Forget your space opera, peck - Willow headed to Blu-ray

02 Jan, 2013, 21:00 | Posted by: Jason | Source: High-Def Digest

One of the great things about being a natural contrarian is that I get all the Willow coverage to myself.

On March 12th, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox join forces to bring you "Willow: 25th Anniversary Edition" on Blu-ray. You probably recall Ron Howard's 1988 fantasy film as the thoroughly okay attempt by George Lucas to hatch a new franchise, this one more Tolkien than Flash Gordon. The grander plans fell through when the box office returns weren't good for much more than covering costs, but the movie remains a cult favorite, and is arguably a property Lucasfilm should have continued with a sequel anyway (a possibility which the great Warwick Davis to this day heartbreakingly refuses to rule out).

Here's the thing about Willow: it's got a whole bunch of intriguing deleted scenes that fans have only been able to experience via script pages and novelizations, and it looks like this release will finally bring some of them to light. Based on the trailer above, we'll get to see the fabled scene where Willow gets attacked by an animatronic shark-boy in a storm (its omission leaving Willow inexplicably wet at one point in the final cut) and more material depicting the frozen citizens of the kingdom of Tir Asleen. You probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about because I'm talking about Willow, so let's re-frame this news in a way that everyone can appreciate: skull-masked Pat Roach in high definition.

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