Disney's "Wish" (celebrating Disney's 100th Anniversary)

Wish can indeed compete with films that released during the height of the pandemic. It can also compete with films that were flops in their time, and reached heights later (that Wish might reach in streaming, who knows, but my god saying "one of the kids that I know, and yeah there are several kids but I specifically am referring to one, watched a segment of this movie and enjoyed that fraction alongside someone who is not a kid" is not a good testimony and the fact that you guys are going after me for pointing out how insanely painful that is as a testimonial is kinda scary) but let's be real: of those films, have any really been successes outside of the sphere of terminally-online adult animation fans?

Even the "terminally online adult animation fans" aren't really fans of Wish.

Edited by M84 on Apr 17th 2024 at 10:38:39 PM

Kinda the opposite: adult animation fans with standards hate Wish the most, so I've seen a lot of discourse about how they're why Wish failed. Except that they have no effect on the box office, so instead they're the reason why the actual target audience of kids hated Wish because of Youtube videos and such, and there's no point at which the movie not actually fitting the standards of a Disney feature enters the equations...

I did not say that at all. I did mess up the wording but I most DEFINITELY did not say that I think people and or adults take animation too seriously, and even though you didnt accuse me of it I also add that I apologize because it ALSO MAY come across as "Disney movies are just for kids and or you shouldnt criticize them because of it" but I meant that the movie reached the people it was meant to reach, whether they are children or adults. I dont even LIKE Wish.

Edited by AegisP on Apr 17th 2024 at 7:45:29 AM

TBF, I'm not sure kids are watching the Youtube vids criticizing Wish considering they tend to be ten minutes or longer. They'd be more into the Youtube Shorts or Tiktok vids.

There really aren't many other ways to interpret "these are kids movies and they aren't meant to appeal to hardcore animation fans."

Edited by M84 on Apr 17th 2024 at 10:49:07 PM

Nevemind, getting close to thump territory here.

Edited by AegisP on Apr 17th 2024 at 7:51:18 AM

Honestly, Disney just needs a serious win at this point. Wish's problems were exacerbated by a few factors:

• Heightened expectations due to being a Milestone Celebration. Disney's at fault for hyping it up as such too.

• Disney's previous movies being somewhat lackluster. They really needed a win in 2023 too.

• Increasingly bad rep due to live action remakes, underperformance in non-Disney stuff like the MCU and Star Wars, and people becoming less and less happy with Disney's corporate bullshit.

• Wish itself playing the homage to past Disney films angle so much it forgot to add anything really original that made past films beloved in the first place.

• And that goat. That stupid, stupid goat.

Disney's not going under any time soon of course. But it really needs its next big animated movie to hit it out of the ballpark. If only to reassure people that the studio that pioneered animation as we know it can still do animation.

Edited by M84 on Apr 17th 2024 at 10:57:20 PM

Valentino had more of a purposeful role in early drafts, where he tried to convince Magnifico that he was Star with a lot of help from the animals, and stuff that was in production long enough to get voiced lines for his toys, where he failed at climbing but never gave up on it and eventually succeeded, which inspired Asha to keep trying to achieve her goals.

I actually agree with that, we DO need much much MUCH better movies than Wish. But like I said, since Disney cant actually go bankrupt, they are probably on the way to getting better and making better movies, I cant wait for the movie that will turn things around.

I didn't say it can't go bankrupt, just that it won't happen soon. But no company, even one as large and old as Disney, is invincible.

Disney resting on its laurels is how we got Wish in the first place.

Edited by M84 on Apr 17th 2024 at 11:03:31 PM

It was not in response to you that I said that, I was agreeing we do need better movies, the rest is an original unrelated observation... but I also realized I never actually said that "They cant go bankrupt" but something I realized on my own but forgot I never actually said it here before.

Edited by AegisP on Apr 17th 2024 at 8:07:37 AM

When I listened to "At All Costs" in the movie, I felt something was really off. It felt like a love song. Then I found the demo version of the song which substitutes "protect" with "love."

That explains so much.

Honestly, I feel like you can't really blame the fans who view Magnifico as simply a misunderstood person for thinking that way. I mean, from his point of view, the events of the movie could be summed up as, "his kingdom is falling apart because a teenager refused to take his very reasonably explained 'no' for an answer." He had a legitimate point that some wishes are too vague to be granted. (I would say that there's a degree of Protagonist-Centered Morality in play regarding Asha as a character.)

Something else that's a little "off" about the songs is how they're too pop song-esque for a film of this genre. (Which might have something to do with them hiring Julia Michaels as songwriter; her background is as a songwriter for singers like Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.)

Edited by dmcreif on Apr 18th 2024 at 11:25:38 AM

But that ignores the fact he also rejected the suggestion to simply give the wishes back.

Even Home on the Range has its fans. Like I said, it just goes to show.

