There's a lot of hype around King Magnifico based on just the fact that they're being upfront about his status as the villain which means that they're not doing a twist villain or No Antagonist this time. "We're no longer doing the thing that we've been doing for 10 years with mostly lackluster results" is not really something worth getting excited about, but I don't know, maybe Magnifico himself actually will be worth getting excited about. Not something you can judge the film on until it's out.
It is funny in an ironic way that Wish makes a Card-Carrying Villain one of its big selling points, right after the previous Disney movie had a diss towards demanding villains in stories.
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That was a bit of a Broken Aesop, though.
The card game is used to establish that you should try to achieve a healthy co-existence with the natural world, not exterminate creatures that you see as pests, because they're all crucial parts of a functioning environment. This is meant to pay off when they realize, rather than killing the Strange World creatures, they need to help these weird looking monsters survive, as their world can't survive without them.
Except, the way they help these creatures survive is to kill off all traces of Pando, another living creature. So the "exterminate all pests" ethos is still in play, it's just they've switched around which creatures they designate as pests.
That’s true. Since Pando was naturally occurring on Avalonia before Jaeger found it, I presume it’s meant to be something that’s in equilibrium in its ecosystem in small quantities, but becomes destructive if put in a different environment and overfarmed, like rabbits or kudzu. But we don’t see what new role if any Pando has following the climax.
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Modern Disney LOVES Broken Aesop s dont they, Raya and this lol.
Potential hot take: I... don't really get the complaints about twist villains? I think most of them are good to great. Yeah, Hans was mediocre, but he was a last-minute addition and (also possible hot take?) isn't even the main antagonist, that's Elsa. She drives the plot, Hans is just an opportunistic scuzzball capitalizing on the disaster she, however unintentionally, causes.
As for the others? Lotso is barely a twist (the trailers gave this one away), King Candy is a villain with a twist, but the twist isn't that he's the villain, that's clear as early as his second scene. Ernesto is a straight example, and he's just delightfully punchable in all the best ways. Also, there were twist villains well before the "current" era like Stinky Pete, Waternoose, and Gwen Grayson (and arguably even Gaston, who is presented as just a minor annoyance at first), but you never see hate for them.
I do find the "force of nature" antagonists like Pando and Druun dull though.
Edited by HamburgerTime on Aug 10th 2023 at 6:42:27 AM
When people mean twist villains, they mean non-villainous characters turning to be villains. King Candy doesn't fit there because he was already a villain to begin with. Also your other examples with "good twist villains" are Pixar so it doesn't really count, although Lightyear's twist villain was terrible.
As for Hans he was already in the script from the early drafts and was already meant to be the twist villain. Other terrible ones include Bellweather and Yokai.
Edited by Ookamikun on Aug 10th 2023 at 9:50:41 PM
Bellwether, no a. It comes from the practice of putting a bell on a wether (castrated ram) who leads the flock of sheep. It's weirder to me that she's female than that she's the criminal mastermind.
see my completed Tangled (Varian) fanfic collection! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467056/chapters/59049532Here’s a new TV spot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/animationpromos/status/1693325358299296151?s=46&t=7YT7yMPCw2VMMwQUxWj5_A
And there’s supposed to be a new trailer soon.
You’re Gonna Carry That Weight.Not gonna lie, I'm not exactly feeling this movie. As some people have pointed out, it sort of feels like a "Greatest Hits" compilation of Disney's female-led animated movies from the past decade or so— a pinch of Tangled, a dash of Frozen, a smidge of Moana, a little bit of Encanto, you get the idea— without anything to really give it an identity of its own. There's something very deja vu-ish about the visuals and the character designs that just rubs me the wrong way.
I have a feeling that the advertising might be deliberately underselling the movie so that the final product gets a bigger "this was better than I thought it'd be" reception. They did it with Tangled and Frozen, so it's got precedent. Maybe they saw their recent box-office troubles as an excuse to try this method again.
Edited by lbssb on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:45:15 AM
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonSince it’s Disney’s 100 year anniversary movie, I feel very tempted to put on a suit and tie when I go to see it in the theater.
I mean... I'm already doing the biggest possible leadup to the movie, I might as well do that too!
x3 Thing is, that really only works if they gone a long time without making those kinds of movies. And Encanto, their last big musical hit (mostly on Disney+, admittedly) is still less than two years old.
Tangled and Frozen worked because Disney had gone a decade without making any fairy tale musicals, so there was nostalgia for them. That’s not the case this time. In other words, Wish doesn’t feel like a “return to form” because there isn’t really a form to return to.
Edited by Booplesnoot on Aug 31st 2023 at 3:38:23 AM
Well, I expect I’ll enjoy it enough myself. That said, a suit seems excessive even ignoring how much I despise formal attire, unless you want people staring at you.
My musician pageEntertainment Weekly
has posted an article about all the Easter eggs to old movies Wish is going to have.

You know what, I think the cel-shading is having almost the opposite of its intended effect on me. It's making it more conspicuous that this is exactly the same style they've been doing for the past decade, being shaded in a way the style wasn't designed for.