Exactly! Also, Disney should understand that people don’t hate original stories (in fact, people would prefer them over sequels and remakes), but people despise bad writing.
@@Ryzard tru, good source, I also think the same goes for a musical like cats, which people seem to like because it has a lot of heart and meaning in it, despite it being (imo) incredibly terrible and uncomfortable. I can't watch it and I'm not a fan of the music but again, I'm outnumbered lol. Just makes me think of it cause it's a cult classic despite being "bad"
god thats exactly it, isnt it? they had a big anniversary coming up, they looked at all the elements from their past successful films, dumped them into a mixer and poured the resulting sludge out onto a film reel.
Howard Ashman has a really good quote that I found thru a Sideways video that goes something like “if you can cut out a song in a musical and it still makes sense, you’ve done something wrong”
Counterargument: "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." You could still tell the story of the musical if you cut out all of the "Ballad" seections, but when Tim Burton did so for his film desecration it completely changed the tenor of the story and took out a good deal of connective tissue.
The saddest part about Wish is that all the creatives that worked on this movie were SO OBVIOUSLY held back by disney executives telling them what to cut and what would bring most money "according to test groups" Even Julia Michaels!! I saw an intervew she did talking about how it was to work for disney and she says she had ABOUT 3 WEEKS to deliver each song but only using a cliffnotes version of the script... They didn't even tell her the name of the protagonist, just described Asha as "a young activist that loves her people" After knowing that and seeing scrapped storyboards and animatics of a previous version of wish I feel so sorry for her and everyone who worked on this movie
@@SugarSpice07 The first draft of the film looked spectacular. Asha and her grandfather lived outside the city away from the kingdom to avoid capture, the whole "looking at the stars" thing was wisdom passed down from him to her in a really touching scene, and of course, Starboy. Then Disney happened and all that good stuff went away.
Okay giving her three weeks for each song and such barebones details is actually criminal, I don’t think even a Broadway writer would be able to make that work!
Personally my favorite part of Wish's plot is that the main conflict is that a greedy collector is trying to take and seal away the art of a centenarian old man who just wants to make people smile with his art. So like, it's basically Disney seething that Mickey Mouse is entering the public domain as they turn 100 years old as a company.
@@rainydayjules I could see DreamWorks doing this, like how they subverted the "villain sees the light in the hero's eyes and motives" with Puss in Boots 2.
my personal favorite part is that the king was supposed to be a bad person who collects wishes with force and makes people live bad lives but he ended up being the hero who does nothing wrong, helps his people and spoils them but is punished anyway
He wants to inspire people with music by using magic to make it come true instead of working for it himself. Walt used to work for a living, didn't manipulate people to like his art through magic.
first animated black woman lead in 14 years, first black animated woman lead to stay human for the majority of the movie, and yet, she's completely unremarkable, boring, and stale. it feels like disney said "here, are you happy?" and it's lemonade made of piss.
Also, She’s Afro-Latina! So she also put a stain on The Hispanic representation As well. Asha would have been a great character if her motives were better and she didn’t present herself as a Selfish, Annoying Brat that lacks No thinking skills and common sense to those around her whatsoever. Remember, the kingdom is now in jeopardy of bad wishes now all because Asha couldn’t Handel being Told “No”…The Concept Asha was MUCH Better.
Interesting thing to note about animal sidekicks- 9 times out of 10 they tend to be character foils to the mc. Think Flounder's cowardice vs Ariel's outgoing exploratory nature, or Pascal being surprisingly stern and down to earth while Rapunzel is very much a head in the clouds kind of gal. Even Abuu, who at first glance seems exactly like Aladdin, is much more greedy and selfish to contrast with Aladdin's generous nature. The goat does not act as a foil to Asha in any way, not just because it was only ever meant to be plushie bait, but in part because Asha's character is as 2d as the movie wants to look.
And Ariel has flounder AND Sebastian, both her opposites, in flounders cowardice, and Sebastian’s parental, sometimes overbearing nature, they balance her out and keep her (mostly) out of trouble.
