan are hidden inside firewood sticks. But, if this tree grew above a sinister cave with a monster lurking inside, it would have another parallel to a Lucas production: The Empire Strikes Back.

In ESB, the script directions for the sinister cave on Dagobah, where Luke sees a vision of Darth Vader, specify that the cave has a "magic tree" growing atop its entrance. Lucas may have wanted to reuse this idea in the context of a fantasy film.

Which actually makes for an interesting twist on the traditional fairy-tale trope: the dragon in his lair guards a hoard of treasure hidden inside an ordinary-looking tree, and the beautiful princess whom he has kidnapped is currently trapped in the form of a rodent. (Given that Cherlindrea did not exist yet, Fin Raziel may have originally appeared as a beautiful young woman, not an elderly one, when restored to human form.) The surrounding wasteland fits into dragon lore as well, since dragons were traditionally thought to inhabit dry, desolate landscapes.

Madmartigan or Meegosh would likely have tried to steal some of the golden branches, awakening the dragon. The resulting battle scene would end with Madmartigan slaying it... only for Bavmorda's troops, led by Sorsha, to come upon them and capture them all. At this early stage, the heroes did not need the brownies' help to escape from Sorsha, like they do in the final film; Willow freed himself with magic as late as the third-revision script. It's also at this point that he transforms Fin Raziel into a bird--originally because a flying lookout would be extremely useful on the sea voyage to Tir Asleen.

From there the heroes would go on to visit a ruined human castle, where Madmartigan would be proclaimed the new king by the reawakened twelve knights of a fallen monarch, and then everyone would journey to Tir Asleen itself, where a major battle would take place, Sorsha would change sides, and Airk's army would relieve King Kael's siege of the Elven city.

One other thing I've noticed, in terms of mythological parallels, is that, since the good Elf king of Tir Asleen had a daughter with evil Bavmorda, I suspect Sorsha might have been modeled partially on Sir Mordred of Arthurian legend. Which would make Bavmorda the equivalent of Mordred's mother, Morgan le Fay, who seduced and bedded King Arthur to conceive a child who would further her own villainous ends.

 

some great art there.

 

Here is a rather long summary of how I believe the plot of Willow stood at the point when Moebius did his concept art:

Willow Ufgood, a diminutive Nelwyn, finds a human baby, Elora Danan, who is being pursued by the armies of the sorceress Bavmorda. To keep his village safe, Willow knows he must return the baby to the world of the humans. He sets out accompanied by his best friend Meegosh. The duo do not get far before they meet Mad Martigan (then so spelled), a great human swordsman who is currently in a position of dishonor. The idea of having Madmartigan imprisoned in a cage at a crossroads may already have existed.

At this point we are also introduced to Airk Thaughbaer, Mad Martigan’s old comrade-in-arms. Airk is riding with an army to confront the sorceress Bavmorda, who has just destroyed the great castle of Galladoorn, which belonged to Airk’s king.

After much debate, Willow and Meegosh free Mad Martigan, entrusting him with the baby, and begin to return home. However, they are kidnapped by trolls and imprisoned in their underground lair. The Nelwyns also see that the trolls have kidnapped Elora Danan.

Fortunately, the Nelwyns and Elora are rescued by two brownies, small water sprites who lead them to a waiting boat. The trolls pursue them in their own boats, and a dramatic river chase ensues.

At last the trolls lose the chase—possibly by being killed by sunlight when dawn breaks, or maybe via a flood of water summoned by the Brownie Elder, like that called up by Elrond to defeat the Black Riders in The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Nelwyns travel on to Brownie Island, where they are reunited with Mad Martigan. Here the Brownie Elder tells them that they must take Elora Danan to the benevolent sorceress Fin Raziel, who lives in a wasteland. She can lead them to the hidden Elf city of Tir Asleen, where Elora Danan will be safe.

The Brownie Elder gives three magic acorns to Willow, which will turn to stone whatever they are thrown at. In the third-revision script the fairy queen Cherlindrea, who replaced the Brownie Elder, gives them to Willow, but in the final film they are given to him by the Nelwyn village’s elder, the High Aldwin.

Mad Martigan and the Nelwyns set out on their journey with the child. Because the Brownies are water sprites, and they will be traveling overland, presumably they leave the Brownies behind. In the final film Meegosh would depart at this point, being replaced by two Brownies (who are no longer associated with water).

