@@casualcausalityy I have no idea why people keep giving Disney their money atp (who have children over the age of 12-because by then, the average kid will start to notice the lack of quality in their new films). Disney will never learn until more people hurt their pockets. I didn’t go support Wish. I knew it’d be bad because of everyone in charge at the studio right now.
Imagine if the king and the queen having some problems in their relationship, while the healthy relationship between Asha and the star boy touches the evil duo's hearth and shows them the right way to treat your love one at the end of the movie, love will save the world
I remember watching a bit of the Walt Disney documentary (20/20) and how he looked to Snow White, saying we need this tale, the romance and everything.
if the Disney princess franchise wouldn't have been so popular, we wouldn't think like this. There are also Disney movies without a love story, such like Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland or Dumbo, and the many of love stories are motivated through the fairy tales they are based on. But there should be a healthy love story included at least, such like in Encanto, even perhaps not for the main character. But I also feel that this was missing to get a 100 year anniversary perfectly done...
I mean, Disney princesses were always bad ass but gentle, like, they're just sick of people treating them like house vacuums and eventually seek their own way to deal with it (it's pretty simple but if you describe it like that it sounds so empowering)
Oh, I think what would really scare them is a Disney princess who needs to grow. (Disney would never have the guts to adapt a story like, say, "King Thrushbeard".)
Disney isn't afraid to have female villains. Namaari (Raya) was a villain. And Alma (Encanto) was an antagonist. Them ruining a power couple has nothing to do with gender
@@DORAisD34D I think it does. Both of the examples you cite are adversaries who are revealed to have had a change of heart. Those aren't true villains. A classic villain falls into a forest fire or is killed in their dragon form. Eaten by a crocodile. Disney won't do that with their girl-boss villains now. No woman ever did a bad thing in recent Disney. They've even been making movies and television shows to show the reason we should sympathize with the villains. We need to break the mold in some ways and return to the original mold in other ways. We need romance, villainy, adventure, and less quirkiness in place of personality in the leads.
@@electrojones what girl boss villains?🙏💀. And Disney hasn’t made any male villains recently either. In fact, their last examples of actual evil villains throughout the whole movie were Gothel and King Candy (female and male). And say what you want about twist villains, but we even had the racist sheep in Zootopia Also, it wasn’t until Asha that people noticed the “quirky” trend. Mirabel is recent and no one called her out for being “quirky”. She had way more going for her than just being “adorkable”, and Encanto as a whole had a lot of well written female characters
@@DORAisD34Ddidn't they try to make them sympathetic? Yes it's not a gender thing, Disney's current issue is them ONLY using Quirky heroes and sympathetic villains. Even in stories where the villain SHOULDN'T be sympathetic, like in Raya.
Considering you people reduce love to just be the one that ends with sex, not surprised there a slight cool down that kind of love being put on a pedestal above all the other kinds of love.
@@1993digifan All kinds of love are important, romantic or platonic. Not everyone who has a romantic relationship does it to have intimate relations. Maybe modern culture paints it out to be that way, but *real* stories of love or friendship don't happen to get toxic benefits out of it.
As someone who loves the Disney romances like Beauty and the Beast and Tangled, you will not believe how pissed I got when I bought the art book and found out we could’ve gotten Disney’s version of Stardust! WTF DISNEY?!
I agree I was like, this sounds like Stardust but Disney and I'm always for more of that magical realism and would have been 100 percent on board if it was something similar and to old Disney but sadly it just missed the mark.
What's insane to me about modern Disney is that love stories used to be their bread and butter, it used to be what defined the Disney Princess movie, and it's like now they're completely disgusted by love stories. Not every Disney princess needs to have a love story but it's very clear that's what the audience they've built for decades has always craved, yet they just stopped.
Yea. kinda like Mulan (the old one not the boring one) Yea she had a love interest but she didn't kiss or married him at the end of the movie but instead asked him if he wanted to come to dinner.
We kinda all bullied disney into ditching the romance part since everyone criticised the disney relationships during the 00s and 2010s. I remember people bringing up how it as being unrealistic, false expectations, age gap, "toxic", bad for little girls, too romantisized,etc, i think you can research those blogs and articles online since all of that is archived. Maybe we should bully them into bringing it back.
I think the main point of of the contention towards Disney started with their unspoken rivalry with DreamWorks whose "Shrek" franchise was meant to parody their original princess love stories and likely sparked a lot of the conversations that made Disney's love stories seem controversial. So, Disney is attempting to rebrand based on the "modern" criticisms of how strong female protagonists should be portrayed. Though I have been watching videos that speak in defense of the early Disney princesses, and I think a lot of people underestimate the mental fortitude that comes with showing restraint: Cinderella and Snow White are living in situations that forces them to be dependent on what is essentially the only family they have left with their head held high, Sleeping Beauty is forced into an arranged marriage lest the two kings' friendly rivalry turns into a conflict that plunges both kingdoms into turmoil, and even Tiana, the most vocal princess of the bunch, shows restraint by enduring the criticisms of those who doubt her dream and focuses on her work. Their strength comes more from their ability to keep their heads held high in difficult circumstances while the more popular female protagonists showcase their strength by being vocal in their ideas. Maybe the circumstances make it difficult to create an overtly strong female character, but I think they managed a fairly good balance with Tiana, and they say that variety is the spice of life. That said, I don't think DreamWorks' love stories are that different from Disney's. The female protagonists are more vocal with DreamWorks, but they both essentially pull 180s when the big moment arrives: Astrid kisses Hiccup moments after nearly dislocating Hiccup's arm in less than a day, Shrek and Fiona are declared to be each other's true love even though they never went on a proper date, and Wolf finds himself falling for Diana after a few words of encouragement in spite of the fact that she was planning to have him and his crew arrested. The only DreamWorks franchise that I've seen that doesn't seem to pull a 180 was "Trolls" (Poppy and Branch's relationship develops in stages in each film) and it's one of the company's most controversial franchises.
This is a shame. Not only does the design for Starboy look amazing, but a 2D animated love story would have been a great call back to Snow White, where all the Disney magic started, for their 100 year anniversary. 😔
Bingo. But even more than that, any sort of emotional intimacy or dependency is seen as weakness, when that is at the core of what makes us strong as a species.
@@marcmarc1967, you are totally right, I was just going to write that, love is the greatest strength that we have and the most real and best fuel of life and what makes us do great feats and acts of strength since always, what makes us push forward, keep going and resisting even when we feel that we just can't and our bodies and minds are simply at their limit and they can't anymore, it even makes us sacrifice ourselves for others risking or giving even our own lives, it makes us do incredible selfless things that amaze and that may seem out of our capacity because of how great they are, but that really aren't
@@1993digifan I can say the same thing about two lesbians kissing. Does every Disney movie have to have two gay people swapping spit in order for the story to sell tickets
There's an old trope that sometimes gets laughed at of, "we're not so different, you and I" where the villain tries to convince the hero of how alike they are. It exists because the stories tend to show how terrible someone can turn out without practicing positive traits like courage, kindness, empathy and compassion. In Snow White the Evil Queen and Snow are both beautiful but the Queen is consumed by vanity while Snow is humble and knows practical domestic skills, Jaffar and Aladdin are both cunning and resourceful but Aladdin also has kindness and compassion that makes him a good person.
It's usually laughed at because it's done so poorly and they always have the villain lampshade it by saying those exact words like the audience was blind, instead of letting the actions speak for themselves.
I actually love this trope but I agree what it's often execute poorly. Mostly because it's often happening from absolutely evil villain to absolutely saint hero. But where's a lot interesting things you can do with this trope. For example, not necessarily from villain to hero. Hero also can use "we're not so different" to redeem villain. Or it can be from one villain to another, like: "You say that your actions are making world a better place but nobody agree with you! Be honest, boy! We're both only causing tragedies and destruction. The difference between you and me, the ONLY difference, it's what I don't try to pretend to be hero!". Something like that.
When I heard that Star was a star boy, I was very disappointed because of how cool that could have been. I’m always a slut for lovers from different worlds and it could have been a cool callback while also trying something different with it. Such a disappointing waste of potential.
Star as a love interest to Asha gives me huge Peter Pan and Wendy vibes (the animated movie, obviously), btw I was surprised at how mature Wendy acts in that movie, not only in the sense that she acts motherly towards her brothers and the lost boys but she's also so intent on kissing Peter, I always like when Disney shows the girls romantically pursuing the boys like this, and this was decades before the Little Mermaid.
@@Prototype-357 It could have been cool to explore the dynamic of Wendy and Peter in a different way. Rather than just puppy love on Wendy's part, actually developing a real relationship between the two.
The Buzzfeed articles from the 2010s dragging the princesses with love interests made Disney scared to death of giving princesses love interests. The last time they did one with Anna and Kristoff made them feel obligated to have the narrative say, "See! See! They're not like those OTHER Disney couples. They DON'T get married after just a day" (even though NONE of the Princesses are shown getting married immediately or even given a timeframe of how long it is until their wedding day). Personally, I miss Disney love stories. I miss ones like the 90s where they didn't make the protagonist and love interest force the dialogue to be snarky/quippy/quirky. Belle, Ariel, Aladdin, Hercules, Tarzan, etc didn't need their characters to talk exclusively in modern vernacular, they managed to sound timeless!
Most Disney princesses had desires outside of romance, heck, in the 90’s, Disney princesses didn’t even have romance as their primary goal, even in Cinderella this can be seen. All Cinderella wanted to do was get out of the house and go to the ball, have one wonderful night without her abusive step family, and she didn’t even know she’d fallen in love with the prince. Mulan wanted to save her father and didn’t even kiss Shang in her film. Heck, Aladdin’s goal was to win Jasmine’s heart but he felt like she was out of his league so pretended to be a prince to do so. God, I hate those Media illiterate idiots.
The awkward “quirky” princess (who doesn’t need a love interest - cuz she ain’t weak like the old Disney girls) trope has been done to death and getting seriously annoying now. In their effort to make their heroines unique Disney have made them even more cookie cutter, and interchangeable, than ever.
@@SpiderkillersInc me too. It was all bad faith readings of the movies from those “haha, gotcha Disney!” articles where they didn’t care about context and what the characters goals were. They were always so nasty when they dissed Ariel, Cinderella, and Belle saying Ariel was dumb or Cinderella was passive or that Belle has Stockholm syndrome when none of that was even true.
That was kinda the point. Anna was stupid while her older sister was smarter edit: Anna isn’t stupid, that was a horrible choice of words. She’s just naive
@@snowbunnie1113your “quirky” argument is completely invalid. I would get into why I disagree with you on that but, like I said, it’s irrelevant to this topic. Elsa and Isabella are examples of not “quirky” yet don’t have a love interest
I know right?? I can't remember, was there ever a male lead/love interest who was so cute, cheerful and sweet?? I would love to see romance with such a character so much!
Having the King AND Queen be evil, in addition to retaining the Star Boy love interest concept, would've worked doubly well by making these young heroic lovers work as a strong foil to the villain couple. "At All Costs" could've also had an "evil reprise" version for the villains, amplifying the whole Power Couple dynamic with even more theatrics, and maybe giving another underlying message of "Good love" versus "Evil love".
Yes, exactly! They could have worked as counterparts to each other. A heroic couple and an evil couple. And the idea of “At All Costs” having a reprise for the villains? You’re a genius.
I have the theory the story would present the theme of love, and how different relationships can look. You can contrast the good, healthy romance between Asha and the Star against the toxic romance of the King and Queen. I kinda like the headcanon that "At All Costs" was supposed to be a cross duet, where Magnifico sings to his wife while Asha sings to the Star, in a "the heroes and the villains are similar in this angle" way...
Because to you people the only love that matters is the one that ends with fucking. Any love between family, friends, and community is worthless if sex isn't involved as far as you people are concerned.
That would have been great to see, honestly. A healthy, budding relationship vs one built on mutual greed and hunger for power. Edit: Hell it could even tie in to another prior movie reference since they seem to like those. Star is mute so when he and Asha start to catch feelings for eachother, she thinks he couldn't possibly love a human and he isn't able to tell her himself, so he enlists the help of the animals to do a Kiss the Girl-esque number in the hopes of telling Asha how he feels. And beforehand Asha could have been lamenting to Valentino how she really liked Star, so there would be no outcry of "oh the guy pressured the girl into going out with him". Instead it would be two interested but shy individuals summoning the courage to confess their feelings to eachother and finding out to their joy that it's mutual.
That version sounds reminiscent of Heaven’s Light/Hellfire from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which highlighted both Quasimodo’s and Frollo’s views of Esmeralda and their responses to their feelings for her. I always thought that was a really good musical contrast and would’ve loved to have seen something like that again!
Disney saw the criticism of "why does there always have to be a love interest?" and WAY over-corrected. The key word in that criticism is "always." As you said, for some characters like Elsa or Mirabel, having a love interest doesn't fit their character arcs, and would have been detrimental to the story. But there are definitely stories to be told where a love interest will elevate the character's journey. Disney doesn't seem interested in actually putting thought and effort into their story-writing anymore (or rather, giving their writers the time and funds to write interesting, well-thought-out stories). They just want to pump out cash cows in the form of movies with minimal effort.
I think they even got it all wrong. The real problem was princesses (and girls as a whole) always being portrayed as damsels in distress who had to be saved by random strangers who immediately fell in love with them. Personally, I think they fixed this already in Tangled, so I am not sure what the big fuss is about.
@@bunnysm I miss some of the older Disney (and non Disney) stuff that actually had strong female leads/main supporting characters/love interests as well as romance. I grew up with one of my favorite movies being Bedknobs and Broomsticks- I watched it on repeat. Then I grew to love Anastasia, Treasure Planet, Bug's Life, Atlantis, and Lilo and Stitch. As a kid I didn't get why everyone was talking about weak damsels until I branched into a few other movies, with the exception of animated Aurora, which we never really got to see how she would handle harder conflict due to her being cursed. There were usually strong female characters but usually they were overlooked because they fell in love, and quite a few specifically saved the men. I mean, look at Miss Price, Megara, Captain Amelia, Anastasia, Kida, Nala, Princess Atta and Dot, and both Nani and Lilo. Those are just some of the females I personally remember fondly.
@@EtaryaFae Snow White wasn’t saved by the prince, she was brought back to life because he kissed her goodbye (kissing your dead loved ones is actually part of European culture, weirdly enough) without him even knowing that she wasn’t actually dead, just under a spell. Ariel saved Eric first, then she got saved by him as well. Cinderella was smart enough to have a spare glass slipper so she can leave her abusive household. The only princess that was saved by a man was Aurora, and she needed saving!
Yes, exactly. While I’m personally not a huge fan of romance in stories (it’s not a priority for me at all. I prefer platonic relationships), I’m fine with it as long as it’s done right and doesn’t feel forced.
I keep saying about the evil power couple, that means we could have had a villain DUET song. We ALMOST had that with Aladdin between Jafar and Iago for a deleted song “Humiliate the Boy”. But this could have been a genuine villain duet, and imagine them having lovey dubby pet names for them sprinkled in there.
Disney isn't afraid to have female villains. Namaari (Raya) was a villain. And Alma (Encanto) was an antagonist. Them ruining a power couple has nothing to do with gender
@@DORAisD34D To preface, I don't mean this in a mean way. Unfortunately in those cases, Namaari is one of those "deep down she's a good person who cares about people" and Alma is dealing with trauma in an unhealthy way. In both cases they "aren't *really* evil just broken" so they don't count as villainesses. So we've had female antagonists yes, but *villainesses* no. The last one that was an actual villainess was Mother Gothel, if my memory serves me right. Villains like Jafar, Mother Gothel, Maleficent (the animated one not the remake), Gaston, and Frollo were unmistakably villains. There was no, "well deep down they are good people" or "they aren't all bad" or any other gray stuff. They were evil. Clean cut. No mistake, no take-backsies.
@@gracbrac4817 yes you’re right, but we haven’t had any male villains either. The last examples of evil villains were Gothel and King Candy. And, although twist villains aren’t as popular, we had that racist sheep in Zootopia (female), so I dont think it’s because they don’t wanna make women look bad
A love story doesn't need to be the center point of the story, but it adds a lot of charm and charachter. So its sad to see disney who was known for it, being now allergic to love stories
I don't think as simple as not having a love interest. There's really a breaking down of intimacy, dependency, and overall togetherness between characters in Disney now, especially of the opposite sex. Look no further than how Ezra and Sabine interact with each other after they reunite in Ahsoka. Not just in that moment, but for the rest of the show. It's like they just became Marvel buddies, filled with quips and such. They're so awkward and embarrassed to share their feelings, it sad.
