05/01/2022: I haven't gotten hold of a copy of the show yet and it is tearing me to pieces but MENTOR WILLOW MENTOR WILLOW MENTOR WILLOW MENTOR WILLOW. ALSO SWORD LESBIANS. MENTOR WILLOW
1988 high fantasy adventure film starring Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood, a simple farmer with the makings of a great magician. Dir. Ron Howard, a Lucasfilms production.
Willow is one of the few films I've seen with a disabled star playing a disabled* character in an epic adventure that has little to do with the star or character being disabled. Willow is a farmer who loves his wife and kids and best friends (all played by little people) to pieces, and doesn't want to leave them - but when a mysterious baby washes up by the river, his paternal instinct takes over, and he promises to safeguard the child, even as she turns out to be a magic princess and a dangerous journey ensues, filled with rogues, cavalry-leading princesses, and every form of true love, from friendship to romance to family.
It's almost good enough that you forget Warwick Davis was a teenager at the time; it's jarring to see a sixteen-year-old who very much looks like a sixteen-year-old playing a character obviously intended to be an adult, but what's never unbelievable for a moment is that Willow is a capable and loving family man - incredible acting from Warwick Davis.
The dashing rogue has beautiful long hair and wow is the chemistry he has with the love interest, the badass warrior princess, the PINNACLE of bi4bi. When they first meet, they're both in drag! (Sort of; Sorsha seems to prefer wearing "men's" clothes, so it may be less drag and more her "usual" gender presentation on her part. Madmartigan, on the other hand, is wearing a pink dress with fake breasts made out of bread (breadsts?)).
*Willow and the other Nelwyns, including everyone from his village, have a "magic race of little people" thing going - somehow done well, which is almost unbelievable - but they're still obviously humans with dwarfism. The Daikini (magic race of big people, humans without dwarfism) and Nelwyns are equally strange and magic types of human, both living in a fantastical world!
There is no need to dwell on his arrival—how Vohnkar was the first to greet him and question him about the child and Tir Asleen; how Meegosh welcomed him soon after, and how his two friends led the pony down the last stretch of the river road, where it came out of the forest as if from the end of a long tunnel; or how, as they passed the old burial ground in the meadow, the High Aldwin materialized, saying, "What? What?" and led the little procession to the village, holding his staff high and shouting, "Triumph! Triumph! Sound the gongs! Beat the drums! Music and revelry!"
There is no need to describe how warmly Willow was welcomed by all, even by Burglekutt; or how the Council declared a festival in his honor; or how the High Aldwin, beaming with pride, insisted that he change a stone into a white dove; or how the bird spiraled higher and higher above Ufgood Reach until it was lost to sight.
The honor, the acclaim, the gratitude—these embarrassed Willow Ufgood, for he was, after all, a modest and private person. His most important welcome came later, when he was free at last to walk with Kiaya and the children down the path to Ufgood Reach, and when, laughing wearily, he promised to look at all Mims's new paintings the very next morning, and to answer all Ranon's questions, and to tell them both the story of Elora Danan as often as they wished.
Then, when the children were settled for the night, Willow embraced his beloved Kiaya, and they walked a little distance away from the house to a spot where they could watch the moonlight on the bountiful fields of Ufgood Reach and the silver eddies of the Freen. There they stood a long time in one another's arms, content with that simple life, at peace in the Mystery of that green world.
