Willow
May 20, 1988 in theaters
A reluctant Nelwyn farmer named Willow Ufgood discovers an abandoned infant prophesied to overthrow an evil queen and is thrust into a mythic quest across a dangerous world far beyond his village. George Lucas and Ron Howard's 1988 fantasy-adventure draws from classic heroic mythology with practical-effects era ambition.
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TRAILER
DID YOU KNOW?
George Lucas conceived the Willow story in the early 1970s, before Star Wars, as part of his interest in mythic heroic quest narratives.
THE VERDICT
Synthesized from published reviews
Willow arrived in 1988 with the ambition of a classic heroic epic and a sincerity that its era occasionally undercut with uneven comic relief. Warwick Davis carries the film on earned charm rather than spectacle, and the quest structure — reluctant hero, found companions, escalating danger — is executed with enough warmth that its limits don't undermine the journey. Val Kilmer's Madmartigan brings the film's best comic energy, and Ron Howard keeps the mythic stakes legible throughout. It is more imaginative than tightly constructed, but the imagination is genuine and the world it builds deserved more sequels than it got.
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