Many thanks to Jeff C., who provided three gorgeous new scans of production drawings by Moebius that are now on view in the Art section. There's a drawing of the famous deleted scene where Willow (and his companions in this early stage of planning) must fight with a golden boy who turns into a lake monster, a drawing of the elf king (who didn't make it into the later versions of the script), and an early drawing of Bavmorda wearing much prettier robes than the ones she eventually ended up with.

My mail-order DVD finally arrived, and I've had so much fun today! The film is absolutely gorgeous in widescreen. Now if someone would just show it in the theater again; there's nothing like widescreen plus bigscreen. I need to get a bigger TV....

The extra features are wonderful! Warwick's audio commentary is lots of fun, and the documentaries are interesting and informing.

In the November 30 update I said that my viewing of the new VHS tape led me to believe there was a snippet of new footage. Well, I was wrong about that. That wide screen is wider than I thought - apparently the viewer loses a full half of the picture in pan and scan format, and the older editions used the right half of this scene while the new edition uses the left half. To find out which scene I'm talking about, check the Cut Scenes section near the bottom of the page.

I'm not planning to say too much more about the DVD for the time being. You really need to experience it yourself rather than hearing about it from me. So if you haven't seen it yet - what are you waiting for, Christmas? (Actually, I know a lot of people who are!) This DVD would be a great gift to give, as well as to receive.

Numerous Willow DVD reviews have started appearing on the web. I won't attempt to list them all, just the ones that weren't so busy reviewing the movie that they forgot to say very much about the DVD special features. The reviews listed here aren't universally favorable toward the movie itself (critics - what do they know?) but they all had something interesting to say about the DVD. Here are links to half a dozen new reviews from Digitally Obsessed, Corona's Test Pattern, DVD Angle, DVD Future, [no longer available] DVD Talk #1 and DVD Talk #2.

The Val Kilmer Newslettter has just put their new Tribute to Willow section online. It's fabulous - you MUST go over and check it out.

My mission is to make this webpage so complete that there's nothing left for anybody else to talk about. I'll obviously have to try harder, though, because the VKN webmaster has done a great job of coming up with fresh material. There's even an article about me and this webpage right here. Talk about cross-promotion....

I've finished watching the new version of the VHS tape and made a list of all the differences from the older editions that I could see. This is posted in the Cut Scenes section for lack of a better place for it under the subheading of Edition Differences.

I still don't have the DVD because I ordered it on the internet and shipping takes way too much time. I had planned to order the VHS tape too (gotta have a complete collection!), but I forgot add it to the list when the time came. So instead I bought one at a store today (ten bucks at Best Buy - such a deal) and brought it home. I got a nice surprise when I popped it into the VCR. The opening sequence is in widescreen, switching to the customary pan and scan format when Elora's raft comes to rest on the riverbank. I haven't had time to watch the whole movie yet, but I'm eager to see if there are any more surprises in store. The tape is much nicer to watch than the older editions - the colors are much more vibrant.

The question of which variation of the cover art was the real thing has been settled once and for all. And the back cover art is lovely, with a similar design on the back of the DVD (I checked while I was at the store). You can see scans of the front and back of the VHS cover in the Merchandise/Video section.

Today is the official release date for the Willow Special Edition DVD and the concurrent reissue of the VHS tape. These items should be on the shelves of your local video retailer RIGHT NOW.

And here's something you should know about from DVD Review:

"20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has hidden a nice little gem on their release of Ron Howard's fantasy adventure 'Willow.'

From the disc’s main menu select 'Special Features' and once you get there, select the entry 'Trailers and TV Spots.' On this screen, highlight the 'More' menu entry at the bottom of the screen and then press the 'Right' arrow key on your remote control. This will highlight a fairy in the picture. Press 'Enter' now and you will have the chance to watch 'The Making of Raziel’s Transformation,' an 8-minute featurette on the creation of the scene, complete with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews."

There's a new production sketch by Moebius in the Art section, provided by Jeff C. There are also some new movie prop pictures in this section.

There's a new DVD review on the DVD Verdict website. The movie review is a little annoying at times, but the product information on the DVD is worthwhile.

The DVD will be released on Tuesday! I'm ordering mine on the internet, so it will probably be a few days after that before I actually get to see it :(

As mentioned in the last update, the early publicity for the Willow DVD indicated that there would be a Ron Howard commentary on the DVD but the pre-release reviews cast serious doubt on this.

