Willow, the sequel to Willow, gets a trailer featuring Willow

May 26, 2022 3:40 PM

Willow trailer (SLYT) via The Verge Plans for a movie were scrapped, so we get a whole series now, and it premieres November 30th on Disney Plus. Warwick Davis and Joann Whalley are back.
posted by soelo (38 comments total)

Ooo I did not know this, so excited!
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 3:57 PM on May 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I just squealed so hard I think I summoned all the dogs in the county.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:01 PM on May 26, 2022 [7 favorites]

I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and the stomach of the girl with this poster on her bedroom wall.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:04 PM on May 26, 2022 [18 favorites]

OH. MY. GOD. I didn't think anything would make me give in and get Disney+, but this is it. They've done it.

Willow was my absolute favorite film as a child. At one time, my brother and I could essentially recite the entire thing line by line. Warwick Davis is like my personal archetype of what a hero should be, and hearing him speak as Willow again just gave me chills. I am so excited for this, and to get to see Willow as the wise elder rather than the young acolyte.
posted by biogeo at 4:05 PM on May 26, 2022 [11 favorites]

this poster

Don't I know you..? I stole the baby from you, Daikini! While you were taking a pee-pee!
posted by biogeo at 4:09 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Here's how I imagine this got greenlighted:

Kathleen Kennedy: Warwick! Great to see you, it's been—
Warwick Davis: I've paid my dues. You owe me. I want a TV show.
Kathleen Kennedy: ...fair enough.
posted by The Tensor at 4:26 PM on May 26, 2022 [21 favorites]

Damn Warwick lookin' fine!
posted by The otter lady at 4:30 PM on May 26, 2022 [7 favorites]

“Mom, can we have Lord of the Rings?”

“No, we have Lord of the Rings at home.”
posted by leotrotsky at 4:32 PM on May 26, 2022 [6 favorites]

I wouldn't mind so much if Hollywood spent so much energy mining Gen X nostalgia, if it weren't such an endlessly renewable, sustainable, and desirable resource
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:36 PM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's not gonna be an adaptation of Shadow Moon is it?
posted by SansPoint at 4:57 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

WILLLOOOOW! YOU FOOOOOOL! YOU TURNED ME INTO A GOOOOOOOAT!

“No, we have Lord of the Rings at home.”

Yeah this "McDonald's at home" metaphor only holds for Willow if the "McDonald's at home" is 100x better than going to McDonald's because Willow is fucking AWESOME.

LoTR at home: "Oh, fuck, not another elf!"
posted by loquacious at 5:20 PM on May 26, 2022 [8 favorites]

It's not gonna be an adaptation of Shadow Moon is it?
posted by SansPoint at 4:57 PM on May 26

God I hope not. The series proved to me there's nothing George Lucas can't ruin. Nerdist.com has a run down on the series highlighting some of the problems.
posted by fiercekitten at 5:22 PM on May 26, 2022

If we're going to burn the toxic brown coal of nostalgia, giving Warwick Davis a high profile* starring role after nearly 35 years of hard, consistent work as actor, agent, presenter, theatre promoter and (while I suspect he may balk at the term himself, I think it is appropriate in the general sense) activist, is as good a purpose as any I can see.

* no, Leprechaun doesn't count
posted by howfar at 5:23 PM on May 26, 2022 [20 favorites]

I need to be a streaming executive, "Top Gun... Jurassic Park, oh yeah Willow. Okay I worked 5 minutes today see you later."
posted by geoff. at 5:43 PM on May 26, 2022 [7 favorites]

Leprechaun does too count. I will die on the “Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood is actually a Good Film” hill.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:44 PM on May 26, 2022 [9 favorites]

Ya know I really enjoyed the Lucas/Claremont trilogy, but also I was a kid so who knows. It probably sucked. I remember liking the dragons.
posted by hototogisu at 5:47 PM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Those of you who've missed Warwick, he's been on WILTY a few times.
posted by dobbs at 5:52 PM on May 26, 2022 [8 favorites]

I hope they bring that two-headed monster back.
posted by Runes at 5:57 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

So, it looks like they used some of the ideas in the sequel books in developing this, from what was shown.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:29 PM on May 26, 2022

I've seen trailers for all the Fantasy series that have come out / are coming out on streaming, including "Wheel of Time" and "Lord of the Rings". Is it just me, or does this one have a different vibe? It's a lighter touch than most of the others and has a distinctly D&D Adventure feeling, which is entirely appropriate given the original film.

This is all to say that I'm grooving to this.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:31 PM on May 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

* no, Leprechaun doesn't count

Maybe it's not high profile, but Davis has said that it is one of his favourite roles because he got to chew the scenery and had a lot of fun being so bad.

I'm another one who idolized the character of Willow (and Warwick Davis in reflection of the character). He was not the typical hero-type - he's older, married and a father - which made him so much more interesting.

