“A story a century in the making.” That’s been the tagline for Disney’s Wish. A capstone to Disney 100, the centennial celebration of the studio’s founding. And it promised to give us what we wanted, a classic-feeling Disney movie. It would give us the songs, the princesses, the big bad villain that we’ve been craving! But it also gave us a second tagline: “Be Careful What You Wish For.” Yeah, this movie is not great. But the problem isn’t that it’s necessarily so bad. It’s just so… ... nothing. It technically has all the pieces a good movie needs, but they’re done in the most bare-bones way possible. It’s a minimum viable product of a movie, which doesn’t really seem befitting of Disney’s 100th anniversary celebration... Or, heck, maybe it does at this point. Let’s start with the main villain, and the movie’s only truly interesting aspect, King Magnifico. According to the storybook in the beginning, he saw the world was cruel and studied magic so that he could learn to grant wishes. He built a whole new kingdom as a place where anyone, no matter who, could come and live in a place where they have a chance for wishes to be granted. But our main character during a job interview for the position of King’s Apprentice - which, given the way these things work, I imagine would lead to a career as a King’s Journeyman in the King’s Guild - finds out that actually, most of the wishes will never be granted. When she tries to make her case that they each deserve a chance to come true, the king snaps at her. He drags her to the next wish granting ceremony, makes a point of NOT granting her grandfather’s wish, and brutally turns her down for the role. He has revealed his secret dark side to her - and then he just lets her go home?! To, to what, to foster dissent? Dude, what do you think is going to happen?! This is supposed to be a return to the flamboyant Disney villains of old, but I feel like it dramatically misunderstands what made them interesting. They were not evil for the sake of being evil. The Evil Queen was incredibly vain and demanded constant reassurance that she was the most beautiful one of all. Lady Tremaine detested Cinderella as an unwanted stepchild and so degraded her. Ursula wanted to rule the oceans and so she exploited Ariel’s desperation to gain a bargaining chip against King Triton. Obviously their rationalizations were faulty - ... you know, because they’re evil - but they had a reason for what they were doing. I never really got a grasp on what King Magnifico’s reasoning was. I believe that what we’re supposed to see in him is someone who means well but is pushed by fear to terrible methods. But the way he’s so cruelly spiteful to Asha in the beginning contradicts that. That’s not someone making a hard choice to protect the kingdom, he’s just being an openly cruel asshole. And then halfway through the movie it doesn’t even matter any more because oh no! He’s been possessed by an evil spell book so all his agency as a character is gone. Anyways, like I said, he just lets Asha go home and she wishes on a magic wishing star and it falls from the sky. This causes a bright light that starts the whole kingdom buzzing, and the king is paranoid that it could be a threat to his power, so he goes after it. But it does not occur to him that maybe it’s connected to the girl that he just told his secret to. He has to be told this by someone else later in the movie. Dude, what is your plan here? How has this guy stayed in power so long? By the way, the mechanics of magic here are so convoluted. So the king takes a person’s wish on the eighteenth birthday and saves it in a magic bubble. And by doing so they forget their wish entirely. Does each person only have one single wish in their life? [D.M.: Wait, then how do they know they got their wish? And doesn't this mean they can't achieve it naturally, without magic? And, if it is their aspiration, doesn't that leave them without purpose? And...] Like, I have so many questions, and I wouldn’t pick apart a magic system like this except the movie spends so much time pulling these new rules out of midair in order to desperately get the movie’s story going. It’s so convoluted and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Why is Asha shocked to hear most of the wishes aren’t granted? Everyone knows that most of the wishes are not granted because each time one IS granted it’s a public spectacle. There’s a part halfway through the movie where the crowd goes “Hey, I haven’t even seen my wish since I gave it to you. What gives?” Y-y-y-yes! That’s how things have worked around here for years, and you’re just now noticing this?! And the rest of the plot unfolds in a very straightforward way. Like, shockingly straightforward, to the point that it's a twist in itself how few twists and turns there are here. And you know, that’s not a bad thing in itself. Again, looking at the classic Disney movies that Wish desperately wants to ape off of, their stories can be simple but they still hit strong emotional notes. At turns they evoke suspense, they evoke amusement, they evoke injustice, they evoke catharsis. Wish only evokes a distinct lack of gravity to anything that happens. Honestly this script has taken longer to write than I thought because it feels so hard to comment on most of the movie. It’s so empty feeling, I can’t comment on something that doesn’t exist. At least it all pays off with a message that is a positive one, don’t rely on other people to grant your wishes, make your own wish come true. Which, again, it's a nice sentiment. But it just doesn't feel impactful at all. Usually a Walt Disney Animation Studio movie is a family affair, I feel like anyone can get something out of Moana or Zootopia or Encanto... This movie specifically feels like it's aiming at kids. The character of Star, this cute little toy template, is actually useless to the plot. Star’s arrival kicks off the king’s paranoia - which again, he should have already had because of the fact that he just revealed his dark secret to Asha, which isn't even really a secret because she should know about it - (sigh) I'm getting- I'm getting sidetracked - Anyways, Star’s presence makes the king start going paranoid. And that’s it, that’s the only contribution that this character makes to the story. It doesn’t grant any of the wishes, they're not vital to anything that happens. All they do is float around and look cute. Look, look how cute Star is! Isn’t it so cute?! Cute cute cute! So cute I want to buy a plushie of it off Amazon for 17.97 plus Shipping and Handling!
