hey, i know you, i stole a baby from you while you were taking a pee pee

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Willow. Not the girl on Buffy, but the asskickingest fantasy movie of 1988, starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer. And two little pixie drunks. This is the thread where we praise/damn/talk about it.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Val Kilmer's character in this shit was named MADMARTIGAN. You can't not be a badass with a name like that, even if you're wearing Roos.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember the arcade came kicked high holy ass!

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, I am a sucker for any movie where a bad guy turns out to be a hot girl who hooks up with protagonist.

xpost HELL YES IT DID

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Was John Stamos one of the pixies?

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

IMDB says no.

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

We STOLE the BABY!

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

A fantasy epic with much special effects filmed in New Zealand! Except it ate.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

It was filmed in New Zealand, eh? This I did not know.

"Your sun, your moon, your starlit sky...AND YOU FORGOT!?!"

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

TEH MAGIC TWIG! IT WILL TRANSMOGRIFY YOU!

― Dale Panopticalis (cprek), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I always feel kinda bad for Warwick Davis. He was so great in this one role, in a career full of being shoved into fucking fursuits (Wickit the ewok) or goofy prosthetics (whatever that one professor's name is in Harry Potter).

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Lest we forget Leprechaun in Space nickalish.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

HAHAHAHAHA

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)

haha "madmartigan"

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:16 (twenty-one years ago)

This movie for real still holds the title for some of the most WTF fantasy movie character names of all time - Madmartigan, Sorsha, fucking BAVMORDA.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't forget General Pauline, I mean Kael!

http://funwavs.com/wavfile.php?quote=2770&sound=334
http://funwavs.com/wavfile.php?quote=2769&sound=334
http://funwavs.com/wavfile.php?quote=2758&sound=334

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

The poster made my head spin - a nasty thing to do to a 6-year old. There were some rad Willow freebies in "special packets of Frosties" around this time, however.

― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Willow was George Lucas's (he co-wrote or did the story and exucutive produced) unsuccessful attempt to encroach on Tolkien's home turf. The funny character names are sort of Star Wars-ian if you think about it.

Its not a very good movie but it holds a warm place in my heart. Its got some cool f/x too!

The scene where the troll's skin tears away and becomes a bloody glob which grows into a two headed dragon was fuckin SCARY to 6 year-old me.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't forget General Pauline, I mean Kael!

And of course the two-headed monster...the Ebersisk.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yeah, forgot about that one!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't forget the not quite Indiana Jones theme music!

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Willow was George Lucas's (he co-wrote or did the story and exucutive produced) unsuccessful attempt to encroach on Tolkien's home turf.

Didn't Lucas make Willow because he couldn't get the rights to LOTR? I thought I had heard something along those lines, though I could be wrong.

― Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I had heard similar rumors as well over time. Given what the end reuslt might have been, can I thank heavens one more time for Peter Jackson?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom Bombadil would jump around and speak like Jar Jar Binks.

― Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

i always thought Peter Jackson said that he hated Willow(something about dismissing all the "fairies, pixies n' shit"), and deliberating made LOTR darker b/c of it.

he also had/has plans to do The Hobbit with Warwick Davis.

plus, Joanne Whalley plays the hot redhead/Red Sonja-clone, who went on to marry Val Kilmer(who proceeded to drop her like 5 years later around Batman Forever time).

oh yeah, and Kevin Pollack plays the shorter of the two brownie things.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Willow as a LOTR surrogate doesn't make any sense. I can believe Lucas made it out of an urge to do a fantasy movie, but you'd have to cut the connection off there; they have virtually nothing in common beyond belonging to a genre with hundreds of examples more similar to one or the other of them.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Both feature a small-in-stature protagonist that leaves his hillcountry homeland to go on an impossible quest with his best friend, for one thing.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

But yeah, I'm just being argumentative here, they honestly (especially compared to OTHER fantasy films/books that SHAMELESSLY rip off Tolkien) are pretty dissimilar.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:07 (twenty-one years ago)

"Small in stature protagonist (who, more importantly, is peasant class and beneath the notice of Great People) going on an impossible quest" is half the genre! I'd never think to compare The Bone Collector and Rear Window just because they involve attempts to solve a murder.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I got curious about this (plus I have nothing to do at work right now) so I looked this up. From The George Lucas Companion:

Meanwhile, of Lucas's personal projects, next in line was the fantasy adventure Willow. Lucas had originally wanted to make The Lord of the Rings, but the rights belonged to Saul Zaentz, the producer of the 1978 Ralph Bakshi-directed cartoon version, and he wasn't about to relinquish them, his longterm intention being to make a live action version of the story at some stage. Consequently, Lucas used The Lord of the Rings as the jumping off point for Willow, just as Flash Gordon had been his inspiration for Star Wars.