They stop briefly at an inn, where they are discovered by Bavmorda’s troops, led by Sorsha. Mad Martigan is struck by Sorsha’s beauty, but she demands he hand over the child. As in the finished film, a chase through the woods on horse-drawn carts and chariots ensues.

The heroes elude their pursuers, and finally reach the wasteland of Fin Raziel. Here there is nothing but barren sand and rock, except for one lone tree in the middle.

Mad Martigan recounts the legend that the tree in Fin Raziel’s dwelling place is made of solid gold. When they approach, Meegosh starts breaking off the branches of the tree, and discovers that while the exterior is covered in bark, the inner core is indeed golden. (I suspect that in this early version of the film, Meegosh was principally a comic-relief character. In the third-revision script, where the tree is still present but Meegosh is gone, Madmartigan takes over the role of the greedy branch-picker.)

Meanwhile, Willow notices a tree-dwelling creature nestled among the branches. It’s Fin Raziel! She explains that she was cursed by Bavmorda, and that they themselves are in dire danger. Meegosh continues to pile up branches… but then a monstrous two-headed dragon emerges from a cave beneath the roots of the tree!

The dragon incinerates the golden branches with its flaming breath. A battle ensues, and Mad Martigan kills it. Relieved, the heroes turn around… and find Sorsha and King Kael, Bavmorda’s lieutenant, at the head of an army there. Sorsha captures them and takes them with her.

If you’ve seen the final film, you may have noticed that I made no mention of Willow’s magic wand. That’s because early on there wasn’t one. In the early version, Fin Raziel told Willow that he needed to create a philosopher’s stone before he could do magic. This took the place of the magic wand; in fact, it actually survived as long as the third-revision script.

While Sorsha’s army is encamped, Willow manages to gather the ingredients and create the philosopher’s stone, which he uses to set himself and Mad Martigan free. He also transforms Fin Raziel into a bird, like in the final movie. Also as in the final film, Mad Martigan goes into Sorsha’s tent to rescue Elora Danan, but finds himself sidetracked by the sleeping Sorsha.

Apparently the concept artists—and not just Moebius, judging by other art on the film’s Blu-ray—imagined Sorsha as sleeping naked beneath fur sheets. She was given a nightgown in the final film, though.

Willow, Mad Martigan, and Meegosh manage to escape with the baby. I believe that at this early stage, their escape was on horseback, as opposed to the impromptu sled scene of the final film.

The heroes take refuge in an ominous-looking ruined castle—it’s Galladoorn! Bavmorda’s troops ride behind them in pursuit. However, our protagonists are sheltered by the remnants of Airk’s army, who are hiding in the ruins. King Kael’s army does a cursory search, but fails to find them.

Mad Martigan asks Airk and his soldiers to accompany them on the way to Tir Asleen. Airk refuses, believing that the Elven kingdom is a myth. Meanwhile, Willow has used his magic to restore twelve of the kingdom’s greatest knights, who were petrified by Bavmorda when the castle fell.

The knights, hearing Mad Martigan’s plea, agree to make the perilous journey with him. Not only that: they are so impressed by his courage that they decide to make him the new King. Wearing a shining suit of royal armor, Mad Martigan leads the party to the seashore, where they take ship in hopes of finding Tir Asleen. Meegosh, however, fearing for his life, would likely stay behind with Airk.

Fin Raziel flies overhead as a bird, guiding them on the right path. The way to Tir Asleen is guarded, however. A huge sea monster attacks the boat! Five of the knights are killed, but Willow turns the monster to stone with a magic acorn.

The boat arrives at Tir Asleen, and the heroes are taken to meet with the Elf King, Sorsha’s father. Mad Martigan pleads with him to send his army into the mortal realm and defeat Bavmorda, but the King refuses to get involved in human affairs.

Suddenly there is a commotion at the castle walls: Bavmorda’s army has followed the heroes to Tir Asleen, and is besieging the city!

During the chaos of the fight, Sorsha sees her father for the first time, and realizes the depth of Bavmorda’s evil. She switches sides, saving Mad Martigan’s life.

Willow uses his second magic acorn during the battle, but fails to affect the outcome. All seems lost—until Airk shows up with the remainder of his army—and Meegosh! Airk was shamed by Mad Martigan’s example, and followed Bavmorda’s soldiers to Tir Asleen.

Unfortunately, King Kael has managed to steal Elora Danan during the fighting. He rides back to Bavmorda’s fortress of Nockmaar with it. Willow and Meegosh, Mad Martigan and his men, Sorsha, Airk and his army, and the king of Tir Asleen with his knights, all follow.