That said, the lines I quote (or misquote, I haven't seen the film in decades) are from the Brownies: "This Way!" "No, this Way!" "You are drunk, and when you are drunk you forget that I am in charge!" (pointing the same way" "This way!"
posted by jb at 6:44 PM on May 26, 2022 [6 favorites]

So I read just now that apparently John Cusack tested for Madmartigan but Val Kilmer landed it instead. Would have been a totally different movie, maybe, but I think still good. (“It went away!”)

This looks terrific and I am excited. Yay!
posted by mochapickle at 7:05 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am on record affirming Warwick Davis is a national treasure and the original Willow is a gem
posted by churl at 7:12 PM on May 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

I saw the original in the theater 15-20 times and still love it, hacky edits and all.

Not sure if I'll watch the new series; too much history of things I loved as a child / adolescent being ruined by soulless reboots.
posted by Ickster at 7:18 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

My. God. Yes.
posted by Toddles at 8:06 PM on May 26, 2022

But whose national treasure? Perhaps an international treasure?
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 8:07 PM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also lifelong crush on Warwick Davis - handsome, charming, talented and charismatic.

Don't tell my husband.
posted by Toddles at 8:10 PM on May 26, 2022 [6 favorites]

jb, I can attest that you are mostly correct. You left out:

"Alright, so which way do we go?"
(Pointing and in unison) "That way!"
posted by biogeo at 8:11 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

It seems I still remember quite a lot of the lines.
posted by biogeo at 8:12 PM on May 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I’m excited for this but also worried about what it might mean for my favorite character on Reservation Dogs.

I’m mostly kidding, but a little bit not.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 8:57 PM on May 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Oooh, I watched Labyrinth with the kids the other week, now it's time for Willow!
posted by Harald74 at 10:44 PM on May 26, 2022 [5 favorites]

Was just remarking at MST Club last night, this is a good excuse to replay the Willow NES and arcade games, both very good examples of the action RPG and combat platformer genres, respectively.
posted by JHarris at 5:59 AM on May 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

This is not something I expected. I watched the original with my son a couple months back. I hadn't seen it since it was in the theater. It does not hold up well, and I was surprised at how boring much of it is.
posted by Fleebnork at 7:21 AM on May 27, 2022

OH. MY. GOD. I didn't think anything would make me give in and get Disney+, but this is it.

[Dr Manhattan voice] It is 1990, I am nine years old in my parents’ basement, using the VCR to watch the final moment in Willow where Val Kilmer stabs General Kael over, and over, and over again - silently attempting to copy that combo motion *exactly* until my movements look identical in our old floor mirror.

It is 2022, I am 41 years old martialing the energy to roll out of bed and turn on my work PC. I have just read that Disney+ will be airing a new series based on Willow. I know this means I will have to fund a company I think of without fond sentiment, beyond the fact that when I freelanced for them the pay was quite good and extremely punctual.

It is 2024, I am 43 years old and have just been informed I will be working as Design Director on a new videogame based on the Willow series. I immediately begin plotting to assume the role of mocap actor for a short flashback cutscene of the General Kael fight, certain in the knowledge that for that one brief moment my performance will be of higher quality than people who make a career of motion capture.

It is 2026, I am 45 years old. The staff now regularly pass around “Star Wars Kid” remixes of footage from my mocap session. I am indifferent, secure in the knowledge that my performance will now live on in the shipped game until human civilization and its digital archives have crumbled into dust.
posted by Ryvar at 7:44 AM on May 27, 2022 [17 favorites]

Willow was my favorite movie when I was a kid. I saw it on showtime or whatever everyday for like 6 months. I was hoping the Lord of the Rings would take everything it did right, fix the things it did wrong, and make 3 movies, but no.

So I'll take this and hope for the best.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:20 AM on May 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

I realize now that I absolutely cannot tell whether a trailer is for a movie or a TV series these days, and I mostly guess wrong.
posted by Occula at 11:43 AM on May 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

I too loved Willow as a kid/teen, though I haven't given it a rewatch in years. Will definitely be watching the series.

The line of the brownies that I remember most vividly is one of them insulting Madmartigan or Willow with "Your mother was a lizard!" as the barely-heard button of the scene.
posted by oh yeah! at 3:29 AM on May 28, 2022 [3 favorites]

Haven't seen Willow since it first hit cinemas, but I'll always remember it for being the first film I attended that was interrupted by technical difficulties (I think the film strip broke or something). We all filed into the lobby, blinking and confused children, wondering what happened: it felt like a remarkable occurrence. About ten minutes later we were told we should go back in, and the film came back to life, slightly earlier than where we had left off. One of the first in many lessons on the fallibility of the adult world.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 3:54 AM on May 30, 2022