Isnt the whole awkwardness socializing and interacting kinda universal/relevant now with the whole decline in person communication and traditional ways of creating relationships/friendships now that everyone kinda live in their own bubble, quarantined from real people
@@viviangarcia5696This was such a surprisingly articulate explanation of our civilization’s current state, it’s always so pleasant running into comments like this
@@viviangarcia5696 But the story wasn't "Gen X in space" and the characters weren't Disney Channel tweens. It didn't make sense for the characters as they established them. Disney doesn't do well with sincerity or maturity these days. Love is a joke, caring is silly. It's childish, and not in a cute or charming way...
Oh my gosh, Ezra and Sabine's reunion should have been SO much more dramatic and heartfelt than it was, you hit it on the head, it was like the show was afraid of showing any kind of intimacy or closeness or genuine emotion.
I think it's also worth noting that since one of the main plot points involves Magnifico trying to steal Star's magic this could've been a case of a Disney Princess saving her love interest instead of the other way around
Honestly, its really disappointing the original concept got completely scrapped. I believe Asha was supposed to be Magnifico and Amaya’s daughter, being an actual princess in the story. And I totally dig having a villainous power couple, like come on. We really had to make Amaya the “holier than thou art” character? I’m surprised no one has mentioned this, but I get big Howl and Sophie vibes for Asha and Star boy. You’d think Disney would make another couple in tribute to their very first movie having the very first Disney couple, but no. Girls aren’t allowed to fall in love anymore, and guys are forbidden for having feelings for a girl and wanting to help them. Star to me came off as the cute character for selling toys, considering he doesn’t really do anything aside making animals talk, including the annoying goat. Why did Valentino have to talk again aside “comedy relief?” And I completely agree with Asha’s personality. I am so sick of every Disney “princess” nowadays being “quirky and adorkable” and slightly clumsy. It worked best with Rapunzel and Mirabel. Get another personality Disney! All throughout the Renaissance, all the female protagonists had very distinctive personalities, especially Meg, Esmerelda, Jane and Kida.
@@Dollibet actually, Esmerelda and Jane were once part of the lineup, and Kida was fully planned to become one to incorporate more representative with darkskinned princesses. But the point is all these girls have very distinct personalities and dreams that made them stand out without needing a love interest, but they ended up falling in love naturally, and not because a script said so. Esmerelda wanted the Romani people to be treated fairly, Jane loved being a biologist and learning about the wildlife aside the gorillas, and especially Meg basically hated the idea of love because she’s been hurt before, trying to get Hercules to see not everyone is good and decent, there’s some pretty awful people out there. Imo, being an official Disney Princess isn’t everything, considering the franchise always focuses more on white princesses and Moana as their main POC representation with Pocahontas and Tiana being shoved to the background because they’re “not as popular” Honestly the fact Asha is going to be joining the group is pretty insulting considering how much hate Wish has already received, especially when you consider characters like Meg and Esmerelda are still banned from being added, despite their movies have been growing in popularity lately
Asha beginning Magnifico and Amaya's daughter is amazing I adore that idea especially since I didn't care much for her family I only really cared about her dad because it was a mystery and gave her a connection to the Stars But let me give you another idea what if she is their adopted daughter and the reason they adopted her it's because she showed magical Talent
@@kristinahuchison2511 Pocahontas doesn’t deserve to be a Disney princess. Pocahontas was a real person who met John Smith and became friends. That movie is controversial because the real people they were based off of had a HUGE AGE GAP. Pocahontas was 13 and John Smith was 26. I see more Tiana on Disney Princess merch than Snow White. Honestly, Snow White gets more sidelined than Tiana does. Tiana is more popular in modern day because she was the first Black princess. (Although she was a frog for most of the movie, my point still stands) I just want to see a purely African princess with properly researched African culture references. Imagine how cool that would be.
My personal take on the subject is that Disney, like a lot of Hollywood these days, doesn't really have any producers anymore just executives. The producer was the person who knew the business and the audience. They were the ones who'd find the script, hammer it into shape, find the director and acting talent then make sure they weren't allowed to run wild chasing after every shiny artistic "squirrel"/laser pointer moment and stayed focused on telling the story. Nowadays we have executives that, quite often, are coming in from completely different industries. They know how to manage a business, juggle the books to keep the IRS off their back but not how to make movies. They hire young, inexperienced directors because they're cheap and dump the whole process from writing a script to casting and shooting on to them. Even when the director survives that process and creates something vaguely coherent they'll usually have made something to impress their film school friends rather than for a general audience to enjoy. Then the executives will either write it off as a tax loss or try and make changes themselves when they lack the knowledge and experience to change it for the better rather than just change it. But I'm just a cranky old man so what do I know;).
@silverjohn6037, Except you need both producers and executives to make a movie. The problem, is that some executives care more about milking a franchise and giving the audiences mindless action and product placement that they known will be eaten up, over a good story. A perfect example is Jurassic World Dominion, where the executives and producers were obviously more interested in action, over telling a good story. And don't act like everything sucks nowadays. For every Jurassic World, you get Spiderverse, Godzilla Minus One, Oppenheimer, etc. And in the 90's, for every Lion King or Beauty in the Beast, you got junk like Space Jam and Pokemon The First movie.
@@crfstewarje You may be underestimating how far back my idea of a golden age goes if you think 90's was peak Hollywood;). But there is Theodore Sturgeon's law. "90% of science fiction is crap. Then again 90% of everything is crap." It's just that they were making a lot more films back in the day so that 10% of good stuff added up. With major studios wanting to have the big block busters that stay in the theaters for months they don't feel the need to produce as many films so that their own films aren't competing with each other. When they can have multiple films in various stages of multi-year production it doesn't matter if you screw up in the initial shooting schedule as they can always bump back one film for re-shoots and move another forward. Except the one they move forward ends up being rushed while the one they postpone just ends up being a collapsing house with a different layer of paint on it.
@@silverjohn6037 Actually, I would argue that more films are being made today, especially since now you have movies being released also on streaming services and not just theaters. So it's easier to notice crap, with more stuff being made. This includes TV shows coming out in a much larger amount as well.
Based on the thumbnail, Asha actually looks distinguishable in design, instead of an Isabella copy. And an interesting love interest! Why oh why did they do this movie so dirty??!!
To make up for all the mistakes they made in recent movies, Disney should remake *those* movies instead of the classics. Movies like ‘Snow White’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’ don’t need remakes, they already fulfilled their story potential in the Disney take of the story. I feel it’s a grave injustice that movies like ‘Wish’ are robbed of any greatness they could’ve achieved if only Disney had put in a little effort. IT’S JUST SO FRUSTRATING! (Thanks for listening to my TED Talk👌😔) (Plus, a remade ‘Wish’ with all of the scraped ideas would be really cool✨☺️✨)
Honestly, I would've loved to have live-action remakes of Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and The Black Cauldron (as long as they don't touch the characters and stories of the first two and improve the third), but Disney would rather forget their bombs, even if they become cult classics.
So you’re telling me they changed a cool love interest from another world…to a freaking luma from Mario? Just when I thought Disney couldn’t disappoint me any further, they reveal stuff like this. It’s got to be a talent how much this company can let you down even when you already had ZERO expectations. Love is one of, if not the most, intrinsic part of being human. It’s what we first experience at the weak and vulnerable stage of infancy, and what we strive to attain from a world that is increasingly becoming more lonely. Can we stop treating romantic love like it completely ruins your character if it happens to be one of your motivations? It’s honestly gross that an essential human need is being minimized this way.
Disney isn't afraid to have female villains. Namaari (Raya) was a villain. And Alma (Encanto) was an antagonist. Their weird choice to remove the power couple isn’t because they don’t wanna make bad women
@@DORAisD34D well Namaari was redeemed and Alma wasn’t evil she was just too hard on the family and her negative brought harm to the family so I wouldn’t say they count.
@@timwilliams.2581 yes you’re right, but we haven’t had any male villains either. The last examples of evil villains were Gothel and King Candy. And, although twist villains aren’t as popular, we had that racist sheep in Zootopia (female), so I dont think it’s because they don’t wanna make women look bad
@@DORAisD34D why do you continue to copy-paste this same comment in reply chains that don't belong? The OP never mentioned villains. If you're going to continue to paste this comment over and over again, at least paste it under a comment about female villains.
Let’s start a petition to get this original version created as a fan film by a smaller studio. The world needs to see this version, and I think if Disney notices that their fans made a better movie than them, they’ll at least partly see what their doing wrong and try to fix it
@@ThePrincessCH thats why I’m thinking we should brand it as a fan film. I know there are Spider-Man films coming out all the time that aren’t made by marvel, so i think it could fall under something like that
Disney is a terrible company when it comes to copyright, and they would destroy any company that does that. I WANT it, but realistically I don't want to see people get executed by Disney.
Emperor's New Groove was a fantastic movie that didn't involve romance. So if they want to avoid romance, at least do a hilarious, heart-warming, family-valuing one like that. But it's also heart-warming to show a romance, and they don't need to let that go.
I don’t want to hear Disney’s official answer-because they are going to lie to us and tell us they don’t equate love to being weak. A bunch of liars are at Disney right now. Don’t believe half of what they say. Their actions the last ten years prove they do.
My recommendation: just rewatch Tangled. Fantastic film that actually has two great leads in Rapunzel and Flynn and also has a lot of heart and characterization. And also if you like that film, check out the underrated animated series. Yeah, I'm recommending a "modern" Disney cartoon but it actually continues the storyline in a meaningful way and has a decent ending to boot. All in all, Wish is a movie that for a company celebrating a 100 years is a pretty big insult. Strong words, but I can't think of a worse movie for a company who dedicated most of its time in making great animated films to say "we're around for a 100 years; this is what we want to showcase to celebrate it.". But then again, Disney has had a really bad year, so par for the course.
I love Tangled, but the seeds of this trend were started with that movie and series. Flynn is bascially treated as a joke; he can't really do anything and Rapunzel has to save him at all times. It's what lead to this whole thing where men are not viewed as important by mainstream culture. Of course, if the mainstream culture no longer values men, then said men and boys will just form alternate communities that are much less regulated and have much more extreme rhetoric, not just for power, but to feel like they are entitled to the most basic level of respect and value as opposed to being treated like they're human garbage. And this desire-no, this NEED-for a basic level of appreciation and respect, will be abused by dishonest and dangerous actors.
Yes. I liked Encanto all right, but for all intents and purposes Tangled was the last great Disney Princess film before what I call the de-romanticization era.
Disney realized they made a huge mistake when everybody was dislinking the movie even before it came out, but started eating up the Starboy concept the second they showed the concept art 😭
For those who have had long distance relationships, we've all looked at the sky and wondered if our love was looking at the same star we were. For that very Star to become the physical embodiment of that Love, is one of the most magical manifestations of a Wish from the Heart.
Here a new concept: Asha doesn't become and apprentice but is actually the daughter to the King and Queen. She discovers that their wish granting powers that they give to everyone, are from the Star Boy who is a Wishing Star in a human body. She wondered why she couldn't grant any wishes naturally. She frees him and has to defeat her parents who have split the magic in half for each other and use their most loyal followers to grant wishes to stop them. For example, turning the castle into a giant maze. The King and Queen don't want to kill Asha but try and convince her to have their beliefs. This leads to a wish being granted where Asha is brainwashed/hypnotised but it's broken when the Star Boy defeats one parent and gets half of his magic back. Power of love? Or he grants a wish himself that the other parent has to grant? When defeated, all the wishes are gone and the Star escapes back into the sky with all his magic back. King and Queen are arrested and Asha focuses on building a new Kingdom.
this sounds like a great movie AND this would perfectly fix the ‘problem’ of having a romance interest for Asha 😭 what the hell is going on in disney’s boardroom that their creatives aren’t given a real say to let ideas like these hit the stage…
I love the idea of her being the daughter of the King and Queen! Perhaps it was finally her turn to learn how to rule the kingdom, but there was something that wasn't right about what she was being told by her parents.
This is something we should fix in the modern narration... True, non-toxic love makes both men and women stronger and happier. And there should be more stories where the couple collaborates in saving each other or pursuing the task, instead of one side being there just to be saved... The side used to be mostly the woman, but now they do it with men, and they typically make it even worse since the damsels in distress were at least usually created to be desirable, while the Stupid Unnecesarry Men Who Need To Be Saved are not even this.
Wish made me so angry with how much wasted potential it had. I wanted it to be set in a stargazing town where people learned how to channel magic from the stars into magical objects like clothes or jewelry or tools cause this way you can have all sorts of easter eggs to Disney magical objects like the Magic Mirror or Jafar's Staff. I wanted Asha to be only one of the people Magnifico is teaching magic to, magic here being the channeling of star magic into the objects cause people can't use magic directly, have her two co-aprentices be a young Merlin and Yen Sid (the wizard that teaches Mickey magic in The Sorcerer's Aprentice, one of the shorts from Fantasia). And this magic is something everyone can learn how to do. I also wanted Asha to have a more curious and studious personality, the thing is that everyone who learns magic is just repeating what they've been taught without being able to advance it in anyway, everyone who tries fails, Magnifico is really enforcing this because he's the one who created this type of magic and taught everyone else and he doesn't want anyone being better than him, he picked those three as his aprentices cause he wants to control their growth so they don't surpass him and he recognizes threats in them. Other people thinks he's great though cause he's the first person to be able to do magic, in the past before magnifico channeled the magic from the stars people depended on fairies to have anything magical happen and fairies never used their magic for free, if you asked the fairies to do anything the fairy will think you owe them and ask something of you in return, people then came to resent and envy the power of the fairies so when magnifico made magic acessible to humans everyone flocked to him and turned their backs on fairies. They founded their town focused on star magic and tried to forget fairies even existed. I wanted Asha and her friends to find all of that out during the course of the movie as they explore what they want do with the magic they learn and the limits of their powers, I wanted Asha to be the first person in a long time to even talk with a fairy and she finds out they are still really proud beings who will still ask things of you if you ask them for help, and Asha learns that magic should be used to help others just for the sake of making them happy and she teaches that to the fairies and for the people in her town. I wanted magnifico's thing to be that he used his magic because this magic made other people like him and teaching this magic to others made them like him even more because this means he wasn't selfish like the fairies, and when the humans left the fairies realized they liked having the humans dependant on them and they didn't know how to make the humans stay with them aside from using their magic. This is because I wanted the theme of the movie to be that you need to use your gifts to help others and not only for yourself. Since Asha has a fairy godmother reference in Wish I wanted her to discover a new type of magic, the magic of dreams and this you can use directly, because this fit into the song of Cinderella with lyrics like "A dream is a wish your heart makes~". I wanted Asha to help her friends realize their dreams too, Merlin at first thinks magic can do anything and he wants to push it's limits but later on he realizes magic shouldn't be used for everything and there's other ways to acomplish what you want and he wants to help people with that, Yen Sid's dream is to be just like Magnifico but after he reveals hiss true colors and yen sid finds out how little faith his teacher had in him his new dream becomes to teach magic to others in a proper way. In the end they all understand magic alone can't be used to make people's dreams come true but it helps and they should use their gifts to help others in need.
Love is one of the most powerful emotions people can feel. Even when the plot doesn't require it, a love interest can add so much. It seems like they went out of their way to diminish(the little mermaid reboot) or get rid of love interests entirely(mulan reboot), due to the masculine one conventionally being stronger(and we cant have that in 2023 can we?)
The masculine one conventionally being stonger, eh. Give her... superpowers? Magic? Wisdom? Dexterity? I am Russian, in my country an enchantress saving a boyfriend or a brother in distress is pretty normal for the fairytales. As well as shieldmaidens who are stronger than most men and go around and challenge heroes. Just because it happens that bad times make strong people, more strong people than there's men and exactly SHE is unconventionally strong, very dexterous and trained to fight. Or because she's conventionally smaller (and exactly tiny and dexterous) she's an excellent light cavallerist, mastering the usr of saber and bow. Or she is a light pilot, rides flying creatures into battle? Princess politicians with nickname "the wise" and outdoing men at political intrigue. Just ordinary peasant girl next door who happens in an extreme situation she HAS to be morally strong, endurant, patient and resourceful. Note that all of above aren't painted as non-feminine in most ways.
