Willow (Steelbook) (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Dec 13, 2024
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Ron Howard, created by George LucasRelease Date(s)
1988 (December 10, 2024)Studio(s)
Imagine Entertainment/MGM/Lucasfilm (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: C+
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
[Editor’s Note: The film portion of this review is by Todd Doogan, adapted from his review of the 2001 DVD release. The 4K audio, video, and extras comments are by Bill Hunt.]
George Lucas conceived Willow, Ron Howard directed it, and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) made their name with it. So why isn’t this film the best thing in the world of cinema? That’s a hard question to answer. Willow certainly has its fans and a few things going for it, from a pretty good cast to some remarkable special effects (and some really bad ones too—Brownies anyone?). But ultimately, the whole thing falls down because this story feels like it’s been recycled from elements done better elsewhere. Still, the art of myth making is the art of telling the same story over in ever more remarkable ways. And it’s often said that there are only seven basic stories to tell in the world (some say nine or twelve, but what do they know?)—it’s the way you tell them that matters. Sadly though, I think Lucas, Howard, and screenwriter Bob Dolman simply didn’t add enough that’s fresh here to make a difference.
Willow is, in the most simple of genre definitions, the fantasy worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard smooshed together. The evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) learns of a prophecy that she’ll be brought down by a girl born with a rune birthmark on her arm. So the Queen gathers all the pregnant women of her domain into custody and waits for said child to be born. When she is, she’ll be snuffed out—as simple as that. But thanks to a quick thinking midwife, the young girl is saved, whisked out of the castle, and set adrift down the river.
Warwick Davis plays Willow Ufgood, an aspiring sorcerer and Hobbit-like villager, who is charged with taking the newly orphaned baby from the village she’s found in to the first tall person he finds. That tall person is Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), a mercenary and swordsman he meets caged along a highway. But not wanting to leave the baby alone with such a scoundrel, Willow joins Madmartigan and from there it’s high adventure, fairy dust, people turning into pigs, horribly conceived Brownie characters (who really should have been dropped from the film), and a hot redhead named Sorsha (Joanne Whalley). I could go into the details more, but there’s no point because we’ve seen it all before. I can say this much: While watching this film, you’ll really be watching The Hobbit, Conan the Barbarian, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wizard of Oz, the illustrations of artist Brian Froud brought to life, and a cannibalized version of Lucas’ own Jedi mythos, sprinkled with a touch of Indiana Jones for good measure. I wasn’t all that impressed as a teenager, and I’m just as unimpressed today.
Willow was shot on 35mm film by cinematographer Adrian Biddle (Aliens, The Princess Bride, V for Vendetta) using Panavision Panaflex Gold II cameras with Panavision C-Series and Cooke anamorphic lenses. (Visual effects were also filmed in VistaVision format.) It was finished photochemically and released in the 2.39:1 scope aspect ratio for theaters (with some theaters showing the film in 70mm blow-up at the 2.20:1 ratio). For its release on Ultra HD, Lucasfilm has used the 2010 4K restoration, with new grading for high dynamic range (in HDR10 only), and they’ve encoded the image for a 66GB disc. The image is surprisingly good given its remastering vintage (and Lucasfilm’s track record at the time), though the film has always looked a bit soft—as if netting or diffusion was employed in the filming, along with a good deal of on-set atmospherics. Original camera negative offers good fine detail and texturing in everything from skin and hair, to costume fabrics, wood, and foliage, though the 4K scan lacks the kind of refinement you’d get from a similar scan done today. Grain is ever present in OCN footage, though optically-printed titles and transitions show less of it, as you’d expect. Colors are rich and natural, exhibiting pleasing nuance, though the palette is very earthy and warm looking by design. If there’s any digital scrubbing or revisionism for this 4K release specifically, it’s not obvious. This is essentially the 2019 presentation you’re already familiar with on Blu-ray, just in slightly higher resolution and now with HDR—all in all, a fairly lovely image.
Audio on the 4K disc is offered in lossless English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, the same mix that appeared on the film’s 2019 Blu-ray release (presumably sourced from the film’s original 6-track 70mm stems), which means you’ll want to turn the volume up a little bit to really get the most of it. (Unfortunately, the original stereo mix is not included, so you might want to save the 2001 DVD release which offers it in 2.0 Dolby Digital format.) The DTS mix offers a nicely wide soundstage across the front, with nearly constant sonic immersion from the surround channels for sound effects and music. Dialogue is clean at all times. Directional activity is lively, with smooth and natural panning. Bass is adequate throughout. James Horner’s score is presented in excellent fidelity, and includes orchestral flourishes you’ll recognize from a few of his other film soundtracks. English 2.0 Descriptive Audio is also available, as are French and German 5.1 DTS-HD, Castilian Spanish and Italian 5.1 DTS, and Latin Spanish, Japanese, and Polish 5.1 Dolby Digital. Optional subtitles include English, English for the Hearing Impaired, French, Castilian Spanish, Latin Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
Disney and Lucasfilm’s new 4K release (distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) includes the film on both UHD and Blu-ray (note that this is not the same 25th Anniversary Edition released in 2013, but rather the newer Blu-ray released in 2019) in Steelbook packaging. There are no extras on the 4K disc itself, but the Blu-ray includes the following:
- Audio Commentary with Warwick Davis
- Willow: Deleted Scenes with Ron Howard (HD – 12:30)
- The Making of an Adventure with Ron Howard (HD – 23:38)
- From Morf to Morphing with Dennis Muren (HD – 17:23)
- Willow: An Unlikely Hero – Personal Video Diary of Warwick Davis (HD – 10:51)
- Matte Paintings (HD – 1:08)
- “W” (HD – :28)
- TV Spots and Trailers
- 15 Second TV Spots
- Heroes (SD – :16)
- Lucas/Howard (SD – :16)
- Wizards and Warriors (SD – :16)
- 30 Second TV Spots
- Heroes (SD – :30)
- World Awakening (SD – :30)
- Sorsha (SD – :29)
- Butch & Sundance (SD – :30)
- Madmartigan (SD – :30)
- 15 Second TV Spots
- Theatrical Trailers
- Theatrical Teaser I (SD – 1:26)
- Theatrical Teaser II (SD – 1:39)
- Theatrical Trailer (SD – 2:20)
- The Making of Raziel’s Transformation (SD – 8:15)
Some of these features first appeared on DVD back in 2001, while some were created for the 2013 Blu-ray release, and the last few were added for the 2019 Blu-ray. There’s a very good commentary with Willow himself, Warwick Davis. He loves the film and you can tell, as he talks about everything from being drawn into the project and working with Kilmer to the acting and the special effects. A commentary with Lucas, Howard, and Muren would have been appreciated, but they do at least appear in a pair of documentary featurettes on the overall production and the morphing effects. Davis’ Video Dairy piece is here too, along with deleted scenes, a short look at the film’s matte paintings, a series of trailers and TV spots, and The Making of Raziel’s Transformation piece that was an Easter egg on the original DVD. And the Steelbook package also includes a Movies Anywhere Digital Code on a paper insert.
Maybe everyone loves Willow simply because it made morphing into a viable special effect. If there were no morphs, then this film would probably still be locked away in the Lucasfilm archives. But Willow, the film that made T2 and Michael Jackson’s Black and White music video possible, is now available on 4K Ultra HD. And the fact that this is so, absent an anniversary or obvious sequel tie-in, suggests that Lucasfilm probably intends to release their recently-purged 2022 Disney+ series of the same in 4K UHD soon as well. We shall see. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of this film, Andowyne awaits...
- Todd Doogan with Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)