They're gonna kill Willow, aren't they? - Willow (2022) Discussion

The goal is to destroy the past, so yes everything you loved will be ruined.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

I mean, they can't really ruin it because I have the original film on DVD, so there it is and I'll just ignore the TV series. But I know what you mean. Some people play by themselves, some people play with others, and some people aren't happy until everybody's playing the way they want to - even if they don't actually want to play the game.

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[–] InquiringMind (2272) a year ago

Yes. Yes the are.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

I don't have Disney+, so I haven't seen the show and I have no knowledge of whether or not they actually did, but it just seems like such a standard-issue move for this kind of thing. If they kept him intact and heroic by the end of the show, that'd almost be more creative at this point.

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[–] InquiringMind (2272) a year ago

I don't have Disney+ either. But I saw the first episode. Well, I saw the first 10 min of the first episode, and turned it off.
It's a woke fest with terrible writing, acting, and dialogue. The main character is a lesbian girl boss and her lesbian girlfriend fighting the patriarchy. That is when I peaced out and said: Nope!

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

I liked the trailer. I'd probably give it a shot if I had Disney+, but it's not making me want to sign up.

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[–] InquiringMind (2272) a year ago

You can watch it if you're willing to sail the high seas. Aaarrr!

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mPIqVOBFis

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[–] InquiringMind (2272) a year ago

A pirate's life is the only life for me.
☠️

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[–] janelsenor (2042) a year ago

I'm 99% sure Madmartigan will have a brief appearance in the finale.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Well, if I was watching the show and the greatest swordsman who ever lived didn't show up, I'd feel a bit ripped off. But, if he wasn't given something heroic and impactful to do, or if he was killed off or belittled (again, cliches at this point), I'd rather they left him out.

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[–] janelsenor (2042) a year ago

There’s only so much they can do with Kilmer’s health issues

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Yeah, I guess that's true. Fair enough.

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[–] [deleted] a year ago

Janelsenor hit the nail on the head. Kilmer has some pretty heavy health issues that have kept him mostly off screen (or just doing cameos) for a while. It would be too difficult to have him reprise his role as Madmartigan as a result. Remember, TV moves a lot faster than movies do.

As for Willow himself, I don’t know what will happen with him, but I wouldn’t like to see him get axed off. We will see moving forward, I guess.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

The father/mentor character ALWAYS dies! That's an obligatory Fantasy genre trope, the father/mentor character has to die, so that the hero is totally on their own and able to take full credit for saving the world.

The only way out is for the father/mentor/wizard character to die and then come back to life, a la Gandalf. My guess is that's what they'll do with Willow, who is too charming and popular to stay dead.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Yeah, it's just so cliche now. I get why it can be important to the story, and some tropes aren't worth dodging - because stories fall into certain tropes for a reason - but I wish once or twice they'd swerve into something fresher. Should've made the "Old Wizard" (Willow) the main character. He's why we're coming back (those that are).

I wouldn't count on popularity. Willow was a cult classic. They're only rebooting it 'cause they're running out of franchises to milk. I look forward to the announcements of yet another Freaky Friday retread, the Disney+ streaming show of the Apple Dumpling Gang, and the MCU Phase [whichever phase they're on now] crossover with Pete's Dragon.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

The show is having a bit of fun with Fantasy genre tropes, using them but changing them up a bit, and I suspect they'll do something like that to get the father/mentor character out of the way before the final battle. Because the hero or heroes HAVE to go into the final battle without the father/mentor.

So I think that Willow will pop up alive, and there will be some clever twist to explain his absence, like at the end of "Dragonslayer".

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Cool. I don't have Disney+, so I haven't been watching it. The trailer looked okay. Are they messing with tropes in a clever way or just a meta, "We don't want the audience to think this is a straight-up fantasy story," way?

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

I'm enjoying the series so far, it's super lightweight silly fluff, not great or anything but fun.

All the right-wing snowflakes hate it with a passion, because they think the we wrong sort of people have been cast in the major roles.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Cool. That's sorta what it looked like from the trailer. If I had D+ (how is that grade joke not being thrown around all over the place?) I'd probably watch it, but it's not the straw that's going to break me into signing up.

I'm glad you're liking it. We live in a mean culture where people like to dump on things; I like when people just enjoy stuff.

I don't like the people who just knee-jerk hate on anything with a diverse cast or that include minority groups, but I also get where a lot of people are coming from in terms of shows (especially old IPs) basically being used as PSAs for inclusion. I like inclusion; it's great. I like shows with good messaging; that's great. But I don't want to be lectured at or have my favourite heroes torn down to build up others. The problem is that the rhetoric looks the same because the genuine, reasonable complaints and the haters use the same language.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

I admit I'm guilty of hating on things, I'm currently hate-reading Prince Harry's autobiography after all. An overwhelming wealth of snark material there!

Anyway, my opinion of the series is that the bulk of it was cheerful piffle, not great and possibly not good but definitely fun, but the shit's-getting-real season finale was the least successful part of the show so far. It's fairly difficult to pull off that kind of tone shift, and I don't know that the show will be an overall success.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Oh, I'm not saying I don't do it, too. I just try to be a bit more positive. It's not like criticism isn't useful or can't be fun. I just think we have too much of it these days.

Snark material is so much fun. I don't think I'll hate-read Harry's autobiography, but I do get a good chuckle out of, "We just want to be left alone and not be hounded as Royals! Is that such a big ask, Oprah? Please buy our biographies!"