As in the final film, Bavmorda turns the entire army (save Willow, who has protected himself using the magic of the philosopher’s stone) into pigs. At this point Willow performs his greatest act of sorcery yet, restoring Fin Raziel’s human shape so that she can undo Bavmorda’s curse.

I suspect that, with the character of Cherlindrea not existing yet, Fin Raziel would have been restored to the form of a young, beautiful woman, as she only supposes she is meant to be in the final film. When Cherlindrea was added, Fin Raziel may have been rewritten as more of a female-Gandalf character.

As in the final movie, Willow hatches a plan to deceive Bavmorda into opening the gates for the heroes’ army. They all charge in. King Kael attacks and kills Airk, but his death is avenged by Mad Martigan, who kills Kael immediately afterward. (Airk is an obvious stand-in for Tolkien's Theoden, who leads an army to relieve the siege of Gondor, but dies when the Witch-King attacks.)

Fin Raziel and Bavmorda have a magical battle, but it is Willow who defeats her using his sleight of hand. Elora Danan is saved and goodness restored.

In the ending scene we see Mad Martigan as the king of a beautifully restored Galladoorn, with Sorsha as his queen, and Fin Raziel and the Elf King at their sides. Willow is presented with a Book of Magic, and he and Meegosh return home to their village as heroes. The ending here would likely have referenced the rough draft of SW 1977, which in turn referenced that of The Hidden Fortress.

 

I must say I was pleased to figure out that the dragon in the early story would destroy the branches of the golden tree by breathing fire on them. That's apparently another Hidden Fortress homage, as at one point in that film the protagonists are caught up in a fire festival, and they have to throw their firewood into the blaze to maintain their disguise.

 

Re: the Magic Tree/ESB connection:

I was rereading The Making of ESB and it says that originally, the sinister Magic Tree on Dagobah (which was transformed into a cave in the final film) was to have a guardian creature of sorts, a lobster-like beast with claws that snap at Luke as he passes into the cave beneath the tree roots. This was likely dropped because it just wasn't necessary, given the drama of Luke's encounter with the phantom Vader. However, the concept went as far as having Ralph McQuarrie do sketches for the "tree creature."

The combined ideas of a sinister magic tree, a cave, and a guardian creature all suggest that this unused idea was recycled in the early plot of Willow, as I've reconstructed it. But by the third-revision script of Willow, the respective ideas of the magic tree with its monstrous guardian, and the cave with a fire-breathing two-headed dragon, were split up into two different sequences. And of course the magic tree--and its associated monster, now a sea creature--would end up entirely cut from the final film. (For good reason--in the deleted footage shown on the Blu-Ray, the mechanical sea monster they used doesn't look very convincing. Rather like the shark in Jaws, but with the unfortunate difference that, this being a fantasy film, the audience has to see the creature to be scared of it.)

 

So I just sat down and actually watched Mad Max 2 in full for the very first time. (Better late than never!) What struck me about it is how very much it feels like an Akira Kurosawa film. The denizens of the film's fortified village, besieged for their gasoline by the gang of The Humongous, resemble greatly the peasants who are preyed on by bandits in Seven Samurai, while Mad Max himself is pretty much Toshiro Mifune's wandering ronin from Yojimbo.

The latter point especially leaped out at me because, at the climax of the film's second act, Max gets a swollen-shut black eye which remains for the rest of the film.* Toshiro Mifune got a quite similar black eye at the same point in Yojimbo, and so did Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's spaghetti-Western remake of that film, A Fistful of Dollars. So Lucas would definitely have caught on to the Kurosawa homages going on here--which in turn explains his interest in homaging Mad Max in Willow (as well as later SW films).

As an aside, the third-draft script for ANH calls for Princess Leia to appear "bloody and mutilated" as a result of her torture by the Imperials. I suspect that Lucas had in mind bruise makeup resembling the above examples of Mifune and Eastwood, swollen-shut eye and all. The idea was probably junked because it would be a pain to apply the makeup to the actress playing Leia for pretty much the entire second half of the film.

*Although, unlike in Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars, the injury here permanently affects Max's vision: in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome we see he has a permanently dilated pupil, after the fashion of David Bowie.

 

I'm now thinking that they could've crossed this bridge somehow and earned Leia an eye-patch. Lord, that would've been glorious, Leia with an eye-patch. Maybe then ESB would be a little closer to its "greatest thing of all" reputation.