[D.M.: Am I the only one who thinks that thing is completely un-cute?] Also the goat makes like five butt jokes, an insult to the species. I reject Valentino from the Council of Goats. Okay, let’s talk about the animation now. In several places, I do like it. I appreciate the magic effects looking like 2D animation, it added a little more pep to the scenes they were in. The backgrounds were actually really good. I would put this as my computer wallpaper. Then we get to the character designs and animation and it’s just the Disney house style we’ve been seeing over and over since Tangled, with a filter passed over the top. A little while ago I saw this article from IGN about an interview with studio head Jennifer Lee, that revealed they had considered 2D animation for the film, but decided against it because, “she said 2D had too many limitations in terms of camera movements and characterization.” Which... (sighs) Look, I know it’s not my place, as someone who’s not an animator, to question the head of Walt Disney Animation Studios. But... 2D animation has too many limitations in terms of camera movements? 2D animation has too many limitations in terms of characterization? 2D animation has too many limitations in terms of camera movements AND characterization?! “What happens in hand-drawn is that you have the incredible hand of the artist, but also limitations in what you could do on screen,” Lee explained.
[D.M.: She can't be serious...] “What happened in CG is you'd have incredible, boundless opportunities…” And look, I do agree with the latter part of that statement. I’ve believed for a long time that the tools used to make CG animation had a lot of untapped potential. Over the past few years we’ve seen that potential start to be unleashed in cinemas. Look at the dynamic action scenes that The Last Wish pulled off with the technology, or the cartoony energy of The Bad Guys. And do I even need to argue the case for the Spider-Verse films? But for all Lee’s talk of the incredible boundless opportunities, Wish aspires to innovate to the level of Borderlands 2009? Hell, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie this year pushed animation further! It disappoints me. Pixar had signaled a potential shift in diversifying their style, with Turning Red and Luca. Neither of these were dramatic departures from the existing house style but they were at least departures. Wish feels like a step backwards, it feels like a begrudging dip of a toe in the pool. It feels like the animators are being held back from taking full advantage of the medium the way other studios are. The music in this movie did not work for me. How are these lyrics real? Wh-what the hell does that even mean?! How was this allowed? And then this song: Chris Pine (singing): "If happiness was a tangible thing, it would be yooouuu..." Oh that sounds like some kind of sweet love duet, right? Wrong! It’s actually a song that the king and Asha sing as they’re looking at the wishes. And it does not fit the scene, it’s so weird. But it’s perfect to take out of the context of the movie and sell as a single for Disney Adults to use at their weddings! Yeah, I think that’s the biggest problem of this movie for me. It has some strengths, it does. The voice acting was actually really good, and like I said, there were aspects of the animation I really enjoyed. But Wish feels like it’s prefabricated with built-in seams to be disassembled and put through the peripherals of the corporate machine. Oh man, what a great climax of the King and Asha on a raised stage in front of a crowd with lights flashing everywhere, as the crowd comes together and sings to harness the power of wishing and magic to stop the bad guy. Gee, I wonder if they’re already building this show at Walt Disney World! I wonder if we’re going to get spin-off Disney+ shorts series of Star and/or The Goat! Oh and let’s get to the references. All of Asha’s friends are basically the Seven Dwarfs, a deer and bear in the forest call each other Bambi and John respectively, there’s two references to Peter Pan, Asha gets bestowed with wish-granting powers and she mimics the Cinderella transformation, along with the line “You can be like our fairy godmother!” There’s a line that references a hypothetical “Utopian paradise where animals wear clothes.” And look, yes I’ll admit these little Easter eggs are fun to see sprinkled through the movie, and some of them are actually kinda clever. But notice how I used the word “sprinkled.” These are fun little sprinkles to be added on top of a movie that is already good. Plus I can’t help but be cynical. How can I not be, when this is the exact same thing that studios have been doing for the past decade? Everyone is desperate to say “Hey hey, look at these references to things we’ve done in the past! Do