the groundhog day project

On Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast from Wired , 21 March 2020, science fiction author Tom Gerencer says, regarding Willow (on the occasion of a reported Willow -related television series for Disney+ ): It wasn't quite up to Star Wars standards... I wasn't 100 percent in love with it, but I didn't think it was completely awful either. The podcast's host, David Barr agreed, adding: Star Wars draws on Flash Gordon, samurai movies, Westerns, and a bunch of other stuff... I feel like Willow pretty much just draws on Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barabarian . I feel like George Lucas wasn't as knowledgeable about--or maybe as passionate about--fantasy. I read that yesterday before turning the movie on and figured I had no use for it. But, given some points I am about to make, I should say, I think Barr is wrong. 1) Star Wars is very much fantasy. It's got wizards. It's got magic. It's got sword fights. It's got monsters. That Lucas base...

Willow starts a little basic--a bit of onscreen text (that is entirely superfluous) about a prophecy involving a baby that will grow up to bring down Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh). (The plot is a little like The Lord of the Rings except it's a baby instead of a ring, and Gandalf is an old woman who was cursed into the shape of a possum.) Nurse gets the baby out of the dungeon (though the mother is killed) and manages to get the baby as far as a river, where she pulls a a Moses allusion sending the baby on her way. The nurse, like the baby's mother, is also killed. The baby is Elora Danan and it occurred to me just an hour or so before turning the film on tonight that this story has a lot of female energy to its cast, despite its leads being Warwick Davis as the titular Willow and Val Kilmer as Madmartigan. In the opening scene, we've already passed the Bechdel test, and we probably don't realize it just yet but we have also passed the Mako Mori test. The main ...