I agree with Tep though that the stories really aren't that similar, especially when you look at all of the books, etc. that rip off LOTR shamelessly.

― Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I almost used Flash Gordon/Star Wars as an example, cause there aren't many similarities there, either, beyond the tropes of the genre -- it sounds more like his reasoning went "I like LOTR -> I want to play in that genre -> here I go," than "I like LOTR -> here's my proposal for an eleven book series with prequels -> Yrs Truly Terry Brooks."

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

of course its not COMPLETELY Tolkienesque, but of all the big-budget 80's fantasy/sword-and-sorcery movies, i'd say its the most Tolkienesque. most of the others that i can remember were more in the 'Conan the Barbarian' mode.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

x-post

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

OTM, that's probably a more apt comparison.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

ha ha to the max re: "Yrs Truly Terry Brooks"

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

ihttp://www.generalcomputing.com/willow/willyeah.jpg
Aw, teh lub were REAL.

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU MISTER AND MISSES MADMARTIGAN. YOU MAY NOW CROSS BLADES WITH YOUR WIFE.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Heh, Nicole and Tep quite OTM with their various posts. One thing I'm sorta glad about is that the LOTR film success hasn't...YET...translated into someone wanting to film Brooks.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Christopher Lee could so nail the part of Allanon, though.

(I hope I didn't just jinx it.)

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Al-anon?

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Book 12 of Brooks's opus reveals that the series of epic quests that "sounded like a fucking hoot at the time" was inspired by binge drinking.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

hey, i know you, i stole a baby from you while you were taking a pee pee

Eh, I nearly thought this thread here had a-samthung to do with that one there
Please discuss the lyrics to Heart's "All I wanna do is make love to you"
!

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I sang on the soundtrack to Willow. It was great fun - we recorded in Abbey Road, and during the bits where the orchestra was doing its own thing, we were corralled in an empty studio that had, apparently, been used by some Liverpudlian band 20 years earlier.

― Jesus Christ, Paraplegic (Mark C), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 11:35 (twenty-one years ago)

That's cooler than fuck Mark!

I saw Ray last night, and who should star in it as sympathetic little-person nightclub owner Oberon than WARWICK "SO GLAD TO NOT BE IN A FURSUIT" DAVIS. He was EXCELLENT in it. (ps Ray is one of the bestest movies I've seen all year)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 2 December 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

some Liverpudlian band

Gerry and the Pacemakers?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 3 December 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Ok there was just an ILM thread where latebloomer and I were quting Willow. Can't remember where...

― It's hard to kill a horse with a flute (AaronHz), Friday, 3 December 2004 03:16 (twenty-one years ago)

aw ok this is where me and my bruvva nicka part ways, this movie skeeves me out, it's too lucasy.

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 3 December 2004 05:17 (twenty-one years ago)

QUOTING Willow

― It's hard to kill a horse with a flute (AaronHz), Friday, 3 December 2004 05:21 (twenty-one years ago)

nine years pass...

Just watched this for the first time since 1988, if I even saw it then (memories are blurred up with the tie-in kids' meal from Wendy's and the Nintendo Power guide to the NES game). It's...okayish? Much more ''kids' movie'' than ''swords & sorcery adventure'' - the love potion gags and the 'comic relief' antics of the Brownies in general feel closer in tone to Hook than anything. Val Kilmer is ridiculous (though 'Madmartigan' is a great, great name), the plot is dopey, and bad guy with skullface is disappointingly lame and unimportant compared to his awesome mask. I did like lots of the puppet and costume work, nice to see one of these movies that's 85% made of actual physical stuff.

Also thought it was kinda cool to see this enormous little-person cast, treated as normal and everyday, in a world where typically-sized persons can be written off as freakish 'giants' from faraway lands. And then you get Lilliput sequence where *they*'re the giants compared to the tiny pixie people. Dunno, just was on board with Lucas/Howard's apparent comittment to their cast in that way, makes you realize LOTR could have been done that way, and well.

Also, the final big heroic move is cute, Willow beating the evil witch through clever use of his small-town stage magic masquerading as sorcery. I was charmed by that. Would overall rate it sliiiightly above Labyrinth. Still need to see Dark Crystal I guess.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 01:48 (twelve years ago)

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