Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Thursday. Today I'm going to be talking about the first two episodes of the new Disney+ series, Willow, which is a follow-up to the 1988 film created by George Lucas, even before Star Wars had come out, and directed by Ron Howard. There might be some spoilers but I'm going to do my best to be spoiler free in this review. In case I end up not being spoiler free, if you're interested in this show, go watch these first two episodes, before reading this review. With that out of the way, let's get into it.
Despite his name being the title of the show, Willow Ufgood, played by the always wonderful Warwick Davis, is not the focus of Willow. In fact he doesn't even appear until the end of the first episode, outside of flashbacks to the movie. And that's okay with me because it's more of an ensemble cast than the movie was. Which is great.
Many years after the events of the movie, Willow has become the High Aldwin of the Nelwyn people, like the old man we saw at the beginning of the movie. Meanwhile in Tir Asleen, Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) is now the Queen and is raising two children, Princess Kit (played by Ruby Cruz), and Prince Airk (played by Dempsey Bryk), as well as continuing to look over Elora Danan, who is now grown up. When dark forces enter the realm once again, Kit, her friend/love interest, Jade (played by Erin Kellyman), a thief and Madmartigan stand-in, Boorman (played by Amar Chadha-Patel), and Prince Graydon (played by Tony Revolori) must find Willow and ask for his help in the fight against a force so powerful that even Elora might not be able to stop it.
I loved these first two episodes. Unlike the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, and every Star Wars show and movie after that, Willow doesn't just throw things at you, asking, "Remember this from the movie? Remember that from the movie? Huh huh?". No, it's a true sequel. Willow is there, but Sorsha takes a backseat and the show is truly focused on Elora, Kit, Airk, and Jade. The creative team behind this series, which I will get into a little bit later, allowed the new characters to really shine, even after Willow showed up at the end of Episode 1. Whereas once Han and Chewie showed up in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) the focus immediately shifted from Rey and Finn to Han and Chewie and more elements from the Original Trilogy (1977-1983), which is why The Force Awakens is considered to be a carbon copy of Star Wars (1977). Which I appreciate so much because Willow, Sorsha, and Madmartigan had their story in the original movie, and it's time to let the younger characters take over and drive the story.
The cast on this show is amazing. You have Warwick Davis and Joanne Whalley reprising their roles as Willow and Sorsha respectively, you have newcomer Ruby Cruz as Kit, Ellie Bamber as a character named Dove, Airk's love interest, you have Tony Revolori, who played Flash Thompson in all three MCU Spider-Man movies as Prince Graydon, and Erin Kellyman, who really did a wonderful job in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) as Enfys Nest, and as Karli Morgenthau in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). There are many others as well, too many to list them all.
I actually really love that the princess has to save the prince from the bad guys this time around. I'm not sure I'd be okay with another princess gets kidnapped by evil forces and the prince, be it brother or love interest, needing to go rescue her plot. Especially because this series, so far, is the quintessential, typical Fantasy Adventure story of a fellowship going on a quest in order to stop the forces of evil from destroying or taking over the kingdom.
In my review of the movie that I did on the Review Basement two years ago, just after Disney and Lucasfilm announced this series, I said that Willow (1988) was a mix of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, with slightly more focus on the Lord of the Rings elements. Well, these first two episodes are even more like The Lord of the Rings and I'm pretty sure they made some subtle references to The Lord of the Rings in the episodes, which is kinda weird, but hey you gotta do what you gotta do I guess.
There was alot more humour in these first two episodes than I remember there being in the movie too. Yet, it didn't undermine the darker, more intense, moments at all. In fact this show strikes a fairly decent balance between lighthearted and funny, and serious, dramatic moments, which I really appreciate because I prefer a balance between the two sides in the shows and movies that I watch...and the books and comics that I read.
The characters are great though if I had to pick a favourite it would have to be a tie between Dove (played by Ellie Bamber) and Prince Graydon. As I said before, Tony Revolori was fantastic as Flash Thompson in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and he's a similar kind of character in this show. I've never seen Ellie Bamber in anything else, but apparently she plays Clara's sister in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018). She's great here and Dove is such a fantastic character, though there's more to her than meets the eye and there's a reveal about her at the end of episode 1 that I kind of guessed at earlier in the episode, but wasn't entirely sure it was what I thought it was until the end of the episode. It's just she wasn't a huge focus of the first episode, it was mostly because Kit, Airk, and Jade and Dove just happened to be associated with Airk.
The creative team on this show are Ron Howard, Jonathan Kasdan, and Wendy Mericle, with Jonathan and Wendy acting as showrunners. Of course Ron Howard is legendary and directed the original movie this show is a sequel to, so seeing his name still attached to the show is awesome. I'm not super familiar with Jonathan Kasdan, but he's the son of Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Return of the Jedi (1983), and The Force Awakens for Lucasfilm and is a director in his own right. Jonathan's writing credits include Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000), Dawson's Creek (1998-2003) with Jonathan writing for the show from 2000 to 2002, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie (2023), which doesn't have a title yet. Wendy Mericle is probably best known for, and is what I'm most familiar with of her work, being one of the showrunners for Arrow (2012-2020) from season 3 to season 6, alongside Marc Guggenheim.
As I said before, I loved these first two episodes, but I do have some concerns. The biggest one being that it's an eight episode season on Disney+. As we know from most of the MCU and Star Wars Disney+ shows is that sometimes eight episodes isn't enough to tell the kinds of stories these creators really excel at telling be it in movies or on Television, especially because of how epic the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars have to be as franchises that began in movie theatres.
The advantages that Willow has over the other two franchises is that, A) there isn't the pressure to be big and bombastic as the other two franchises feel like they have to be to be successful, because there's only one movie and a handful of ancilliary material including three video games based on the movie, and a trilogy of sequel novels written by comic book legend, Chris Claremont, which were published between 1995 and 2000, and B) it's a High Fantasy Adventure series coming off the heels of Game of Thrones (2011-2019), House of the Dragon (2022-), The Legend of Vox Machina (2022-), and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022-). So I don't think it's going to run into the same story problems that the MCU and Star Wars Disney+ shows have. And eight episodes will probably be enough.
The other concern I have has to do with the music selection for the closing credits. The music in the show is fine, it was done by James Newton Howard, and is very reminiscient of James Horner's original score for the movie. But they use modern day songs for the end credits and it doesn't fit with the tone of the show, the way it did for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) and Ms. Marvel (2022), or any show set in modern day rather than a Fantasy setting. So hopefully they either stop doing that after episode 2, or they just contain it to the closing credits.
One more thing I like about the show is that every episode seems to open with the classic fairytale storybook opening that Disney animated movies have done anytime it's a movie based off a fairytale. And each episode has Chapter and then the number of the episode above the name of the book before slipping into the episode itself. Which is pretty cool.
Overall I had such a good time and if you're into Fantasy I highly recommend you check out these first two episodes. It's so much fun and like I said, the humour doesn't undermine the more intense, serious moments, which doesn't always happen with these types of shows. So definitely check it out if you have the chance.
Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more reviews. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you later. Take care.
.jpg)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment