Um... Did A.I Write Disney's Wish???

did Disney use artificial intelligence to write their latest movie technically Allison Moore and Frozen director Jennifer Lee are credited as the screenwriters for this project but having just watched the movie myself there is a distinct feeling that humans had nothing to do with this project both financially and critically wish is bombing and I think a lot of that has to do with just how soulless and algorithmic the film comes across so for legal reasons I'm not making any off accusations but these are the three reasons that Disney's wish feels like it was written by AI first we need to talk about the plot for context Disney as a company is officially 100 years old as of 2023 wish was meant to be a sort of Centennial Celebration that paid tribute to the company's artistic history even the title is a reference to the mega corpse theme song When You Wish Upon a Star unfortunately rather than paying homage to the Beloved Classics that made Disney what it is today the film actively relies on overdone Disney tropes without recapturing any of their magic the story like the title suggests revolves around wishes Chris Pine's character rules over an island in the Mediterranean in order to live on the island everyone has to give him their greatest wish when they turn 18 forgetting their wish in the process unfortunately the main character soon learns that magnifico only does this if he believes the wish is safe and beneficial to his kingdom meaning that most of them are forgotten about completely Asha the protagonist doesn't think that this is fair and sets out on a mission to return people's wishes to them on paper this might sound like a solid story but much like when AI tries to make a person but can't get their hands right the devil is in the details this movie claims to be about wishes but we don't actually explore what these mean for the people of Rosa Asha believes that taking away people's wishes removes the best parts of who they are but that doesn't really seem to be a problem she has one friend who's been kind of depressed since giving magnifico his wish but everyone else in the Kingdom seems to be legitimately happy and thriving maybe if we saw that people in Rosa lack ambition or hope asha's concerns would feel more valid but the world we are introduced to in the beginning of the movie doesn't feel like it really needs to change all that much even asha's grandfather whose wish is the whole reason Asha challenges magnifico in the first place seems to be doing just fine without his wish sure we see that he's disappointed when his Wish isn't granted at the last ceremony but Asha never thought that there was anything missing from him up until the end of act one in a film like Tarzan the movie revolves around family and Tarzan's need to prove himself and this makes sense because kurchuk initially sees Tarzan as an unworthy Outsider Cara look at him he will never be one of us that's something that clearly needs to change and when kuk finally accepts Tarzan as a worthy son things are in a better State than when the film began forgive me for not understanding that you have always been one of us my son but the state of the world in wish is so poorly established that the audience doesn't really see a problem and this means there's little to no payoff when the story supposedly Is Res solved plot can only become poetry when all its elements flow together and enhance one another but wish's concept and narrative feel like they were generated based on a list of buzzword in a corporate office speaking of which we got to discuss the characters Disney characters both in terms of their design and personality are usually fantastic but the characters and wish are some of the most generic I've seen in quite some time it truly seems like they threw tropes and traits from better characters into a blender and mix them up into the narrative equivalent of chicken McNuggets take for example Asha on the surface she has the determination of Moana The Moxy of Rapunzel and the quirkiness of Anna but in the actual narrative these traits feel incredibly artificial because they don't really connect to her story in a meaningful way the closest thing she has to a character Arc is going from loving magnifico to Defying him but this didn't require any sort of character growth on her part the previously mentioned traits aren't the basis for character flaws or strengths but rather Superfluous details meant to remind audiences of better executed characters from previous films Rapunzel's naive innocence is directly related to being locked in a tower her whole life and her adventurous spirit is what motivates her to finally leave Anna is for lack of a better word adorable because she hasn't had anyone to so socialize with it's also why she's so quick to trust someone like Hans which once again sets the story in motion the big issue for Asha is that her motivations are so vague and therefore weak just look at her I want song this is supposed to be the moment in a musical where we reveal what the main character wants more than anything but in asha's case all she says is so I make this wish have something more for us than this more for you than what this ties back to the plot and worldbuilding problem but it's not clear what issue she really wants to fix what does more actually look like please sir I want some more more a common theme in Disney characters is wanting more but the difference is they're specific in what they need in order to be fulfilled Belle wants Adventure in the white somewhere Ariel wants to be part of your and Aladdin wants everyone to realize that there's so much more to me these motivations are clear and connect with the flaws and strengths of these characters you root for them because you understand them what little we do understand about asha's motivations doesn't even remain consistent throughout the film at the end of Act One it seems like she thinks that everyone in Rosa should have their wishes returned to them but when she breaks into magnifico's Vault just before the midpoint she only seems interested in her mother and grandfather's wishes so suddenly she's not trying to better her community just her family situation to be clear I don't blame the actress for these issues but Disney did her a disservice by having her voice a role that was merely a pawn to move the plot forward likewise this movie has the audacity to waste a perfectly good Chris Pine King magnifico was supposed to be be the return of the classic Disney villain an archetype Disney hasn't indulged in since the likes of Dr facilier and Mother Gothel fans were tired of the twist villain Trope