chinoiserie-camille

[chinoiserie-camille]

Wish is just a normal Disney film just like all the rest.

Wish is actually a damn good movie, there I said it!

I'm going to start by saying this much, it's very odd to me that so many people are now screaming for a love story from Disney, when not even five or ten years ago there was shouting from the roof tops about Disney doing TOO MUCH romance. For the longest time it was "I wish Disney wouldn't do pairings" "Ugh another romance, can't the princess not." Etc. Now everyone wants one, even though Romance isn't really as big a Disney trope as people think.

Actually let's go through the animated catalogue and see how frequently the love story is centered as the main conflict and asperation to the character. In this case it's the key thing, not a 'Oh they happen to like each other in the end' situation, it's THE thing, the point of the movie is their romance. Then let's see how many have it as the secondary aspect, and let's see how many have it as not important at all. (And we're talking romantic love, not family love)

Romance (Total number: 15)

Snow White, Lady and the Tramp, The Aristocats, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Secondary Characters hook up so this is a weird one), Doug's First Movie, Tarzan, Lizzie McGuire the Movie, Enchanted, The Princess and the Frog (Only from Naveen's POV), Tangled (could be seen as secondary too)

Secondary (Total Number: 25)

Fantasia, Bambi, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free , Melody Time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella Sleeping Beauty

One Hundred and One Dalmatians , Robin Hood, The Rescuers , The Fox and the Hound , Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Rescuers Down under

The Nightmare before Christmas, The Lion King ,Hercules ,Mulan ,Fantasia 2000 , Dinosaur, Atlantis the Lost Empire , Meet the Robinsons , Frankenweenie ,Frozen, , Strange World

Not in it at all (Total Number: 42 -including Wish)

Pinocchio, The Reluctant Dragon, Dumbo, Saludos Amigos, Victory through Air power, Three Caballeros, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan

Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective

Oliver and Company, Ducktales the Treasure of the lost lamp, A Goofy Movie, James and the Giant Peach, The Tigger Movie

The Emperor's new Groove, Recess School's out, Return to Neverland, Lilo and Stich, Treasure Planet, The Jungle Book 2

Piglet's big Movie, Brother Bear, Teacher's Pet, Home on the Range, Pooh's Heffalump Movie, Chicken Little, The Wild

Bolt, Winnie the Pooh, Wreck it Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, Wreck it Ralph 2, Frozen 2, Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto, Wish

These are just the animated not live action, and not live action with animation movies. All in all it's more common to see a Disney film with NO romance in it at all then a romantic one.

So why is it that people keep saying, but we're missing the romance, it's because of the fact that most of the time the Parks and other media pair the characters together. Take Peter pan, in the movie, the boy is utterly oblivious to Wendy's affections, to the point of pissing her off enough that she leaves the party that the tribe is hosting. In the parks, and other media (the plays, other movies) the romance is in your face, because people want them to be a couple, but in the movie itself you never see it.

Star, based on the making of book, was supposed to be a younger version of Asha's grandfather, which fits the theming of the movie. However, from what I understand, one of the reasons why they went against is was because it was hitting to close to Genie in the shape shifting. On top of that, the character of Star, seems heavily inspired by the art work of William Joyce, who created Night Light.

This is him and Katherine (Future Mother Goose) who is basically Star in a lot of ways. He lights the night to keep the nightmares away. These two eventually grow up (He remembers He's jack frost) and they end up as a couple.

It would be apping off of that story, and sadly people didn't give the William Joyce movie Meet the Robinsons a chance (don't sleep on that folks please! It is a good story.)

Also straight up give more love to the Guardian's of Childhood, you'll be happy while you read it.

I'm not saying don't ship it, what I am saying is that please don't go saying this was planned when it really wasn't. That was supposed to be her grandfather there.

And I'm not against the art work, I find it very cute and sweet and lover the designs. But I do think that the whole, "WE WERE ROBBED!" thing isn't being at all fair to the creative team behind this story, as again, *points up* they were following the tradition of a story that doesn't have a love interest, which is the vast majority of the stories that they tell.

Wish perfectly falls in line also with Disney's normal length of animated movies.

Wish was 1 hours and 35 minutes

The movie that came out before it clocked in at

Strange World = 1 hours and 42 minutes

Moana = 1 hours and 47 minutes

Frozen = 1 hours and 42 minutes

This Hour long movie thing started really with Atlantis the Lost Empire = 1 hours and 36 minutes

While Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch all clock in around =1 hour and 30 at most, some are even less than that. Wish's run time is equal to that of Atlantis, or Aladdin, or Treasure planet. So I'm a bit perplexed on the "It's too short" thing. Maybe growing up just before and during the days of Little Mermaid and Aladdin made me like the shorter tales.