As I also said before, Magnifico coming up with the vaguest and flimsiest of reasons as to why he couldn't grant Sabino's wish—or do it at Asha's request—is to indicate that he doesn't care about any real genuine danger coming from the wishes so long as they're not a challenge to his power. Things like making the girl a seamstress is a safe little act of charity to him that benefits in helping him keep both his image and power. As long as he can keep everyone complacent, he's happy to do tiny little good things that don't cause him to lose control or have his authority be questioned.

That he made it a point to rub it in Asha's face too also didn't help. It early on unveiled that deep, vindictive pettiness in Magnifco that he'd reveal soon enough in full—especially when he realized that absorbing the wishes was far more beneficial to him than just hoarding the majority as he was before too.

The issue with Magnifico as the villain is that he didn't actually lie when it comes to wishes. You give him your wishes and maybe one day, you'll get your wish granted. Like a lottery ticket. When a 100 year old man like Sabino is still waiting for his wish to be granted and no one is questioning why the King hasn't grant his wish until Asha literally sees the wish vault and then start asking questions, it's a sign of the story's flaws.

And we can literally trace it back to the decision of making Asha the first person to realize that Magnifico is actually bad rather than there's a good chunk of the kingdom that knows Magnifico is bad. Had they gone with the original idea, it would have at the very least tip the Evil Is Cool fandom over the Draco in Leather Pants fandom for Magnifco, and we wouldn't be asking if Magnifico is actually misunderstood.

Something I've been thinking about lately is how I think Wish might've been better if, instead of being about wishes, it had been about stories in some way. Disney always prides itself on making all these wonderful stories that everyone loves, so I believe that—if done right—would've tied into the anniversary aspect a lot better.

I guess because of that, last night I dreamt about a version of Wish that was exactly that: Asha was a writer/artist who entertained the other townsfolk with the stories she made—all based on past Disney movies—and then somehow gains the ability to bring the characters from her stories to life, starting with the seven dwarves. The climax had Asha summoning an army of past Disney characters to take down Magnifico.

The wish theme was because pretty much all of Disney's stories revolve around people wanting something.

There's a reason "When You Wish Upon a Star" ended up as Disney's theme song.

So basically Once Upon a Studio but with a battle royale instead of a group photo.

Edited by M84 on Apr 19th 2024 at 6:23:09 PM

I still think the movie had more potential than a lot of people act like it did.

It mainly needed like, a bunch of additional drafts to hammer out the kinks.

Like, wishes in Wish are clearly something closer to Cutie M Arks from MLP than they are our general concept of wishes. They're a reflection of who you are as a person and symbolise like the abstract concept of growth and self-actualization. Without your wish, you become listless, depressed and passionless.

"We are made of stars." because each of us has the power to help other people actualize their dreams, just like a wishing star.

These are strong concepts, and I think there's a movie that takes advantage of all of them in Wish somewhere.

That's why a lot of people are harsh on this movie.

It had potential. It could have, should have, been a great movie worthy of being Disney's 100th anniversary milestone. It was certainly hyped as such by Disney.

It's like...all of the right ingredients were there. The talent to make something great with those ingredients was there. But it just ended up half-baked and bland.

I do understand why they went with wishes, but in my opinion, I just think that theming it around stories would've....resonated better, I guess I want to say? But again, that's just my thinking.

Honestly, given the whole "First Tale" the film is pushing, I would have set the film in the Mesolithic and have the characters be cavemen.

One of the problems I've seen people have is that for a movie that preaches against the commodification of people's wishes, we really don't see much of Rosas. That ending where the people sing "This Wish (reprise)" doesn't work because we barely saw anyone in this kingdom. It's telling that two of the rewrites I've seen people do on You Tube involve Asha, Valentino, and the Star going around and fulfilling people's wishes before Magnifico takes a leap off the deep end and goes full Big Bad.

I was reading some old interviews about Wish and found that the magic mirror thing kinda happened on its own and grew throughout the story, and to get in the mood for 'Welcome to Rosas' Ariana pretended she was a tour guide named Janet, which makes me think of The Good Place's Janet.

EDIT: A very common misconception about the "Starboy" concept was that he was meant to be Asha's love interest and a subject of the song "At All Costs." The art book revealed that he was actually meant to be a younger version of Asha's grandfather Sabino, who passed away in an early story draft, while "At All Costs" was written to sound like a love song out of context but was always meant to be about the wishes.

All the Starboy/Asha fans just. Ignore that. XD

Edited by lalalei2001 on Apr 24th 2024 at 6:08:37 AM

What? Shippers ignoring canon and Word of God if it goes against their headcanons or preferred OTPs? Perish the thought! Everyone knows fans instantly accept canon explanations and never, ever ignore them if they don’t fit their own personal headcanons!