If you want to count princess and the frog, Ray and Louis are very laid back and believe strongly in what seems impossible. Ray is a more obvious foil because he believes more in the power of stars and how real they are than most of the other characters. Also, princess and the frog is everything wish wanted to be. It already did the wishing on stars thing and it was decided by the end of the movie that you should work hard but still have a touch of wonder and let yourself enjoy life too. It even says in the movie it's not always about what you WANT, what you NEED (spiritually, emotionally) is more important. Wish basically spits on that message.
Pixar keeps kicking Disney's ass when it comes to original movies and sequels but instead of learning from that they get milked dry. I will never forgive what they're doing to Toy Story... @@aynohalopesdealmeida9932
You know the last three big disney musicals before Wish did their "obligatory animal sidekick" in a lot more fun ways. Sven wasn't Anna's or Elsa's, he was Kristoph's. the Moana rooster was a bait-and-switch, replacing the obvious and promoted funny-cute-pig with an ugly, unintelligent, borderline detrimental chicken, and that was a good bit. Encanto didn't even have one, unless you count Bruno's rat friends, which would probably be a nice thing to do for the guy. The Goat is so barebones in the face of this that it's a wonder why they did it outside of Monkey's Paw-ing everyone's complaints; "Oh, 'modern Disney' isn't good enough for you? Fine, HERE'S your CLASSIC Disney!"
@@carolkoski4875It's true, someone uploaded a deleted storyboard where he had a cutesy voice. (He also did more in that 3 minute draft than he did in the whole movie, he stalled Magnifico by pretending to be Star while Star was actually off trying to free the wishes, and called in a bunch of animals to overwhelm Magnifico)
33:44 What's sad is At All Costs had a purpose... as a love song from an earlier draft in the movie. The fact that when that plotline was removed they stuck this song into a completely different scene with the villain is bonkers. Can you imagine moving A Whole New World and now it's Jafar taking Aladdin to the Cave of Wonders or something?
OK, that makes SO much sense. When I got to that part of the movie I thought, "huh, this feels like a love song, and that's weird because they're singing to these wish ball things...?" I legit thought he might try to make a move on her or something at the end LOL
legit imo it feels like those gacha life 1 music videos where gachatubers would get edgy ocs to sing a pop song sung by one singer to serve as a "moving on from my cheater boyfriend" drama story, it's THAT awkward
i like the actual song itself outside of the context, it’s sort of lovely. but in the movie’s context??? it makes no sense. and with the added external context having it be between teenage asha and magnifico just makes it feel so gross
The UA-camr *art at midnight* has a great video about why that is! In her video she compares Rosas to Corona, Rapunzel's kingdom. It really opened my eyes about why Rosas felt so empty all the time, even in Welcome to Rosas, when it should feel the most vibrant and lived-in.
Worst part is, the star character was initially designed to be a humanoid prince type character doing a fish out of water bit, and potential love interest for the main character. We could have had a peak Tumblr sexyman
The other thing that bugs me with characters being “adorkable” for the sake of it is that the behavior the characters are showing should come from someone. Of course rapunzel is awkward and too much, she hasn’t grown up around enough people. Same with Anna to an extent but she’s also coping with hurt of losing her family during formative years (Elsa emotionally from a young age then her parents). These behaviors exist Because of peoples life not because it’s cute to watch and when you take that away this character trope is always going to fall flat.
i have my criticisms over moments of mirabel's adorkableness for the sake of it, but the narrative purpose is if she were 100% competent it would make a lower contrast between her capabilities and other family members (especially with the ones without gifts like her grandmother, dad, and uncle)
When you started playing clips from songs, I was like "wow that sounds terrible" and then I realized I was watching it on x1.25, so I slowed it down and wow that still sounds terrible
I will never forgive Disney for cutting the adorable romance that could’ve been Asha and Starboy. Also, a king and queen villain couple would’ve been so cool.
Let's face it: villain couples kick ass, especially in stories with villain protagonists. Magenta and Riff-Raff from "The Rocky Horror Show," Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett from "Sweeney Todd," Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler from "Better Call Saul:" I mean if you want an iconic king and queen villainous power couple look now further than the titular pair from "Macbeth." It never doesn't work.