 

I don't think Leia was ever actually going to lose an eye, just have one be swollen shut for a while. A medical eyepatch during her scenes on Yavin IV would definitely have been cool, though.

Also, having just watched Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, I was highly amused when Max was introduced during the Thunderdome duel as "the Man With No Name." Further evidence of the Kurosawa/Leone parallels going on there.

 

I've been thinking about the relations between SW and Willow some more, and something from the Moebius concept art suddenly leaped out at me.



Look carefully at Sorsha's neck. She's clearly wearing an amulet of some sort.

This isn't just a one-off detail, either. The third-revision script of Willow notes that, when Madmartigan sees her sleeping in her tent, "Upon her breast is a golden necklet, inlaid with ornate jewels."

Why does this detail recur? What is its significance?

The answer comes from the 1974 SW rough draft. In that script Princess Leia wears a golden medallion around her neck with the royal crest of Aquilae on it, betokening her royal status. The first thing Annikin Starkiller does when he arrives to escort her to safety is to rip the royal medallion off Leia's neck and give it to a handmaiden to wear.

For the final film, Lucas obviously wanted Sorsha to have the red hair of Leia Aquilae from the rough draft. However, working from early concepts where Sorsha was an Elf, Moebius made her a blonde. Still, I think the idea that Sorsha, like Leia Aquilae, wears a royal medallion around her neck is the obvious conclusion here.

In which case, in the early version of the Willow storyline, the medallion would be the proof of her true identity to her father, the Elf King of Tir Asleen, from whom she was stolen by Bavmorda at a young age. It would be the catalyst in Sorsha's turn to the side of the good guys. As such, it's pretty dang important.

Presumably, therefore, we would have gotten a good look at the medallion lying on her chest when Madmartigan steals into her tent. It's worth noting that this particular scene, where Madmartigan falls in love with Sorsha as he looks at her sleeping, was originally supposed to have Sorsha sleeping naked. The idea for this scene comes from William Morris's 1896 fantasy novel The Well at the World's End (a particular favorite of J.R.R. Tolkien), wherein the hero first realizes he's really in love with the heroine when he accidentally sees her naked.

Now, given that we need to get a good look at the medallion on her chest in this scene, to set up future events, and that Sorsha is sleeping in the buff, we were very likely going to see bare breasts on film here. In which case we have another parallel with the SW rough draft's Leia Aquilae, whom Lucas apparently wanted to have running around topless during the film's finale. (Hey, it was the Seventies.)

Of course, in the final film, Sorsha wears a nightgown. Family-friendliness won out.

But then again it's probably good we were spared the medallion as a plot device, as it's quite likely too reminiscent of Spaceballs to be taken seriously.

 

Sorsha's hairstyle in the Moebius concept art above--a shaved head with a topknot of hair--appears to derive from that of Etzel, king of the barbaric Huns, in Fritz Lang's 1924 epic Die Nibelungen:



Leia Aquilae's hairstyle in the 1974 SW rough draft--long hair pulled into twin braids--comes from the hairdo sported by the heroine Kriemhild in the same film.

Sorsha's hair as envisioned by Moebius, presumably with Lucas's approval, would later be seen on Prince Xizor from Shadows of the Empire.



Also, given the unused idea of a bare-breasted Sorsha sleeping on a bed with a royal medallion on her chest, one has to wonder if James Cameron took an interest in the development of the movie, as it's quite reminiscent of a certain scene in Titanic. Kate Winslet even has red hair in that movie, like Sorsha in the final film--who got it from the original Leia Aquilae.

 

The idea for the scene where Madmartigan enters Sorsha's tent and glimpses her naked is not the only thing Lucas took from William Morris for Willow.

Morris's 1896 fantasy novel The Well at the World's End is a chronicle of a young man, Ralph of Upmeads, who sets out to find a magical far-off Well that grants long life and strength of will. For much of the journey he is accompanied by a girl named Ursula, and they eventually fall in love.

At one point in the novel, as the pair are being pursued by the troops of the evil Lord of Utterbol, they must cross a treacherous maze of rocky passages at the foot of a mountain range. They are led safely through the maze by the guidance of the Sage of Swevenham, a local hermit and wise man.

After this Ralph and Ursula come into a pleasant valley. It's at this point that we find the inspiration for the scene of Sorsha in her tent: as Ursula is bathing, she is attacked by a bear, and runs away naked and screaming in fright. Ralph kills the bear and saves her life. The sight of Ursula naked is what finally gets him to realize that yes, he really is in love with her.