and were excited to see an actor like Pine ham it up while posing a real threat however it seems like the writers Andor algorithm took the worst lessons from classic and twist villains alike creating an antagonist that is neither charismatic nor well established he begins as a rational but self-centered Monarch then quickly devolves into a laughably unhinged Maniac with little to no explanation just like Asha he feels like an archetype formulaically inserted into a paint by number story with little to no human oversight his whole personality changes on a dime for no other reason than the story needs to continue and audiences expect a bad guy it's so frustrating because the script actually attempts to flesh the king out in the beginning it's explained that he takes people people's wishes because he views holding on to a dream that cannot be as a burden that he doesn't want his people to suffer people come here because they know they can't make their own dreams come true they give their wishes to me willingly and I make it so they forget their worries it's a compelling line of thinking that gets completely abandoned as soon as the plot kicks off which really does a disservice to him and the stakes of the film magnifico could have been the key to unlocking the film's deeper message but reducing him down to a one-dimensional bad guy means that the plot themes and action of this movie All Fall flat even the side characters feel like they were written by chat GPT Valentino the goat voiced by Alan tudk is only there to make jokes like this who knew my voice would be this low so that the audience actually reacts to something on screen his humor feels robotic and the character serves no other purpose in the narrative by contrast in Mulan even if you took away the comedy of Eddie Murphy Mushu plays an important part in the script he's a guide and Confidant for the main character pushing her in the right direction and reminding her of what's at stake not to mention he has a whole Arc of his own you can be a guardian again sure a little goat with a deep voice is cute but you'll sell more plushies if people actually care about him I I went to Julia while we're discussing The Supporting Cast wish seems to be guilty of a trend I've been noticing in modern Disney media overall I am a firm supporter of diverse casting and making sure that people feel like they can see themselves on the big screen so the more perspectives audiences are exposed to the better but while Disney has made an effort to increase the diversity of its characters the studio seems to be considerably more okay with depicting women of color than men from the same backgrounds whether it's an original character or swapping a classic character Disney seems to be more okay with female diversity especially when it comes to main characters take for instance the 2023 Little Mermaid the story takes place in what appears to be a kingdom in the Caribbean with a diverse array of citizens and a black queen with this in mind the choice to cast Hal Bailey's aeriel seems to align perfectly with the overall direction of the film however it was so important to them to have a white male lead that they wrote it in into the script that Eric was adopted may I remind you that a deadly shipwreck first brought you to us instead of just allowing a black man to play Eric in which all the women in The Supporting Cast including the queen are people of color but the vast majority of the men are white including asha's Granddad The Ensemble in this film only serves to deliver hamfisted Exposition through dialogue so there's no reason not to make the male cast more in line with the women in the film speaking of of exposition this movie has a huge problem with its writing one of the most basic concepts in film making is show don't tell this essentially means that whenever possible filmmakers should use action or imagery to reveal information rather than just dialogue I hate snake shck I hate him we don't need to be told Indiana Jones is a bad because Spielberg makes it plenty clear through the camera work and action wish on the other hand almost exclusively relies on dialogue to communicate ideas and information One exchange between Asha and her best friend basically goes like this are you nervous why would I be nervous because you're about to interview to be The Apprentice of magnifico Our Kind generous wish granting King I heard his apprentices always get their wishes granted imagine if instead of them saying all that we saw magnifico being a good King imagine if we saw Asha studying to be his Apprentice or watched a former apprentice get their wish granted the exposition is so egregious that when Asha is interviewed by magnifico she tells him that she and her dad used to sit on a tree near their house and wish on Stars before he died to be clear we didn't know she had a father or that he died up until this point which is insane why wouldn't something as critical as this be shown in an actual scene at the beginning of the movie imagine if Finding Emo cut out the first scene and then he just casually told one of the other dads I'm highly protective of Nemo because a barracuda devoured my wife and all my other Offspring the entire medium of Animation exists to tell stories visually but wish seems to spit in the face of Disney's Heritage and instead rely on poor dialogue to make sense of anything within the narrative a Disney movie shouldn't feel like someone asked AI to summarize a bunch of better screenplays regardless of if chat GPT was involved in writing this movie or not it certainly feels like any human Artistry was absent from the writing process this was supposed to be a centennial celebration but wish just puts on display all the issues that are plaguing modern Disney even Bob Iger admits that they've been focusing on quantity and not quality over the past few years I don't know if artificial intelligence will ever be able to create real art but it certainly can turn out com content and sadly that's exactly what Disney's wish winds up feeling like I'm Dylan and this has been the writer block

Channel: The Writer's Block

Views: 3,006,894

Keywords: Disney Wish, Disney's Wish, Wish Movie Review, The Writer's Block, Wish Plot Critique, Wish AI Controversy, Disney AI Movie, Disney Quality vs Quantity, Modern Disney Issues, Disney Film Critique, Wish Movie Theory, Disney Tropes, Artificial Intelligence in film, AI in film, Disney Dialogue Problem, Show don't Tell, Disney Animation, Disney Animated Movie Problems, Disney Controversy, Live action little mermaid, classic disney movies

Id: xmxkcsmtTsI

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023