"Not so fast, Jafar, aren't you forgetting something? You wanted to be a genie, you got it — and everything that goes with it! Phenomenal cosmic powers... itty-bitty living space."
— Aladdin, Aladdin
- Disney's Aladdin uses this idea, but even without a Literal Genie it doesn't turn out as desired.
- Aladdin wishes to become a prince, but he only wants for Jasmine to love him. He certainly gets to be a magnificent prince, but Jasmine is put off. Once he starts acting like a street rat, Jasmine is once again attracted to him. Additionally, he soon realizes that being a prince and marrying Jasmine would mean he would eventually become the Sultan, which worries Aladdin since he literally has no political experience and only became a prince because of a Genie's wish.
- Jafar caught this too — after Aladdin gloats that the Genie has more power than him, Jafar decides to use his last wish to become a genie. Jafar is thus granted all the power in the universe, but his life is now bound to a lamp and faces more restrictions than he did as a sorcerer.
- In the sequel Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, Jafar becomes a Literal Genie and tricks Abis Mal into wasting two wishes by making him wish for a sunken treasure... and teleporting him to the bottom of the sea, making him use his second wish to go back to Agrabah. One of the themes of the movie is that while it's one of the three genie rules that a genie can't kill you, "you'd be surprised what you can live through."
- Alice in Wonderland, our titular heroine in the beginning sings us to a lovely song of how she'd love a world of nonsense before she falls asleep. Overlapped with an Opinion-Changing Dream, she gets it in the form of Wonderland itself soon changing her mind eventually enough.
- In Beauty and the Beast, Belle sings about her desire for adventure and travel. She probably didn't mean trekking through creepy, wolf-filled woods during a blizzard, or ending up as a prisoner in a gloomy castle ruled by a ferocious Beast. Though to her surprise, it's there that she ends up finding the happiness she dreamed of.
- In Bolt, the director pulls one of these when Mindy-from-the-Network asks for a less than happy ending. He ends it abruptly and says to Mindy "How does your audience feel about... cliffhangers? You wanted unhappy 18-35 year olds, I'll give you unhappy 18-35 year olds. Small example but it works."
- This happens to Merida in Brave when she wished that her mother would "change" without saying specifics and to the prince of the legend who wishes for "the strength of ten men", was turned into a bear and caused him to kill everyone in the throne room and his brothers were among the victims.
- Capture the Flag: When caught by NASA guards, Marty demands to speak to their boss. Seconds later, said boss, who turns out to be Marty's Dad, shows up.
- Coco:
- Miguel wanted to become a musician like Ernesto de la Cruz. He got more than what he bargained for.
- Imelda spent her whole life trying to forget the man who walked out on her, and make Coco forget him too. When she sees that Héctor is about to become Deader than Dead thanks to Coco forgetting him, she's visibly horrified and remorseful to see that it's worked all too well.Imelda: [ruefully] I wanted to forget you. I wanted Coco to forget you too, but—
- Ernesto murdered Héctor and stole his songs because he wanted to be famous and remembered. When the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead discover the truth, Ernesto became infamous and remembered for being a reviled murderer who managed to fool people for 96 years.
- A cover for the film version of Coraline features the trope name, word for word, written on a wall.
- To be specific, Coraline wished that her parents paid more attention to her. Once she traveled to the Other World, the Other Mother paid her too much attention, such as with instances of unwanted touching, the "learn to be a loving daughter" scolding — common behaviour typical of Abusive Parents, specifically My Beloved Smother.
- Referenced in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, by the Genie himself. He knows that "Big wishes always lead to big trouble! The bigger the wish the bigger the trouble!" and asks the Nephews to keep their wishes small. But Webby can't help but fall into this trope twice- Her first wish was a baby elephant whose sudden appearance terrifies Mrs. Beakly, and her last was to turn her toys into Living Toys, which quickly go on a rampage. The Nephews had to use their own wishes to undo Webby's.
- Disney's version of Hercules: After being dismiss as an amateur by the Thebans, Hercules says "How am I suppose to prove myself a hero if nobody will give me a chance?" While Hercules was given an easy rescue of "two little boys" (Pain and Panic in disguise), the Hydra emerges as a bigger challenge for the young hero.
- Mentioned by name in How to Train Your Dragon 2:Eret: If we don't turn up with dragons and fast—(Astrid's dragon Stormfly snatches Eret off his ship) YEAGGH!
Astrid: Careful what you wish for. - The Incredibles:
- In the superhero interviews in the film's opening, Mr. Incredible claims he wants to settle down, but then yearns for the Glory Days when he's forced to do just that by the Super Relocation Act.
- In an inversion, Elastigirl gets the opposite of what she wishes for, but it turns out she actually prefers it. In her interview, she says she doesn't want to retire because she's at the top of her game, but she is the one who is most content in establishing a normal life after the Super Relocation Act.
- Syndrome wants the glory of being recognized as a superhero and creates an Engineered Heroics situation with the giant Omnidroid that will allow him to "save the day". However, he doesn't have any real superhero "field experience" and he didn't put any "don't harm your creator" safeguards into the Omnidroid's programming so it treats him as a legitimate superhero threat. Once his remote control device is neutralized, he faces the serious danger of being killed by his own invention.
- In Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, this is the kickoff for the entire main plot, as Jimmy ends up sneaking out of his house while grounded in order to spend a night at Retroland amusement park with his friends. As the Yolkians' spaceship enters Earth's atmosphere, the boys mistake it for a shooting star, prompting Jimmy (who's still bitter over the fight he had with his Mom earlier) to wish his parents were gone. The next morning, the kids wake up to find every adult in Retroville has been abducted, and things quickly devolve into chaos, prompting all of the kids to help Jimmy search for their parents.