Starlog magazine issue #293 just hit the store shelves, and it includes an interview with Warwick Davis. While he's discussing the Willow DVD, he states that it turned out Ron Howard was too busy to do a commentary. The article spends several paragraphs on Willow. I won't post the relevant material on the webpage as long as the magazine is still in stores, so you might want to go out and buy it.

There's another pre-release review of the Willow DVD on The Digital Bits. The reviewer isn't a Willow fan, so feel free to disregard his opinion of the movie itself. He says some nice things about the DVD, though. Thanks to Mattman for providing the link. His webpage, Mattman's PulpFilm.com includes a nice movie review [no longer available] of Willow. And take a look at his November 7 news - you may find it interesting!

The early publicity for the DVD indicated that there would be an audio commentary by Ron Howard. The reviews so far raise doubts about whether this is correct, so I've removed it from the list of DVD features in the FAQ section.

The Merchandise/Posters section has a picture and information on a highly unusual Willow poster from Poland.

There's also a new picture of Madmartigan in the Pictures section - it's at the end of Movie Pictures part 15.

One of the benefits of the upcoming Willow DVD release is that we can hope for other types of fresh Willow-related material to come our way. It's already started to happen - the online magazine Science Fiction Weekly published a new interview with Warwick Davis about the making of Willow in their September 17 issue. I've put a permanent link to this interview in the Articles section.

Merchandise/Miscellaneous now has copies of all four pages of the DVD sell sheet displayed at the bottom of the page in the Advertising subsection (thanks to Nia for the brilliant idea of asking local video stores if they had a copy that they were willing to part with!). The previously-unseen fourth page includes a picture of a nifty stand that will be used in stores to display the DVDs and videotapes. The previously-unseen second page is also quite interesting because it contains a picture of the DVD and VHS covers; click the picture at the left to get a full-sized view. The DVD cover appears to have a better color balance than the picture that was released earlier (click on the picture in the September 23 news report for a comparison), and as far as I know the VHS cover has not been seen on the internet until now.

The second page of the sell sheet also provided some new information on language availability. The VHS will be available in English or French, while the DVD will come in English/Spanish and English/French. The sell sheet gives price quotes in both U.S. and Canadian dollars, so it's likely that the French versions are aimed at the Canadian market.

Merchandise/Wearables has an improved picture of the button pins.

Merchandise/Games has some new pictures of the arcade game.

On September 11, 2001 the United States was the victim of an unspeakable crime. While I share my nation's grief, I won't dwell on it here. The time has come to defiantly move ahead with business as usual. These terrorist [expletive deleted]s will NOT bring us down.

So in that spirit, here is the official artwork for the Willow DVD. It's quite similar to the art on the DVD sell sheet (which has been moved to Merchandise/Miscellaneous in the advertising subsection). The color balance is somewhat different - besides the added gold bands at top and bottom, the background is brighter and Willow himself doesn't blend in like he did before. I'm not convinced that the picture at left reflects the true colors of the DVD cover.

Here is some artwork from a sell sheet for the Willow DVD. Is this the cover art for the DVD? I dunno - we'll have to wait and see. [Note: on September 23 these pictures were moved to the Advertisements subsection of Merchandise/Miscellaneous to improve the loading time of the News section]

Besides being available for preorder on Amazon.com, the DVD can also be preordered at other places as well. In addition to lower prices than Amazon.com, Deep Discount has free shipping and DVD Planet has low-cost shipping ($2.50 for the first CD and fifty cents for each additional CD). Thanks to Andrew Pitino and Andrew Johnson for the information.

There's been a fresh announcement on the specs for the Willow Special Edition DVD. According to an August 26 report on DVDfile.com:

Though Fox and Lucasfilm have already announced a 11/27 release of the Ron Howard fantasy-adventure Willow, the full specs have yet to be released. But Fox has just issued all the details on the disc, including aspect ratio and features. The film is presented in a new THX-certified 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English and Spanish 2.0 surround tracks (no DTS track will be included), English and French subtitles and English Closed Captions, a new audio commentary with director Ron Howard and actor Warwick Davis, the "Making Of An Adventure'' documentary and a special effects featurette, a still gallery and theatrical trailers and TV spots. Retail is $26.95, and no box art or menu screens have yet been released... but stay tuned!

Some of this is just a repeat of the previous announcement. But some of it - like who's doing the commentary - is brand new information! Thanks to Mike Streeter for the tip.

You can now preorder the Willow Special Edition DVD on Amazon.com. Thanks to Andrew Pitino for the information! Andrew also reports that the DVD will apparently have a Spanish audio track available. Look in the FAQ for additional DVD features.

