There's sad news today in the world of Willow. Billy Barty, the actor who played the High Aldwin with such crafty charm, died yesterday of heart failure at the age of 76. The Associated Press obituary has been reproduced in the Articles/Other Material section. The Billy Barty and Friends Webpage (available through the Links section) has been updated to announce this sad event, and includes a link to the more detailed Los Angeles Times obituary. The most detailed report is on Ain't It Cool News.

Since joining the staff of Willow.Lucasfan.Com back in August, I've spent all my time working on the movie-related sections of the site. Now it's time the novels got some attention. The first order of business is to finish the chapter-by-chapter synopses. I've revised the Shadow Moon synopses for the Prologue and Chapter 1, and added synopses for chapters 2 through 15. The Shadow Moon synopsis is now complete! It's located in The Saga/Shadow Moon section, and is also accessible through the Articles section.

Taal looked through his files and found some great stuff that never made it to the page before. Most of this is visual material - read on to learn more!

The full Willow trailer is new in The Saga/Willow section, and is also listed in the Articles section. Several existing features are now listed in the Articles/Other Material section for the first time, to make these far-flung items a little easier to find. This section also includes a new article called Building the Perfect Beast, about FX man Phil Tippett, whose creations include the Eborsisk.

The Fan Art section has been renamed to just plain Art. The reason for the change is that several production drawings from Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm are now part of this section. In addition, a great new piece of fan art by EpicJRG has been added to the collection.

The Pictures/Behind the Scenes section now has several photos of brownie stunt doubles Rocky Capella (for Sidney Pollak's Rool) and Mike Martinez (for Rick Overton's Franjean). We'd love to give credit for these photos, but they've been gathering dust in the files for a while, and we can no longer determine where they came from. A big thank-you goes out to the unknown source.

There's something new in the menu bar! A new cut scenes section has been added to the page, with pictures and information about scenes that didn't make it into the final version of the movie. Unless George Lucas decides to release Willow on DVD with these scenes included, this is the closest you're going to come to seeing them! Some of the cut scenes are very cool, so check it out.

In conjunction with the inauguration of this new section, there's been a slight revamp of the Articles section, primarily to add a copy of the Willow script for easy reference. This is not the final version of the script, but it's the only version that's readily available - in fact, it's the only version that's on sale at ScriptShop.com. This particular copy comes from Joe Frese (thanks, Joe!).

The full opening and closing movie credits for Willow are now available for viewing in the Miscellanea section. And they're a lot easier to read than the ones on the videotape.

The paperback release of Shadow Star occurred just a few days ago, and the Merchandise/Books section has been updated accordingly. The price of the book is a paltry $6.50, so if you don't already own this novel, now is an excellent time to visit your local bookstore and pick up a copy!

For the first time in a very long time, there's a new Willow fanpage on the web! The Willow Pages [Obsolete link removed] just went online. It's still under construction, but looks great so far. Until now there were only three major Willow pages on the web, and two of those are inactive. So this new addition is very, very welcome.

A few new items have been added to the Merchandise section. In the Wearables subsection, there's a new, larger picture of the Willow Halloween costume. The Audio subsection has a better picture of the Story of Willow vinyl LP. The Posters subsection has a new picture of a Kraft poster and some German lobby cards. The Miscellaneous subsection now has a picture of the Madmartigan Ziploc card; the picture is of poor quality, but it's better than nothing, which is what we had before. Three new publicity photos and a Willow promo pack have also been added to the Miscellaneous subsection under the Promotional Materials subheading.

The Out of Costume section of the picture gallery is now online. This concludes the construction of the Pictures section, at least for now.

The Chronological Pictures section is now complete. Newly added subsections 5 through 12 cover the movie from the wagon chase to the end.

The first four parts of the chronological picture gallery are now online in the Pictures section. This covers the movie from the beginning until just after Madmartigan's encounter with Llug in the tavern. To be continued.....

That's right, still more movie pictures. Parts 8 through 14 are now available for viewing in the Pictures section. And yes, this actually does conclude this phase of the picture gallery construction.

HOWEVER...we're not done playing with movie pictures yet. The movie pictures in the initial phase are in random order. It's a webmaster mental health issue - I'd go crazy if I had to try to put all those pictures in movie sequence order! Taking SOME of those pictures and presenting them in chronological order is an easier task, and that's what's next on the agenda.

