YMMV / Spirited (2022)

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Present dying when January came around is presented as an improbable joke, but ask anyone who deals with old people (hospitals, retirement homes, pension administration) about January - it does kill a lot of people, then and now.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The twist that Present was actually Ebenezer Scrooge when he was alive is pretty well hidden outside of some small foreshadowing, except for anyone who recognizes the name Jacob Marley. If you remember Marley's role in the original Christmas Carol tale and recognize his name as the leader of the spirits, the idea that Present is actually Scrooge is not far behind.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • In the room with the statues of those who were redeemed, Dolly Parton is among them. What's the story behind her haunting by the spirits? Furthermore, what about the spirits' other hauntings, including Karen's (the Obnoxious Entitled Housewife who the spirits finished redeeming at the beginning of the film) and a dog?
  • What Clint and Present's new lives are like after the events of the movie is a popular fanfic topic, especially since the epilogue shows they can still meet up now and then.
  • Why Marley is still serving as a ghost when he has been at the job longer than Scrooge and Scrooge is being encouraged to retire and why Scrooge was once considered unredeemable while Marley wasn’t are never explained.
• Friendly Fandoms: Anna and the Apocalypse and Spirited (2022) are a pair of fairly different Christmas musicals that nonetheless share some of the same fans for both? having catchy soundtracks, unique and quirky set-ups, Bittersweet Endings and atmospheres, and being greatly under-appreciated in the eyes of their admirers.
• Ho Yay: Present and Clint both have female love interests (albeit Clint's is an ex-girlfriend he is no longer worried about), but both of them have far more chemistry with each other than said women between moments like Present admitting that he's "smoking hot", how quickly they get comfortable touching each other's faces, Clint encouraging Present to retire for his own sake, and then Clint sacrificing his life to save Present's. The scene where Clint begins admitting that they're "bros" even plays like a romantic confession.
• Magnificent Bastard: Clint Briggs is the CEO of Briggs Media Group and specializes in spreading disinformation through social media. Introduced using his charm and knowledge of human nature to convince Christmas tree sellers to start a culture war, Briggs quickly proves himself to be the most difficult perp the ghosts have ever tried to redeem. Beginning the night by seducing the Ghost of Christmas Past, Clint almost manages to escape the haunt on multiple occasions, including by dragging the Ghost of Christmas Present to his level by encouraging him to curse out everyone in his Victorian memories. After taking control of the haunt to show Present that he clearly wants to retire and live a normal life, he supports Present in his new life even as the haunt continues. When he learns that his actions end with a child killing himself, Clint does everything he can to prevent it, then pushes Present out from in front of a bus to complete his redemption. After his death, Clint uses the same skills that made him a great businessman to become a better Ghost of Christmas Present, expanding the holiday roster and continuing the haunts anew.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The entirety of "Unredeemable" shows Present finally asking himself the question he's been repressing: is it truly possible for him to ever truly redeem himself for everything he did as Scrooge, or is he doomed to be forever unredeemable and unlovable no matter how much good he does in his new life. It concludes with Present, with Clint's prodding, taking the "retirement package" so that he can return to mortal life and finally discover the answer.
  • When Yet-To-Come has his turn on Clint's haunting, we get the most tragic revelation in the entire movie. If Wren posts the video at his prodding, Josh will commit suicide because of the online backlash, making them both responsible for the suicide of a child. Clint is more horrified about this than he is about seeing his own grave, swearing up and down that this was never his intention and desperately trying to get out of the haunting so that he can stop her from posting it.
  • Clint's death via Heroic Sacrifice. After pushing Present out of the way of a bus and achieving redemption, Clint is genuinely excited to spend his life doing "a little good", only to have that taken away when time unfreezes and he's instantly killed by the bus. He's on the verge of tears as Marley gently tells him that redemption means nothing without consequences, only for it to get heartwarming as Carrie comes out and hugs him as he processes his death.

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