Which is another point. With a shorter movie, you never get complete backstory. It's a fairy tale! I mean, look at Little Mermaid. Seriously can you Name any of her sisters from the opening song.

Like seriously, I don't really know a lot of people who can tell me anything about Aquatica, for example. Unless you actually read the books or watched the TV show. And before then we had nothing. Nothing on her mom, nothing on her sisters.

Then there's the town Belle comes from, what do we know about it? Not much, not even who governs the damn thing. Howe about Aladdin before the TV series and King of thieves cleared up everything. We didn't know who his parents were, nor Jasmine's mom. Hell we still don't know anything about Cinderella's father from the animated movie.

Point being, a lot of information, much like Wish, got cut for time. In Snow white we were supposed to be given a longer back story for her father and mother, that was cut due to it being to long, it's in the golden book though. Prince Florian (Yes that is his name) was supposed to have Prince Phillips escape, but it was deemed to hard to animate at the time.

Also there was one that was dancing on the clouds, with STARS, around them that looks very much like you know, our Star.

So basically, he's a nod to what could have been for Snow White all those years ago. Cut for time.

Aladdin had a whole cut song because they chopped his mother out as she was supposed to play a part in the movie and help her son with the Genie.

Zena is her name and she was cut to streamline the film.

Maid Marian in the original Robin Hood was supposed to protect him after his plunge into the water, and protect him from King John while he's threatening her. King Richard appears in the end and scares him into stopping but she's willing to take a dagger to the chest to protect Robin.

This is when Richard meets Robin with Marian telling him all about what happened.

All Disney movies change. Isabel in Encanto was supposed to have a nerdy boyfriend that the family disapproved of.

Hell, Frozen was at one point going to be the Bad guy wins the guy, the hero (Gerta) that we followed all the way to the end rooting for her, was supposed to be a gold digger, and Kai was supposed to say "Nah, I'm gonna stick with the Snow Queen" because she's sad and your a bitch. (Thanks Eisner, I hate it!)

So yeah, there's probably A whole lot of cut content that was supposed to go in, but to streamline it to 95 minutes, you have to cut! At least it's not what happened to the Black Cauldron. No I will never forgive Katzenburg for that travesty!

Disney always used Popular Music over Broadway

Honestly this is the one complaint that I hear that kills me the most about this movie, that the studio went with a pop music team. As if this is not a common thing for Disney movies!

Fun fact, the team behind most of the musical scores up until the 1960s were all composers and musicians that wrote songs for the radio. Or song writers that did radio music. If I listed every single one we'd be here for ages.

The Sherman brothers actually wrote pop tunes for the Teen sweetheart Annette Funicello and several other well known singers and actors of movies.

The first major Broadway group was Ashman and Menken, Followed by Miranda, and the Lopez's. Most, if not all of the biggest Disney songs were written by pop songwriters, whos goal it was to get that song played on the radio.

Hell The Lion King, Tarzan, The Emperors New Groove, and Treasure planet to name a few were all done by Pop musicians. I didn't hear complaining about it back then! What's the difference now? Because the team is not Elton freaking John, or Sting?

All of Oliver and Company was pop songs. Several movies didn't have songs, or only had one.

If we're going to celebrate a studio that helped bring an artform out of it's infancy and show that you could do a full movie of animated pictures where you get emotions out of it, we need to celebrate all aspects, and that includes things we may not realize are kind of unique.

When Hercules and Hunchback came out, people complained about them not being "Traditional" Disney. It was Gospel, it was too dark, or in the case of Tarzan, why are we following a boy, or Treasure planet, "Yuck a space story". Now people adore these movies. People who grew up with them want to celebrate them, and sometimes they don't realize that they were once derided as hard or harder than Wish is being right now.

I just wish that people would give these movies a chance rather than not let the creatives tell their story. We had a whole damn section of 2D animation in Strange World! No one talked about it! No one went "More of this please". Give me these stories, let me enjoy a original fairy tale, because if we keep rehashing things, there's going to be little to celebrate when the next 10 or 20 years rolls around.

Sorry for the kinda rant. This has just been on my nerves for a while.

