Willow
I continue to be mostly quite disappointed by Willow. I was so hyped for this show. I couldn’t wait to review it each week. But off the hype-train I fell, like a barrel off a wagon in the middle of a high-speed chase through the woods. The kind of excellent, exciting, hilarious action scene you’d expect from the movie Willow, but which is almost entirely lacking in the sequel series.
I’ve already discussed the cringey CW-style high school dialogue that permeates this show and why it’s such a turn-off. And I’ve written about the wildly inappropriate and immersion-breaking modern music they play in the end-credits (fire whoever came up with that idea immediately).
For Episode 3, I’ll discuss three things I really disliked about it. There was some decent stuff in there, but it’s all lost in the glib dialogue that makes Willow such a tonally confused mess. (Then, at times, I chuckle at the good writing, like when Willow tells Silas to make himself useful and “shiv someone”).
#1: The Opening Fight Scene
In the second episode, right at the end Elora is captured by the bad guys and hauled off. The rest of the group manages to track down her captors—a possessed Commander Ballantine and his men—and a fight ensues. Prince Graydon is attempting to free Elora as the others fight the bad guys, when Willow uses some kind of smoke bomb as a distraction. Everyone was fighting on foot, but when the smoke clears the bad guys have escaped with Elora. On their horses. So Willow’s distraction just made it possible for Ballantine and his men to get directly on their horses and get away with no trace? What? WHAT??? This is confusing and either poorly shot or poorly edited. Either way, it’s lazy. Instead of showing us the bad guys battling to get away with their prize, they just toss smoke in front of the camera.
#2: The Woodcutters
What could have been a fascinating encounter with two faery woodcutters in a dark and spooky forest (with Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham playing the only speaking part of the two) ended up being a bizarre head-scratcher. Not only are both characters killed off almost immediately when Ballantine catches up to Elora, but the costume choices are truly bizarre. Both women are wearing denim jeans and modern-looking caps, and look like they could have been plucked from a modern setting. Please explain how these women are in a Medieval fantasy world:
The Woodcutters and Elora
Another big wag of the finger to this show’s costume department, which has proven to be wildly inconsistent at best, and deeply mediocre for a Lucasfilm production at worst. Shame, shame, shame.
#3: Killing Off One Of The Only Likable Characters
I’m all for killing off characters, including likable characters, but killing off one of the only likable characters in a show? Bad idea. Killing off one of the two main little people / Nelwyn in the main party? Very bad idea! Not killing off Kit? Very, very bad idea!
For whatever reason, the creators of Willow decided to make most of the characters cringey, vapid, overly-glib teenagers and send them off on a mission almost none of them are equipped to handle. This is probably my biggest problem with the show. Even good characters like Boorman can’t make up for all this teenage CW crap, and Willow himself has been weirdly neutered in his own show so far.
Willow and Silas
Silas was a breath of fresh air, a no-nonsense killer who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. And they killed him off in Episode 3 for some cheap emotional moment that’s forgotten almost instantly as our glib idiot heroes head off on their journey, finding Nockmaar Castle just as the metal guitar riffs of a bad cover of Metallica’s Enter Sandman start playing as though we were watching Stranger Things 4 rather than Willow, a fantasy show set in a distant realm.
Yes, this stuff makes me angry the more I think about it and the more I think about what a wasted opportunity this show is. In the hands of someone who actually had some respect for the source material—a claim that showrunner Jonathan Kasdan has made, but which rings hollow to me—a Willow sequel series could have been truly great. As it stands, what the hell are they thinking?
Woodcutters in denim jeans? Bad fight scene choreography? CW-level dialogue pulled straight out of 2022 with no attempt to make it sound like a fantasy show? Is Willow just trying to top Rings Of Power for most egregious fantasy show of 2022? I really hope things get better because as it stands, whatever fun moments this show offers up are quickly beaten into submission every time Kit or Elora opens their mouths.
What did you think, dear readers? Am I being overly harsh? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/12/12/willow-episode-3-review-three-big-bizarre-mistakes/