Beyond the valley is a vast, arid desert. In the midst of this desert is its central landmark, the Dry Tree. This ancient, withered tree has poisoned water surrounding its roots; the evil magic of the tree compels men to drink from it. Ralph nearly does so, but a warning from Ursula saves his life. After this they journey onward to the Well of the World's End, drink from it, and ultimately return to Ralph's home.

Morris's book was a big favorite of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both. (Did I mention that the evil Lord of Utterbol is named Gandolf?) It was available in an Ace paperback in the 1970s, so it's not surprising that Lucas would have read it.

The scene with the rocky maze, through which the heroes are led by the Sage of Swevenham, inspired a similar maze in the shooting script of Willow. Madmartigan and Willow, pursued by the evil soldiers of Bavmorda, must find a path through a stony labyrinth to reach the lost castle of Tir Asleen. They are guided safely through it by the sorceress Fin Raziel, who flies overhead in the form of a bird. (Fin Raziel herself may owe something to Morris--one of his novel's characters is the Lady of Abundance, a potent sorceress and Marian goddess figure, who likely also helped inspire Tolkien's Galadriel.)

The Dry Tree also has an echo in early story concepts for Willow. Early on, Fin Raziel was apparently going to be found perched on a lone tree in the midst of a vast desert. As in Morris's book, the tree was dangerous--because it marked the entrance to the cave of a hungry two-headed dragon. The tree was also going to be alluring, as with Morris's version, but here because its interior was solid gold (an idea taken from the gold concealed in firewood in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress).

The Well at the World's End inspired things not only in Willow, but also in the early drafts of the film that would become Star Wars. For instance, in the SW second draft Luke Starkiller's ultimate goal is to rescue his father from the armies of the Empire--as Ralph of Upmeads does for his own father, King Peter, by driving a horde of bandits out of his kingdom at the end of the book. (This was likewise the basis for Tolkien's Scouring of the Shire.)

Incidentally, Fritz Lang also uses trees as a symbol of evil in his film Die Nibelungen: every time trees are seen onscreen they represent death.

 

In both the novel and the comic book adaptations of Willow, Willow and Meegosh share a rhyming chant that illustrates their old friendship: "Round the bend! Fat rear end! He's a donkey; I'm your friend!"

This is actually the antecedent of the University Club toast shared by Henry Jones, Sr. and Marcus Brody in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "The... Genius of the Restoration... Aid our own resuscitation!"

As I noted earlier in the thread, early story outlines for Willow appear to have featured a boat chase down a river as the climax of the film's first act, which was also recycled in Last Crusade as the Venice speedboat chase (at a similar point in the film, even).

 

Actually, looking more closely at the Moebius concept art of Sorsha, he appears to be experimenting with two different hairstyles for her in the left and right sides of the drawing.



On the left side, Sorsha has a full head of blonde hair, with twin braids in front of her ears. This is based on the hairstyle Kriemhild wears in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen, which was also what was intended for Leia Aquilae (though with red hair) in the SW 1974 rough draft.

On the right side, Sorsha instead has a shaved head with a topknot, like King Etzel in Die Nibelungen (or, say, Prince Xizor).

In the same vein, Moebius in his storyboard drawings drew two different variants of Madmartigan's kingly battle armor. One version had him wearing a golden suit of armor with a blue cape and a white-plumed Roman helmet (a design used in modified form in the final film). The other design was a silver suit of armor with a red cape and silver wings on his helmet, rather like Jack Kirby's Thor or Tolkien's Gondorian soldiers.

 

Like Sorsha, Princess Leia was conceived by George Lucas at different times as being either a blonde or a redhead. Leia Aquilae from the 1974 SW rough draft had red hair, but around the time of the third draft, Lucas seems to have imagined Leia Organa as a blonde who looked almost exactly like Luke Starkiller. The idea was to visually represent the fact that she was Luke's soul mate and female counterpart. This ultimately led to the later idea of her being Luke's flesh-and-blood sister.

Sorsha's original blonde hair presumably was meant as a marker of her half-Elven heritage (along with, I suspect, pointy ears, though unlike the other Elves she is of human stature). Moebius drew her father the Elf King as blond, and blond hair is a traditional trait of mythological Elves. (Although Moebius was careful to include Elves of color in his sketches of the diminutive warrior Elves of Tir Asleen.) Probably Sorsha's hair color changed to red when her father was re-conceived as a human king, along the lines of Leia Aquilae's father King Kayos.