I will never get over the fact that we could have had a star boy fall in love with the princess and have conflict with the first ever Disney villain couple.
SAME OMG-Like this is the first film I'm like screaming to remake! Bring Starboy and the starcrossed-lovers, villain couple, and all those other cool ideas back in and try again! Cause this film as it was released feels very basic-like it's the first draft and not the other way around. And preferably remake in 2D to actually get that storybook classic feel.
The internet would have eaten up starboy, the load of fanart and fanfiction would have made people watch this movie. They really fumbled the bag. Also on the disney being allergic to giving their princesses love interests. why is it all of a sudden, when we're finally getting more disney princesses of color, romance is out of the question?? Do they think black and brown girls dont wanna see romance stories?? Come on now.
The answer is a huge loud YES. Like, listen, I get that people were tired of the whole 'why does their need to be a love interest??' but Disney executives took it to mean 'oh romance is bad.' Romance is not bad! If the romantic connection is blegh, that's one thing. And if the star had been a magical star boy, I don't think a romance needed to exist either--it could've been open-ended, and that, too, would've been interesting. People could draw their own conclusions about that relationship. I adore romances when they're good. I fully agree that this song is rather romantic, and probably the best sounding song here, personally. Removing romance entirely doesn't make any sense to show a character is 'strong.' 🙄
i think this is huge, i haven’t seen this movie so i don’t rlly know the context but the romance has to feel natural, you shouldn’t be scared of adding a love interest but it should also make sense, they need to have chemistry and i need to ship them a lil
For real, why is it so hard for them to understand that when people say "hey maybe not every single story needs a random, undeveloped romance slapped onto it" they don't mean "please never ever write romance ever again, I will puke if i see people kissing". Just do what is best for the story. Moana didn't need a Prince but Wish really could have used that element to flesh it out and give it heart. The original concept was so much stronger, I genuinely cannot fathom why they're so bizzarrely adverse to romance all of the sudden.
@@primrosett Most of the time, when people say they're sick of seeing X in fiction, what they actually mean (but don't realise they mean) is that they're sick of seeing X done badly.
disney either makes movies that ppl say are "girl gives up everything for s/o" or "this doesnt focus on findinf a prince charming!!!!!!" which is... annoying... we can have strong main characters that still fall in love. for some reason, a big part of the audience and disney themselves dont get it.
I really think this one isn't that simple: Asha is a woman of color, they made sure to emphasize this on D23 Disney Expo. If she was Caucasian like Elsa and Anna then it wouldn't be weird but look at it again... A POC wishes on a star, it falls down to earth to meet her and they fall in love???? So she's so hopeless, she can't find a man on Earth so she has to make a wish on a star? Maybe this would have been nice in the 1990's but 2023 we got the "Woke" and Red Pill Movements at odds with each other, a powerful white man who grants wishes for minority woman is a bit tone deaf. The Charmed reboot did this and it failed spectacularly.
@@suezcontours6653 Isn't that kind of how the plot of "The Princess and the Frog" went, minus the star falling? And, as I recall, Tiana was a woman of color. I don't know a lot about how the film was criticized, though I think the film sparked some distaste for the fact that the first African-American princess spent the majority of the film as a frog.
@@ThePrincessCH Exactly. 2009 was also when they transitioned into 3D so that was their last 2D project, they could've ramped up the promotion but it was also running up against Harry Potter.
@@suezcontours6653 I think 3D still works in certain circumstances. I liked the designs in "Tangled," and since Rapunzel's hair was essentially the centerpiece of the film, Disney did a really good job giving movement that I think 2D might have been able to accomplish (I don't work in animation so feel free to take that with a grain of salt).
Fitting for anyone who enjoyed Wish and experienced heartbreak this year. If Disney really wants to go hard, they'd show heartbreak. Not just betrayal (frozen) and grief (big hero 6 & onward)
Pocahontas ends with Pocahontas waving goodbye to John Smith, and this movie could have ended with Asha waving goodbye to Star as he had to return to the cosmos
Even if the star wasn't a love interest. It could have been her dad reincarnated into a star. (To also keep that "we're all stars" thing) They couldn't recognize each other because: 1. The star's appearance is the dad when he was younger. (Maybe when he was 18 when he gave up his wish) him being mostly yellow also makes hard to recognizable. 2. The father lost his memory because, (and this is my own personal added lore) the king is using other wishes to fulfill just one. Hence he can only do one wish per month. And once a wish is turned into his power, people completely forget the wish, and anything related to it. And slowly lose the will to live. Just slow enough that people don't realize it's the king's fault. Which is why, on the surface, people of Rosas seem happy. But upon rewatching you can see how off some people are, at the background. The love song should still work, even if it's about family.
I think these changes must have been made pretty late into the production process, as all of the concept art is pretty much identical to that used in the final film. A real shame too, I think these original concepts are great.
They don’t necessarily need to fall in love at the end of the movie, BUT we must not just delete all strong, positive, male role models for young boys. They could just be hinted there is a possibility for something more or just strictly kept it a friendship, a balanced counterpart to the princess. I also agree that we need more female villains.
Agreed, and worth noting that the original Disney princes might have saved the day, but they were barely characters at all, they just popped up in the heroine's story to save the day or be a reward. One movie I think got the balance right was "Moana", where the male lead actually has depth and an arc of his own (overcoming his fear of failure born of crushing expectations, covered with a layer of brash egotism) that isn't just his relationship to the heroine.
@@paulgibbon5991 They did fix that Overtime giving the Princesses and Prince as much character. There's Aladdin and Beast for one. Eric was an Earlier Prince but they did give him more character being a More Adventurous Sea Safer who feels more comfortable sailing than looking like a Prince.
Oh my lord, having a Disney PRINCE who is actually a great role model for young boys would be GREAT! Loving, hard-working, non-violent, caring, and FUN. There are so few role models for young boys for them to look up to who aren't in a story where they have to be violent or something like that. Matpat has a great video about it. Having Starboy be a great friend to Asha, who loves and helps her and works together with her as her partner and equal would be GREAT!! Even small things like having him heal people from their broken wishes (like that deleted scene) unprovoked would show how he cares for and helps people. Perhaps the guy who lost his wish had his wish broken and he's in a lot of pain (like in the deleted scene I mentioned), and without Asha or anyone provoking or making Starboy to do it, he just comes over and heals him. Perhaps Starboy even finds him himself and heals him before bringing him back. THAT would be a great role model for young boys that we don't have enough of nowadays.
It worked in Hayato Miyazaki's films like Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, & Ponyo, so why can't Disney do that as well?
There are two types of romantic relationships: The UNhealthy kind is when one or both members of the relationship sacrifice their sense of identity to be with the other person. The HEALTHY kind is when each member helps the other member to bring out their most authentic self. For some reason, Disney assumes that all relationships will be perceived as the unhealthy version described above, and so they have just started to avoid romantic relationships altogether because they are terrified of being accused of "robbing a female character of her individuality." What's super ironic is that Tangled - which I consider to be the peak culmination of the "Disney Princess Genre" - depicts a grade A example of the HEALTHY relationship described above. Both Rapunzel and Eugene were able to find confidence in their true selves BECAUSE they got involved with one another. By the end of the movie, both characters were more authentic than they were when the story began. A healthy romance is a beautiful and inspiring thing to see on screen, and it's unfortunate that Disney executives right now seem to have no confidence in their ability to portray one. I mean heck, pretty much half (if not more) of all Ghibli movies pull this off with grace. I just watched Whisper of the Heart from 1995 for the first time, and the story is basically a girl who is like "I want to impress this boy I like by BECOMING THE TRUEST AND MOST CREATIVE VERSION OF MYSELF!!" and it works. 1995, folks. 1995. Maybe all of the Disney execs are just in shitty marriages or something.
Democrat here!!! Exactly!!! Look at Japan couples in anime and manga are mostly straight why because Japan understands that men and women need each other for survival support and love. Shoujo manga sells great over there because most girls love the fantasy of a guy sweeping them off their feet and carrying them off into the sunset and for guys they just want a girl who will love them wholeheartedly nothing wrong with that whatsoever it's how humanity has survived since the dawn of time and will continue long after.
@@candicemceady308 Women read Shojo and Josei because the target audience is THEM. It has the female perspective in mind! You won’t find the bs in male targeted genres like shounen or male harem stuff. It’s not simply romance either. You talking about shojo fans with your warped view shows, you don’t know much about female anime fans/ otaku or the genre in general. Being Democrat just means you’re even more annoying than a Republican. Western political heads should leave anime alone.
Yes. For years, people criticized the Disney Princesses for all being motivated by the pursuit of men. This criticism was always inaccurate, but whoever's in charge now is deeply insecure, so now they don't want to touch romance at all. But that's fine as long as the movie has another core relationship to focus on. I don't know what relationship "Wish" was supposed to be about.
I think Disney's primary point of contention started with their unspoken rivalry with DreamWorks whose "Shrek" franchise was meant to parody their original princess love stories and likely sparked a lot of the conversations that made Disney's love stories seem controversial. So, Disney is attempting to rebrand based on the "modern" criticisms of how strong female protagonists should be portrayed. Though I have been watching videos that speak in defense of the early Disney princesses, and I think a lot of people underestimate the mental fortitude that comes with showing restraint: Cinderella and Snow White are living in situations that forces them to be dependent on what is essentially the only family they have left with their head held high, Sleeping Beauty is forced into an arranged marriage lest the two kings' friendly rivalry turns into a conflict that plunges both kingdoms into turmoil, and even Tiana, the most vocal princess of the bunch, shows restraint by enduring the criticisms of those who doubt her dream and focuses on her work. Their strength comes more from their ability to keep their heads held high in difficult circumstances while the more popular female protagonists showcase their strength by being vocal in their ideas. Maybe the circumstances make it difficult to create an overtly strong female character, but I think they managed a fairly good balance with Tiana, and they say that variety is the spice of life. That said, I don't think DreamWorks' love stories are that different from Disney's. The female protagonists are more vocal with DreamWorks, but they both essentially pull 180s when the big moment arrives: Astrid kisses Hiccup moments after nearly dislocating Hiccup's arm in less than a day, Shrek and Fiona are declared to be each other's true love even though they never went on a proper date, and Wolf finds himself falling for Diana after a few words of encouragement in spite of the fact that she was planning to have him and his crew arrested. The only DreamWorks franchise that I've seen that doesn't seem to pull a 180 was "Trolls" (Poppy and Branch's relationship develops in stages in each film) and it's one of the company's most controversial franchises.
That's what I've been saying. Let the artists do their thing and stop interfering. But nooooo, the executives right now think they now what's best and all that crud. But apart from that, it's nice to see you again Jesterbell.
I think Asha and Star's relationship could have had a good foil to the evil king and queen. The villians could have even done a duet (maybe reprise?) that mirrored At All Costs.
Tangled was the last great DISNEY fairy taker movie for me. Love interest. Beautiful songs. Great visuals. Female villain. Magic. Guy and girl save each other at various points.
You mean to tell me we almost had a real old style, “A Whole New World”-esque love duet between Asha and the cute star boy?!? And they took it and put it in the most ludicrous context ever Great job, guys! “100 years in the making” indeed.
Not all the princesses need romances, sometimes a story works just fine without shoehorning in a love story That being said, if it can enhance the story and its cast, then i say go for it. Maybe this romance wouldn't have been all that good or well written, but the concept is genuinely intriguing and couldve went in a new original direction for a disney love story. At the very least it wouldve made the film stand out as we've never had a "prince" character with such a neat concept before. Such a shame it got left to the cutting floor, a magical star prince from outer space sounds like so much fun.
Oh man, I am grieving over a beautiful movie concept we're never going to get. The story of Asha and the star boy sounds so beautiful, and you're right--the demo of the original "At All Costs" is GORGEOUS. Definitely a wedding song. I guess I'll go read the fanfiction, lol. This is bumming me out that they missed the mark on this one.
What would have been neat is if there were two versions of the song "at all costs", one version (the love song) for asha and the star boy, and the other an evil version with different lyrics for the king and queen, it would've been awesome! I mean how many movies have a song that is for both the hero(s) and the villain(s)? But that's if they went with the original story.
Unfortunately, we can say, “Disney should listen to their audience,” but Disney favors particular groups in its audience to the exclusion of others, perhaps even calling the excluded groups malicious and evil.
It's honestly a shame that these concepts were scraped because having the villian power couple and the hero power couple work as opposites/foils or even parallels of each other would have been very cool!
@Jester Bell, you’re right. They wanted to celebrate their centennial with a return to form but refused to go all the way and the movie suffered for it.
I think it could have still worked out without the romance, though. There is another powerful relationship that is common among Disney princesses that doesn't get explored as much, and that's their relationship with their loyal non-human companions. If "Wish" had delved deeper into that relationship, it would still be a new spin on an old classic, and it still works with Star's character design. It could have been a story of Asha trying to save an old friend while learning to embrace another.
I rewrote my own version of this story- even though I haven't watched it. Maybe I will watch it and compare the two. I would have loved to have a version where Asha's wish was taken by the king (but she doesn't know it yet) so the whole time she desires to feel some passion or community in her life. Which is when she'd meet star boy (aka the literal walking/flying definition of a hug) who can learn that not every wish needs to be granted in order for a life to feel meaning and successful. So kinda like Tangled the two main character's become each other's wish and dream. AND maybe villain king and wife does not have the ability to make wishes come true- they only have the ability to take wishes, but because of the memory loss thing they created a Utopia where they're the good guys.
I mean, we as people love to see genuine connections being portrayed. Romantic or not, it doesn’t entirely have to be the main focus but human connection is a foundational piece to make a moment matter.
If Disney had gone with Star being an actual character that Asha properly comes to care about and understand, it would've made the ending hit harder when he has to return to the sky. Regardless of whether they wanted Star and Asha to be love interests or not, it would've been an immense benefit to the story for Star to be able to take on a human form. Furthermore, it would have made the scene where Star gives her the magic wand feel more earned, as Star would've been able to interact with Asha in a way that would allow him to see how much she cares about the people of Rosas.
It's interesting how the first four princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, and Ariel) all had female villains and these female villains were all iconic - perhaps even the most iconic Disney villains along with Scar and Claude Frollo. We haven't had a really iconic Disney villain since Dr Facilier, maybe Mother Gothel. Even the live-action remakes have been sawing off the edges of female evil - Maleficent was a whole series of 'actually she's only bad bc big scary man hurt her!' and Mulan added a whole entire new female 'villain' just to give her a bizarre and out-of-place relatable moment to the protagonist.
*MAGICAL* BLONDE White boy + black girl (who he gives magic powers to) ... *what could have possibly gone wrong in today’s modern era if they did that*
Honestly the Queen is the one who is the villain. When she puts Magnifico in the dungeon any likeness I had for her instantly left. Magnifico wasn't even really a villain. He has a point. He had good intentions and just carried them out in a bad way and was possessed by the book. Yeah he had a ego and and was jerk, but he wasn't the villain. If the Queen really loved him she would have tried to find a way to save him; to reverse the curse. Do you really think the reversal would just be left in the book? No, she'd likely have to go on a quest and seek out how to find a way to break the curse. Or kinda like what your bringing up in this video- if Disney really wanted to pay homage to their older movies- true loves kiss would probably break the curse. Just saying if that was my husband and I in that situation, I'd be trying to find a way to help him. What happened at the end just makes the Queen look like a selfish b**ch that is like Oh now I can have all the praise & admiration my husband was getting so who cares about him.
I’ve got to say, you are VERY quickly becoming one of my favorite UA-cam critics. You have well balanced takes that aren’t shaded by politics or anything outside of the content itself. You got a supporter out of me for sure!
