Fall 2022 turned into kind of a peak moment for franchise high-fantasy on streaming services, with the coinciding runs of House of the Dragon on HBO Max and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime Video. The tropes of the genre are familiar—brooding characters, epic battles, fantastical creatures—and have been proven to have a devoted audience. Still, it’s a little bit weird to see Disney+’s revival of Willow (now streaming on Disney+) aim for that vibe, since the original 1988 film was so clearly … not that.

Certainly, there’s a little bit of irony in complaining that Willow the series is very little like Willow the movie, since A) critics have generally been griping about Disney unimaginatively reviving properties just for nostalgia’s sake, and B) Willow the movie wasn’t particularly good. Indeed, noting that this series is its own thing is less a complaint than an observation, so that potential viewers know what they’re getting themselves into. If Willow the series has problems—and it definitely does—at least they are not duplicating the problems with its predecessor.

Willow, Willow Returns… But As A Series On Disney+

The story is set 20-some years after the events of the film, with Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) still queen of Tir Asleen, her twin children Airk (Dempsey Bryk) and Kit (Ruby Cruz) reaching adulthood, and the prophesied child Elora Danan hidden away for her own protection. On the eve of Kit’s arranged marriage to Graydon (Tony Revolori), the prince of a neighboring kingdom, Tir Asleen is attacked by a group of dark-magic creatures, resulting in the kidnapping of Airk. Sorsha commissions a search party to set out in search of Airk—also including the warrior-thief Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel) and Kit’s aspiring-soldier friend Jade (Erin Kellyman)—and to solicit the assistance of Willow (Warwick Davis) and his wizarding skills along the way.

Showrunner Jonathan Kasdan does address the absence of Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan in a way that feels naturally integrated into the show’s structure, building a sense of abandonment into Kit’s prickly personality. At least in the first three episodes available for preview, however, Willow doesn’t immerse itself in trying to toss out Easter eggs for fans of the film. For example, no slapstick comic relief is provided by brownies as of press time, and the world is so much better for it.

Willow, Willow Returns… But As A Series On Disney+

Instead, Willow commits itself fairly resolutely to a kind of Tolkien-esque quest narrative, which is underlined when Kit snarkily resists the idea of Graydon joining the search party by observing, “We’re kind of set, fellowship-wise.” From the dimly-lit fight sequences to the scary beasts and possessed-by-dark-magic characters, Kasdan aims for a much darker tone than the much more kid-friendly film, with its constant cutaways to the adorable baby and the aforementioned brownie comedians. The film might have been centered around a “save the world from evil” premise, but the evil the protagonists of the series are saving the world from feels considerably evil-er, represented by a swirling darkness in the distance that is more than vaguely Mordor-like.

Willow the series does try to leaven that heaviness with some humor, but even there it feels a little bit off. It’s always a tricky business deciding how contemporary to make the dialogue in a story set in a long-ago time, and it’s not inherently a problem that the characters don’t speak in a Shakespearean English dialect. There is something a bit disorienting, though, when you get nudging references like that “fellowship” line, or when Boorman responds to being surprised by Graydon with the extremely colloquial, “Lurk much?” In every respect, this feels like a series aimed not at the younger audience, but at those who were in the younger audience when Willow was released nearly 35 years ago.

Once again, to be clear: this is not inherently a problem. Kasdan keeps the action moving along, and finds some solid interpersonal dynamics, particularly in Kit’s frustration with Airk’s kitchen-maid beloved Dove (Ellie Bamber), who insists on joining the search. He’s a bit less successful at establishing a character arc for Willow, whom we see insulted and effectively dismissed by Sorsha in a flashback, but whose insecurities at least thus far don’t play much of a role when there are so many other characters to keep track of. This Willow is a little bit too busy, a little bit too dark, a little bit too modern in its sensibility. And maybe it’s a small victory if the nostalgia it’s trying to inspire isn’t for Willow the movie, but for the journey of a diminutive hero in another franchise entirely.

Willow

Willow is now streaming on Disney+.


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Let’s Hear From You

How does the revival of Willow sound to you? Were you a fan of the movie back in 1988? Does a new story based in an established fantasy universe interest you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Scott Renshaw
Scott Renshaw is Arts & Entertainment Editor at Salt Lake City Weekly, and author of the book Happy Place: Living the Disney Parks Life, available from Theme Park Press.