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Waterfall
“- She’s really a princess.
Willow (Warwick Davis) and Madmartigan (Val Kilmer)
Really? And you’re a great sorcerer. And I’m the king of Cashmere.”
Before becoming the preferred filming location for the Vikings series, Wicklow County, with its lakes, forests and mountains, hosted the production of Willow, the heroic fantasy blockbuster produced and written by George Lucas and directed by Ron Howard. The scene he shot was captured at the foot of the Powerscourt waterfall, on the property of the mansion of the same name.
Feet in the water
Perfectly suited to the film’s specifications, the stunt gives the characters a chance to take a little break. Standing 121 meters high, it imposes its grandeur as the adventure of Willow, a gentle sorcerer’s apprentice who becomes the providential savior of a young princess, unfolds.
An international shooting
Made long before the advent of digital imaging, even though it brought morphing technology, Willow required several trips around the world. If the stunt scene has seen Val Kilmer and Warwick Davis move, others have forced the technicians to use some tricks.
The latter having indeed had to exploit techniques inherited from the 1970s, as in the different parts of the Planet of the Apes saga. Several scenes therefore involved the use of huge panels representing distant landscapes. George Lucas, for example, had to resort to this technique when the Chinese government forbade him to shoot as he wanted in the Yangshuo countryside.
Kenny Baker, the interpreter of R2D2 in the Star Wars saga plays a small role in Willow. He plays a musician.
Powerscourt Waterfall
At a height of 121 meters, this waterfall is one of the most famous sites in the Wicklow Mountains, just a stone’s throw from the center of Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.
The highest waterfall in all of Ireland, the Powerscourt Waterfall sits right in the middle of the grounds of the mansion of the same name. Open to the public, although located on private property, it offers a most impressive and somewhat humid spectacle. Stormy waters plunging into the River Dargle. The latter then criss-crossing between the Wicklow Mountains. Note that the water in question is famous for being used in the production of Guinness beer since the family of the same name bought a large part of this wild area.
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By Gilles Rolland
Passionné de cinéma, de rock and roll, de séries TV et de littérature. Rédacteur de presse et auteur des livres Le Heavy Metal au cinéma, Paroles de fans Guns N' Roses, Paroles de fans Rammstein et Welcome to my Jungle : 100 albums rock et autres anecdotes dépareillées. Adore également voyager à la recherche des lieux les plus emblématiques de la pop culture.