- Kung Fu Panda 3: Kai spends much of the movie taking the chi from various masters, culminating in him trying to take Po's chi, seeking the power of the dragon warrior. When Po, as the dragon warrior gives him what he wanted, pushing all of his chi into Kai, it proves to be too much, destroying him.
- Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure: Scamp desires to be "wild and free" and not be restricted by rules. However, when he gets his chance and discovers the harsh realities of that kind of life, he changes his tone:Scamp: "I got all I ever wanted... and it stinks."
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Lucy wishes for Emmett to be a tough person so he can survive in Apocalipsburg. Emmett takes this seriously and does everything he can so he can be the person Lucy "Would be proud of". This goes too far when his toughness is what leads to Armageddon, Emmett succeeding in Rex Dangervest's plan as well as becoming distrustful of Lucy, who expresses regret in wishing him to be tough just like her. He doesn't believe her, and thinks she and their friends are "brainwashed". (At least she does realize her mistake and apologizes at the end).
- In the Looney Tunes compilation movie Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island, Daffy, Speedy Gonzales, Yosemite Sam, and the Tasmanian Devil are stuck on a deserted island with only three wishes after the map that works a wishing well is destroyed. Speedy and Daffy play this trope straight when Speedy wishes for a burrito and Daffy, annoyed over the wish, wishes it was on his nose. When Daffy suggests using the last wish to get it off, he finds out that Sam and Taz have averted the trope by wishing for a new ship, leaving the other two behind.
- Migration: Pam's desire to see the world takes the family into incidents she never expected, from a potty emergency with her child to getting stuck in a metropolis and being pursued by a chef.
- In a Disney direct-to-DVD package film named Once upon a Halloween, the Wicked Witch cooks up the plan of joining all the other villains of the past, so they can take over the world together. At midnight, she wished upon her magic cauldron to "join her with the other villains" (despite the cauldron's warnings), which results in her being killed and sent directly to Hell, ''since that's where all the villains of the past, who died at the end of their own stories, are.
- In The Prince of Egypt, the pharaoh Rameses concluded a threat to Moses with the phrase "And there shall be a great cry in all of Egypt, such as never has been or ever will be again!". This is based on the Bible and it was right between the Ninth and the Tenth Plague, that struck that very night. You can guess who cried...
- The Princess and the Frog: Dr. Facilier promises to "make all [Lawrence and Naveen's] wildest dreams come true." In this case, Facilier uses Exact Words and double-meanings to convince the pair to accept his deal; Facilier identifies Naveen as "Wanting to be free" and to "hop from place to place" and offers "Green" to get that (The card for future shows Naveen on a lily pad made from dollars). Lawrence is recognized as always being a servant, but is offered a chance to improve his station and be "the man you've always wanted to be" (Lawrence's future card shows him and Naveen in switched positions). When they accept, Naveen is turned into a frog and Lawrence is given Naveen's appearance.You got what you wanted!
But you lost what you had! - This drives the movie Shrek Forever After. When Shrek wants "one day where I can be an ogre like I used to be," he gets it. Too bad the deal he made with the Big Bad has rather unpleasant consequences. Rumplestiltskin offers to give Shrek a day to be a real ogre but in return, he must give up a day that he probably wouldn't even remember. That day was the day he was born.
- In the previous film, Shrek the Third, after a long, stressful day, Shrek and Fiona are just laying down to go to sleep when a messenger arrives and Shrek exasperatedly says, "Well, somebody better be dying!" Cut to them at King Harold's deathbed.
- Strange Magic: Marianne says something to this effect to herself as she had expressed a desire to have adventures and was now forced to break into the local Evil Overlord's castle to save her sister.
- Toy Story: Woody spends most of the movie trying to get Buzz to realize he's just a toy. Unfortunately, when Buzz finally realizes this fact, he's sent into a Heroic BSoD and is left so utterly depressed that things get more complicated when Woody and him are almost unable to escape from Sid's house.
- Toy Story 3 has the main characters wishing early on that they would get played with again. When they do, it's at a daycare where they happen to be assigned to toddlers who handle them too roughly. (All the main characters are toys meant for kids older than toddlers.) (And when Buzz Lightyear tries to negotiate with Lotso, the toy in charge of all the other toys, to get himself and the rest of the main characters put into the room with the older kids, Buzz and eventually the other toys find out that Lotso runs the place like a prison.) note
- In Wreck-It Ralph, the Nicelanders challenge Ralph that if he can get a medal, he can get the keys to the penthouse. Ralph does manage to get a medal, but because of his and Fix-It Felix's (who went to find Ralph) absence, Fix-it Felix Jr. has already been declared out of order and will be unplugged soon. As promised, Ralph gets the key to the penthouse but it is now abandoned.
- Three more examples occur in the sequel: Ralph Breaks the Internet:
- When Vanellope reveals that she has grown tired of racing on all the same levels of Sugar Rush and desires something new and exciting, Ralph decides to game jump again to make another makeshift track just for her. Initially, Vanellope is overjoyed, but when she tries to override the player controlling her in the real world, it winds up breaking the steering wheel for Sugar Rush, thus causing the game to be unplugged.
- Played for Laughs when Calhoun and Felix agree to adopt all the homeless racers of Sugar Rush, thinking that pampering them with unconditional love and attention will make them all good kids. Only for them to witness first-hand how uncontrollably violent and spoiled they are by nature. By the film's end, it's "revealed" that Felix and Calhoun's parenting actually did work.
- Played for Drama when Ralph unleashes the Insecurity Virus into Slaughter Race, after overhearing Vanellope's desire to stay in Slaughter Race rather than return back to Sugar Rush, despite all the trouble that Ralph went through to raise the money and get the part that could get Sugar Rush fixed.
- Three more examples occur in the sequel: Ralph Breaks the Internet:
