Willow (1988)

 "Ignore the bird. Follow the river,"

This is, let's be honest, a fantasy B movie script made to look like Hollywood fare by Ron Howard, a very conventional Hollywood director but ina good way. Yes, the evil Quene (a delightfully proto-Morgaine-ish Jean Marsh). Yes, the whole concept of an evil monarch destroying all babies because of a prophecy, let alone the narrative of a baby floating down the river, have potentially pretentious Biblical overtones.

This isn't a clever film. It isn't a great film. It's a highly polished B movie, where one may freely chortle at Warwick Davis' shifting accent even while conceding he's acrtually bloody good as a lead, outshining the disturbingly young pretty boy Val Kilmer who is merely adequate as a rogue turned hero. His arc works, though, from petty thief in a cage to lover to a princess. And the tempedtuous beginnings of their relationship are fun, as is much else.There;s a nice mix between straightforward adventure and comedy.

Jean Marsh is, as if it needed saying, the perfect baddie, chewing the scenery exactly to the right degree. It's good to see Billy Barty, a year after Masters of the Universe, as a cheerfully winging it wizard. The cast is, overall, a success. There's no CGI here;the special effects are real, eithet green screen or stop motion.

Yet it's hard not to see this film as a cheeky reworking of Lord of the Rings, and a cheeky little prompt to Peter Jackson in doing the real thing,

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)

"Wicket Cindel's family now..."

I had to get this TV movie watched, seeing as I can't watch Caravan of Courage and not this. Fortunately, while it's a mid-budget TV movie for kids and should be judged as such, it's actually a fairly decent watch.

The beginning is well harrowing, though, as the baddies torch the village and kill loads of people including poor Cindel's entire family. Fortunately, the sheer trauma of such an event for poor Cindel is very much downplayed in favour of some child-friendly mourning of her parents.

And it’s straight into another very fairytale adventure, from another story by George Lucas, Cindel and Wicket escapee, courtesy of being ickle, and have an exciting little escapade with a rather cool little stop motion dragon. Then they meet a cheeky alien monkey muppet. And then they meet new father figure Noa, who inevitably turns out to be gruff but kind.

So off they go on a rescue mission to a castle with an acid moat. And much excitement ensues. With Sian Phillips as a witch type character- this is definitely fantasy, but so is all Star Wars. But the days of playing Livia In I Clavdivs must seem so long ago..

No, this isn’t as good as Caravan of Courage. But it’s still good stuff. Give it a go while it’s on Amazon Prime.

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984)

"That's not a starcruiser. That's a horse!"

I'd never seen this TV movie before until now, in spite of it being a perennial title of the many video hire emporiums that abounded during my '80s childhood. First impressions are that it's badly acted, well made and... well, it sort of works as a kids' programme.

The whole thing really does look mostly amazing, with some great stop motion creatures, although I can't decide whether the spider is awesome or bloody awful.It's also a great exemplar of how kids are often awful actors. It is, however, awesome to see the Ewoks again (including Wicket and Logray), and their Stone Age lifestyle that somehow includes a glider. It's also good to see that Endor is more than just a forest Moon.

The whole thing is, of course, more fantasy with ray guns than science fiction, but Star Wars was ever thus. This as co-written by George Lucas himself and is therefore pure quest narrative in the most Joseph Campbell of ways. Our party sets off on an epic journey to Mordor... er, the tower of a wicked giant. Logray gives each member of the party a MacGuffin which miraculously has a very specific use to the plot.And everybody learns some kind of incredibly vague moral lesson at the end. Or something. Fantasy tropes abound, with this evil giant living independently of any kind of ecosystem and magic sort of working.

But you now what? It isn't awful and is rubbish in a fun way. I'm going to watch the next one, Gulp...

Doctor Who: Nightmare in Silver

“I hate the future. It’s stupid”.

Right. Let’s get the cards on the table at the start. Neil Gaiman is god, and this is the best episode since, well, The Doctor’s Wife My expectations were huge, but I was not disappointed.

Ok, there were a couple of minor niggles with the production, not least of which was a bit of dodgy CGI. But the script was faultless. We will come to the Cybermen shortly, as this is the best Cyberman story ever, but there are so many other things to love about this story. It simply overruns with ideas and imagination and reminds me of the splendid DWM comic strips of 1980’s, which, considering Gaiman’s background, is appropriate. I also love the fact that, years after The Girl in the Fireplace, Doctor Who finally gets what must be an allusion to the Mechanical Turk, as we first see a Cyberman playing chess and then discover that Porridge (Warwick Davis) is inside.

This episode reeks wonderfully of a wider world, or should I say universe, ruled by an emperor and replete with little cultural trappings of the Roman Empire at its classical height. Also genius is the very concept of an abandoned amusement park in the dark. But this is recognisably Doctor Who: Neil Gaiman is enough of a fanboy to use the word “transmat” for teleporter and, well, he knows his Troughton.

Quite sensibly, in giving us the greatest Cyberman story ever, Gaiman refers to all the best Cybermen stories, all of which were Troughton stories. We see Cybermen emerging from their tombs and even a mock-up of a base on the moon. These new Cybermen look epic, with their blankly emotionless faces returning to the simplicity of the Wheel in Space design. These are genuinely scary Cybermen, who can instantly upgrade to overcome any difficulty. Massed CGI ranks of Cybermen may not look convincing, but individually these Cybermen are the best. I suspect, too, that these are the first real Cybermen we have seen since Silver Nemesis in 1988, proper Cybermen from our world and not that alternate reality that RTD gave us. Cybermats are upgraded to Cybermites, for the first time since The invasion we have a Cyberplanner, and there may even be a reference to Big Finish audio drama Spare Parts in the scenes where the Cyberman attempts to convert the Doctor.

Gaiman makes a number of wise decisions. In the partly Cybernised Webley, he gives the Cybermen a spokesman who is not actually boring to listen to. The scenes with the conflicted Doctor are superb, and allow Matt Smith to play a baddie. I feel I owe him an apology: I just don’t praise his superlative acting often enough. I also love the use of chess as a metaphor for the fight over the Doctor’s brain, and the way that this plays out throughout the episode. I’m reminded of The Seventh Seal.

So, basically, this is great, and Neil Gaiman should be forced to write as much Doctor Who as possible. There is also arc stuff going on, mind you. Angie and Artie, whom Clara is looking after, get their first and, I suspect, not last outing in the TARDIS. And it is established that the Doctor drops Clara off after each adventure and picks her up on Wednesdays. Under Moffat, being the Doctor’s companion is still a part time job. See you next week for the season finale.