There were lots of fantasy movies which came out in the 80s. Flash Gordon, The Dark Crystal, Krull, The Neverending Story, Legend and Labyrinth to name a few. None were, however, as sweet-natured, innocent and kind as Willow, with a marvellous central performance from a mature beyond his years teenage Warwick Davis. (He was actually 17 during filming, not 18 like I say in the episode.... ooops!)

You simply couldn't have Willow without Warwick. Nor could you have Willow without the ground-breaking special effects; a mixture of animatronics, stop-motion, miniatures, animation, over-sized sets, blue-screen compositing, rear projection, as well as ILM’s innovative 2D transformation system, called MORF. This movie contains so much state-of-the-art special effects work that they had to scale down production to stop the budget from being blown!

Don't even get me started on that James Horner score. It's so beautiful it makes me cry!

Simply put, whilst the story is simple, this movie is magic. Willow...... You Are Great!

I would love to hear your thoughts on Willow! You can get in touch on

Twitter @verbaldiorama

Instagram @verbaldiorama

Facebook @verbaldiorama

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Letterboxd @verbaldiorama

or you can email me general hellos, feedback or suggestions:

verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com

You can rate or review the show in iTunes or at Apple Podcasts and I'd very much appreciate that!

For Augstravaganza, please don't donate to Ko-fi. Instead please donate to shinecharity.org.uk/donate so they can provide advice and support to families dealing with spina bifida, hydrocephalus and related conditions. Any Ko-Fi donations I receive in the month of August will instead be donated to Shine.

My website is at https://verbaldiorama.com

Thanks to the following for their contributions to this episode:

Twitter peeps

@30podcast

@gundam_guyver

Instagram folk

@sheenanigans83

@rcarteaga_h24

@leppieladdie

@ginatinel

Next up is The Iron Giant - look out for that in your podcatcher on 31st August!

Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song

Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe Facebook

Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!)

Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan of Ewenique Studios.

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