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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 5 months

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Hey Raven, are you going to watch the upcoming new Disney movie "Wish"?

I've seen mixed reviews, but i'm lowkey excited since we get to see a new Disney villain, especially since Disney got really lame villains after all the old classic movies!

Have you seen the trailer for the movie? What are your thoughts so far?

I saw Wish with a friend recently! I'll give my thoughts on the trailers here (in case you don't want spoilers for the film itself) and put my full thoughts beneath the cut (if you're okay with spoilers).

Looks-wise, I think Disney was definitely trying to go for something more stylistic and painting-esque for this?? And while I commend the effort, it definitely doesn't look as interesting as Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish. The humor also definitely isn't for me, it feels very "quirky" and "so relatable" (Asha reminds me of Mirabel in that sense), and other times too juvenile (like the goat butt joke). I do like the idea of the villain passing as a good guy in-universe and actually being vain and selfish, especially since the marketing is making it clear who the bad guy is rather than making it a "twist" villain scenario. Not sure if I like Magnifico himself though??? All the ads with him in it feel like Disney is trying too hard to make people thirst for him. From just the trailers, Magnifico does seem interesting and like more of a return to the traditional "villain" rather than the protagonist having to deal with an existential dread or concept.

***Spoilers for Wish beneath the cut!***

Right off the bat, my first impression is the narrative is SO ham-fisted. Within the first 5 minutes alone we're establishing so much information and in such a clunky, unnatural way. Like... Asha says hi to her friends but then they robotically have a dialogue where they overtly call each other "friends" just so it's clear to the audience (when in reality no one talks like that). It's telling instead of showing, and this happens sooo many times early in the film.

Could not for the life of me remember the friends or their names. There were just too many of them when 1 or 2 would have been just fine to move the plot along and to help Asha. (Yes, I know they're a reference to the 7 Dwarves but it's STILL not necessary to have so many just for a reference.)

Bruh, the makeup in this movie is on point. Every time there was a close up of a character, I was staring at their eye makeup (especially Asha and the queen's).

Asha as a protagonist was... fine? She feels very close to Mirabel and at times Rapunzel in her character. I didn't dislike her by any means, but she didn't reinvent what it means to be a Disney protag. Her motivations also come off as… really “out of nowhere”. We’re told she “cares too much”, but she initially only wants to save the wishes of her mom and grandpa; she randomly decides she has to free ALL wishes midmovie and that was jarring. There could have been a smoother transition. Instead, it was abrupt and Asha didn’t change in any meaningful way. Even her “I want” song was vague (what exactly is “to have something more for us than this”?) and didn’t connect well with her character.

I do really like her design though! Her freckles, earrings, and how her hair moves are my favorite details.

Valentino was not as annoying as I thought he would be. Still didn't care for his sass and brand of humor, but at least he helped out a few times.

I called it, the film is trying so hard to make Magnifico "hot" 🤡 I don't get it but okay, Mouse. I see your effort.

Loved his fit!! Very cool cloak and diamond/star motifs everywhere! His lab and study was also fun to look at.

I quite liked the moments when the queen talked to her husband and tried to smooth things over with him. “I can fix him energy”— Their relationship seemed very genuine at the start of the movie.

NOT THE WISH NEPOTISM...

If they were going for “sympathetic” with Magnifico, it didn’t work. He gave this backstory about how he was traumatized before + left as the only survivor of a great tragedy and so now he wants to use his magic to prevent that from happening to anyone else. Thing is, we only ever know about this via his word and staring at a half-burnt tapestry. We never see the event on screen, nor what was left of the tapestry. I was expecting a twist where it’s revealed that he lied all this time about his backstory and rewrote history so he could more easily manipulate the people of the kingdom he founded and live out the fantasy of being worshipped as a “good guy”. That was such a missed opportunity!!

Something else I was thinking of (this was during “This is the Thanks I get” was??? Maybe Magnifico started off genuinely good but became worn down over time as people’s wishes grew more selfish and they became ungrateful for what they had?? Then he could have become bitter and disillusioned by the behavior of his people.

Another idea is maybe Magnifico was “villainous” only in Asha’s eyes, since they don’t agree on how to best handle granting wishes. This would be more of a clash of ideologies rather than the traditional Obvious Evil vs Obvious Good that Disney is so known for, but hey, it could be a neat evolution of their storytelling from classic fairy tale roots.

This is to say that there were so many more interesting directions they could have gone with Magnifico’s motives, character, and portrayal 😭 but the second half of the movie never commits to any of these, they just blame his complete insanity and turn to the dark side on Forbidden Magic which is such a cop-out.

