I have a few favorite movies from childhood which remain favorites today, and I’m not alone in this, seeing as how they’ve all gained a sort of cult following.   My all time favorite is The Princess Bride, a book to movie combo that I suspect I’ll get further into some other day.  The other two, running a close race for second on my favorite movies list, are Labyrinth and Willow.

I was ten years old when this movie came out, and I’ve loved it ever since.  The films virtues changed over the years as I got older, but in a nut shell is has magic, action, humor, romance, suspense and excellent, diverse characters.  You can’t go wrong with fairies, mischievous brownies, evil and good sorceresses,  valiant, yet flawed heroes, a baby with a destiny and her diminutive guardian.   The movie even includes an evil warrior princes who is brought over to the good side through love.

What’s not to like about this movie?!  Apparently there’s a lot because the movie flopped at the theaters, and only gained a following when out of theaters, probably through other kids like me.   My husband still maintains that he doesn’t like it, but then he doesn’t like Labyrinth, either, so there’s no accounting for his taste.

Somewhere a long the line, possibly in a second hand book store, I discovered that there was also a book, Willow: The Novel.   I had no idea until doing research for this post,which came first, the movie or the novel, but I always assumed it was the novel.  I was wrong.   Wayland Drew was responsible for the novelization of the movie.   Usually an author writes a book and the movie is created, which is never as good as the book.   With this novel, it was backward; the movie was created, then the book, which was still better than the movie.

As much as I like the movie, I still like the novel better because the novel goes into history and explanations that the movie never really covers, or glosses over.  For example, we find out that the ruler of the doomed city of Tir Asleen, where Willow and Elora are supposed to find refuge, was actually ruled by Scorsha’s father, who was King. We find out Bavmorda’s history, how she became an evil sorcerous because she was jealous of a rival and wanted more and more power.    Eventually, Bavmorda, turned evil by her lust for power,  destroyed the city, freezing everyone into stone.

In the novel, this explains Scorsha’s desertion of the army, when she discovers her father, red-headed as she is, and begins to remember her childhood.  In the movie, we never really find out what Tir Asleen was, except that it was frozen by Bavmorda, and the spell broken at her death.  At the end of the movie, we do see Scorsha and Madmartigan waving from the castle of Tir Asleen, obviously taking up the raising of Elora, and presumably ruling of the city, but there’s no explanation of why that’s possible.

While I’m happy that I got the extra detail from the novel, I would still recommend it more as a companion to the movie, rather than advising to read the novel instead of watching the movie.  The movie’s a cult classic, and by not seeing it you’d be missing out on a lot of antics and action that, being visually appealing, the book doesn’t have.

Unfortunately, the novel is now out of print, but there are plenty of used copies available on Amazon.   Otherwise, you can find the movie here: Willow (1988)