@@realjesterbell Oh, what could have been..... May I offer thoughts as an African girl who's observed rising tensions in The West on the last 5 years. During the concept stages of WISH, the Red Pill Movement and #MeToo was on a high. The optics of a golden white boy + woman of color (Asha) seemed at odds with today's era. Entertainment Industry has been about uniting people since the 80's BUT post-2008 Social Media and podcasters have sewed seeds of division online. It came to a blow in 2023 as just having a diverse female lead in 2023 gets written off as "Woke" even if it's an original character like Asha, Ironheart, Monica Rambeau etc. Look at the reception of Interracial (IR) couples like Barry + Iris West on CW, Halle Bailey's Ariel, Invincible's Amber - the first IR kiss between Kirk + Uhura in the 1960's Star Trek was less controversial. Brandy's 1997 Cinderella with Asian Prince was received VERY well and Disney is bringing her back for the Descendants 4 sequel. Gen V was also received well because Marie + Jordan are a blackAsian couple. If Asha has to have a love interest, the Star Boy should be an ambiguous man of Color (Latino/ Asian/ Indian/ Arab/ Indigenous etc) like Princess and the Frog. However, investors who are typically old white men have to insert themselves into it (if you haven't noticed, mostly raceswapping white female characters and gingers if they're men like Wally West, Jimmy Olsen, Jim Gordon, Heimdall, Isaac in Castlevania etc). I urge you to watch increasing cringe nerds response videos to Star Trek Discovery, The Witcher: Blood Origin, and recently Castlevania: Nocturne. It's dangerous and scary and unfriendly and probably the reason why they pulled away from this Golden Starboy love story.
I think a primary reason Disney started waning is their unspoken rivalry with DreamWorks whose "Shrek" franchise was meant to parody their original princess love stories and likely sparked a lot of the conversations that made Disney's love stories seem controversial. So, Disney is attempting to rebrand based on the "modern" criticisms of how strong female protagonists should be portrayed. Though I have been watching videos that speak in defense of the early Disney princesses, and I think a lot of people underestimate the mental fortitude that comes with showing restraint: Cinderella and Snow White are living in situations that forces them to be dependent on what is essentially the only family they have left with their head held high, Sleeping Beauty is forced into an arranged marriage lest the two kings' friendly rivalry turns into a conflict that plunges both kingdoms into turmoil, and even Tiana, the most vocal princess of the bunch, shows restraint by enduring the criticisms of those who doubt her dream and focuses on her work. Their strength comes more from their ability to keep their heads held high in difficult circumstances while the more popular female protagonists showcase their strength by being vocal in their ideas. Maybe the circumstances make it difficult to create an overtly strong female character, but I think they managed a fairly good balance with Tiana, and they say that variety is the spice of life. That said, I don't think DreamWorks' love stories are that different from Disney's. The female protagonists are more vocal with DreamWorks, but they both essentially pull 180s when the big moment arrives: Astrid kisses Hiccup moments after nearly dislocating Hiccup's arm in less than a day, Shrek and Fiona are declared to be each other's true love even though they never went on a proper date, and Wolf finds himself falling for Diana after a few words of encouragement in spite of the fact that she was planning to have him and his crew arrested. The only DreamWorks franchise that I've seen that doesn't seem to pull a 180 was "Trolls" (Poppy and Branch's relationship develops in stages in each film) and it's one of the company's most controversial franchises.
@@anastasiassecret3837 The trope became dumb because it got used outside of its original theme too many times. Because it IS a silly concept. However, what about meaningful relationships that bring development for both characters? Did we bully Disney into ditching? Or was It a case of them (conveniently) learning the wrong lessons?
@anastasiassecret3837 Not all Disney princess stories were "boy meets girl." Mulan, for instance, didn't develop a crush on Shang until later down the line of the first film.
I would say in Shrek’s defense, the fallback to the “true love” trope is interwoven in the world because they are based on fairytales. A huge part of how original fairytale did their tropes and themes was that outer beauty determined what sort of person you are. So a beautiful woman who worked hard is casted as the epitome of ‘good/moral’ while the vile and ugly stepmother/sister was casted as ‘bad/moral,’ with similar ideas for men whose handsomeness translated to their own innate good/bad dynamic. Often times the male or female would be the prize for the character at the end, sometimes with the pair knowing each other beforehand and sometimes not. What helps with making Shrek’s ‘true love’ novel for the time and world is that Shrek is the hideous, monstrous ogre with a good heart and Fiona is the beautiful princess whose inner self doesn’t match her outward appearance. Overall it is a parody of Disney’s princess and fairytale stories, but it does turn that “beauty=good, ugly=bad” trope on its head a bit. Plus, Fiona and Shrek did have a few days to talk with one another and Shrek did help save her from the Tower, not to mention a time skip from Lord Farquad’s defeat to the actual wedding and the later movies exploring how they handle married life. Disney would have some movies and shows also exploring the characters after “Happily Ever After,” but one has to admit those were mainly straight to videos or general shows, and not brought up in later theatrical sequels like what DreamWorks does. I will admit Hiccup and Astrid sharing the kiss at the end of HTTYD is a sudden relationship turn, but I would argue 1) they’re teenagers who just survived a life changing adventure and 2) there were time skips in the other movies that let the viewer imagine how their relationship grew. There’s the tv and Netflix shows to draw from as well, which yeah can be considered a cheat since I did just mention that Disney did something similar. But, for HTTYD most of the VA’s reprised their roles between the shows, specials, and movies, and DreamWorks did actively try to tie those events to the movies, so I’m good with Hiccup and Astrid’s relationship in that fuller franchise context. I will admit for movie only fans it’s probably still pretty weak from movies 1 to 2, so anyone can unpack that if they want. Wolf and Diana I see as more friendly flirting between two canines (since ‘people’ doesn’t really work 😅) who feel like kindred spirits. It reminds me a lot of Sinbad and Marina from “Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas” where you have two characters with similar restless, adventurous spirits who enjoy messing with each other. It’s the “man and woman who do actually like each other arguing” trope, but one that I actually find entertaining. Yes, Wolf’s liking of her after the galla is a bit weird since she can arrest him whenever, but I think Diana’s conversations with him actually helps him see her less an obstacle for him and more of someone he can have a genuine relationship with. Sometimes in life the attraction hormones hit like a freight train, and ya just gotta ride them out for a bit until ya either fall out of love but still remain good friends or make an actual attempt of pursuing into something more. Will agree though that Poppy and Branch’s relationship is handled quite well. Don’t care what other people say, I will die on the Broppy hill 😂 They do start off as opposites, become good friends over the course of an adventure that changes both of their perspectives, notice there’s something more between them, and then make the decision to start dating. Their romance is cute, sweet, and does make the viewer want to see them overcoming whatever challenges and obstacles are thrown their way. It’s kinda funny to me that Disney released Wish after taking out the romance aspect between Asha and Starboy, when DreamWorks’ latest films had Puss and Kitty rekindling their love for each other in PiB:The Last Wish, Ruby crushing on Connor and wanting to ask him to prom via calculator (I’m a sucker for math nerds and puns!) in Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kracken, and finally Trolls: Band Together with Poppy and Branch explicitly stating their relationship when introducing each other and sharing their first lip kiss. Audiences liked those movies and didn’t have a problem with the romance parts because the stories were good and the levels fit with the characters. Disney must be getting some awful advice of they think people don’t want ANY romance at all in their movies. People don’t mind romance, it just has to be entertaining and done well. Now I’m so waiting for DreamWorks to capitalize on the “human gal x star boy” gap with Rise of the Guardians. 😂 In the books the movie RotG is based on, there is a human gal named Katherine who befriends a star being named Nightlight. Over the course of the story, the two develop feelings for each other, with Nightlight ending up becoming Jack Frost towards the end, and the pair reunite and decide to become a couple. A few tweaks with movieJack Frost having some part of Nightlight in him, an introduction of Katherine as Mother Goose, bring in the Fearlings who are the major villains in the books, and BAM! Human gal and star boy as a couple to satisfy everyone. RotG fans finally get a sequel, book fans have more book elements in the franchise, and the unexpected gap is filled 😁
@@jendoe9436 I don't know if DreamWorks is ever going to capitalize on "Rise of the Guardians." That project cost them so much money that they had to lay people off, not to mention the probability that it could have been written as a tax loss.
@@ThePrincessCH Yeah, I know how much it bombed at the box office and all the issues it caused for the company🥲 such a shame as it was sooooo good! But, I have been seeing people talk about it a lot more and the company mentions it on their social media from time to time. I’m hoping someone manages to get through and breathes life back into the project, as I do think a sequel or maybe even a soft-reboot will be accepted by the public. Realistically I know it probably won’t happen, but I would love to be proven wrong on that regard.
The lack of vulnerability in characters has been a big problem for me with Disney lately. The last few main characters have felt too happy go lucky. There isn’t a hero’s journey, just a bunch of action and no character change or realizations.
Honestly it would've a great contrast of a growing love between the young couple of Starboy and Aisha versus a longlasting, established relationship between Magnifico and his Queen. It could've been a really neat story of how love can save or love can corrupt. I am not sure why things were changed so much.
Frozen's love story was really just between the sisters. Disney's been undoing the female villains for a long time now. It's run by people who see things according to the intersectional stack - so men are evil, women are good, white is evil, brown is good - and so on. It's divisive and hateful. It's also turning audiences off. They are leaving for other forms of entertainment, and they aren't likely to return.
My immediate response to the title of your video was "Yes. They're genuinely scared at this point to portray romance or love as a GOOD THING to aspire to and desire. _Especially_ 'heteronormative' romance as a goal or great thing."
I also loved the idea of starboy being mute for representing mute people and for the song using magic to sing at all costs and it being like a wish he made for her is so romantic to me ❤❤❤
I have an idea with the “at all cost” original lovesong. The star boy can’t tell Asha that he loves her, so it’s a montage of his internal voice. Such a disappointment that the audience can do better than what the movie gave… not every modern female lead has to be the adorkable, independent and strong trope- I really want Disney especially to understand this.
I think it could still work without making it a love story. They could just lean more into the "Lilo and Stitch" narrative instead of a classic Disney romance. One of the well-known characteristics of a Disney princess is having a non-human sidekick, so "Wish" could have been an origin story about her relationship with her most trusted friend which in this case would be Star and arc would be about being able to let go an old friend and embrace a new one. It's still a new twist on an old classic, and it still works with Star's character design.
since im a writer, let me set up this original plot really quick. In the kingdom of Rosas, things used to be peaceful. The king and queen were good rulers and used their sorcery to help the people. Soon enough, power began to get to their heads, so they slowly stop doing things for the kingdom and do more selfish things for themselves, while the citizens are suffering. Asha, being in a more privileged position as the king's apprentice feels awful about what's going on, but deep down, she knows she's powerless to do anything about it. One night, Asha goes into the forest and wishes on a star, hoping to gain some sort of beacon of hope. The star answers her, transforming into a boy, who has a gentle, yet clueless personality. He tells Asha the wonders of magic and says that he can help her with her wish, but she can never get a wish granted again (by this, the star boy means that he will disappear forever, but Asha is unaware). Since Asha is ready to sacrifice her own wish to help others, she starts to practice with some of te magic the star gave her and begins to gather a rebellion in the city to fight against Magnifico and his wife, the Queen. The star has to drain more of his power to give to Asha, resulting in the star almost fading away. Asha is able to defeat the king and queen, and just before the star fades, they sing the love duet and the boy floats back into the sky.
And idea for wish that came to mind while watching this is making the evil king and queen be a parallalel to Asha and the star. Like maybe reveal near the end that the queen was a star that the king wished upon a long time ago and the source for his power, that's why they want to find Asha's star, and it would show how good intentions in a wish can be corruped, like with selfish love (only I can have this nice thing). Also it would connect with frase in the posters about "be careful what you wish for", because for what I gather that is not a theme of the movie. (I haven't seen wish, maybe I would end up loving it, who knows)
oh! especially if they had the two main characters as like an almost good healthy relationship and showing the differences between them and the king and queen, who would have an overtly toxic one, then they REALLY show this through that song with the couples dancing and switching frames between their two different dances
Imagine if on the 100 year anniversary we get a movie surrounding the theme of romance, something Disney built itself on.
Keep wishing upon stars, but I wouldn't recommend giving Disney money in the hopes of it coming true
@@casualcausalityy I have no idea why people keep giving Disney their money atp (who have children over the age of 12-because by then, the average kid will start to notice the lack of quality in their new films). Disney will never learn until more people hurt their pockets.
I didn’t go support Wish. I knew it’d be bad because of everyone in charge at the studio right now.
Imagine if the king and the queen having some problems in their relationship, while the healthy relationship between Asha and the star boy touches the evil duo's hearth and shows them the right way to treat your love one at the end of the movie, love will save the world
I remember watching a bit of the Walt Disney documentary (20/20) and how he looked to Snow White, saying we need this tale, the romance and everything.
if the Disney princess franchise wouldn't have been so popular, we wouldn't think like this. There are also Disney movies without a love story, such like Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland or Dumbo, and the many of love stories are motivated through the fairy tales they are based on. But there should be a healthy love story included at least, such like in Encanto, even perhaps not for the main character. But I also feel that this was missing to get a 100 year anniversary perfectly done...
Disney: “Women can be anything!”
Audience: “Even a strong, powerful evil Queen?”
Disney: *screeches in horror*
Talk about hypocrisy, their very first movie villain was an evil sorcerer queen.
I mean, Disney princesses were always bad ass but gentle, like, they're just sick of people treating them like house vacuums and eventually seek their own way to deal with it (it's pretty simple but if you describe it like that it sounds so empowering)
Oh, I think what would really scare them is a Disney princess who needs to grow. (Disney would never have the guts to adapt a story like, say, "King Thrushbeard".)
Well of course she can be strong, powerful, and evil! Just as long as she's misunderstood and the audience can sympathize with her!
@@DirtyShizno Lol so true.
Those two changes- evil power couple and the romantic duo leads- would have saved the movie. New ideas would have expanded their tired formula.
Disney isn't afraid to have female villains. Namaari (Raya) was a villain. And Alma (Encanto) was an antagonist. Them ruining a power couple has nothing to do with gender
@@DORAisD34D I think it does. Both of the examples you cite are adversaries who are revealed to have had a change of heart. Those aren't true villains. A classic villain falls into a forest fire or is killed in their dragon form. Eaten by a crocodile. Disney won't do that with their girl-boss villains now. No woman ever did a bad thing in recent Disney. They've even been making movies and television shows to show the reason we should sympathize with the villains.
We need to break the mold in some ways and return to the original mold in other ways. We need romance, villainy, adventure, and less quirkiness in place of personality in the leads.
@@electrojones what girl boss villains?🙏💀. And Disney hasn’t made any male villains recently either. In fact, their last examples of actual evil villains throughout the whole movie were Gothel and King Candy (female and male). And say what you want about twist villains, but we even had the racist sheep in Zootopia
Also, it wasn’t until Asha that people noticed the “quirky” trend. Mirabel is recent and no one called her out for being “quirky”. She had way more going for her than just being “adorkable”, and Encanto as a whole had a lot of well written female characters
@@DORAisD34Ddidn't they try to make them sympathetic? Yes it's not a gender thing, Disney's current issue is them ONLY using Quirky heroes and sympathetic villains.
Even in stories where the villain SHOULDN'T be sympathetic, like in Raya.
It would of been perfect
Love in media literally went from "the most powerful thing ever" to "something that makes you weak"
It's not. Only Disney thinks about it in that way, but they are just stupid.
Considering you people reduce love to just be the one that ends with sex, not surprised there a slight cool down that kind of love being put on a pedestal above all the other kinds of love.
@@1993digifanThat's the fault of fandom and youth media. No one forced them to see it in a sexual way.
@@1993digifan All kinds of love are important, romantic or platonic. Not everyone who has a romantic relationship does it to have intimate relations. Maybe modern culture paints it out to be that way, but *real* stories of love or friendship don't happen to get toxic benefits out of it.
RIGHT!! You know what, GIVE ME the "true love's kiss" trope again.
As someone who loves the Disney romances like Beauty and the Beast and Tangled, you will not believe how pissed I got when I bought the art book and found out we could’ve gotten Disney’s version of Stardust! WTF DISNEY?!
I agree I was like, this sounds like Stardust but Disney and I'm always for more of that magical realism and would have been 100 percent on board if it was something similar and to old Disney but sadly it just missed the mark.
My first tought was Stardust as well, cause it's one of my favourite movies😭 I felt so bad when I realized😭
I fear Disney will cut out these kinds of behind-the-scene things away from public view in the future, and we won't even know what we could've gotten.
@@cervanera2228 Stardust is one if my favourite movies of all time! Wish could've been as good if not better if the team weren't cowards
Oh, yeah, Stardust. I almost forgot about that movie. When I heard the term "Star Boy" I just immediately thought of Geno from Super Mario RPG.
What's insane to me about modern Disney is that love stories used to be their bread and butter, it used to be what defined the Disney Princess movie, and it's like now they're completely disgusted by love stories.
Not every Disney princess needs to have a love story but it's very clear that's what the audience they've built for decades has always craved, yet they just stopped.
not every disney princess will have love interests in their stories.
