‘Willow’ tv sequel on Disney+

I loved the original.

But would it be good without the sexy Val Kilmer? Half the good of the movie was how attractive he was.

R2 Kilmer looked insanely hot shooting WILLOW, and he played an extremely cool charismatic character besides (show-stealing, really - sorry, Warwick!) His performance is likely the reason older teens & adults connected with it as powerfully as the young kids & tweens who came for the magic & dragons & sword-fighting.

Apparently Madmartigan is considered as a prototype character for Han Solo; I don’t acknowledge much similarity myself, and always thought Solo was a smirking boring sulking jackass with a plain face who lacked the playful virile vivacity of Madmartigan, personally.

I just learned recently that Val ad-libbed over half of his lines & quips, including some of his sexy romantic overtures to Joanne Whalley’s Sorsha. Maybe that’s part of why she fell in love with him; I know most women & gays would love to hear a man as gorgeous as he was then spouting steamy worshipful poetry half-naked....

^^urggg I meant ‘expy character’ not ‘prototype’. I know Star Wars came out long before Willow. Please can we conjure up an edit button sometime, Grand High Muriel?

Warwick has been giving some excellent interviews about the original film lately, though he’s clearly been asked to neither confirm nor deny the go-ahead for the new series.

He says that for the movie he had to take baby classes as well as learn sword stunts, which as a teen he was not happy about. Though there was also a mechanical & a plush Elora for certain shots, Warwick to his credit actually carried a real human baby for much of the film and that lent real credence to the storytelling (a quality lacking in latter-day LucasFilm productions....)

He also hates working with horses thanks to a scary incident in childhood with his sister’s horse, but he had to suck it up to ride and do horse-stunts for much of WILLOW anyway. He says Kilmer used to mess with him about it, which is funny.

[quote] DAVIS: I was kind of suppressing my fear most of the time....Kilmer used to wind me up because he loved his horse to be particularly frisky and full of energy. Well, I like mine to be really placid and sleeping and dopey. He used to actually try to rile his horse up a bit before the take so it would be trotting around ... Mine would then start getting a little of that energy as well. I'd be like, "Val, stop doing that." He used to really have fun in seeing me get stressed out.

One of the things I love most about the movie is that the male action-hero/Prince/lover stock character (Madmartigan) is one eroticised and sexualised for the audience rather than his female counterpart Sorsha.

Not that Sorsha isn’t beautiful, attractive & sexy - she is, and a thousand fanboys who grew up lusting after her agree. But it wasn’t because she looked like a whore or acted come-hither that she garnered so much admiration. In fact at no point in the film was she depicted as a beguiling sex kitten or a generally-desirous woman (only Madmartigan openly lusts after her), and her body is not forced into erotic posture or costume barring one scene when she wears a sculpted armor bodice with inset tits.

For the most part Sorsha is seen in baggy, shapeless or functional military clothing that covers almost her entire body neck to toe. Even during a confrontation with her lover Madmartigan (across her own bed, her less) she is pillow-creased, barefoot and wearing an ankle-length shift of a sacklike material with no convenient sexy rips or slips. In this scene and all others she has her face ‘bare’ (stage makeup done to look undone, no red-lip or liner here) with hair rat-knotted & uncombed just like a warrior princess in pre-Medieval times - while we’re on the subject, Xena looks more like a Barbie doll than rugged realistic Sorsha.

She is a sexually-motivated & interested woman who flirts and ably uses innuendo, of course, but she doesn’t gussy herself up or even act in a hyperfeminine way to express her libido. Her first display of attraction toward her eventual lover & husband Madmartigan is when she sneers down at him (in chains) from where she sits on horseback and then kicks him in the face with her muddy combat-issue flat boots. Even her sword suggests this, with its rusty black serrated edge more forbidding & industrial than inviting & seductive.

Madmartigan stands in total contrast to this, in that we the audience see his body in various states of undress or erotic glamorised states as often as the movie can manage to swing it. He frequently has his shirt open or off to reveal a tanned sweaty chest littered with a fine dusting of hair and pretty pendants; he swings his long sleek braided tresses around as much as his beautiful sword; and excepting one weird scene where he’s in drag (seriously, he successfully comes on to a bearlike dude at one point to get out of a bad situation) he is generally attired in ridiculously tight leggings or barely-effective skin-baring ‘armor’ designed to look sexy & princely over warlike. He also seems to be wearing smoky kohl around his eyes in a good few scenes, and demonstrates a a fighting style that incorporates graceful quasi-balletic moves designed to show him off as lissom as well as tough & alpha. When he flirts he is outwardly emotional and sensual in speech and action, while still taking initiative in a clinch or where it counts. His character is a fascinating and refreshing take on the tired anti-heroic roving Warrior trope. It’s clear why Sorsha falls for him and he for her, and the fans for both of them.

All this to say: Madmartigan & Sorsha are full-blooded hot, horny, and kickass lover characters without being underwritten as erotic dolls and that should be appreciated. It’s unlikely a sequel will pull off the same feat with a new pair of heroes, sadly.

It's crazy to me that Davis was 17/18 when this was filmed. He looked...older.

And he was playing a married father-of-two kids to boot, R7!

It’s an incredible performance when you realise Warwick had just left school and hadn’t seriously acted before, only to lead this entire big-budget production doing most of his own stunts as well. He doesn’t get nearly enough credit for that.

"Wiiiiiillllllllooooooowwwww"

[quote]Script is complete (by the writer of SOLO)

Do we really need to know anything more than it was penned by the writer for Solo?

R10 I’m not hopeful. It’s such a pity Lucas & Howard are so willing to jeopardise the legacy of a good creative cult-classic movie for the sake of a Netflix deal, when it’s not like they need the money or the clout.

Plus it’s such ugly nepotism and coat-tail riding. The HW Jonathan Kasdan is the less-successful son of longtime Lucasfilm collaborator Lawrence who co-wrote THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RETURN OF THE JEDI, and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK as well as BODY HEAT. They could have given anyone with a better track-record a shot instead of examining pedigree like that means something. Talent isn't inherent.

Lucas and Howard have absolutely NO say in the matter.

Lucas sold Lucasfilm and it's entire library to Disney.

Disney, as they say, can do as they please.

Will Jean Marsh return as Bavmorda?

R13 that would be wonderful. Jean Marsh OBE is a legend of British stage & screen, after all. If Christopher Lee can perform beautifully as Saruman in his 90s then there’s no reason not to have Marsh back as Bavmorda. Having said that, a few years ago she was too unwell to complete work on the rebooted ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ (of which she is the co-creator) and she has kept a very light schedule since. There’s also the fact to consider whether her character or Sorsha’s will return at all, and if Joanne Whalley will make an appearance.

Marsh’s commanding performance in the original is superb; you can’t look away.

No R13 ! I have Cherlindrea's wand, and I banished her to the Netherworld.

It’s the ideal DL movie when the climactic battle is between two wizened old queens.

No word on whether James Horner is scoring this time...

Holy shit, I had no idea Davis was so young when he filmed Willow either. He was excellent.

I bought the film on Blu-Ray and watched it again, and it still holds up for me. Val is very sexy in it. Whalley-Kilmer was great as well.

No-one could touch Val for gorgeousness and charisma from 1987-1990. He had IT. It’s nice to remember how great it was back in those days just to enjoy how hot and how pretty he was, without knowing what a colossal abusive evangelising douchebag he was to become. His talent and his beauty was wasted on his personality.

I discovered recently that he has a significant percentage of Native blood (Cherokee, I think?), which is interesting as Madmartigan has certain elements of a High Plains Brave in his look.