IT WAS THE LARGEST CASTING CALL FOR LITTLE PEOPLE IN MOVIE HISTORY. Not even the names have anything like Star Wars-level staying power.” 4. Much energy has gone into the creation of their names, some of which (General Kael) have recognizable sources and others (Burglekutt, Cherlindrea, Airk) have only tongue-twisting in mind. Later in her review, Maslin continued to point out the similarities between the two films: “When the sorcerer tells Willow to follow his heart, he becomes the Obi-Wan Kenobi of a film that also has its Darth Vader, R2-D2, C-3P0 and Princess Leia stand-ins. "One tiny figure combines the best attributes of Tinkerbell, the Good Witch Glinda, and the White Rock Girl.” “Without anything like eager, enthusiastic tone, and indeed with an understandable weariness, Willow recapitulates images from Snow White, The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver's Travels, Mad Max, Peter Pan, Star Wars itself, the Hobbit saga, Japanese monster films of the 1950s, the Bible, and a million fairy tales," wrote Janet Maslin of The New York Times. Having thought of the two worlds simultaneously, Lucas may have cribbed some of his own work and other well-known stories a little too much for Willow, and some critics noticed. IT WAS CRITICIZED FOR BEING A COPY OF STAR WARS. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the subsequent Victor Fleming film. The original title was presumably inspired by the characters from L. IT WAS ORIGINALLY CALLED MUNCHKINS.įive years after he mentioned the idea, Lucas was ready to make his film with Ron Howard directing and a then-17-year-old Davis as the lead. He said, 'It's not for quite yet it's for a few years ahead, when Warwick is a bit older.'" The role was Davis’s first time not wearing a mask or costume on screen. “He didn't say at that time that it was going to be called Willow. “George just simply said that he had this idea, and he was writing this story, with me in mind,” Davis said. Lucas had been developing the idea for more than a decade at that point, but working with Davis on Return of the Jedi helped him realize the vision.
Club, Warwick Davis revealed that George Lucas first mentioned the idea for the film to Davis’s mother during the filming of one of the Ewok TV specials in 1983, in which he was reprising his role as Wicket. Before you sit down to explore that world again (or for the first time), here are 11 things you might not have know about Willow. Over the past few decades, Willow-which was released 30 years ago today-has become a cult classic that's been passed down from generation to generation.
Willow (1988) was directed by Ron Howard and starred former Ewok and future Leprechaun, Warwick Davis. Five years after the release of Return of the Jedi (1983) and four years after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), George Lucas gave audiences the story for another film about an unlikely hero on an epic journey, but this time he had three Magic Acorns and a taller friend instead of a whip and gun to help him along.