Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) is a Nelwyn—a dwarf-like race—who dreams of leaving his farm life behind to become a magician. One day his two young children find a Daikini baby on the river banks, and later, the village is attacked by dogs in search of the child. Willow brings the baby to the Village Counsel, who tell him this child is mentioned in prophesies as the one will bring peace to the land. High Aldwin makes Willow the baby’s guardian, and forms a fellowship of Nelwyn to help him on his quest to the crossroads to hand the child safely back to the Daikini.

However, once they make it to the crossroads, the only Daikini there is Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) who has been locked up in a crow’s cage for some sort of crime. The rest of the Daikini are off fighting off the forces of evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh), who is searching for this child who threatens her empire. So now it is up to Willow to deliver Elora Danan safely to the Daikini people.

Along his journey Willow must find the bravery, courage and magic in himself while making his way through the forests of Trolls, Brownies and other magical creatures, and staving off the magical forces of Queen Bavmorda and her daughter Sorsha’s (Joanne Whalley) army of men as they pursue him and the child.

I somehow managed to never see this film over the past 25 years—and I was definitely in its target demographic when the film was originally released!

The premise of Willow reminds me a lot of The Lord of the Rings, where this small, unlikely hero must go on an epic quest, and finds his inner strength along the way. I found the film quite entertaining—it has a nice blend of action, adventure, drama, fantasy and humor. The central character of Willow is well-developed. We learn about his life, and his motivation and see him grow in the course of his journey. This was no small film at the time—it was directed by Ron Howard and written and produced by George Lucas—so it’s amazing that a relatively unknown actor was selected as the lead. Warwick Davis had previously only played Wicket the Ewok in some Star Wars films/TV movies, and wasn’t a face people would necessarily recognize. However, the actor does a great job playing this likable character that you are rooting for throughout the film. Meanwhile, Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan is similar to the characters he had played in his recent hit films at the time (Top Secret!, Real Genius and Top Gun)—he is this cocky, full-of-himself guy who can do no wrong. This is a character Kilmer plays well, and in this film he also gets to show off some good fighting and blade skills.

The action sequences in Willow are great, with the right mix of action and playfulness. James Horner’s wonderful (and familiar) score helps add to that fun and excitement. I particularly enjoyed one scene involving a fight/chase on a horse-drawn cart.

Along his journey Willow and Madmartigan meet up with some wisecracking Brownies—male fairy-like creatures—named Rool (Kevin Pollak) and Franjean (Rick Overton). These two were like my Jar-Jar. I found their incessant high-pitched yammering to be so annoying. When they appeared on the screen, it really took me out of the moment. It felt they were there just to appeal to a younger audience.

The other complaint I had about the film was the quality of the special effects. While they might have looked great and innovative at the time, today they look extremely dated and green screened. I think the cleaned up picture for this blu-ray release really emphasizes this problem even more. There are very few scenes on this Blu-ray with the Brownies where it looks natural. They almost always look like they were inserted into the scene, and don’t blend with the rest of the background. However, this is not the case on the included DVD—the special effects actually blend much better in the low-def presentation of the film. It’s a shame that I didn’t see this film when I was younger, because I think a lot of it’s fandom probably comes from nostalgia, and not necessarily from new audiences who have already seen today’s big budget films with their far superior special effects.

That said, I did enjoy the film. It has action, adventure and comedy, and it’s worth checking out this early entry into the the fantasy/quest film genre.

What’s Included:

Film (2:05:55)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English DD 2.0 Surround, Spanish DD 2.0 Surround, French DTS 5.1, Castillian DTS 5.1, German 5.1 DTS, Italian 5.1 DTS
• English SDH, Spanish, French, Castillian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish subtitles

DVD:

• 480p / Widescreen 2.39:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 Surround, Spanish DD 2.0 Surround, French DD 2.0 Surround
• English SDH, Spanish subtitles

Extras (Blu-ray only):

• Willow: Deleted Scenes With Ron Howard (12:32)
  New to this Blu-ray release. Ron Howard talks about working on Willow, working with George Lucas and introduces some deleted elements from the film. Includes “Sorsha’s Father” deleted sequence, “Bridge Troll Magic” delete scene, and “Fish Boy” deleted scene.
• The Making Of An Adventure With Ron Howard (23:39)
  Ron Howard preemptively prefaces this featurette by stating that at the time they were using the latest effects and filmmaking techniques, and that the film was epic in scope for the time. The featurette that follows feels very dated—a full-frame, VCR-quality TV special from the 1980s that served both as a behind-the-scenes featurette and an ad for the movie. It features interviews with Ron Howard, George Lucas, Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer and other cast and crew members. Contains clips from the film and behind the scenes footage.
• From Morf To Morphing With Dennis Muren (17:24)
  Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Muren introduces this featurette from 2001 that shows how the morphing scenes were done. Like the previous featurette, the intro was added to the existing DVD extra in order to qualify that these effects were top-notch at the time. The featurette talks about the dawn of digital film making and the switch to using computer graphics. While interesting, it definitely feels dated.
• Willow: An Unlikely Hero – Personal Video Diary of Warwick Davis (10:53)
  New to this Blu-ray release. Warwick Davis narrates footage he recorded on his video camera during the filming. He talks about the film, his character and what it was like making the film. This was really good, and I wish this blu-ray release had ported over Davis’ commentary track from the prior DVD release as I think it would have been quite interesting.
• Matte Paintings (1:09)
  New to this Blu-ray release.For five scenes from the film, we see how the matte painting and live action film are combined to create the finale composite scene used in the film.
• Easter Egg (:29)
  New to this Blu-ray release. Warwick Davis talks about his connection to the letter W.
  To access, press Up key while in Extras menu until the W at the top of the screen lights up.

Missing from previous “Special Edition” DVD release are the Audio Commentary by Warwick Davis, Behind-the-Scenes Still Gallery, Theatrical Teasers & Trailers, and 8 TV Spots.
 

Final Thoughts:

I somehow missed watching Willow over the past 25 years, and so I don’t really have that nostalgic tie to the film that others may. Overall, I found the film enjoyable, with some fun action sequences. But the film’s special effects make it feel very dated when compared to recent, larger epics such as the The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The picture on the Blu-ray has been cleaned up—the new crisp, clear and grain-less picture looks fantastic. However, as a result, the special effects look so much worse and so much more obvious. Scenes with the Brownies and the fight with the two-headed creature look so obviously green-screened, and more like something out of a Harryhausen film. The noise helped to hide some of the limits of the special effects, and those scenes actually look a lot better on the DVD version included in this combo pack! I had no issues with the sound—all dialog is clear, and the sound effects of the action scenes and James Horner’s delightful score are presented perfectly.

The bonus features new to this release were really interesting—like the deleted scenes and the Warwick Davis home video footage. However, the ported features were really dated and required the filmmakers to preface them with warnings. Also, the Warwick Davis commentary, the trailer and TV spots from the previous DVD release are all missing. It’s a shame that they didn’t just include the existing Special Edition DVD instead of a movie-only disc in this Blu-ray Combo Pack.

That said, the film is worth checking out. However, owners of the previous Special Edition DVD should hold onto that release as it contains exclusive features not available on this combo pack.