It appears that the DVD may also include an updated credits list. Amazon.com's cast list includes three items that are not in the original credits: Kenny Baker and Jack Purvis, who played several characters in the Star Wars movies, are listed as members of the Nelwyn Band, and Gerry Crampton is listed as the Lieutenant in the Snow Village.

I'm going to start off with a little reminder for those of you who are tuning in late - you can find information on the upcoming DVD release of Willow in the FAQ section.

And now for the news. I went to the San Diego Comic Con a couple of days ago and met Warwick Davis (yay!). I've talked about the experience on my other webpage, so I won't repeat the story here. What I will say is that I found out that the Official Warwick Davis Fan Club recently went into operation. You get a lot of cool stuff if you join, so it's very worthwhile. Click here [obsolete link removed] for all the details and an application form. I'll also mention that Warwick is a great guy, and if you get a chance to meet him you shouldn't pass it up.

I got a couple of excellent autographed Willow photos from Warwick, but I haven't posted them on this page since they're similar to pictures that are already on display. You can see them on my other webpage if you're interested.

Today's update features modest changes to several subsections of the Merchandise section. The cover of the U.K. paperback edition of the Willow novelization has been added to the Books subsection. A photo of the contents of the Japanese version of the Nintendo game has been added to the Games subsection. And a larger picture of several of the Willow pinback buttons has been added to the Wearables subsection.

There are some new additions in the Merchandise section! In the Video subsection, there's a picture of the UK double-sided VHS cover, which is said to be rare - single-sided covers were much more common. You'll also find pictures and information on the Japanese special-edition laser disc, which gets to hold the title of best version of Willow ever released until this November, when the DVD finally comes out.

They're finally starting to make proper announcements about the Willow DVD release! Here's today's story from The Digital Bits:

Big news! The Willow: Special Edition has officially been announced! We just received this e-mail from our friends at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Dear Editors:

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announce the DVD debut of one of the most successful fantasy adventure movies of all time, Willow. The Special Edition DVD features exclusive material enabling fans of the movie, as well as a new generation, to experience the mystical adventure like never before. Willow is also available on VHS. Available on November 27, the DVD and VHS are priced to own at $26.98 and $14.98, respectively.

The DVD will feature THX-certified anamorphic widescreen video and newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras will include include special commentaries, an all-new documentary on the film's groundbreaking achievements in special effects, a classic Making of an Adventure documentary, an effects featurette, original theatrical trailers, TV spots, a still photo gallery and more. We'll post artwork as soon as it becomes available.

A similar story was posted today on DVD Review and The Official Star Wars website.

Sounds great, doesn't it? And being released right in time for the Christmas shopping season too. I'm especially pleased by the multiple documentaries. I'm hoping that the new documentary and effects featurette will take a nice long look at the Eborsisk effects - that's something that's really lacking in the classic documentary. I'm one of the fortunate few who's seen the old documentary, but the rest of you will get your turn soon!

But I'm also disturbed by the failure to mention a library of deleted (cut) scenes. I hope one is included in the "more" that they've promised us. I REALLY want to see the fight with the fish-boy!

Earlier this week, the DVD release of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was announced. An interview with Jim Ward, Lucasfilm's VP of Marketing on DVDreview.com goes into considerable detail about this release. But the part of the interview that's most relevant to The Crossroads is the very last line:

"However, Ward is eager to tell me that Lucasfilms’ Willow will finally see its DVD debut this fall."

Thanks to the fan who wrote in and steered me toward this article! Now all we have to do is wait for more information on what sort of goodies will be included with the DVD. We probably won't have to wait very long. We had previously been led to expect the announcement of a second Lucasfilm DVD release at the same time the Episode 1 release was announced. The articles about the Ep 1 release on the Digital Bits website (here and here) didn't mention the second title. So Andrew Pitino asked the webmaster about it, and was told "It's Willow, and we should know more soon."

Congratulations on making it to the page's new location! The move is my solution to the server problems that we've had to deal with since the end of February. The page was completely offline until late April, and from then until now has been partially online using multiple servers. When my Warwick Davis Fanpage also developed server problems at the end of May, I decided it was time for decisive action and got my own domain on a pay server that had enough space for both pages.

I changed the name of the page since the old name was based on an address that's no longer operational. But we're still affiliated with Lucasfan.com, the website that graciously provided us with server space as long as they could.