Trying to explain the pajama joke. 1. Asha is right and the star DID put on pajamas, the gag is supposed to be that it's strutting and putting on a fashion show with pajamas on + the pajamas are ridiculous and sparkly + it's making silly faces and gestures 2. Goat says thank you I feel seen because goat wears a little jumpsuit/"pajamas" throughout the whole movie, which means he likes pajamas and appreciates when someone else recognizes how great pajamas are ...I think????
I swear I always forget Wish even exists. I feel like I get jump scared at the store when I see merch for it like "Oh shit yeah that's a movie that exists"
Of course they will forget it. Now that "Inside Out 2" is making the money they thought "Wish" would, they can just ignore it and possibly put out merchandise for the few who would still want it ernestly.
You can tell that Welcome to Rosas wanted to be The Family Madrigal so bad, but what made The Family Madrigal so good was that they gave us so much information on the STORY and the characters we’re supposed to care about. In four minutes (an absolute fricking banger four minutes)we can deduce that the Madrigals are the unofficial head family of the village. They’re the “Amazing Madrigals”, and Antonio’s gift ceremony is a community wide event that kicks off the entire plot. We can deduce that Abuela is a bit of a severe figure hyperfocused on “the miracle” and serving the community. We learn that her son has been completely excommunicated, and while her daughters are married to sweethearts, their gifts can be a bit burdensome, Pepa’s being “hard to control” and Julieta’s being in high demand. When Mirabel introduces her sisters she says “the beauty and the brawn do no wrong”, implying that *she* does wrong, and she’s the family screwup/scapegoat. “She’s the perfect golden child” lets us know that things are tense bewteeen her and Isabela in particular, and her telling Mariano she’s a “primadonna” lets us know it’s full on hostility. AND this also lets us know that Mariano marrying Isabela will also be something to remember for later in the film. The way everyone’s color palette lets you know whose kid is whose, and they move in accordance with their personality. Camilo is the goofball shapeshifter, Dolores listens more than she speaks, Augustín is accident prone, which even gives us insight on how he ended up with Julieta. Then you look at Welcome to Rosas. It doesn’t seem like a particularly tight knit community like the encanto. It’s supposed to be this magical lamd of wishes, but it looks generic. Despite what the lyrics say, there are no “creations on display”. Mirabel sings the opening number as a member of La Familia Madrigal singing her relatives’ praises. Asha is…a tour guide? Like, is she PR? Does she have a W-2 with the palace? She could’ve easily just been the naive princess singing about how wonderful her kingdom is without knowing about her father’s true intentions with people’s wishes were, but nooooo. That would be compelling. That would be substantial. This film is just EMPTY, my dudes.
Oh look at you, looking straight on and denouncing this movie. If only there was something like this that happened in Disney’s history that was about people criticizing one thing and com- You know what, I’ll cut the bullshit. THIS MOVIE WAS MADE TO BE HATED ON! THIS MOVIE WAS MADE TO EXPOSE THE UGLINESS OF DISNEY’S HISTORY! SO SHUT UP!
Another thing I've noticed is that Disney only uses one word titles because they want them to become a hashtag. Frozen, Tangled, Moana, Wish. BRING BACK LONGER TITLES, DISNEY!
Oof that actually stinks Though, to be fair, most older titles also were like that Pinnochio, Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella, Pocahontas, Rescuers, Tarzan, Mulan, Aladdin, and probably more I'm missing (just while writing that Hercules came to mind)
I don't think hashtags were really a thing when Tangled came out though. That movie was originally supposed to just be called "Rapunzel", but they switched to "Tangled" because they were hoping to give the movie more gender neutral appeal. "The Princess and the Frog" came out just a year before Tangled, and after Tangled we got Wreck-It Ralph
@@Commenter839 might be an unexpected thing where with Tangled and Frozen it became so popular and the names so short the hashtags increased, and they realised short names = more hashtags, so they went with that for the following titres Kinda how Beauty and the Beast unexpectedly won them an oscar which made them try to replicate it with Pocahontas
Thank you internet for taking all the concept art and behind the scenes and cut ideas and just…making a new version of Wish out of that that is so much better just because you can.
that's something i find beautiful about the internet, how people come together to give back the soul to a piece of art that was washed out by capitalism
@@galantina4086Agreed. It's probably never gonna happen, but I never wanted a movie to be remade as much as this one, it had so much potential to be something special.