@@viviennemorgan7217 yeah, that- that's what they're just saying
Yea. kinda like Mulan (the old one not the boring one) Yea she had a love interest but she didn't kiss or married him at the end of the movie but instead asked him if he wanted to come to dinner.
We kinda all bullied disney into ditching the romance part since everyone criticised the disney relationships during the 00s and 2010s. I remember people bringing up how it as being unrealistic, false expectations, age gap, "toxic", bad for little girls, too romantisized,etc, i think you can research those blogs and articles online since all of that is archived. Maybe we should bully them into bringing it back.
I think the main point of of the contention towards Disney started with their unspoken rivalry with DreamWorks whose "Shrek" franchise was meant to parody their original princess love stories and likely sparked a lot of the conversations that made Disney's love stories seem controversial. So, Disney is attempting to rebrand based on the "modern" criticisms of how strong female protagonists should be portrayed. Though I have been watching videos that speak in defense of the early Disney princesses, and I think a lot of people underestimate the mental fortitude that comes with showing restraint: Cinderella and Snow White are living in situations that forces them to be dependent on what is essentially the only family they have left with their head held high, Sleeping Beauty is forced into an arranged marriage lest the two kings' friendly rivalry turns into a conflict that plunges both kingdoms into turmoil, and even Tiana, the most vocal princess of the bunch, shows restraint by enduring the criticisms of those who doubt her dream and focuses on her work. Their strength comes more from their ability to keep their heads held high in difficult circumstances while the more popular female protagonists showcase their strength by being vocal in their ideas. Maybe the circumstances make it difficult to create an overtly strong female character, but I think they managed a fairly good balance with Tiana, and they say that variety is the spice of life.
That said, I don't think DreamWorks' love stories are that different from Disney's. The female protagonists are more vocal with DreamWorks, but they both essentially pull 180s when the big moment arrives: Astrid kisses Hiccup moments after nearly dislocating Hiccup's arm in less than a day, Shrek and Fiona are declared to be each other's true love even though they never went on a proper date, and Wolf finds himself falling for Diana after a few words of encouragement in spite of the fact that she was planning to have him and his crew arrested. The only DreamWorks franchise that I've seen that doesn't seem to pull a 180 was "Trolls" (Poppy and Branch's relationship develops in stages in each film) and it's one of the company's most controversial franchises.
This is a shame. Not only does the design for Starboy look amazing, but a 2D animated love story would have been a great call back to Snow White, where all the Disney magic started, for their 100 year anniversary. 😔
WE WERE ROBBED
We all want a cute, shape shifting, mischievous Starboy as a love interest but they throw it away 😤
Or they could of did what Klaus did and made a 2d animation with lighting that looks 3d
boy if that was added to the movie I might of been interested in watching it.
Why would they actually make a compelling connection to their first film when they could just make side characters to REFERence it?? /jk
We've been brainwashed to think love = weakness, especially for female characters.
Bingo. But even more than that, any sort of emotional intimacy or dependency is seen as weakness, when that is at the core of what makes us strong as a species.
@@marcmarc1967 agreed
@@marcmarc1967, you are totally right, I was just going to write that, love is the greatest strength that we have and the most real and best fuel of life and what makes us do great feats and acts of strength since always, what makes us push forward, keep going and resisting even when we feel that we just can't and our bodies and minds are simply at their limit and they can't anymore, it even makes us sacrifice ourselves for others risking or giving even our own lives, it makes us do incredible selfless things that amaze and that may seem out of our capacity because of how great they are, but that really aren't
I think there mostlry afraid of love between a man and a woman
The Doom Slayer's rage is fueled by love, the demons took his loved ones, so he will destory them all.
it really sucks when someone takes a good original story and just throws it in the trash
Disney becoming a Loveless company is really killing them.
Huh, so now we all know what Star Wars fans have been saying for decades, huh?
So the only thing that makes a story worthy is if two heterosexual people swap spit?
@@usonohoshi6165 Because the love that is Philia, Storge, and Agape is worthless compared to the one that involves fucking?
@@1993digifan I can say the same thing about two lesbians kissing. Does every Disney movie have to have two gay people swapping spit in order for the story to sell tickets
There's an old trope that sometimes gets laughed at of, "we're not so different, you and I" where the villain tries to convince the hero of how alike they are. It exists because the stories tend to show how terrible someone can turn out without practicing positive traits like courage, kindness, empathy and compassion. In Snow White the Evil Queen and Snow are both beautiful but the Queen is consumed by vanity while Snow is humble and knows practical domestic skills, Jaffar and Aladdin are both cunning and resourceful but Aladdin also has kindness and compassion that makes him a good person.
It's usually laughed at because it's done so poorly and they always have the villain lampshade it by saying those exact words like the audience was blind, instead of letting the actions speak for themselves.
I agree it is usually done poorly but when it is done well it is great.
“It’s our choices, Harry, not our abilities, that define us.” (Or something like that)
They're called a foil characters and they're my bread and butter.
I actually love this trope but I agree what it's often execute poorly. Mostly because it's often happening from absolutely evil villain to absolutely saint hero. But where's a lot interesting things you can do with this trope. For example, not necessarily from villain to hero. Hero also can use "we're not so different" to redeem villain. Or it can be from one villain to another, like:
"You say that your actions are making world a better place but nobody agree with you! Be honest, boy! We're both only causing tragedies and destruction. The difference between you and me, the ONLY difference, it's what I don't try to pretend to be hero!".
Something like that.
When I heard that Star was a star boy, I was very disappointed because of how cool that could have been. I’m always a slut for lovers from different worlds and it could have been a cool callback while also trying something different with it.
Such a disappointing waste of potential.
Look up "The Last Unicorn" and "Doctor Who". I think you'll enjoy these series.
Star as a love interest to Asha gives me huge Peter Pan and Wendy vibes (the animated movie, obviously), btw I was surprised at how mature Wendy acts in that movie, not only in the sense that she acts motherly towards her brothers and the lost boys but she's also so intent on kissing Peter, I always like when Disney shows the girls romantically pursuing the boys like this, and this was decades before the Little Mermaid.
@@Prototype-357 It could have been cool to explore the dynamic of Wendy and Peter in a different way. Rather than just puppy love on Wendy's part, actually developing a real relationship between the two.
Yeah that would have been really interesting ❤😊
If you haven't seen it yet check out Stardust 2007 film or Starman 1984 (the latter more sci fi than fantasy).
The Buzzfeed articles from the 2010s dragging the princesses with love interests made Disney scared to death of giving princesses love interests. The last time they did one with Anna and Kristoff made them feel obligated to have the narrative say, "See! See! They're not like those OTHER Disney couples. They DON'T get married after just a day" (even though NONE of the Princesses are shown getting married immediately or even given a timeframe of how long it is until their wedding day). Personally, I miss Disney love stories. I miss ones like the 90s where they didn't make the protagonist and love interest force the dialogue to be snarky/quippy/quirky. Belle, Ariel, Aladdin, Hercules, Tarzan, etc didn't need their characters to talk exclusively in modern vernacular, they managed to sound timeless!
Most Disney princesses had desires outside of romance, heck, in the 90’s, Disney princesses didn’t even have romance as their primary goal, even in Cinderella this can be seen. All Cinderella wanted to do was get out of the house and go to the ball, have one wonderful night without her abusive step family, and she didn’t even know she’d fallen in love with the prince. Mulan wanted to save her father and didn’t even kiss Shang in her film. Heck, Aladdin’s goal was to win Jasmine’s heart but he felt like she was out of his league so pretended to be a prince to do so.
God, I hate those Media illiterate idiots.
The awkward “quirky” princess (who doesn’t need a love interest - cuz she ain’t weak like the old Disney girls) trope has been done to death and getting seriously annoying now. In their effort to make their heroines unique Disney have made them even more cookie cutter, and interchangeable, than ever.
@@SpiderkillersInc me too. It was all bad faith readings of the movies from those “haha, gotcha Disney!” articles where they didn’t care about context and what the characters goals were. They were always so nasty when they dissed Ariel, Cinderella, and Belle saying Ariel was dumb or Cinderella was passive or that Belle has Stockholm syndrome when none of that was even true.
That was kinda the point. Anna was stupid while her older sister was smarter
edit: Anna isn’t stupid, that was a horrible choice of words. She’s just naive
@@snowbunnie1113your “quirky” argument is completely invalid. I would get into why I disagree with you on that but, like I said, it’s irrelevant to this topic. Elsa and Isabella are examples of not “quirky” yet don’t have a love interest
girl the star boy was so cute too. if they kept him the TikTok community would have done the marketing for them lmaoooo
tumblr too. he would've been tumblr's twink of the month
I know right?? I can't remember, was there ever a male lead/love interest who was so cute, cheerful and sweet?? I would love to see romance with such a character so much!
fr the movie wouldve basically printed money if he was kept in it
@@Chris-ot9bktwink of the month 😭
Remember when pre teens were crazy for Jack and Elsa?
Having the King AND Queen be evil, in addition to retaining the Star Boy love interest concept, would've worked doubly well by making these young heroic lovers work as a strong foil to the villain couple. "At All Costs" could've also had an "evil reprise" version for the villains, amplifying the whole Power Couple dynamic with even more theatrics, and maybe giving another underlying message of "Good love" versus "Evil love".
Yes, exactly! They could have worked as counterparts to each other. A heroic couple and an evil couple. And the idea of “At All Costs” having a reprise for the villains? You’re a genius.
Problem with that is that the King was never actually evil. So it's still fundamentally flawed as a film.
@@jonnjones8263 Just rewrite him then?
When I heard at all costs while watching the movie, I was like: this isn't a love song??
That would've been SOOO GOOD! We were absolutely robbed with this movie
I have the theory the story would present the theme of love, and how different relationships can look. You can contrast the good, healthy romance between Asha and the Star against the toxic romance of the King and Queen. I kinda like the headcanon that "At All Costs" was supposed to be a cross duet, where Magnifico sings to his wife while Asha sings to the Star, in a "the heroes and the villains are similar in this angle" way...
Because to you people the only love that matters is the one that ends with fucking. Any love between family, friends, and community is worthless if sex isn't involved as far as you people are concerned.
That would have been great to see, honestly. A healthy, budding relationship vs one built on mutual greed and hunger for power.
Edit: Hell it could even tie in to another prior movie reference since they seem to like those. Star is mute so when he and Asha start to catch feelings for eachother, she thinks he couldn't possibly love a human and he isn't able to tell her himself, so he enlists the help of the animals to do a Kiss the Girl-esque number in the hopes of telling Asha how he feels. And beforehand Asha could have been lamenting to Valentino how she really liked Star, so there would be no outcry of "oh the guy pressured the girl into going out with him". Instead it would be two interested but shy individuals summoning the courage to confess their feelings to eachother and finding out to their joy that it's mutual.
That version sounds reminiscent of Heaven’s Light/Hellfire from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which highlighted both Quasimodo’s and Frollo’s views of Esmeralda and their responses to their feelings for her. I always thought that was a really good musical contrast and would’ve loved to have seen something like that again!
@@herpderp3916 That actually sounds really good ❤
Disney saw the criticism of "why does there always have to be a love interest?" and WAY over-corrected. The key word in that criticism is "always." As you said, for some characters like Elsa or Mirabel, having a love interest doesn't fit their character arcs, and would have been detrimental to the story. But there are definitely stories to be told where a love interest will elevate the character's journey. Disney doesn't seem interested in actually putting thought and effort into their story-writing anymore (or rather, giving their writers the time and funds to write interesting, well-thought-out stories). They just want to pump out cash cows in the form of movies with minimal effort.
I think they even got it all wrong. The real problem was princesses (and girls as a whole) always being portrayed as damsels in distress who had to be saved by random strangers who immediately fell in love with them. Personally, I think they fixed this already in Tangled, so I am not sure what the big fuss is about.
@@bunnysm I miss some of the older Disney (and non Disney) stuff that actually had strong female leads/main supporting characters/love interests as well as romance. I grew up with one of my favorite movies being Bedknobs and Broomsticks- I watched it on repeat. Then I grew to love Anastasia, Treasure Planet, Bug's Life, Atlantis, and Lilo and Stitch. As a kid I didn't get why everyone was talking about weak damsels until I branched into a few other movies, with the exception of animated Aurora, which we never really got to see how she would handle harder conflict due to her being cursed. There were usually strong female characters but usually they were overlooked because they fell in love, and quite a few specifically saved the men. I mean, look at Miss Price, Megara, Captain Amelia, Anastasia, Kida, Nala, Princess Atta and Dot, and both Nani and Lilo. Those are just some of the females I personally remember fondly.
@@EtaryaFae Snow White wasn’t saved by the prince, she was brought back to life because he kissed her goodbye (kissing your dead loved ones is actually part of European culture, weirdly enough) without him even knowing that she wasn’t actually dead, just under a spell. Ariel saved Eric first, then she got saved by him as well. Cinderella was smart enough to have a spare glass slipper so she can leave her abusive household. The only princess that was saved by a man was Aurora, and she needed saving!
Yes, exactly. While I’m personally not a huge fan of romance in stories (it’s not a priority for me at all. I prefer platonic relationships), I’m fine with it as long as it’s done right and doesn’t feel forced.
I refuse to watch wish its a awful movie and the wrong way to celebrate 100 years of disney its great it flopped.@@blueflare3848
I keep saying about the evil power couple, that means we could have had a villain DUET song.
We ALMOST had that with Aladdin between Jafar and Iago for a deleted song “Humiliate the Boy”. But this could have been a genuine villain duet, and imagine them having lovey dubby pet names for them sprinkled in there.
Disney isn't afraid to have female villains. Namaari (Raya) was a villain. And Alma (Encanto) was an antagonist. Them ruining a power couple has nothing to do with gender
@@DORAisD34D To preface, I don't mean this in a mean way. Unfortunately in those cases, Namaari is one of those "deep down she's a good person who cares about people" and Alma is dealing with trauma in an unhealthy way. In both cases they "aren't *really* evil just broken" so they don't count as villainesses. So we've had female antagonists yes, but *villainesses* no. The last one that was an actual villainess was Mother Gothel, if my memory serves me right. Villains like Jafar, Mother Gothel, Maleficent (the animated one not the remake), Gaston, and Frollo were unmistakably villains. There was no, "well deep down they are good people" or "they aren't all bad" or any other gray stuff. They were evil. Clean cut. No mistake, no take-backsies.
@@DORAisD34D didn’t say it did. I said they missed a chance at a villain duet.
@@gracbrac4817 yes you’re right, but we haven’t had any male villains either. The last examples of evil villains were Gothel and King Candy. And, although twist villains aren’t as popular, we had that racist sheep in Zootopia (female), so I dont think it’s because they don’t wanna make women look bad
@@battybuddy i 100% agree with you, I just wanted to share this with you
A love story doesn't need to be the center point of the story, but it adds a lot of charm and charachter. So its sad to see disney who was known for it, being now allergic to love stories
Mulan did that very well. But of course they cut Shang in the live action
How to Train Your Dragon did this really well too
case in point, Elemental
They made Elemental and Pixar marketed it as their first rom-com. Just allergic to PRINCESS love stories sadly
elemental had a female-led too and that didn't felt a "super powerful woman" and the mc had actual flaws@@samnelson7428
I don't think as simple as not having a love interest. There's really a breaking down of intimacy, dependency, and overall togetherness between characters in Disney now, especially of the opposite sex. Look no further than how Ezra and Sabine interact with each other after they reunite in Ahsoka. Not just in that moment, but for the rest of the show. It's like they just became Marvel buddies, filled with quips and such. They're so awkward and embarrassed to share their feelings, it sad.
Isnt the whole awkwardness socializing and interacting kinda universal/relevant now with the whole decline in person communication and traditional ways of creating relationships/friendships now that everyone kinda live in their own bubble, quarantined from real people
@@viviangarcia5696This was such a surprisingly articulate explanation of our civilization’s current state, it’s always so pleasant running into comments like this
@@viviangarcia5696 I think it's why nowadays audiences crave more movies about friendships & romance.
@@viviangarcia5696 But the story wasn't "Gen X in space" and the characters weren't Disney Channel tweens. It didn't make sense for the characters as they established them. Disney doesn't do well with sincerity or maturity these days. Love is a joke, caring is silly. It's childish, and not in a cute or charming way...
