Willow series illustrates that Disney will capitalize on its intellectual property, but why?

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Disney’s nostalgia-industrial complex is at it again, this time resurrecting beloved 1988 dark fantasy flick Willow into a series, which premiered Nov. 30 on the Disney+ streaming service.

The house that Mickey built prides itself on being the abode of “imagineers,” but it seems with increasing clarity that it doesn’t take much imagination to turn a buck when you’ve got the intellectual property of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg stacked in your quiver. 

Star Wars underwent its most recent reinvention with Andor, which concluded its first season in late November, and everyone’s favorite bad-boy archaeologist is due for yet another latter-day un-retirement with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the trailer for which dropped in the past week.

Now we have Willow with which to revisit our gauzy VHS childhood memories (at least if we’re Gen X-Millennial cuspers). Starring Warwick Davis as the titular Nelwyn (dwarf) sorcerer Willow Ufgood, the series opens about 20 years after the events of the film. Evil witch-Queen Bavmorda is long since defeated — done in at the hands of Willow, rakish swordsman Madmartigan and the villainess’s own daughter Sorsha, who is many years into her rule as a good, though weary, potentate.

Warwick Davis returns as Nelwyn scorcerer Willow on Disney+. Courtesy photo.

Sorsha (played by original actress Joanne Whalley, and still exuding her signature side-eyed intensity) got married to and had two kids with Madmartigan (Val Kilmer in the film, but absent from the show due to his health problem), and they are a handful.

Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk) is a horny cad carrying on with the cook, whom he calls “Dove” (more on her later), and Princess Kit (Ruby Cruz) is restless, impetuous and more-than-a-little-petulant. She has a relationship with one of the household ladies, Jade (Erin Kellyman), who is driven to become the first female knight of the realm.

As for “Dove,” a.k.a. Brünhilde (an inexplicably blonde-and-blue eyed Ellie Bamber), it turns out she is much more than she seems. Rather than the humble scullery maid, she’s actually Elora Danan — the brown-eyed-red-haired baby at the center of the 1988 film, whose prophesied destiny as the future empress of Tir Asleen led to Bavmorda’s kidnapping and thwarted infanticide, meant to secure her own immortal suzerainty.

It turns out Willow placed little Elora in the care of Sorsha, scrubbed of her identity, in an effort to keep her safe until the time came for her to rule over the kingdom — protected in the meantime by a magical forcefield.

The forces of evil haven’t gone away, however, as they puncture the safety of Tir Asleen and steal away Prince Airk (for what reason, we don’t know yet). That gives Kit a handy excuse to leave the castle — and avoid her forced marriage to equally unenthusiastic Prince Graydon (the wonderfully charming Tony Revolori, who played Zero Mustafa in The Grand Budapest Hotel).

Sorsha instructs Kit and company (which includes the criminal Boorman, whose importance is also yet to be fully explained) to seek out Willow. 

Meanwhile, Dove/Brünhilde/Elora Danan has set out on her own to find Airk, with whom she’s in love, though it’s unlikely he returns her affections with the same vigor. The parties cross paths, Willow is brought into the quest, identities are revealed and away we go.

Is Willow any good? Sort of. Nostalgia is, as always, a mainline to the shriveled serotonin receptors of the generally jaded people born between the 1970s and early-’80s. Simply seeing the old characters of Willow and Sorsha, and retreading the fantastical world of Nelwyns and Daikinis is a pleasure. However, the casting of a few new characters (particularly Kit, who is actually super annoying) feels a bit off, and the dialogue and writing has come in for some critical drubbing for its tendentiousness and, frankly, whininess.

Even Warwick Davis told The Guardian in late-November that, “It was weird at first,” to portray a crankier, older and wiser (let’s add regretful) version of Willow, who he said, “in my mind is a certain person who does certain things a certain way. So going outside those boundaries was a little uncomfortable.”

The reviews are only so-so so far: 5.2/10 on Imdb, 83% on Rotten Tomatoes and 63% among Google users. The feeling among some observers is that it’s a bit wooden, lacking in the joyful escapism of the original. Or maybe that’s just because there are only so many reboots, sequels, prequels and spinoffs that people are willing to get excited about. 

For this viewer, who loved Willow when it came out when he was 8 years old, it’s unclear what Disney is trying to sell me: my own childhood or a reminder that I’m probably too old for this stuff.