@@carolkoski4875 same. disney tried to stifle creativity and ended up making something so bad it inspired so much MORE creativity than it wouldve otherwise. doesnt stop them from making money, but it does make me happy to see nobody will ever stop creating, no matter what.
the internet did the same with Varian and the Seven Kingdoms :) i appreciate that things that dont exist or only exist in concept are still getting their flowers!
On a note on 'I'm A Star'... The song gets even worse when you realize that what they are *trying* to achieve with it is foreshadowing that everyone is stardust and thus has wishing-star powers... And not only is the song so bad that that gets completely lost, but it's also literally something that could have been done in about 1-2 lines of dialogue. Have Asha mention how her dad always used to tell her that everyone is made of stardust and then have her figure the meaning out at a crucial moment. Bam. works much better
I also feel like the song kind of misses (or at least undermines) its own joke? Like these animals just gained the ability to talk so of course when they try to explain *the meaning of the universe* it comes out as word salad, har har. But because Disney wants people to listen to it out of context and have it go viral, they play it as (mostly) unironically deep and inspiring instead of comedic. It's like if the Mean Girls musical played "Sexy" as unironically empowering.
@@GapingGorble Also there's an additional level of undermining to it because it's portrayed as if they been able to very well communicate with each other before and know more about stuff than the goat, so they'd know how to speak without forced wordsalad.
OH SO IT WASN'T JUST ME. It hit me when watching this video, the shading and lighting and rendering don't succeed in making the film look 2D but they do make it look _flat._ And not in a good way. It makes the film look cheaper and unfinished.
They wanted to go for a water color look for the movie so they removed the motion blur. The problem is that they didn't replace it with another technique to make the movement look more fluid. Most made for TV animation lacks motion blur because they are usually working on shorter deadlines with less money. Most people associate animation without motion blur with something cheaply made for this specific reason.
@@Owl_BunnyXD yeah and the animation looks better despite being a TV show from 2012 with a much smaller budget. Wish was the big budget 100th anniversary Movie for Disney made in 2023 and has worse animation
A few added thoughts, If you'll indulge me: -Another function of the animal sidekick is to give the lead reason to vocalize their thoughts without talking to themselves, which can function better when the sidekick doesn't talk back. (See: Pascal) -I saw speculation that Star was being primed to be a new mascot for Disney as they lose more and more of Mickey to Public Domain. Disney's held onto the "When you wish upon a star" song for so long, taking a literal wishing star as their mascot makes sense, they've even shown in concept material how the star's expressions were modeled off of classic Mickey. I don't know if I fully believe it, but given the way that the star was originally made to be human-esque and was then mascotified, for lack of a better term, I can see where the belief comes from. -It is SO obvious that At All Costs was meant to be a duet between Asha and Human Star back when that was still a thing and production materials imply that the relationship might even be romantic. -This is the Thanks I Get was 100% released so they could go "We have a villain song this time guys!" Since that's something people have been begging for the return of for years. - While I don't have much hope for Moana 2 knowing that they didn't bring Lin back and knowing the history that it was originally meant to be a Disney+ series, it VERY MUCH worries me that the only music that is in the Moana 2 trailers is from the first film, giving me the impression that they don't have much faith in the sequel's music.
Such a shame that “This Is the Thanks I Get” absolutely doesn’t fit the bill for a Disney villain song. 😂 It’s there on the technicality that a supposed villain sang the song. And that sucks because a title like that would have made for a banger villain song, especially if it were a decent guy enraged that all of his “benevolent efforts” were taken for granted by the ungrateful masses. That’s certainly what it seems the song was going for, but the lyrics and melody do not work at all.
