Hacker Cinema
Willow
2022 · TV series · 1 season
Created by Jon Kasdan
Science FictionFantasyActionAdventureDrama
Many years after the events of the original film, legendary sorcerer Willow leads a group of misfit heroes on a dangerous rescue mission through a world beyond their wildest imaginations.
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9 comments on Hacker News
If its so valuable why are HBO and Disney killing already produced content making it unavailable (legally) on or off their platform. Why is the Willow TV show (sequel to the classic movie) removed it was one of their flagship early offering when they were starting their streaming service. Why is HBO killing finished movies like Batgirl and Wiley Coyote v Acme for the tax right off if they are such precious valuable content? Why is classic Looney Toons being broken up and sublicensed to everchanging array of shit tier streaming services. none of these moves makes since with the reason given
Did you not see the TV show? It had a bit of production hell (Jon Chu from Wicked was going to direct, and had 2 different people come in after him) and was very uneven, cancelled after 1 season. They buried it so deep it's not even on Disney+ anymore and it only came out in late 2022.
https://ondisneyplus.disney.com/show/willow (notice you can only see clips/trailer)
If you're a sci-fi and/or a fantasy fan I really recommend watching the original film and the prequel in that order and make your own mind up.
I was young when the original came out so I found it good but scary. I felt the prequel was excellent and it left me wanting more.
These days I feel a lot of my youthful nostalgia has been vandalised for a quick corporate buck. Probably the worst has been Willow on Disney+.
There are so few examples of good follow-ups to nostalgic media. The only other example I can think of is Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Willow is a semi-common name. But good chance it is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_(TV_series) and/or the original movie.
Sure: The Witches is $3.99 on Apple TV.
The Willow TV show is a perfect example of something that would simply not exist without streaming. Also, as a member of a family that celebrates Annual Willow Day in early January, you're not missing much.
> Happily. I have more access to content now than I have ever had before; we live in a golden age of access to video content. I can't imagine a rational argument for going back to the era of physical media.
Please show me where I can access The Witches (2020) by Robert Zemeckis?
Or the Willow TV show from 2022
Or Final Space
Or Star Trek: Prodigy
Or Westworld
The shows and movies just disappear off streaming because some executive did the math and they'll save money by just taking things off the internet.
This is why you buy anything you want to see again or even show to your kids later on as a physical copy. (Or do the yarr-thing and hold on to the digital copy on your own hardware)
These look like non-paywalled articles that cover the same thing:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/19/23729642/disney-plus-hulu-remove-pull-shows-willow-streaming-bob-iger
> If there’s a show on Disney Plus or Hulu that you’ve been meaning to watch then you might want to do so quickly before it is pulled from the platforms for good. According to a report by Deadline, Disney is about to remove dozens of series (and a few films) from both streaming services, including Willow, Y: The Last Man, and Turner & Hooch, as part of the entertainment giant’s broader cost-cutting measures.
https://www.vulture.com/2023/05/disney-plus-hulu-to-remove-select-tv-shows-movies.html
> A Disney rep has confirmed to us but declined to comment further that both of the Walt Disney Company–owned streamers will be removing a handful of titles from their services as soon as next week on May 26. Titles such as Willow, Dollface, FX’s Pistol and Y: The Last Man are among the first round of shows to be pulled, they confirmed. Disney+’s Howard was initially reported to be pulled, but a Disney rep clarified to us that it was never meant to be taken off the platform. In all, it’s expected that the the final number of titles pulled from Disney+ and Hulu will be a bit under 100, per a source familiar with the plans.
https://deadline.com/2023/05/disney-remove-series-streaming-disney-plus-hulu-big-shot-willow-y-dollface-turner-hooch-pistol-1235372512/
> The titles, which are being removed from Disney’s streaming services globally, include Disney+’s Willow, Big Shot, Turner & Hooch, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, Just Beyond, Diary of a Future President, The Mysterious Benedict Society and The World According to Jeff Goldblum and Hulu’s Y: The Last Man, Dollface, The Hot Zone, Maggie, Pistol and Little Demon. A number of Freeform series also are slated to leave Hulu.
https://thedirect.com/article/disney-plus-shows-removal
This clarifies some of the names I recognized )like Willow and Turner & Hooch) are recent streaming reboots, not the original movies.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_(TV_series) :
> premiered on the streaming service Disney+ on November 30, 2022 ... The series will be removed from Disney+ on May 26, 2023
That's quite something, to go through the effort of making a TV series, just to delete it 6 months after you released it!
Willow was surprisingly entertaining. It’s a Disney owned IP, Disney production so it’s strange to be pulled off after only a year.
I wonder if they had really high payout terms for this and Y (a high profile adaptation of a great comic book that was one of the worst tv shows I’ve ever seen) and so it’s cheaper to remove it than pay residuals.
This makes me wonder that there’s some payout just for including it rather than just based on number of views.
Netflix never removed their own content so I guess Disney and HBO are doing something dumb with the licenses they set up.