Parts 5, 6 and 7 of the movie photos are now online in the Pictures section. Are we done now? Not by a long shot.

Parts 2, 3 and 4 of the movie photos are now open for business in the Pictures section. And yes, there is more on the way.

Two new sections have opened in the picture gallery, namely the Behind the Scenes photos and Part 1 of the movie photos. There are LOTS more movie photos where those came from, so stay tuned!

Yes, there's another new option on the menu bar. The picture gallery brings together photos from throughout the page, and contains a large percentage of new photos as well. This is a big project, and at the moment it's far from finished. For the benefit of everyone (including myself) I've decided to put it online in phases. The gallery will ultimately contain several categories of photos, but right now the only category that's actually up and running is the ILM Photos. The gallery submenu will give you an idea of what else is coming, so check it out!

Did you know that Billy Barty (aka the High Aldwin) has an official website? I didn't, until I ran across it today. Also, it was brought to my attention that I failed to provide links to George Lucas' official websites. So you can probably guess what the new additions to the Links section are... Another James Horner link has been added as well.

Cast your eyes up the page a little, take a good look at the menu bar, and what do you see? Two new menu options!

The Miscellanea section is intended to hold all those odd bits of information that don't really fit anywhere else on the page. Its inaugural contents consist of two items. The first is a link to an online petition started by Joe Frese of the Big Big Willow/Shadow Moon Homepage. The petition calls for the DVD release of Willow, and a very deluxe edition at that. This is something that's really important for Willow fans, and I hope that everyone visiting this page will sign it.

The second item in Miscellanea resulted from a whim of mine to see how many Willow-related birthdays I could find. I found more than I expected, so I put the information on the page. Ever want to know the age, astrological sign, or Chinese zodiac animal of your favorite Willow star? Well, now you've got the tools to find out. Unfortunately, in the process of digging up this information I ran across some sad news. Patricia Hayes (Raziel) died of natural causes in 1998 at the age of 88. And Ron Tarr (Llug) died of cancer in 1997 at the age of 60. They are gone but not forgotten...their memories will live on as long as there are Willow fans out there.

The second new menu option is the Links section, featuring links to other Willow movie pages (all too rare, alas!), pages dedicated to Willow cast and crew members, and the extracurricular projects of Willow.Lucasfan.Com webmasters. You probably haven't seen all of them before - I know I hadn't - so take a look!

After a few days of noncooperation, the computer decided to let us post updates again. Although we had to wait for the server to get in a better mood before we could prove we were still on the job, we stayed busy gathering the information for a big update.

The Wearables and Miscellaneous sections have been reformatted, completing the work in the Merchandise section. There are a few new pictures in Wearables, and a lot of new pictures in Miscellaneous. There are a couple of modest additions elsewhere in the Merchandise section, too. The Posters section has a new promo poster for the video release, and the Audio section now has the Story of Willow vinyl record album cover.

The Articles main menu has been reformatted, and dozens of missing pictures have been restored to the various articles in this section. There's been some other cleanup work in this department as well - that link to the Joanne Whalley interview in the Official Poster Magazine never did work right, but now it's been fixed. And for the first time, the listing of Starlog articles includes an interview with Willow screenplay writer Bob Dolman.

At present a very small number of pictures are still missing from various portions of the site. But we hope to have them back soon.

Enjoy!

Today I revamped the Video and Children's Literature subsections of the Merchandise section. There's nothing new in Video other than the switch to the new format; however, there are a few new items in Children's Literature. There are a few new scans, but the most exciting item is that the full text of Willow and the Brownies is now online for the first time. About 90% of the story consists of original material not found in the movie or any of the other books. Although it's aimed at young children, Willow fans everywhere will find it highly entertaining. Check it out!

Great news! According to Amazon.com, the paperback edition of Shadow Star will be released on October 3, 2000. The retail price will be a very reasonable $6.50. Click here to check it out.

In other news, the restoration of the page is continuing. Today I added revamped versions of the Merchandise section's Audio and Books sections. While I was at it, it occurred to me that I ought to convert them to the blue, white and black format that's been instituted elsewhere on the page. So that's what I did. The pictures have also been restored on The Chronicles of Willow in the Articles section.

Taal is also working on the restoration. When I come across pictures that I can't restore myself, I tell him about it and he and he uploads them. He's restored the wallpapers in the Fan Art section and other pictures in various locations throughout the page.