Oh my gosh, Ezra and Sabine's reunion should have been SO much more dramatic and heartfelt than it was, you hit it on the head, it was like the show was afraid of showing any kind of intimacy or closeness or genuine emotion.
I think it's also worth noting that since one of the main plot points involves Magnifico trying to steal Star's magic this could've been a case of a Disney Princess saving her love interest instead of the other way around
Oh look, subversion done right!
Honestly, its really disappointing the original concept got completely scrapped. I believe Asha was supposed to be Magnifico and Amaya’s daughter, being an actual princess in the story. And I totally dig having a villainous power couple, like come on. We really had to make Amaya the “holier than thou art” character? I’m surprised no one has mentioned this, but I get big Howl and Sophie vibes for Asha and Star boy. You’d think Disney would make another couple in tribute to their very first movie having the very first Disney couple, but no. Girls aren’t allowed to fall in love anymore, and guys are forbidden for having feelings for a girl and wanting to help them. Star to me came off as the cute character for selling toys, considering he doesn’t really do anything aside making animals talk, including the annoying goat. Why did Valentino have to talk again aside “comedy relief?” And I completely agree with Asha’s personality. I am so sick of every Disney “princess” nowadays being “quirky and adorkable” and slightly clumsy. It worked best with Rapunzel and Mirabel. Get another personality Disney! All throughout the Renaissance, all the female protagonists had very distinctive personalities, especially Meg, Esmerelda, Jane and Kida.
@@Dollibet actually, Esmerelda and Jane were once part of the lineup, and Kida was fully planned to become one to incorporate more representative with darkskinned princesses. But the point is all these girls have very distinct personalities and dreams that made them stand out without needing a love interest, but they ended up falling in love naturally, and not because a script said so. Esmerelda wanted the Romani people to be treated fairly, Jane loved being a biologist and learning about the wildlife aside the gorillas, and especially Meg basically hated the idea of love because she’s been hurt before, trying to get Hercules to see not everyone is good and decent, there’s some pretty awful people out there. Imo, being an official Disney Princess isn’t everything, considering the franchise always focuses more on white princesses and Moana as their main POC representation with Pocahontas and Tiana being shoved to the background because they’re “not as popular” Honestly the fact Asha is going to be joining the group is pretty insulting considering how much hate Wish has already received, especially when you consider characters like Meg and Esmerelda are still banned from being added, despite their movies have been growing in popularity lately
Asha beginning Magnifico and Amaya's daughter is amazing I adore that idea especially since I didn't care much for her family I only really cared about her dad because it was a mystery and gave her a connection to the Stars
But let me give you another idea what if she is their adopted daughter and the reason they adopted her it's because she showed magical Talent
A clever little trait to be more disntont of a personality is to give the princes an authentic accent (not annoying, not too thick, just right)
@@kristinahuchison2511 Pocahontas doesn’t deserve to be a Disney princess.
Pocahontas was a real person who met John Smith and became friends. That movie is controversial because the real people they were based off of had a HUGE AGE GAP. Pocahontas was 13 and John Smith was 26.
I see more Tiana on Disney Princess merch than Snow White. Honestly, Snow White gets more sidelined than Tiana does. Tiana is more popular in modern day because she was the first Black princess. (Although she was a frog for most of the movie, my point still stands)
I just want to see a purely African princess with properly researched African culture references. Imagine how cool that would be.
How about a villainous family altogether?
My personal take on the subject is that Disney, like a lot of Hollywood these days, doesn't really have any producers anymore just executives. The producer was the person who knew the business and the audience. They were the ones who'd find the script, hammer it into shape, find the director and acting talent then make sure they weren't allowed to run wild chasing after every shiny artistic "squirrel"/laser pointer moment and stayed focused on telling the story.
Nowadays we have executives that, quite often, are coming in from completely different industries. They know how to manage a business, juggle the books to keep the IRS off their back but not how to make movies. They hire young, inexperienced directors because they're cheap and dump the whole process from writing a script to casting and shooting on to them. Even when the director survives that process and creates something vaguely coherent they'll usually have made something to impress their film school friends rather than for a general audience to enjoy. Then the executives will either write it off as a tax loss or try and make changes themselves when they lack the knowledge and experience to change it for the better rather than just change it.
But I'm just a cranky old man so what do I know;).
Executives in their monkey suits are the reason we can't have nice things anymore
I think that’s 💯 spot-on
@silverjohn6037, Except you need both producers and executives to make a movie. The problem, is that some executives care more about milking a franchise and giving the audiences mindless action and product placement that they known will be eaten up, over a good story. A perfect example is Jurassic World Dominion, where the executives and producers were obviously more interested in action, over telling a good story. And don't act like everything sucks nowadays. For every Jurassic World, you get Spiderverse, Godzilla Minus One, Oppenheimer, etc. And in the 90's, for every Lion King or Beauty in the Beast, you got junk like Space Jam and Pokemon The First movie.
@@crfstewarje You may be underestimating how far back my idea of a golden age goes if you think 90's was peak Hollywood;).
But there is Theodore Sturgeon's law. "90% of science fiction is crap. Then again 90% of everything is crap." It's just that they were making a lot more films back in the day so that 10% of good stuff added up.
With major studios wanting to have the big block busters that stay in the theaters for months they don't feel the need to produce as many films so that their own films aren't competing with each other. When they can have multiple films in various stages of multi-year production it doesn't matter if you screw up in the initial shooting schedule as they can always bump back one film for re-shoots and move another forward. Except the one they move forward ends up being rushed while the one they postpone just ends up being a collapsing house with a different layer of paint on it.
@@silverjohn6037 Actually, I would argue that more films are being made today, especially since now you have movies being released also on streaming services and not just theaters. So it's easier to notice crap, with more stuff being made. This includes TV shows coming out in a much larger amount as well.
Based on the thumbnail, Asha actually looks distinguishable in design, instead of an Isabella copy. And an interesting love interest! Why oh why did they do this movie so dirty??!!
That's AI art XD
@@arnotoad155 no its not lmao
To make up for all the mistakes they made in recent movies, Disney should remake *those* movies instead of the classics. Movies like ‘Snow White’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’ don’t need remakes, they already fulfilled their story potential in the Disney take of the story. I feel it’s a grave injustice that movies like ‘Wish’ are robbed of any greatness they could’ve achieved if only Disney had put in a little effort. IT’S JUST SO FRUSTRATING! (Thanks for listening to my TED Talk👌😔)
(Plus, a remade ‘Wish’ with all of the scraped ideas would be really cool✨☺️✨)
MY POINT EXACTLY- I was legit ABOUT t type something like this❤❤❤ we need a remake of Wish!!
Honestly, I would've loved to have live-action remakes of Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and The Black Cauldron (as long as they don't touch the characters and stories of the first two and improve the third), but Disney would rather forget their bombs, even if they become cult classics.
@@AeridisArt In this Climate a Well Done Atlantis would have been amazing.
Yeah, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! And the original Wish is one broken mess, so they should! ✨️
So you’re telling me they changed a cool love interest from another world…to a freaking luma from Mario? Just when I thought Disney couldn’t disappoint me any further, they reveal stuff like this. It’s got to be a talent how much this company can let you down even when you already had ZERO expectations.
Love is one of, if not the most, intrinsic part of being human. It’s what we first experience at the weak and vulnerable stage of infancy, and what we strive to attain from a world that is increasingly becoming more lonely. Can we stop treating romantic love like it completely ruins your character if it happens to be one of your motivations? It’s honestly gross that an essential human need is being minimized this way.
Disney isn't afraid to have female villains. Namaari (Raya) was a villain. And Alma (Encanto) was an antagonist. Their weird choice to remove the power couple isn’t because they don’t wanna make bad women
@@DORAisD34D well Namaari was redeemed and Alma wasn’t evil she was just too hard on the family and her negative brought harm to the family so I wouldn’t say they count.
@@timwilliams.2581 yes you’re right, but we haven’t had any male villains either. The last examples of evil villains were Gothel and King Candy. And, although twist villains aren’t as popular, we had that racist sheep in Zootopia (female), so I dont think it’s because they don’t wanna make women look bad
@@DORAisD34D why do you continue to copy-paste this same comment in reply chains that don't belong? The OP never mentioned villains. If you're going to continue to paste this comment over and over again, at least paste it under a comment about female villains.
The Virtue Signalers and their yesmen crowd are the ones “telling us” how we should behave and see the world
Let’s start a petition to get this original version created as a fan film by a smaller studio. The world needs to see this version, and I think if Disney notices that their fans made a better movie than them, they’ll at least partly see what their doing wrong and try to fix it
I don't think another studio could produce it because of Copyright.
@@ThePrincessCH thats why I’m thinking we should brand it as a fan film. I know there are Spider-Man films coming out all the time that aren’t made by marvel, so i think it could fall under something like that
Disney is a terrible company when it comes to copyright, and they would destroy any company that does that. I WANT it, but realistically I don't want to see people get executed by Disney.
Emperor's New Groove was a fantastic movie that didn't involve romance. So if they want to avoid romance, at least do a hilarious, heart-warming, family-valuing one like that. But it's also heart-warming to show a romance, and they don't need to let that go.
For the 100 year anniversary, when Snow White made Disney their name, I'd actually expect a romance. Hints of modernity yes, but still a fantasy one.
Are they equating love with being weak? To be strong is to not need anyone? What exactly is their official answer to this? I would love to know.
I don’t want to hear Disney’s official answer-because they are going to lie to us and tell us they don’t equate love to being weak.
A bunch of liars are at Disney right now. Don’t believe half of what they say. Their actions the last ten years prove they do.
in order to be strong, you reject men.... because...femininsm =(
Disney has been having issues since Star Wars leaked in the writing room
My recommendation: just rewatch Tangled. Fantastic film that actually has two great leads in Rapunzel and Flynn and also has a lot of heart and characterization. And also if you like that film, check out the underrated animated series. Yeah, I'm recommending a "modern" Disney cartoon but it actually continues the storyline in a meaningful way and has a decent ending to boot. All in all, Wish is a movie that for a company celebrating a 100 years is a pretty big insult. Strong words, but I can't think of a worse movie for a company who dedicated most of its time in making great animated films to say "we're around for a 100 years; this is what we want to showcase to celebrate it.".
But then again, Disney has had a really bad year, so par for the course.
I love Tangled, but the seeds of this trend were started with that movie and series. Flynn is bascially treated as a joke; he can't really do anything and Rapunzel has to save him at all times. It's what lead to this whole thing where men are not viewed as important by mainstream culture.
Of course, if the mainstream culture no longer values men, then said men and boys will just form alternate communities that are much less regulated and have much more extreme rhetoric, not just for power, but to feel like they are entitled to the most basic level of respect and value as opposed to being treated like they're human garbage. And this desire-no, this NEED-for a basic level of appreciation and respect, will be abused by dishonest and dangerous actors.
Yes. I liked Encanto all right, but for all intents and purposes Tangled was the last great Disney Princess film before what I call the de-romanticization era.
Or perhaps aromantic era would be a better word? Hmm.
@killgriifinnow, in Tangled, Flynn and Rapunzel save each other.
@@matityaloran9157💯💯. Exactly
Disney realized they made a huge mistake when everybody was dislinking the movie even before it came out, but started eating up the Starboy concept the second they showed the concept art 😭
The idea of a power couple as badguys would have been awesome
For those who have had long distance relationships, we've all looked at the sky and wondered if our love was looking at the same star we were. For that very Star to become the physical embodiment of that Love, is one of the most magical manifestations of a Wish from the Heart.
You just made me realize exactly how much I've missed out on by removing star boy cause I've done the EXACT same thing before
@@AkalimI've done that too lol
Here a new concept: Asha doesn't become and apprentice but is actually the daughter to the King and Queen. She discovers that their wish granting powers that they give to everyone, are from the Star Boy who is a Wishing Star in a human body. She wondered why she couldn't grant any wishes naturally.
She frees him and has to defeat her parents who have split the magic in half for each other and use their most loyal followers to grant wishes to stop them. For example, turning the castle into a giant maze. The King and Queen don't want to kill Asha but try and convince her to have their beliefs. This leads to a wish being granted where Asha is brainwashed/hypnotised but it's broken when the Star Boy defeats one parent and gets half of his magic back. Power of love? Or he grants a wish himself that the other parent has to grant?
When defeated, all the wishes are gone and the Star escapes back into the sky with all his magic back. King and Queen are arrested and Asha focuses on building a new Kingdom.
Yo I wish u were working at Disney
Take my money
just take the fucking pen.
this sounds like a great movie AND this would perfectly fix the ‘problem’ of having a romance interest for Asha 😭
what the hell is going on in disney’s boardroom that their creatives aren’t given a real say to let ideas like these hit the stage…
I love the idea of her being the daughter of the King and Queen! Perhaps it was finally her turn to learn how to rule the kingdom, but there was something that wasn't right about what she was being told by her parents.
Male = my love for her makes me stronger and so I never quit so I love Female = my love for him makes me weak and insignificant and so I ignore love
This is something we should fix in the modern narration... True, non-toxic love makes both men and women stronger and happier. And there should be more stories where the couple collaborates in saving each other or pursuing the task, instead of one side being there just to be saved... The side used to be mostly the woman, but now they do it with men, and they typically make it even worse since the damsels in distress were at least usually created to be desirable, while the Stupid Unnecesarry Men Who Need To Be Saved are not even this.
Wish made me so angry with how much wasted potential it had. I wanted it to be set in a stargazing town where people learned how to channel magic from the stars into magical objects like clothes or jewelry or tools cause this way you can have all sorts of easter eggs to Disney magical objects like the Magic Mirror or Jafar's Staff. I wanted Asha to be only one of the people Magnifico is teaching magic to, magic here being the channeling of star magic into the objects cause people can't use magic directly, have her two co-aprentices be a young Merlin and Yen Sid (the wizard that teaches Mickey magic in The Sorcerer's Aprentice, one of the shorts from Fantasia). And this magic is something everyone can learn how to do. I also wanted Asha to have a more curious and studious personality, the thing is that everyone who learns magic is just repeating what they've been taught without being able to advance it in anyway, everyone who tries fails, Magnifico is really enforcing this because he's the one who created this type of magic and taught everyone else and he doesn't want anyone being better than him, he picked those three as his aprentices cause he wants to control their growth so they don't surpass him and he recognizes threats in them.
Other people thinks he's great though cause he's the first person to be able to do magic, in the past before magnifico channeled the magic from the stars people depended on fairies to have anything magical happen and fairies never used their magic for free, if you asked the fairies to do anything the fairy will think you owe them and ask something of you in return, people then came to resent and envy the power of the fairies so when magnifico made magic acessible to humans everyone flocked to him and turned their backs on fairies. They founded their town focused on star magic and tried to forget fairies even existed. I wanted Asha and her friends to find all of that out during the course of the movie as they explore what they want do with the magic they learn and the limits of their powers, I wanted Asha to be the first person in a long time to even talk with a fairy and she finds out they are still really proud beings who will still ask things of you if you ask them for help, and Asha learns that magic should be used to help others just for the sake of making them happy and she teaches that to the fairies and for the people in her town.
I wanted magnifico's thing to be that he used his magic because this magic made other people like him and teaching this magic to others made them like him even more because this means he wasn't selfish like the fairies, and when the humans left the fairies realized they liked having the humans dependant on them and they didn't know how to make the humans stay with them aside from using their magic. This is because I wanted the theme of the movie to be that you need to use your gifts to help others and not only for yourself. Since Asha has a fairy godmother reference in Wish I wanted her to discover a new type of magic, the magic of dreams and this you can use directly, because this fit into the song of Cinderella with lyrics like "A dream is a wish your heart makes~". I wanted Asha to help her friends realize their dreams too, Merlin at first thinks magic can do anything and he wants to push it's limits but later on he realizes magic shouldn't be used for everything and there's other ways to acomplish what you want and he wants to help people with that, Yen Sid's dream is to be just like Magnifico but after he reveals hiss true colors and yen sid finds out how little faith his teacher had in him his new dream becomes to teach magic to others in a proper way. In the end they all understand magic alone can't be used to make people's dreams come true but it helps and they should use their gifts to help others in need.
Imma be honest, this concept sounds WAY too good for this era of Disney.
not you creating a MUCH BETTER concept than what Disney put out. THIS WOULD'VE BEEN SUCH A GOOD PLOT.
Disney needs to hire you
bro if this is how it happened I would of watched it, please hire yourself into disney.
You should've been at Disney with this idea!
