I do mostly tend to hang in animation-centric circles when I’m browsing for entertainment news online, so aside from the occasional scathing review that compares modern Disney to Cocomelon (seriously?! Lol), I tend to forget there’s a ton of people out there that absolutely despise Disney.
I think the general public has always enjoyed many aspects of Disney, or at the very least see the brand as cute and harmless. Not that we’ve never had the weird conspiracy theories about Walt being a Nazi or brainwashing children with subliminal messages, but the world is so incredibly divided right now. Some groups want to see more equality and representation depicted in their entertainment, and others argue that doing so is forcing some kind of ungodly woke agenda out to destroy the traditional family unit or some other such BS that will break down the very fabric of society as we know it and OMG WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!!
Sorry, getting a little carried away here..
But at this point I feel like there are whole new groups that have become jaded with the company. The “Disney 100” campaign is completely inescapable. Their original animated films simply aren’t enough, now they’ve gotta crank out live-action versions to make the stories more “real” or whatever excuse they have in order to cash in even more on their existing library. Disney has also gotten its claws into practically everything and have definitely become overexposed these days.
Now that Anastasia and Leia are official Disney Princesses, they’re gonna buy WB and Paramount so they can slap mouse ears on both Bugs and SpongeBob, and before you know it they’re gonna build Lunar Disneyland on the moon and sell canned air for $8 a pop. And YES I’m obviously being sarcastic to make a point, but releasing their next animated film isn’t exactly the big event it used to be, and the execs are probably scratching their heads over watching their box office grosses continue to decline.
I personally didn’t enjoy the live-action remakes early on (with rare exceptions over how a handful of scenes or characters were handled), but now the public has turned and it’s become trendy to hate on them. Hell, it’s trendy to hate on Disney in general as a giant, soulless, executive-driven corporation, despite the hardworking creatives that struggle against all odds to weave a hopefully meaningful, memorable story together with relatable characters, but under budget with time constraints while simultaneously fulfilling the executives’ agenda. Woo, that was a mouthful, and rather unnecessary in a thread that’s supposed to be about Wish. So allow me to switch gears.
I purposefully avoided opinions on this film until I could see it for myself, and Rey and I took Little Dude to the local Cinemark on Thanksgiving. I’ve since done a little reading on the reactions from both critics and fans.
Loved the color palette and the main character designs. However, many of the of the side characters were … I’m not sure if bland is the term I’m looking for, but yeah, they weren’t visually interesting. I get they were trying to be stylized with the animation, but in general much of it felt stiff and unfinished, in sort of a cheap Sofia the First kind of way. If you want to go stylized with CG, it has to be pushed further than just adding pencil lines and minimizing the shading.
I found the concept of a ruler physically holding the wishes of their people a little abstract yet still pretty interesting. I have the impression Magnifico easily persuaded everyone to hand them over for safe-keeping with the promise he’d grant those he deemed worthy. They don’t even stop to question it, possibly because Magnifico has already convinced everyone it’s “impossible” for the average person to make their dreams come true in the first place. I can’t put my finger on it but there has to be some sort of religious allegory here; these people are basically offering up a piece of their soul with the hopes of fulfilling a higher purpose in the future.
Asha is very likable, and even though she gets a little flustered in the beginning, I wouldn’t categorize her as the dreaded stereotype I’ve seen all over YouTube about modern Disney Princesses. Speaking of which, (blacked out for CONTENT WARNING this time rather than spoilers)
if I hear bitching about a modern Disney Princess being “adorkable” one more fucking time I’m seriously gonna lose my shit. Okay, I feel a little better now.
I genuinely appreciated Queen Amaya.
As a person who once witnessed a loved one grow out of control with anger through self-pitying, jealousy, and playing the victim (it’s your fault I’m like this, look what you made me do, etc.) … well, sometimes there’s really nothing you can do but walk away; being a good, caring person has to come from within. Even the most well-intended person can’t drag the good out of someone when it isn’t there to begin with. Heh, and I know how corny that sounds, but hear me out; I think Amaya turned a blind eye to Magnifico’s obvious red flags because she loved him, and possibly because she was privy to his backstory she allowed the indulgence of his pathological need to be praised. They had built this kingdom together out of supposed openness and acceptance, so she’d have no reason to believe he’d someday turn more power-hungry. It definitely had to be an eye-opener the moment he turned around and basically accused her of being the traitor; she had clearly done nothing but love, support, and believe in him all this time. I don’t think there was any going back for her after that, especially when she realized he didn’t care if he was hurting innocent people.
Magnifico thrived on control.
There’s no way he believed the grandfather’s or any of the other wishes were actual threats, he just knew granting them would do nothing to feed his own ego. If it won’t make himself look good, why bother? I also think he enjoyed keeping all those wishes as a collection, as a personal status symbol. They made him feel important and powerful.
The music was … okay and might grow on me. I’ll always be a sucker for the princess “I Want” songs including This Wish, as they always take me back to being a young teen; I’ll definitely be adding it to playlists. I also found This is the Thanks I Get pretty fun, despite a lot of people dumping on it. Knowing What I Know Now is rousing and has a lot of great potential, but some of the lyrics and the way they were sung rubbed me the wrong way. I’m a Star was … well, it works in the context of the film, but having them pause the whole song multiple times for someone to yell that fact out becomes grating, lol. The score is beautiful and has a Spanish flair to it.
I know a lot of people found the Easter eggs/callbacks distracting or outright pandering, but I rather enjoyed them. Maybe I’m alone in thinking that it’s ok to be nostalgic just for the sake of it, but I think it works given the premise of the movie. I don’t see it as Disney trying to tie all their IP together in some kind of complicated multiverse, I see them all as tributes.
From the immediately recognizable font at the opening to the grandfather’s wish being realized just before the credits, I was crying. Hell, I was even crying throughout the damned credits over all the visuals. So many pieces of not only my own childhood were represented, but those of Little Dude’s (who is turning 10 next month!).
I can’t wait until it’s streaming so I can revisit.
I also think very subtly, Valentino and even some of the other characters help Asha to overcome her Insecurities, As you can see her be more confident and competent as the movie goes on, which also helps with her not being as awkward or even annoying, as I initially found her in the very early scenes but then I’ve grown to quite like her as the movie went on and she found her footing. They also needed a large group of people to be able to do what they did with the wishes at the end, even if it didn’t really amount to much of anything, and against a greater sense of Community and wide variety of people to prove the different kinds of people matter and how they should be building treated, which again Simon also represented quite well with his role in the story
