The new Willow series on Disney+ was an interesting experiment to say the least. While the original film was certainly not on the level of Star Wars or Indiana Jones when it comes to its fan base, it certainly qualifies as a cult classic from Lucasfilm. There has been interest for years in seeing a Willow sequel. This meant that a lot of people were still excited for the new show, but it can’t be argued that many may have gotten something very different from what they were expecting. And one of the biggest swings the show made came in the music.
While the series' music is very well scored by Xander Rodzinski, and uses the classic theme from the movie by James Newton Howard, the show also contains a significant amount of modern rock music. Most of it can be found over each episode's closing credits, but occasionally the pop music makes its way into the show itself.
I had an opportunity to speak with writer,executive producer, and noted Willow fan Jon Kasdan following the show's finale and I asked about the decision to use these needle drops. Kasdan said he knew the choice would be divisive, but he felt the tone of Willow lent itself to a bit of rock ‘n’ roll. He said…
We knew it would be divisive. One of the gifts of Willow as this ‘not Star Wars’ thing was that we felt there was a freedom to experiment. And it was an experiment we were really eager to take on because so much of the spirit of the show we wanted had this youthful, rock n’ roll sort of anachronistic energy to it.
Jon Kasdan previously wrote Solo: A Star Wars Story and in our conversation he talked about the way that movie was perhaps a bit more constricting, simply because there was so much Star Wars history to deal with. Willow by virtue of only being the one movie, simply gave him as a writer freedom to do more for the Disney+ sequel series because less was set in stone.
The music in WIllow goes to a lot of places. We get covers of well known songs like "Enter Sandman" and "Black Hole Sun," as well as the original versions of classics like the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" and Dire Straits "Money For Nothing." The rock music vibe goes beyond the music itself. Warwick Davis's Willow looks like an aging metalhead with long hair.
While the original Willow movie certainly doesn’t include pop music the way the series does, it’s maybe not that big a stretch to see where the idea comes from Kasdan explained that, despite not being in the show it was Val Kilmer’s performance in the movie that set the tone for the show. Kilmer is clearly having fun as Madmartigan, and the show wanted to keep that vibe going. Kasdan continued…
Val [Kilmer] really set that tone for all of us. The performance of Madmartigan and that character sort of set a precedent for, yeah, there’s a looseness in this particular fantasy universe, that can allow for seasoning a moment with a bit of contemporary music. That was something we wanted to try, and were excited to, and I think it worked for exactly as many people as it didn’t.
As Kasdan says here, not everybody loved the decision to add modern music. While critics were mostly positive on there new show fans have been lukewarm at best. For those fans looking for a more pure sword and sorcery show, the new Willow series absolutely was not that. But for others, the music made the show that much more fun. I guess we’ll see which side was right when we learn if Willow gets a Season 2.