[chinoiserie-camille]

Despite my issues with it, I think "Raya and the Last Dragon" is superior to it's successive films in one way or another

Encanto--Emotion. Don't hate me, but while "Encanto" does carry a good amount of angst and emotion, the scale of the emotions in "Raya"--betrayal, loss, trust, and acrimony--felt bigger, particularly when the cast turned to stone. I think it hit me harder because in contrast to "Encanto," which focused on family relationships, Raya's film focused on international relationships and literal world-ending situations. This isn't a diss to "Encanto"; I just felt more during "Raya and the Last Dragon."

Strange World--Ambition. I found SW lackluster and "Raya" lacking in terms of execution of an amazing premise, but "Raya" superseded "Strange World" easily because it was a new and fresh idea, while SW felt generic and boring. "Raya" felt like it could've been a renaissance-era film, while Strange World felt post-renaissance, pre-revival era.

Wish--Pretty much everything. Raya was refreshing to Asha's adorkable personality and had depth and learned something (albeit clumsily), and Namaari was a better antagonist than Magnifico--even if both of them were handled poorly, imo. The Teens could've been more interesting than Raya's crew, but there were too many of them and too little screentime to develop them properly. And I CAN'T believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather listen to Raya's score than Wish's soundtrack. "Raya" sounds invigorating and new, while "Wish" has too few good songs. Never though I'd think so little of a DISNEY musical.

Again, "Raya and the Last Dragon" has it's flaws, but when I dissect the pieces, there are parts of it that shine brighter than the films that came after it. What do you think?

[chinoiserie-camille]

These costumes are beautiful to me and they are from fictional countries. No Disney historical outfit is accurate anyway. Also as a child Raya had another outfit!

If you’re a Disney protagonist of colour whose costume design doesn’t accurately reflect the beautiful culture you’re meant to represent, raise your hand.

Their character models are so pretty, they deserve outfits that don’t feel like vague ethnic costumes from Spirit Halloween. They deserve outfits that are vibrant, memorable, and culturally authentic.

[chinoiserie-camille]

A few different people have been observing that Scrooge begins to change more quickly in the book than is often shown in adaptations. The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come isn’t the one crucial factor breaking his obstinacy, but rather a final message to drive home a point that Scrooge had already become receptive to. I want to trace the shape of Scrooge’s progress over the course of the book and see what it reveals. (There will be some ‘spoilers’ here, since the story seems fairly universally known even among those who are reading the book for the first time.)

After Marley’s appearance, he is disturbed and discomfited, but still trying to hang onto denial and not face what he’s been told.

With Chistmas Past, adaptations often treat it like a psych session - see, you hate Christmas because you were so miserable during it. But in the book, that isn’t the point at all. Scrooge sees times when he was unhappy as a boy, but he also sees what comforted him during those times - reading and imagination, which his adult self would dismiss asfrivolous and unprofitable - and recaptures his joy in those things. He sees times when he was happy, like at Fezziwig’s Christmas party. And he sees how he’s become the kind of person who made his younger self unhappy rather than happy, and how easy it would to be otherwise.

He sees himself asan unhappy child, and wishes that he’d been kinder to the young boy singing carols at the door. He sees himself happily employed with a kind, generous and personable employer, who could create a vastly more pleasant workplace climate at trivial expense, and wishes he’d been nicer to Bob Cratchit.

And then he sees Belle, and is shown that his unhappiness is of his own making and the consequence of hus own choices. His being the selfish, avaricious person he is is not the consequence of Belle breaking up with him; it is the cause of it. She saw him already becoming that person, and chose not to follow him in that path. Her choices left her a happy, loving and loved woman; his left him unhappy and alone. Scrooge cannot bear this, and rejects and fights the spirit rather than face it.

But he has nonetheless already begun to change. Whereas he initially did not want to go with Christmas Past (“a night of unbroken sleep would be more conducive to [my welfare]”), he willingly goes with Christmas Present and expresses the desire to learn and benefit. He sees people in all manner of circumstances, good and bad, choosing to take joy in each other’s company and the comforts, small or great, around them. Many adaptations fail in this, focusing Scrooge’s attention on the idea that people dislike him (Mrs Cratchit; his nephew’s joke) but in the book Scrooge clearly greatly enjoys his nephew’s party, the nephew is being good-humoured and generous and expresses his goodwill towards Scrooge, and Scrooge doesn’t mind the joke at all. He sees the Cratchits making the best of what they have, and how he is making their lives harder than need be. He sees, in many ways and places, how he could be making others happy and being happy himself, rather than making evrryobe miserable, and it is an appealing picture. And Present calls him out, several times, on his past words and sentiments, and Scrooge repents them.