Love is one of the most powerful emotions people can feel. Even when the plot doesn't require it, a love interest can add so much. It seems like they went out of their way to diminish(the little mermaid reboot) or get rid of love interests entirely(mulan reboot), due to the masculine one conventionally being stronger(and we cant have that in 2023 can we?)
Nope😂
not every movies has to be about boring romance
@taliagmail.com2005 youre so right romance stories are so boring
love is more then an emotion, it is one of the deepest and greatest connectivity between two people there can be. It is human connection.
The masculine one conventionally being stonger, eh. Give her... superpowers? Magic? Wisdom? Dexterity?
I am Russian, in my country an enchantress saving a boyfriend or a brother in distress is pretty normal for the fairytales. As well as shieldmaidens who are stronger than most men and go around and challenge heroes. Just because it happens that bad times make strong people, more strong people than there's men and exactly SHE is unconventionally strong, very dexterous and trained to fight. Or because she's conventionally smaller (and exactly tiny and dexterous) she's an excellent light cavallerist, mastering the usr of saber and bow. Or she is a light pilot, rides flying creatures into battle?
Princess politicians with nickname "the wise" and outdoing men at political intrigue. Just ordinary peasant girl next door who happens in an extreme situation she HAS to be morally strong, endurant, patient and resourceful.
Note that all of above aren't painted as non-feminine in most ways.
I will never get over the fact that we could have had a star boy fall in love with the princess and have conflict with the first ever Disney villain couple.
SAME OMG-Like this is the first film I'm like screaming to remake! Bring Starboy and the starcrossed-lovers, villain couple, and all those other cool ideas back in and try again! Cause this film as it was released feels very basic-like it's the first draft and not the other way around. And preferably remake in 2D to actually get that storybook classic feel.
@@ArtisticCeleste 👏🏼this👏🏼
The internet would have eaten up starboy, the load of fanart and fanfiction would have made people watch this movie. They really fumbled the bag. Also on the disney being allergic to giving their princesses love interests. why is it all of a sudden, when we're finally getting more disney princesses of color, romance is out of the question?? Do they think black and brown girls dont wanna see romance stories?? Come on now.
The answer is a huge loud YES. Like, listen, I get that people were tired of the whole 'why does their need to be a love interest??' but Disney executives took it to mean 'oh romance is bad.' Romance is not bad! If the romantic connection is blegh, that's one thing. And if the star had been a magical star boy, I don't think a romance needed to exist either--it could've been open-ended, and that, too, would've been interesting. People could draw their own conclusions about that relationship. I adore romances when they're good. I fully agree that this song is rather romantic, and probably the best sounding song here, personally. Removing romance entirely doesn't make any sense to show a character is 'strong.' 🙄
i think this is huge, i haven’t seen this movie so i don’t rlly know the context but the romance has to feel natural, you shouldn’t be scared of adding a love interest but it should also make sense, they need to have chemistry and i need to ship them a lil
For real, why is it so hard for them to understand that when people say "hey maybe not every single story needs a random, undeveloped romance slapped onto it" they don't mean "please never ever write romance ever again, I will puke if i see people kissing". Just do what is best for the story. Moana didn't need a Prince but Wish really could have used that element to flesh it out and give it heart. The original concept was so much stronger, I genuinely cannot fathom why they're so bizzarrely adverse to romance all of the sudden.
@@primrosett Most of the time, when people say they're sick of seeing X in fiction, what they actually mean (but don't realise they mean) is that they're sick of seeing X done badly.
@@paulgibbon5991 YES! The classic hero's journey formula and romance will never not get tiring as long as the showrunners can execute them properly.
disney either makes movies that ppl say are "girl gives up everything for s/o" or "this doesnt focus on findinf a prince charming!!!!!!" which is... annoying... we can have strong main characters that still fall in love. for some reason, a big part of the audience and disney themselves dont get it.
I really think this one isn't that simple: Asha is a woman of color, they made sure to emphasize this on D23 Disney Expo. If she was Caucasian like Elsa and Anna then it wouldn't be weird but look at it again... A POC wishes on a star, it falls down to earth to meet her and they fall in love???? So she's so hopeless, she can't find a man on Earth so she has to make a wish on a star? Maybe this would have been nice in the 1990's but 2023 we got the "Woke" and Red Pill Movements at odds with each other, a powerful white man who grants wishes for minority woman is a bit tone deaf. The Charmed reboot did this and it failed spectacularly.
@@suezcontours6653 Isn't that kind of how the plot of "The Princess and the Frog" went, minus the star falling? And, as I recall, Tiana was a woman of color. I don't know a lot about how the film was criticized, though I think the film sparked some distaste for the fact that the first African-American princess spent the majority of the film as a frog.
You can’t just label every Disney movie without a romance “this doesn’t focus on finding a Prince Charming!!”
@@ThePrincessCH Exactly. 2009 was also when they transitioned into 3D so that was their last 2D project, they could've ramped up the promotion but it was also running up against Harry Potter.
@@suezcontours6653 I think 3D still works in certain circumstances. I liked the designs in "Tangled," and since Rapunzel's hair was essentially the centerpiece of the film, Disney did a really good job giving movement that I think 2D might have been able to accomplish (I don't work in animation so feel free to take that with a grain of salt).
Fitting for anyone who enjoyed Wish and experienced heartbreak this year. If Disney really wants to go hard, they'd show heartbreak. Not just betrayal (frozen) and grief (big hero 6 & onward)
Encanto went hard with its themes
Pocahontas ends with Pocahontas waving goodbye to John Smith, and this movie could have ended with Asha waving goodbye to Star as he had to return to the cosmos
The missed out on capatilizing on obsessive teenage girls who would’ve ATE UP star boy so damn hard
Even if the star wasn't a love interest. It could have been her dad reincarnated into a star. (To also keep that "we're all stars" thing)
They couldn't recognize each other because:
1. The star's appearance is the dad when he was younger. (Maybe when he was 18 when he gave up his wish) him being mostly yellow also makes hard to recognizable.
2. The father lost his memory because, (and this is my own personal added lore) the king is using other wishes to fulfill just one.
Hence he can only do one wish per month.
And once a wish is turned into his power, people completely forget the wish, and anything related to it. And slowly lose the will to live.
Just slow enough that people don't realize it's the king's fault. Which is why, on the surface, people of Rosas seem happy.
But upon rewatching you can see how off some people are, at the background.
The love song should still work, even if it's about family.
I think these changes must have been made pretty late into the production process, as all of the concept art is pretty much identical to that used in the final film. A real shame too, I think these original concepts are great.
They don’t necessarily need to fall in love at the end of the movie, BUT we must not just delete all strong, positive, male role models for young boys. They could just be hinted there is a possibility for something more or just strictly kept it a friendship, a balanced counterpart to the princess.
I also agree that we need more female villains.
Agreed, and worth noting that the original Disney princes might have saved the day, but they were barely characters at all, they just popped up in the heroine's story to save the day or be a reward. One movie I think got the balance right was "Moana", where the male lead actually has depth and an arc of his own (overcoming his fear of failure born of crushing expectations, covered with a layer of brash egotism) that isn't just his relationship to the heroine.
@@paulgibbon5991 They did fix that Overtime giving the Princesses and Prince as much character.
There's Aladdin and Beast for one. Eric was an Earlier Prince but they did give him more character being a More Adventurous Sea Safer who feels more comfortable sailing than looking like a Prince.
Oh my lord, having a Disney PRINCE who is actually a great role model for young boys would be GREAT! Loving, hard-working, non-violent, caring, and FUN. There are so few role models for young boys for them to look up to who aren't in a story where they have to be violent or something like that. Matpat has a great video about it.
Having Starboy be a great friend to Asha, who loves and helps her and works together with her as her partner and equal would be GREAT!! Even small things like having him heal people from their broken wishes (like that deleted scene) unprovoked would show how he cares for and helps people.
Perhaps the guy who lost his wish had his wish broken and he's in a lot of pain (like in the deleted scene I mentioned), and without Asha or anyone provoking or making Starboy to do it, he just comes over and heals him. Perhaps Starboy even finds him himself and heals him before bringing him back.
THAT would be a great role model for young boys that we don't have enough of nowadays.
I cant help but mourne the Wish we could have gotten compaired to what we got. ☹️ The original story sounds so romantic and lovely.
It worked in Hayato Miyazaki's films like Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, & Ponyo, so why can't Disney do that as well?
There are two types of romantic relationships: The UNhealthy kind is when one or both members of the relationship sacrifice their sense of identity to be with the other person. The HEALTHY kind is when each member helps the other member to bring out their most authentic self. For some reason, Disney assumes that all relationships will be perceived as the unhealthy version described above, and so they have just started to avoid romantic relationships altogether because they are terrified of being accused of "robbing a female character of her individuality."
What's super ironic is that Tangled - which I consider to be the peak culmination of the "Disney Princess Genre" - depicts a grade A example of the HEALTHY relationship described above. Both Rapunzel and Eugene were able to find confidence in their true selves BECAUSE they got involved with one another. By the end of the movie, both characters were more authentic than they were when the story began. A healthy romance is a beautiful and inspiring thing to see on screen, and it's unfortunate that Disney executives right now seem to have no confidence in their ability to portray one. I mean heck, pretty much half (if not more) of all Ghibli movies pull this off with grace. I just watched Whisper of the Heart from 1995 for the first time, and the story is basically a girl who is like "I want to impress this boy I like by BECOMING THE TRUEST AND MOST CREATIVE VERSION OF MYSELF!!" and it works. 1995, folks. 1995.
Maybe all of the Disney execs are just in shitty marriages or something.
“True love is for weakness”
Mulan, Meg, Tiana, Pocahontas, etc.: Are we a joke to you?
I want classic Disney romance! Ugh why can’t we have it. That movie I would seen multiple times and told everyone to go see
Democrat here!!! Exactly!!! Look at Japan couples in anime and manga are mostly straight why because Japan understands that men and women need each other for survival support and love. Shoujo manga sells great over there because most girls love the fantasy of a guy sweeping them off their feet and carrying them off into the sunset and for guys they just want a girl who will love them wholeheartedly nothing wrong with that whatsoever it's how humanity has survived since the dawn of time and will continue long after.
@@candicemceady308what does your political leaning have to do with this
Huh?@@candicemceady308
@@candicemceady308 As a fan of shojo manga. Not everything needs romance. Seriously, don't shohorn it in.
@@candicemceady308 Women read Shojo and Josei because the target audience is THEM. It has the female perspective in mind! You won’t find the bs in male targeted genres like shounen or male harem stuff. It’s not simply romance either. You talking about shojo fans with your warped view shows, you don’t know much about female anime fans/ otaku or the genre in general. Being Democrat just means you’re even more annoying than a Republican. Western political heads should leave anime alone.
Yes. For years, people criticized the Disney Princesses for all being motivated by the pursuit of men. This criticism was always inaccurate, but whoever's in charge now is deeply insecure, so now they don't want to touch romance at all. But that's fine as long as the movie has another core relationship to focus on. I don't know what relationship "Wish" was supposed to be about.
I think Disney's primary point of contention started with their unspoken rivalry with DreamWorks whose "Shrek" franchise was meant to parody their original princess love stories and likely sparked a lot of the conversations that made Disney's love stories seem controversial. So, Disney is attempting to rebrand based on the "modern" criticisms of how strong female protagonists should be portrayed. Though I have been watching videos that speak in defense of the early Disney princesses, and I think a lot of people underestimate the mental fortitude that comes with showing restraint: Cinderella and Snow White are living in situations that forces them to be dependent on what is essentially the only family they have left with their head held high, Sleeping Beauty is forced into an arranged marriage lest the two kings' friendly rivalry turns into a conflict that plunges both kingdoms into turmoil, and even Tiana, the most vocal princess of the bunch, shows restraint by enduring the criticisms of those who doubt her dream and focuses on her work. Their strength comes more from their ability to keep their heads held high in difficult circumstances while the more popular female protagonists showcase their strength by being vocal in their ideas. Maybe the circumstances make it difficult to create an overtly strong female character, but I think they managed a fairly good balance with Tiana, and they say that variety is the spice of life.
That said, I don't think DreamWorks' love stories are that different from Disney's. The female protagonists are more vocal with DreamWorks, but they both essentially pull 180s when the big moment arrives: Astrid kisses Hiccup moments after nearly dislocating Hiccup's arm in less than a day, Shrek and Fiona are declared to be each other's true love even though they never went on a proper date, and Wolf finds himself falling for Diana after a few words of encouragement in spite of the fact that she was planning to have him and his crew arrested. The only DreamWorks franchise that I've seen that doesn't seem to pull a 180 was "Trolls" (Poppy and Branch's relationship develops in stages in each film) and it's one of the company's most controversial franchises.
That's what I've been saying. Let the artists do their thing and stop interfering. But nooooo, the executives right now think they now what's best and all that crud. But apart from that, it's nice to see you again Jesterbell.
Hmmm. Golden Starboy and a simple village girl who basically wished for him. Those optics aren't weird to you?
I think Asha and Star's relationship could have had a good foil to the evil king and queen. The villians could have even done a duet (maybe reprise?) that mirrored At All Costs.
You’re a genius.
It would've blasted me back to the 90s and Hunchback.
That would've been so good😩
The delivery in the original song is so passionate.. immediately got emotional
I think this is the worst feeling that a piece of media could leave me - mourning what could have been
Tangled was the last great DISNEY fairy taker movie for me. Love interest. Beautiful songs. Great visuals. Female villain. Magic. Guy and girl save each other at various points.
Don’t forget Encanto
@@DORAisD34D keyword(s):
"for _me_ "
They were so focused on the metanarrative that they forgot about the narrative
You mean to tell me we almost had a real old style, “A Whole New World”-esque love duet between Asha and the cute star boy?!?
And they took it and put it in the most ludicrous context ever
Great job, guys! “100 years in the making” indeed.
Not all the princesses need romances, sometimes a story works just fine without shoehorning in a love story
That being said, if it can enhance the story and its cast, then i say go for it.
Maybe this romance wouldn't have been all that good or well written, but the concept is genuinely intriguing and couldve went in a new original direction for a disney love story. At the very least it wouldve made the film stand out as we've never had a "prince" character with such a neat concept before.
Such a shame it got left to the cutting floor, a magical star prince from outer space sounds like so much fun.
Asha and Starboy singing 'At All Costs' then later Magnifico and Amaya would sing it in the villain reprise at a lower key.
I’m absolutely enraged that we were denied Starboy and villain power couple. ENRAGED.
Make the evil queen a "fallen star." She could have been the evil opposite of the star boy.
Oh man, I am grieving over a beautiful movie concept we're never going to get. The story of Asha and the star boy sounds so beautiful, and you're right--the demo of the original "At All Costs" is GORGEOUS. Definitely a wedding song. I guess I'll go read the fanfiction, lol. This is bumming me out that they missed the mark on this one.
What would have been neat is if there were two versions of the song "at all costs", one version (the love song) for asha and the star boy, and the other an evil version with different lyrics for the king and queen, it would've been awesome! I mean how many movies have a song that is for both the hero(s) and the villain(s)? But that's if they went with the original story.
Unfortunately, we can say, “Disney should listen to their audience,” but Disney favors particular groups in its audience to the exclusion of others, perhaps even calling the excluded groups malicious and evil.
Letting someone be a bombastic villain is incredibly empowering. Let women be unrepentant and charismatic with their own villain song.
It's honestly a shame that these concepts were scraped because having the villian power couple and the hero power couple work as opposites/foils or even parallels of each other would have been very cool!
Disney sabotaged their own movie to remove the love interest? Wow
The original concept for Wish sounds a lot like Stardust.
@Jester Bell, you’re right. They wanted to celebrate their centennial with a return to form but refused to go all the way and the movie suffered for it.
Because if love doesn't involve spit being swapped it's not real love.
@@1993digifan I didn’t say anything even remotely similar to that.
I think it could have still worked out without the romance, though. There is another powerful relationship that is common among Disney princesses that doesn't get explored as much, and that's their relationship with their loyal non-human companions. If "Wish" had delved deeper into that relationship, it would still be a new spin on an old classic, and it still works with Star's character design. It could have been a story of Asha trying to save an old friend while learning to embrace another.
@@ThePrincessCH True.
This makes me upset because this could have been a good movie and they wrecked it.
Disney is afraid of giving their Princess A FREAKING PERSONALITY!