The trailers gave away the twist that Magnifico was the villain. It wasn’t revealed until like the second song into the movie. Would’ve worked better as an on-the-spot reveal rather than part of the marketing, in my opinion.

When they showed the wishes, the TWST fan in my was shouting, "OMG IT'S WISH UPON A STAR, THE LIMITED TIME STORY EVENT FROM THE HIT DISNEY MOBILE GACHA GAME TWISTED WONDERLAND!!!"

As Wish is Disney's anniversary film for 100 years, there were tooons of easter eggs scattered throughout. (I had fun looking for them!) Some were visual (I saw Aurora's dress, Snow White’s well, Peter's Pan's costume, Ursula's green smokey hands, Asha's robes resembling those of the Fairy Godmother, etc.) or extended imagery/scenes (Asha recreates Mulan's dinner and “Reflection" scenes), others were more overt lines of dialogue (Magnifico says the "Mirror, Mirror" lines along with others, a deer named “Bambi”, Valentino mentions an animal metropolis in reference to Zootopia, etc.).

In theory, the wish magic sounds cool but has so much that isn't explained??? And yeah, it's magic so it technically doesn't have to be. However, there are things not explained even when it is important to the plot. For example, Magnifico crushes some wishes and seems to absorb their power for himself (including the wish of Asha's MOM, so you'd think this would be important)? The consequence of this is that the wish's owners... become sad??? Okay, what are the long-term effects??? Why isn’t this fully explored?? But then later in the film we see the same people whose wishes were crushed... regenerate their wish??? So what, he has to keep reaping them??? And why are the wishes only taken at 18 years old? What if a wish changes? Ironically, the townspeople of Rosas have a scene where they question the technicalities of this wish magic. Magnifico essentially tells them to shut up, and it kinda felt like Disney was telling us to not question their lore www

It was weird that they never fully explored the ramifications of going without your wish. You’d think they’d show us people without ambition or hope (which would incentivize Asha to return their wishes), but everyone seems blissfully happy without their wishes?? The only exception is Asha’s friend that betrays her (cannot for the life of me remember his name), and that’s namely because his asshole friends keep ragging on him for it.

I thought the movie was going to go in a “you can make your own wish come true!!” direction but NOPE, turns out it’s just magic. Felt like Disney unintentionally wrote a whole movie about "wishes not coming true unless some big powerful entity allows it to come true” (Asha literally becomes the fairy godmother of Rosas at the end, making her ultimately no different than Magnifico)… ie a metaphor for how Disney owns so many properties it practically owns our childhoods www

"The power of friendship saves the day" ending 🤣 It was very Paper Mario ending-esque...

A song saving the day though?? It’s giving the Illumination Lorax film…

I was right about the humor. Too "quirky" and/or juvenile for me.

Animation was alright? Nothing awful about it, it just didn't feel as detailed or as experimental as other films with a similar style.

Songs were mid, which checks out with the recent Disney music excluding We Don't Talk About Bruno--

Some of the lyrics however were awful. “I let you live here for free and I don’t even charge you rent” is redundant. “So I throw caution to every warning sign” means you’ll show more caution than usual, not that you’ll forego caution. The correct expression is “throw caution to the wind”. Etc, etc, etc.

There was a cute after credits scene where they reveal that Asha's 100 year old grandpa (same age as Disney omg) wrote the "When You Wish Upon a Star" theme, which was sweet since his wish was "wanting to make a mark".

THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE WAS STAR!! It was very cute (partly because it couldn't talk and just jingled and giggled, I was dreading another annoying mascot animal voice) and reminds me of my own pet… The way Star infused everything with glitter and formed unique shapes with the red twine was so fun 😭 I'M A STAR STAN, IT WAS ADORABLE AND KINDA BRATTY AND I'M LIVING FOR IT

Decent ideas, "meh" execution. Enchanted and Shrek did it better in terms of self-aware, fairy tale defying stories. It felt as though the movie was trying to deliver a profound message but got lost in the sauce of making as making Disney references possible and didn't fully commit to actually saying something meaningful. As a result, the film feels somewhat… hollow.

That one friend betraying Asha was the biggest surprise in the film but I still saw it coming 😂 I do get where he’s coming from though (being worried that his wish won’t ever come true) but it also felt like his conflict wasn’t resolved??? It might have gone better if the movie actually fully tried to push the “you can make your own wish come true” message (to reinvigorate the traitor to make his dreams a reality on his own) but they don’t 💦

Wish didn’t end up being “the wishing star’s origin story” because not once did anyone question where Star came from or why it was different from other stars (or what the significance of Magnifico blotting out the other stars was).

I think the people that would enjoy this movie are the people that are already highly invested in Disney and the nostalgia of it.

... Anyway, stan Star 🤩 (and the talking mushrooms 🍄)