By the time he meets the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, he is already willing and prepared to change, and making deliberate plans to do so. The thing that I think is emphasized through the scenes with Yet To Come, as a driving home of the point, is that Scrooge’s actions up to this point have not only made him and others unhappy - they are an utter failure at getting Scrooge the one thing he had prioritized: wordly security, respect, and dignity. In Belle’s words, his turn to avarice in his youth was in hopes of avoiding the “sordid reproach” that the world has for poverty. He was fine, and even pleased, with being feared rather than loved - what he did not want was to be patronized, despized, looked down on.

And now he sees where that got him! His business partners don’t even care to attend his funeral. Men whose respect he hoped to have gained don’t even give him a second thought, and for the brief moment they do, think ill of him (“Old Scratch” is Victorian slang for the devil). His chambers and even his body are plundered (tomorrow’s reading is even more graphic about this, in some lines, than most adaptations). He’s buried in an obscure, untended, weedy churchyard, because no one cares enough about him to make other arrangements. He has none of the worldly respect, regard, dignity for which he turned to money as a protector. Past and Present showed that he was wanting the wrong things; but Future shows him that he wasn’t even achieving the things he thought he did want, amd was in fact achieving their opposite.

The point of Future, then, is not to convince Scrooge to change. He has already chosen that he desires to change. Future alone, without the earlier spirits, would be supremely ineffective; showing Scrooge that his servant and the people around him hate him, without first showing him that he can be happy and make other people happy, would only make him more of a misanthrope. This is not a “scare ‘em straight,” as some adaptations play it. The point of Future is as a final guard against backsliding, against regret: you are losing nothing by changing, because your current path is losing you even the paltry things you sought to gain by it.

Also, I hadn’t really registered this on previous reads, but this is the very near future - the Christmas one year after the period of the book. This is never stated outright, but Christmas Present says of Tiny Tim, “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race will find him here” - meaning, no future Christmas. And, in the visions with Christmas Future, Tiny Tim has died only a few days ago. In the words of Dante (paraphrased) “the time was perilously short for turning.” The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come doesn’t teach the lesson - that’s the previous spirits - but he makes sure it sticks.

[chinoiserie-camille]

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the classic Disney cartoon "Mickey's Christmas Carol", so naturally I decided to draw a piece this Christmas to celebrate the occasion.

This anniversary year is a tad of a bittersweet occasion for the special. For one, Mark Henn, who was the supervising animator for Mickey, recently retired after 43 years of working with Disney. In addition to Mickey, he was mainly known as the "Disney Princess Guy", having a hand in designing and animating most of the Princesses from the Disney Renaissance era.

On a sadder note, early this year, Burny Matterson passed away. Burny was not only the director of "Mickey's Christmas Carol", but was also the longest serving employee of the Walt Disney company, being with the studio for 70 years until his death. The last major project the two worked together on was the short "Once Upon a Studio", a fitting finale to both of their Disney legacies.

Recently it hit me just how many people who have originally worked on the cartoon have passed on: Wayne Allwine who voiced Mickey, Alan Young who voiced Scrooge, Eddie Carroll who voiced Jiminy Cricket, Will Ryan who voiced Willie the Giant Ghost of Christmas Present, the original voice of Donald, Clarence Nash, and ton of others who I just don't have the time to mention. Though if there's one thing that remains certain throughout this special's various TV airings, worn-out VHS tapes, DVD and Blu-ray releases, and streaming on Disney+, they have all left a legacy that won't be forgotten anytime soon.

We wish we could see more of their work, but time marches on. That's enough work for tonight Bob Cratchit...

"And a bah-humbug-OH! I mean, a Merry Christmas to you sir!"

[chinoiserie-camille]

are we out of the woods? (i remember) are we in the clear yet? (do you remember?)

[chinoiserie-camille]

All in favor of a House of Mouse comeback after seeing Once Upon A Studio?

[chinoiserie-camille]

Concept art tends to be more detailed always (outside of Disney too) but harder to animate. Personally I love the color of final version and the braids, but I wish (heh) more jewelry on her hair

💫 Asha concept art 💫

God I wish they committed to a design that better represents the Amazigh people.. it really just feels like they copped out and went with the generic princess face and this boring ass dress.

She at least deserved to keep her traditional jewelry and ornamented hair..

Disney concept art is almost always more dynamic than the final movie designs..