Also, there's a scene from Die Nibelungen that probably influenced the Sorsha-sleeping-in-her-tent scene.

It takes place nine months after Etzel (AKA Attila the Hun) has married Kriemhild, when his armies are besieging Rome. Etzel is sleeping in his tent, while outside, his Hun troops are bemoaning their inactivity. One of them sneaks into his lord's tent and finds him sleeping. Seeing this, he comes back out and tells the others. The soldiers break into a rowdy song about how Kriemhild, the "white woman," has emasculated their leader. Etzel is woken up by the noise and comes out of his tent, sword in hand, to give them a good thrashing. The fight is interrupted by the arrival of a messenger, who announces that Kriemhild has borne Etzel a son.

In Willow, Madmartigan enters the sleeping Sorsha's tent and is immediately struck by her beauty (the element of him being under the influence of a love potion is not present in the earliest scripts). He wakes Sorsha up--by kissing her, at least in the later script drafts. Immediately, she is on guard, with a drawn knife pressed to his crotch. At this point in the original conception of the scene, she also grabs hold of the bed covers to conceal her nudity. Madmartigan woos her as she listens skeptically, but they are soon interrupted by General/King Kael, who has found Willow outside the tent.

Given the overall similarity of this scene with Fritz Lang's film, it's not surprising that Lucas contemplated giving Sorsha a fierce-looking barbarian hairstyle modeled on that of Etzel. (It would also have given her a certain similarity to Moebius's Madmartigan, who also bears a partial tonsure.)

 

Let's take a closer look at Moebius's concept art for Mad Martigan (then so spelled):



Madmartigan's outfit here is strongly reminiscent of a fisherman. He has the Asian conical hat typically associated with fishermen and rice-paddy farmers. He carries a long staff; traditional Asian fishing poles are little more than a bit of string tied on the end of a long, flexible stick. And Moebius has drawn him sitting down, staff in hand, on sloping ground, quite possibly a riverbank.

In the final film of Willow, the High Aldwin tells Willow to "follow the river" until he gets to the great crossroads. However, we see hardly anything of this river as the Nelwyns supposedly follow its banks, or even when they reach the crossroads. This may actually be a remnant from an earlier conception of the story, in which Willow and Meegosh would first encounter Madmartigan fishing along the riverbank next to the crossroads.

Presumably at this point, an army would ride past, whose commander would urge Madmartigan to join it in the battle against Bavmorda. Madmartigan would refuse, seeing it as pointless folly to send an ordinary army to fight Bavmorda's magic. However, Madmartigan would accept Elora Danan from Willow, out of the kindness of his heart.

Madmartigan the fisherman is an image borrowed directly from Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky, which was also a notable influence on SW. In that film we are first introduced to Alexander Nevsky, exiled Prince of Novgorod, when we see him fishing along the shores of Lake Neva. A delegation from the Mongol khan of the Crimea arrives to speak with him, offering him a position as the head of their armies. Alexander refuses, not wanting to abandon his homeland when it is threatened by an impending German invasion. However, when a group of villagers from Novgorod arrives, pleading with him to return to their city and fight the Germans, he accepts.

By the third-revision script of Willow, Lucas seemingly made a decision to make Madmartigan more cowardly, self-serving, and comedic. (Quite likely as the result of excising the original comic-relief character, Meegosh, from the script.) Thus, on screen we see Madmartigan imprisoned in a cage by the roadside for deserting his army; as the army passes by, he begs to be let out to join the fight, but is rebuffed. Madmartigan's subsequent adoption of Elora Danan is for purely mercenary reasons, as, in exchange for taking her, Willow lets him out of his cage.

In a similar vein, the final film's scene where Willow is reunited with Madmartigan--dressed in drag in a sleazy tavern, hitting on a woman--was apparently not the original idea, as Moebius's painting of the Brownie Island shows. Apparently early on the Brownies found Madmartigan and reunited him with Willow and Meegosh, thus assembling a team (a Fellowship?) for the protection of Elora Danan.

 

Also, the idea of it being a fisherman (Madmartigan) who volunteers to raise the lost baby is probably another borrowing from C.S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy, where a Calormene fisherman named Arsheesh was Shasta/Cor's foster father.

There may also be something of a reference to Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, which features a poor woodcutter adopting a newborn baby left abandoned at a shrine.