Romance is one of the greatest aspects about Disney and they have all but abandoned it in the last 10 years
You’re right. Why can’t Disney just allow their female characters to have love interests?
I rewrote my own version of this story- even though I haven't watched it. Maybe I will watch it and compare the two. I would have loved to have a version where Asha's wish was taken by the king (but she doesn't know it yet) so the whole time she desires to feel some passion or community in her life. Which is when she'd meet star boy (aka the literal walking/flying definition of a hug) who can learn that not every wish needs to be granted in order for a life to feel meaning and successful. So kinda like Tangled the two main character's become each other's wish and dream. AND maybe villain king and wife does not have the ability to make wishes come true- they only have the ability to take wishes, but because of the memory loss thing they created a Utopia where they're the good guys.
or have asha be magnífico and amaya's daughter.
@@viviennemorgan7217 Heck yea! That would be glorious!🙌
@@katieblaingWhere do you share it?
I mean, we as people love to see genuine connections being portrayed. Romantic or not, it doesn’t entirely have to be the main focus but human connection is a foundational piece to make a moment matter.
If Disney had gone with Star being an actual character that Asha properly comes to care about and understand, it would've made the ending hit harder when he has to return to the sky.
Regardless of whether they wanted Star and Asha to be love interests or not, it would've been an immense benefit to the story for Star to be able to take on a human form.
Furthermore, it would have made the scene where Star gives her the magic wand feel more earned, as Star would've been able to interact with Asha in a way that would allow him to see how much she cares about the people of Rosas.
It's interesting how the first four princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, and Ariel) all had female villains and these female villains were all iconic - perhaps even the most iconic Disney villains along with Scar and Claude Frollo. We haven't had a really iconic Disney villain since Dr Facilier, maybe Mother Gothel.
Even the live-action remakes have been sawing off the edges of female evil - Maleficent was a whole series of 'actually she's only bad bc big scary man hurt her!' and Mulan added a whole entire new female 'villain' just to give her a bizarre and out-of-place relatable moment to the protagonist.
*MAGICAL* BLONDE White boy + black girl (who he gives magic powers to) ...
*what could have possibly gone wrong in today’s modern era if they did that*
Honestly the Queen is the one who is the villain. When she puts Magnifico in the dungeon any likeness I had for her instantly left. Magnifico wasn't even really a villain. He has a point. He had good intentions and just carried them out in a bad way and was possessed by the book. Yeah he had a ego and and was jerk, but he wasn't the villain. If the Queen really loved him she would have tried to find a way to save him; to reverse the curse. Do you really think the reversal would just be left in the book? No, she'd likely have to go on a quest and seek out how to find a way to break the curse. Or kinda like what your bringing up in this video- if Disney really wanted to pay homage to their older movies- true loves kiss would probably break the curse.
Just saying if that was my husband and I in that situation, I'd be trying to find a way to help him. What happened at the end just makes the Queen look like a selfish b**ch that is like Oh now I can have all the praise & admiration my husband was getting so who cares about him.
I’ve got to say, you are VERY quickly becoming one of my favorite UA-cam critics. You have well balanced takes that aren’t shaded by politics or anything outside of the content itself. You got a supporter out of me for sure!
Thank you, I needed to hear that
@@realjesterbell Oh, what could have been..... May I offer thoughts as an African girl who's observed rising tensions in The West on the last 5 years.
During the concept stages of WISH, the Red Pill Movement and #MeToo was on a high. The optics of a golden white boy + woman of color (Asha) seemed at odds with today's era. Entertainment Industry has been about uniting people since the 80's BUT post-2008 Social Media and podcasters have sewed seeds of division online. It came to a blow in 2023 as just having a diverse female lead in 2023 gets written off as "Woke" even if it's an original character like Asha, Ironheart, Monica Rambeau etc. Look at the reception of Interracial (IR) couples like Barry + Iris West on CW, Halle Bailey's Ariel, Invincible's Amber - the first IR kiss between Kirk + Uhura in the 1960's Star Trek was less controversial. Brandy's 1997 Cinderella with Asian Prince was received VERY well and Disney is bringing her back for the Descendants 4 sequel. Gen V was also received well because Marie + Jordan are a blackAsian couple.
If Asha has to have a love interest, the Star Boy should be an ambiguous man of Color (Latino/ Asian/ Indian/ Arab/ Indigenous etc) like Princess and the Frog. However, investors who are typically old white men have to insert themselves into it (if you haven't noticed, mostly raceswapping white female characters and gingers if they're men like Wally West, Jimmy Olsen, Jim Gordon, Heimdall, Isaac in Castlevania etc).
I urge you to watch increasing cringe nerds response videos to Star Trek Discovery, The Witcher: Blood Origin, and recently Castlevania: Nocturne. It's dangerous and scary and unfriendly and probably the reason why they pulled away from this Golden Starboy love story.
Honestly you’re right. A lot of other critics would bring up “woke” Disney just because the main character is black 💀
@@suezcontours6653 I am so confused
@@draykohunter6805 The early starboy CONCEPT changed because Asha is POC. The optics of her wishing for a white man to save her is bad.
I think a primary reason Disney started waning is their unspoken rivalry with DreamWorks whose "Shrek" franchise was meant to parody their original princess love stories and likely sparked a lot of the conversations that made Disney's love stories seem controversial. So, Disney is attempting to rebrand based on the "modern" criticisms of how strong female protagonists should be portrayed. Though I have been watching videos that speak in defense of the early Disney princesses, and I think a lot of people underestimate the mental fortitude that comes with showing restraint: Cinderella and Snow White are living in situations that forces them to be dependent on what is essentially the only family they have left with their head held high, Sleeping Beauty is forced into an arranged marriage lest the two kings' friendly rivalry turns into a conflict that plunges both kingdoms into turmoil, and even Tiana, the most vocal princess of the bunch, shows restraint by enduring the criticisms of those who doubt her dream and focuses on her work. Their strength comes more from their ability to keep their heads held high in difficult circumstances while the more popular female protagonists showcase their strength by being vocal in their ideas. Maybe the circumstances make it difficult to create an overtly strong female character, but I think they managed a fairly good balance with Tiana, and they say that variety is the spice of life.
That said, I don't think DreamWorks' love stories are that different from Disney's. The female protagonists are more vocal with DreamWorks, but they both essentially pull 180s when the big moment arrives: Astrid kisses Hiccup moments after nearly dislocating Hiccup's arm in less than a day, Shrek and Fiona are declared to be each other's true love even though they never went on a proper date, and Wolf finds himself falling for Diana after a few words of encouragement in spite of the fact that she was planning to have him and his crew arrested. The only DreamWorks franchise that I've seen that doesn't seem to pull a 180 was "Trolls" (Poppy and Branch's relationship develops in stages in each film) and it's one of the company's most controversial franchises.
@@anastasiassecret3837 The trope became dumb because it got used outside of its original theme too many times. Because it IS a silly concept. However, what about meaningful relationships that bring development for both characters? Did we bully Disney into ditching? Or was It a case of them (conveniently) learning the wrong lessons?
@anastasiassecret3837 Not all Disney princess stories were "boy meets girl." Mulan, for instance, didn't develop a crush on Shang until later down the line of the first film.
I would say in Shrek’s defense, the fallback to the “true love” trope is interwoven in the world because they are based on fairytales. A huge part of how original fairytale did their tropes and themes was that outer beauty determined what sort of person you are. So a beautiful woman who worked hard is casted as the epitome of ‘good/moral’ while the vile and ugly stepmother/sister was casted as ‘bad/moral,’ with similar ideas for men whose handsomeness translated to their own innate good/bad dynamic. Often times the male or female would be the prize for the character at the end, sometimes with the pair knowing each other beforehand and sometimes not.
What helps with making Shrek’s ‘true love’ novel for the time and world is that Shrek is the hideous, monstrous ogre with a good heart and Fiona is the beautiful princess whose inner self doesn’t match her outward appearance. Overall it is a parody of Disney’s princess and fairytale stories, but it does turn that “beauty=good, ugly=bad” trope on its head a bit. Plus, Fiona and Shrek did have a few days to talk with one another and Shrek did help save her from the Tower, not to mention a time skip from Lord Farquad’s defeat to the actual wedding and the later movies exploring how they handle married life. Disney would have some movies and shows also exploring the characters after “Happily Ever After,” but one has to admit those were mainly straight to videos or general shows, and not brought up in later theatrical sequels like what DreamWorks does.
I will admit Hiccup and Astrid sharing the kiss at the end of HTTYD is a sudden relationship turn, but I would argue 1) they’re teenagers who just survived a life changing adventure and 2) there were time skips in the other movies that let the viewer imagine how their relationship grew. There’s the tv and Netflix shows to draw from as well, which yeah can be considered a cheat since I did just mention that Disney did something similar. But, for HTTYD most of the VA’s reprised their roles between the shows, specials, and movies, and DreamWorks did actively try to tie those events to the movies, so I’m good with Hiccup and Astrid’s relationship in that fuller franchise context. I will admit for movie only fans it’s probably still pretty weak from movies 1 to 2, so anyone can unpack that if they want.
Wolf and Diana I see as more friendly flirting between two canines (since ‘people’ doesn’t really work 😅) who feel like kindred spirits. It reminds me a lot of Sinbad and Marina from “Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas” where you have two characters with similar restless, adventurous spirits who enjoy messing with each other. It’s the “man and woman who do actually like each other arguing” trope, but one that I actually find entertaining. Yes, Wolf’s liking of her after the galla is a bit weird since she can arrest him whenever, but I think Diana’s conversations with him actually helps him see her less an obstacle for him and more of someone he can have a genuine relationship with. Sometimes in life the attraction hormones hit like a freight train, and ya just gotta ride them out for a bit until ya either fall out of love but still remain good friends or make an actual attempt of pursuing into something more.
Will agree though that Poppy and Branch’s relationship is handled quite well. Don’t care what other people say, I will die on the Broppy hill 😂 They do start off as opposites, become good friends over the course of an adventure that changes both of their perspectives, notice there’s something more between them, and then make the decision to start dating. Their romance is cute, sweet, and does make the viewer want to see them overcoming whatever challenges and obstacles are thrown their way.
It’s kinda funny to me that Disney released Wish after taking out the romance aspect between Asha and Starboy, when DreamWorks’ latest films had Puss and Kitty rekindling their love for each other in PiB:The Last Wish, Ruby crushing on Connor and wanting to ask him to prom via calculator (I’m a sucker for math nerds and puns!) in Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kracken, and finally Trolls: Band Together with Poppy and Branch explicitly stating their relationship when introducing each other and sharing their first lip kiss.
Audiences liked those movies and didn’t have a problem with the romance parts because the stories were good and the levels fit with the characters. Disney must be getting some awful advice of they think people don’t want ANY romance at all in their movies. People don’t mind romance, it just has to be entertaining and done well.
Now I’m so waiting for DreamWorks to capitalize on the “human gal x star boy” gap with Rise of the Guardians. 😂 In the books the movie RotG is based on, there is a human gal named Katherine who befriends a star being named Nightlight. Over the course of the story, the two develop feelings for each other, with Nightlight ending up becoming Jack Frost towards the end, and the pair reunite and decide to become a couple. A few tweaks with movieJack Frost having some part of Nightlight in him, an introduction of Katherine as Mother Goose, bring in the Fearlings who are the major villains in the books, and BAM! Human gal and star boy as a couple to satisfy everyone. RotG fans finally get a sequel, book fans have more book elements in the franchise, and the unexpected gap is filled 😁
@@jendoe9436 I don't know if DreamWorks is ever going to capitalize on "Rise of the Guardians." That project cost them so much money that they had to lay people off, not to mention the probability that it could have been written as a tax loss.
@@ThePrincessCH Yeah, I know how much it bombed at the box office and all the issues it caused for the company🥲 such a shame as it was sooooo good!
But, I have been seeing people talk about it a lot more and the company mentions it on their social media from time to time. I’m hoping someone manages to get through and breathes life back into the project, as I do think a sequel or maybe even a soft-reboot will be accepted by the public.
Realistically I know it probably won’t happen, but I would love to be proven wrong on that regard.
The lack of vulnerability in characters has been a big problem for me with Disney lately. The last few main characters have felt too happy go lucky. There isn’t a hero’s journey, just a bunch of action and no character change or realizations.
It also makes them harder to relate to or empathize with, in my opinion.
Oh my gosh! “At all costs” original version is beautiful! I’m so mad that they changed the story!
Honestly it would've a great contrast of a growing love between the young couple of Starboy and Aisha versus a longlasting, established relationship between Magnifico and his Queen. It could've been a really neat story of how love can save or love can corrupt. I am not sure why things were changed so much.
Frozen's love story was really just between the sisters.
Disney's been undoing the female villains for a long time now. It's run by people who see things according to the intersectional stack - so men are evil, women are good, white is evil, brown is good - and so on.
It's divisive and hateful. It's also turning audiences off. They are leaving for other forms of entertainment, and they aren't likely to return.
Star boy and Asha would have been adorable 😭
It's been researched that most Gen Z are not interested in watching romance.
My comment section disagrees.
@@realjesterbell How do you know many are not sockpuppets?
I would have loved a cute romance in this movie as well as a villain couple?! Why Disney WHY?
My immediate response to the title of your video was "Yes. They're genuinely scared at this point to portray romance or love as a GOOD THING to aspire to and desire. _Especially_ 'heteronormative' romance as a goal or great thing."
Disney is too afraid to put their modern heroines in compromising positions, and to them love is such a position.
I also loved the idea of starboy being mute for representing mute people and for the song using magic to sing at all costs and it being like a wish he made for her is so romantic to me ❤❤❤
I have an idea with the “at all cost” original lovesong. The star boy can’t tell Asha that he loves her, so it’s a montage of his internal voice. Such a disappointment that the audience can do better than what the movie gave… not every modern female lead has to be the adorkable, independent and strong trope- I really want Disney especially to understand this.
And once you know it was originally intended to be a love song, that makes the final version weirder cuz it’s Magnifico singing with Asha.
Disney needs to remember love is the strongest thing a person can have, stronger than any dollar those suckers can take from their audience.
I think it could still work without making it a love story. They could just lean more into the "Lilo and Stitch" narrative instead of a classic Disney romance. One of the well-known characteristics of a Disney princess is having a non-human sidekick, so "Wish" could have been an origin story about her relationship with her most trusted friend which in this case would be Star and arc would be about being able to let go an old friend and embrace a new one.
It's still a new twist on an old classic, and it still works with Star's character design.
Aaah!!! So after 10 years of "Why is there a love interest?" we're asking for the love interest back. How the turn tables...
More like 20 years
It's like people never objected to love stories, they objected to cursory and undeveloped love stories.
since im a writer, let me set up this original plot really quick.
In the kingdom of Rosas, things used to be peaceful. The king and queen were good rulers and used their sorcery to help the people. Soon enough, power began to get to their heads, so they slowly stop doing things for the kingdom and do more selfish things for themselves, while the citizens are suffering. Asha, being in a more privileged position as the king's apprentice feels awful about what's going on, but deep down, she knows she's powerless to do anything about it. One night, Asha goes into the forest and wishes on a star, hoping to gain some sort of beacon of hope. The star answers her, transforming into a boy, who has a gentle, yet clueless personality. He tells Asha the wonders of magic and says that he can help her with her wish, but she can never get a wish granted again (by this, the star boy means that he will disappear forever, but Asha is unaware). Since Asha is ready to sacrifice her own wish to help others, she starts to practice with some of te magic the star gave her and begins to gather a rebellion in the city to fight against Magnifico and his wife, the Queen. The star has to drain more of his power to give to Asha, resulting in the star almost fading away. Asha is able to defeat the king and queen, and just before the star fades, they sing the love duet and the boy floats back into the sky.
And idea for wish that came to mind while watching this is making the evil king and queen be a parallalel to Asha and the star. Like maybe reveal near the end that the queen was a star that the king wished upon a long time ago and the source for his power, that's why they want to find Asha's star, and it would show how good intentions in a wish can be corruped, like with selfish love (only I can have this nice thing). Also it would connect with frase in the posters about "be careful what you wish for", because for what I gather that is not a theme of the movie.
(I haven't seen wish, maybe I would end up loving it, who knows)
oh! especially if they had the two main characters as like an almost good healthy relationship and showing the differences between them and the king and queen, who would have an overtly toxic one, then they REALLY show this through that song with the couples dancing and switching frames between their two different dances