[chinoiserie-camille]

Girls ✨

[chinoiserie-camille]

New ‘Wish’ Details!!!

I got my hands on a D23 magazine and there was a little blurb about ‘Wish,’ containing the most concrete details we’ve gotten about a plot thus far! So, without further ado:

— Asha’s kingdom is called ‘Rosas.’ (so…’pink.’)

—The aesthetic is inspired by the watercolor illustrations of classic fairytale books, especially those from the early 1900′s (i.e. the kind that Walt Disney would have had as a kid).

—The events of the film are set in motion when Asha makes an ‘impassioned plea’ to the stars and one falls to earth as a result.

—Asha’s luck stinks, because the star she maybe-accidentally summons is absolutely furious and, apparently, E V I L (crud, I wish I had saved a link to that flaming text generator).

—It’s a ‘beacon of chaos’ that proceeds to lay waste to the kingdom.

—I think you can guess where we’re going with this.

So, yeah, ‘Wish’ definitely has a villain in the form of a literal Fallen Star, Asha gets to go on a quest, and the aesthetic is going to leave my eyes satiated since it’ll be a FEAST.

[chinoiserie-camille]

Princess and the Frog was a box office disappointment when it came out, unlike the other “princess films” even Pocahontas made a lot of money. So that to me is the main reason why she wasn’t promoted much. Before Disney realized how much demand there was for Tiana bacause she was black. But I read her being promoted now as that because Asha might get more spotlight in future she is pushed now because it’s good time.

Why you think that Disney is promoting The princess and the frog more nowadays? I see more merchandise for it, more things based on it being made in parks like Tiana’s place and Tiana’s even in Disney 100 celebrations merchandise.

The reason could be that they're no longer able to get away with excluding her like they did in the 2010s.

During that time I would come across merchandise of disney princess merch that included all the white princesses, (plus Rapunzel of course) with maybe only one non white princess thrown in.

It was really difficult finding Tiana merch at all for a long time, even though her movie came out before Rapunzel, Elsa, Anna (before their indigenous heritage was revealed, they are white passing) and to a lesser extent Merida. But you'd see all of those princesses on merchandise first before you'd find Tiana for the longest time.

I definitely see Tiana more nowadays, which is good, but I also think it's because people are more likely to side eye disney over it.

I also have a theory (and this is just speculation) that the recent resurgence of Tiana has to do with Disney's next black princess movie, "Wish", which will have our first 3D black (Afro-Latina to be specific) princess movie, with a princess named Asha is coming out this year.

Disney only has one black disney princess so far and they ignored her character for many years in favor of white princesses . To continue excluding Tiana now the way they've been doing it for years would be a huge deal not only for the future of Tiana's character, but would also spark fears for how disney will treat Asha's character too.

[chinoiserie-camille]

Disney’s Wish | Official Teaser Trailer

Teaser poster

Synopsis

In “Wish,” Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force—a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe—the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico—to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.

[chinoiserie-camille]

Remember that

Wish is coming out November of THIS year

Will star our 1st Afro Latina Princess voiced by Ariana Debose

Will likely feature a traditional disney villain (no weird twists like an actual cardcarrying, unapologetically dastardly villain)

Blend of 2D & 3D aesthetics a la Spiderverse

2nd star will be a literal star that communicates through pantomime

Animal sidekick is a goat voiced by Alan Tudyk

Chris Pine is in it (rumor has it he will play the villain)

Kingdom of Rosas image

[chinoiserie-camille]

Princess Asha in the Disney ‘Wish’ teaser trailer.

[chinoiserie-camille]

Nice to have a villain king for first time with Disney, although that’s pretty typical trope these days in fantasy. And he is very handsome!

👀 new dilf for Disney wish

[chinoiserie-camille]

Somehow it almost seems now Pine is playing Hugh Grant’s role from D&D. I don’t mind twist villains but glad he isn’t one for a change and more because I am tired of people complaining about them.

First look at King Magnifico, the ruler of the Kingdom of Rosas from Disney’s Wish

[chinoiserie-camille]

Do you have a source? I just didn’t see that in the news I red so maybe I missed it. I looked into articles and for example the Disney wiki calls her a princess, but when I linked to their sources the Variety source called her a protagonist and Comicbook source called her a young woman.

Princess Asha from Wish. 

She doesn’t actually look all that much like Isa in 3D(although I don’t blame people for comparing her to Isa). 

I can’t wait to make edits of her, we’re gonna have it all!