Have you noticed the big functional change? The frames are gone! The navigation menu is still easily available, but now it scrolls out of the way when you want to look at other things. I think this is an improvement - I hope you think so too.

As a webpage grows, sometimes the original setup becomes outmoded. So I've done a little minor reorganizing to make it easier to find certain features. The biggest change is that the former Sound Clips section is now the Multimedia section, and is home to all media files that don't have a separate section elsewhere. At the moment, that means the movie trailers, all non-music sound files, and the downloadable video game files.

The DVD rumors are starting to sound more and more serious. This came from a May 23 report on DVD.ign.com:

We have a rumor today that will double as a lesson in marketing. This November we’re going to see Harry Potter and Fellowship of the Ring in theaters, bringing fantasy back into the public eye. If you’re George Lucas, how do you capitalize on that? By releasing Willow as a 2-disc Special Edition in November. At least that’s what Davis DVD is reporting, and they’re usually very accurate.

The Scripts section has been updated again. The new additions start with the wagon chase and end with the escape from the snow camp.

And now for the breaking news. This little item was posted today on The Rumor Mill:

Okay... this is one of those rumors we don't take too seriously. But it's interesting given some of the other things we've been hearing recently from our sources. Bits reader John e-mailed us with this information yesterday:

"My best friend was hanging out with Warwick Davis at Alphacon in Omaha because my other friend was one of the big sponsors and Warwick was with his party. My friend's a huge DVD buff as well and was drilling Warwick for info and he was talking about how loaded the Episode 1 Disc was going to be, but also said he just finished doing a commentary track for Willow that would be coming out very soon. He also said (though I don't know why he would know about these films, so I took it with a grain of salt when told) that they are working on the Indy films for DVD and expect them soon."

Now... we've been told to expect another Lucasfilm title to be announced at the same time as Episode I. [Note from Connie: see the May 23 story on The Rumor Mill for more on that.] Could Willow be it? We've also been hearing rumors that the Indy films are in the very early stages of DVD production for release some time next year. Specifically, we've heard that the films are currently in the telecine stage (i.e. the films are being transferred from film to anamorphic, high-definition video for eventual DVD release). This information also appears to have leaked elsewhere recently and has appeared on the Home Theater Forum among other places. Again, take it all with a grain of salt. But we have been hearing these things from multiple sources. If true... very cool.

There were rumors a month ago that Fox had acquired the rights to Willow. Could it be that the long-awaited DVD release is at hand? We'll have to wait and see. Until we're sure, there's a mailing address in the FAQ section where you can write to Lucasfilm to request the DVD. It doesn't hurt to remind them!

Did you miss us? Did you wonder where we went? Well, here's what happened. We lost our server on February 28. This came up pretty suddenly, but we thought we'd have the page up and running again in a few days. We thought wrong. The days turned into weeks, then started turning into months. But at last we're online again!

Even now, the page isn't back in its full glory. This server isn't designed for bulk storage. What that means is that for most of the pictures, the small version is present but the large version is not. This is NOT a permanent situation; arrangements are being made for a download server where we can store vast quantities of information. I do NOT know when we're going to get it. The sound files are available, though; they're stored on a remote location (which is not remotely large enough to hold the picture files).

We're also working on getting the original address to function again. You know the one - willow.lucasfan.com, like it says in the website title. I don't know when that's going to happen either, so until it does you might want to bookmark the current address,

Except for the large versions of the pictures, everything should be here. And if you find something that's missing, fear not. Over the next few days I'll be checking the page over and uploading anything that was missed in the first round.

What better way to celebrate the rebirth of the page than by adding a new selection to the menu bar? I recently acquired a late version of the Willow script that appears to be the shooting script for the movie. Therefore, I've inaugurated the Scripts section. It contains the early version of the script that Joe Frese provided some time back, the newly acquired late version, a transcript of the movie, and a side-by-side layout of all three for easy comparison. I've only gotten about a quarter of the way through the movie so far, but that just means that there's still a lot to look forward to.

This new script acquisition means that the Cut Scenes section needs to be updated. That will happen after the Scripts section is completed - one thing at a time. Until then, you can easily locate the late script's version of the cut scenes. I've color-coded the text to highlight differences between the script and the movie - blue for minor differences, maroon for more important differences.

There's a new item on the menu bar (above). I finally learned how to make sound clips, and it would be a shame to waste a skill like that. I saved a handful of clips for my other webpage, so go there if you still haven't had enough after you've gone through this page's offerings. But not until tomorrow - that's when I expect to put them online.