Willow

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

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

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

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

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

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


 * Shadow Moon (1995)
 * Shadow Dawn
 * Shadow Star.

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

Trivia

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

DVD release
Willow was released on DVD on November 27, 2001. The film was presented in anamorphic widescreen in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, with its sound remixed in 5.1 surround sound.

Features:


 * Available Subtitles: English
 * Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
 * Commentary by: Warwick Davis (Unknown Format)
 * "Willow: The Making of an Adventure" (original 1988 featurette)
 * "From Morf to Morphing: The Dawn of Digital Filmmaking"
 * TV spots and trailers
 * Photo gallery