Tone shifts almost never work. From Dusk Till Dawn pulls it off out of sheer audacity (the movie, not the crumby TV series).

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

I don't think I can bear to finish Harry's book, the idiocy and obliviousness is too much! So he hates the press, and in one chapter he'll talk about using drugs, and in the next he'll go on and on about how horrible and evil the press is for printing "lies" about him using drugs! And now I'm in the chapters where he's meeting Meg and falling in love, and I can see her playing hard to get but not too hard to get... and I can see all the manipulation through *his* eyes but he still doesn't have a clue. It is a SNARK GOLD MINE, but also painful.

When it comes to being a hater or a bitch, better to "punch up", or at least that's my excuse.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

That's hilarious. Maybe I'll flip through it in a library.

At least you know it's probably not ghost-written; they'd have helped him avoid such obvious contradictions. Of course, he might've had a ghost-writer and just ignored them or insisted on certain elements.

If I'm going to dump on something, I'll send those slaps out where needed. Most of the time that's probably "punching up," but dolts come from everywhere.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

I'm quite sure Harry's book is ghostwritten, the writer's name has been floating around discussions but I don't recall it offhand. But yes, publishers normally take out all the idiocy from ghostwritten celebrity memoirs and they haven't here, and my theory is that the publisher paid Harry a shit-ton of money and all Harry gave the ghostwriter was endless whining... the publisher realized the only hope of getting the advance money back was to appeal to the snarky bitches of the world.

But the bitchiest of snarky bitches like me don't want to give Harry their hard-earned money, we wait for library copies!

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

It wouldn't surprise me if it was ghost-written. I assume most or all celebrity autobiographies are ghost-written, at least in part. Even if it's just somebody taking a bunch of audio tapes and cleaning them up a bit into the book format, I bet most of them have somebody involved. Still, with Harry, he might have just insisted on certain passages being changed to what he (or Meghan?) wanted. Maybe their hands were tied. Or maybe, as you say, they were leaning into hate-reads. On the other hand, maybe they just didn't care what the book said. The publisher would know that most people had already decided to read that book or not read it, and they might have just known good or bad was irrelevant.

Good for you, getting it from the library. Better to support libraries than celebrities.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

I don't think Harry did any writing at all, he's perfectly open about hating study and books, there's no way he'd want to sit down and write anything. What others have said is that the tone of the book changes when Meg comes into the picture, it goes from slightly snarky about royal existence to hagiographic, and some think that Meg was the one who changed things for her own benefit.

I have no firm idea why the book is all Harry revealing himself to be a complete idiot, I do suspect that the publisher did want to appeal to Haters (it's big business these days), but I also suspect that Harry had no clue what a self-absorbed spoiled moron he's revealing himself to be! He's never been anything but a self-absorbed spoiled moron, he probably thinks that being a spoiled self-absorbed moron is normal and totally acceptable.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Hagiographic is a great word I didn't know yet; thank you for sharing that one.

I don't know if Meghan was directly involved or not, but I think this dude - Royal dolt or no - would absolutely realize that if he wasn't anything other than reverent to his wife that she'd be frosty toward him. Bonus points if he realized that he is not on good terms with a lot of his family and previous social circles, and therefore his only chance at social survival stands with making Meghan out to be beatific. Or, having the ghost writer do so.

I'd bet money that Harry didn't know how he'd come across in the book. People usually have at least a thin haze around their self-perception - good or bad - and people in positions of authority, wealth, or great status are the worst at it. It's Barbara Streisand demanding people not take pictures of her ostentatious manor.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

Well, I finished the damn book! The last chapters were so unbearably obtuse and dishonest that I had to skip over pages of pure whining, but I made it all the way through to the end!

I had thought before this that Harry was a stupid whiner, a weird combination of mess and douchebag, and now that I've read his own (adapted) words I'm convinced I was right all along! OMG what a tiny-minded, self-absorbed, petty, dishonest, Oedipal mess he is. And I don't think that making Meghan out to be saintly is a good strategy, she's too good at intentionally and unintentionally making enemies to be a good crutch for him, if he sticks with her he's going to find his social world constantly shrinking, not growing. But then, she seems to be the only human being on Earth who will put up with his shit, so I don't expect a divorce any time soon.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

Sounds rough, but hey, at least you didn't let it beat you.

I don't really follow the Royals or Harry and Meghan; I sorta know stuff, but I don't like to go in for too much gossip. From what little I know, I'm not a fan of what they're doing. It seems like a lot of attention-seeking behaviour.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

Oh yeah, their "we want privacy" claims are total bullshit, what they actually want is to control what the media prints about him. And according to Harry's book, he has absolutely no clue why he can't do that.

What can I say, I've never been much of a royal watcher either, but Harry has been extremely entertaining for the last few years, and he isn't losing his edge with exposure!

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

It's not privacy for sure.

If it's entertaining, go for it.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

That's the spirit!

If it's entertaining, have a good time as long as you're not hurting anyone. And it's not like Harry comes here to see me poking fun at him.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

I really wish I could big reveal that I'm Harry right now. Alas, life doesn't work out so neatly...

Shame he doesn't come around here, though; he might get a bit of fresh air.

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[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

I already knew you weren't Harry, you got through this discussion without hissy fits, freakouts, or saying the press really DOES want to kill royals.

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[–] Ace_Spade (9352) a year ago

The press who have to interview them might.

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