you feel the serotonin yet?!” Disney been strong on this nostalgia train for years now. Hell, this is the second time this month alone that Disney has been giving us the “memberberries” for their animated studio’s slate! In the end Wish isn’t a terrible movie, it is not incompetent. But it is thoroughly and aggravatingly middling. It gestures towards a couple interesting ideas and then does not develop them to any extent. It is not a jab at Ron DeSantis. It is not a jab at the Judeo-Christian God. It is a movie formulated and processed within an inch of its life to be safe, milquetoast, and consumable. I felt nothing through eighty percent of this movie’s runtime, and after I release this video my mind will forget everything about Wish... So you know what, yeah, it IS the perfect film to cap off Disney’s centennial celebration! Look, this whole Disney 100 thing has been embarrassing to watch. The year has not been kind to Walt Disney Studios, with a series of box office misses and a general brand rot. Their one unqualified success, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, was made by a man who now works for the competition. Elemental managed to crawl its way to profitability, which I’m genuinely glad to see. Searchlight Pictures and 20th Century Fox managed some decent movies actually, as well as some… ... not so decent movies. And the rest of their theatrical slate has been rough. Not just critically but financially as well. The Little Mermaid remake pulled in a lot less money than previous entries in the… ... I don’t know, the Disney Live Action Remake Franchise, is that what we’re calling it? Which is not a good sign for that series. If a Little Mermaid remake is struggling to turn a profit, what hope does the Aristocats live-action remake have? Yes, that is a real thing they have announced. Haunted Mansion movie, big bomb, didn’t even make back ONE times its budget much less two-and-a-half. I don’t know why they didn’t release this at Halloween. And also it was just boring. I have really wanted to see a new Haunted Mansion movie for a long time, and we got one that I just outright forget I even watched. Lucasfilm’s Star Wars series have been seeing diminishing returns in viewership numbers, and Marvel is in shambles. Yeah, Disney wants to manufacture a fake record to give Wish a participation trophy? Let me show you a real box office record: a new lowest opening weekend for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the biggest second-week drop for any superhero movie ever. That’s right, it dropped off harder than Morbius. And let’s step back to Lucasfilm. They took a break from making Star Wars to deliver one of the biggest box office bombs in Disney’s history. How do you spend three hundred million dollars on an Indiana Jones Movie?! I get COVID expenses and having to juggle the script around, but three hundred million dollars for an Indiana Jones movie?! And that’s not even talking about how they’ve been running their streaming service, outright deleting their own original series and films. Yes, tell me more Disney about how King Magnifico is so evil for locking away people’s wishes to not be granted. If you want to watch this series you can only do it illegally now. And let’s not forget the incoming lawsuits alleging that Bobs Chapek and Iger, quote “engaged in a fraudulent scheme designed to hide the extent of Disney+ losses and to make the growth trajectory… targets appear achievable when they were not.” Remember, corporations can screw over regular people, but messing with rich people is a no-go. And speaking of screwing over regular people, let’s not forget this statement from Bob Iger during the strikes. “No come on guys, don’t go on strike, all we want to do is scan your likeness into a computer and use AI to puppet you around without giving you any say in how we use you and without paying you for it, come on guys why are you so unreasonable?” Now I could go full internet pundit and say that Disney is collapsing, it’s the END of the Walt Disney Company! But, it’s not. Disney is more than their movie studios, they have their parks and ESPN is a big moneymaker for them. Plus they spent the past year ‘cost-cutting’ and ‘downsizing’ so the capital holders are happy, and that’s all that matters right? Well... (sighs) ... let me bring up this Twitter thread, that a friend showed me - yes I know, stay with me here - from someone who goes by Allymation online: (clicks tongue) I don’t think I can say it better myself. Bob Iger… ... fix the mess you’ve made. Anyways, if you are looking for a holiday movie this season The Holdovers is in theaters right now it's actually really, really good, it has all the makings of a holiday classic, I really hope it succeeds. Please go see it, hashtag #HoldoversSweep. Good bye. (outro music)
