Current Events > The Willow series is not good *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just finished the first episode and I have several problems.

To start off, let's talk about the worst part. Willow himself is not in the first episode until the last two or three minutes. He's not even name-dropped until more than halfway through.

Our main cast is instead made up of the kids of Madmartigan and Sorsha, and their young friends. It feels like a CW cast and they have the writing to match. Basically the entire first episode consists of them lamenting their various and overdone relationship woes: M&S's daughter, Kit, doesn't want to marry a prince because she doesn't even know him. The prince, Graydon, is boring and doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything at all. Kit's best friend, Jade, is leaving to be trained as a knight but is being not-at-all subtly shown to be in love with Kit. M&S's son, Airk (who I thought was just named "Eric", because that's how everybody pronounces it in the show), is an overly-romantic sex maniac secretly dating a kitchen girl. The kitchen girl is scrappy, independent, and capable, and is also revealed to actually be Elora (the baby from the movie).

I couldn't even really do my usual thing and come up with joke names to refer to these characters are because they're all so copy/paste from literally any young adult fantasy series you've ever seen or read.

Oh and Madmartigan isn't in the series either. Apparently he's not even getting a cameo.

The concept behind the series is that after the events of the movie, despite Bavmorda being killed and the realm being saved, there's immediately a new prophecy that requires them to hide Elora's identity because another BBEG wants to use her to gain power. Or kill her. Or something. I literally don't know.

About halfway through the series the castle is attacked by four henchman villains who wreck everybody's shit and kidnap Airk/Eric. These villains include Big Angry Guy With Head In A Cage, Girl Who Transforms Into A Giant Bird, Blind Guy With Staff Who Teleports, and Man In Metal Mask With Two Big Whips. This scene plays out pretty much like any group fight scene in the MCU and the villains honestly look like rejects from Thanos' army.

After this attack/kidnapping, the rest of the cast announce that they're going to go rescue Airk/Eric, and Sorsha's just like "okay whatever". The only two adults she sends along with them are a guy she's been keeping the dungeon for years, and an old soldier who gets killed by an arrow to the torso about ten minutes into the journey after telling the kids "you have to be vigilant at all times or you won't survive", because irony is the crutch of a hack writer.

But the most egregious thing to me came during the credits. These are literally MCU credits. You get sketch art of the main cast being drawn on screen, while they choose not to play a thematically fitting song from the series itself, but instead... well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZNDRSQ9YjU

...that. Exactly the kind of thing I hear in my head when I think about a high fantasy series.

Just... holy fucking shit. What a train wreck of a show.

I'm still going to keep watching out of the vain hope that now that Warwick Davis has shown his face, it might have a chance of improving. But after this first episode I'm not exactly confident in that at all.

By the way, I do know and understand that Val Kilmer isn't able to act anymore because of throat cancer. But I was hoping for some kind of small cameo at least, but all we get are vague comments about how Madmartigan "left".

Dammit. I really wanted this show to be good.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Dammit. I really wanted this show to be good.

So did I. I'm a huge fan of the original movie and was incredibly hyped for this.

Sounds like more generic Disney stuff.

I was really hoping they'd go "Chronicles of the Shadow War", which I guess they could still do. Honestly, Willow just needs a class change and it'd be fine.

When has Elora been capable in the first episode beyond cooking? She's a stubborn dope that already got someone killed.

It's fine.

People should stop acting like the movie was better than it really was.

Sphyx posted...

It's fine.

People should stop acting like the movie was better than it really was.

This and I loved the movie as a kid. I enjoyed the first 2 episodes.

Sphyx posted...

It's fine.

People should stop acting like the movie was better than it really was.

lolife67 posted...

This and I loved the movie as a kid. I enjoyed the first 2 episodes.

I think the biggest thing for me is that while the original movie wasn't great, and clearly just the result of George Lucas reading Lord of the Rings and deciding "I can do that", it still had its own ideas and set up its own lore and world. Willow was derivative but had an identity.

This series, though, feels like it largely ignores that identity and wants to be a generic young adult fantasy show with the name "Willow" attached to it.

Ive never seen the movie (which is odd since I grew up in the 80s) and know only what I e read, but the review I read said it gets better after the first couple of episodes.

I completely get both the complaints and the praise. It is cheesy and very CW, but it is also pretty funny and is actually fun, something most fantasy series neglect to do.

I will wait for more episodes before deciding on my feelings, but most likely it will end up like a 7 for me.

bsp77 posted...

it is also pretty funny and is actually fun

I will say that the second episode got a few legitimate laughs out of me, so that's good.

I'm not sure how well it fits Willow's character to be the kind of joker he is here, though. In the original movie, he was never a comedian (even during his magic shows he played it seriously), but he just can't stop cracking jokes in this series. Maybe becoming an actual sorcerer/celebrity or getting older changed his personality, or he's using it as a coping mechanism since his wife and son are obviously dead now. Either way it's a bit jarring and feels like Warwick Davis is playing a different character named "Willow".

Can we agree that it was weird that he was wearing a denim jacket in the flashbacks, though? Or that the entire Nelwyn village apparently now knowing how the finger test works makes the finger test itself a pointless tradition/test to keep around?

I enjoyed it for the most part. It was a little jarring to see the grand return of Willow at the end of episode 1 only to come out with the jokes at the beginning of episode 2.
Nevertheless, it has my interest enough to tune in next week.