One if the worst things about this film is the bland character design. My 2-year-old daughter LOVES Encanto and when walking in stores will often mistake merchandise featuring Asha with Isabella from Encanto. "Look! Isabella!" It's understandable mistake even for a non-toddler, as they have very similar looks and color scheme. And stores are still crowded with Wish, Raya, and Frozen 2 merch because NOBODY wants it.
Frankly all I have to say about this movie is that at some point a bunch of woodland creatures describe themselves as "shareholders" in a song. I have so many questions about this I don't even care to ask, let alone seek answers for.
Wait, Max, do you know about the original ideas for Wish? It was gonna be 2D animated, Asha was gonna be more reserved and stern, the King AND Queen were gonna be evil with their pet cat Charo, and Star was gonna be a human star prince, he and Asha would've fallen in love, and At All Costs was their song. We almost got a LOVE song!
Tired of Disney always making their female protagonists "adorkable". There's nothing wrong with those personality types but when almost every single main female protagonist from Rapunzel, Anna, Judy, Moana, Raya, Mirabel, and Asha end up landing somewhere on that spectrum, then its clear there is a formula at play, a formula that is growing increasingly tiring. Why are they so opposed to introverted or more serious female leads? Hell, they had Elsa and everyone loved her.
@@Nopeasaurus I think Elsa was carried mostly by her iconic design and song rather than her characterization but you’re absolutely right that we desperately need more variety. I’ve noticed that introverted female protagonists are not that common in general. It’s just much easier for writers to use a character who is more talkative and impulsive to drive the plot forward. I’ve also seen so many people call introverted characters boring that I’m inclined to believe that a considerable amount of people just don’t get introverts.
saeranch, I think that's what they were going for. An stern, introverted Kings apprentice and a goofy, fun-loving, but kind hearted star prince that manages to slowly make her realize that she can have fun every once in a while, and not be so stressed out about everything that happened by herself. I've called the movie version of At All Costs 'The Imposter' and the demo version 'At All Costs' because I REFUSE to call that duet about bubbles (I know they're wishes, but you get what I mean) At All Costs, since it is a LOVE SONG!
@@CapedCrusader77 100% agree, based on their dynamic in the deleted scenes. With more polished lyrics, At All Costs could have been one of Disney’s greatest love songs but they completely wasted its potential by using it in a scene that didn’t do it justice.
I just think Wish (and tbh modern disney as a whole) is a perfect example of what happens when you as a company treat your films as commodities instead of works of art. Its the reason they chose pop artists instead of theartre writers, celebrity casting instead of genuine talent and making stories made to supposedly relate to the widest population possible but in reality there something no one actually asked for
Its interesting. Makes me wonder if there's someway to slightly restructure the economic system, not to remove capital or personal property, but simply to encourage art to be treated as art rather than commodity. Then again, it kind of already is doing that just taking a real long time.
@Yipper64 It's pretty simple, just promote the idea of meritocracy(which is a capitalist concept). I'd argue it's Disney the reson became such a power house in the first place. If any company should take risks to make good art it's Disney as they can afford to do so and will be reward if it's a good choice it's what happened with Encanto or even now with Puss in Boots or Into the Spidervers
@Yipper64 ...you can still do that??? DEI's aren't that influential when it comes to employment its more of a foot note for companies if anything and it also in many way promotes meritocracy as many white people are often chosen over People of colour despite being less qualified. Especially in art, People of colour are kind of the backbone for the industry
my dad walked by as i was watching the part about magnifico's song and when he heard "it feels like a middle-aged man rubbing his hands together and laughing" he started cackling maniacally and yelling about how evil he was
realistically, yes, asking for magnifico to grant wishes you want is in fact selfish. he does it at his own convenience to be sure, but the fact is that you are asking someone else to make something happen for you or someone you know with nothing in return, as opposed to doing something about it yourself - as grandpa does by the end. the entire kingdom seems void of ambition because they’re all just counting on their wish being granted by this ruler, to the point where they just see him as the guy who grants their wishes every once in a while. the entire thing of “just keep wishing” at the end seems like a particular part of that: if you just keep hoping, maybe someday disney will actually listen and make a good movie again. it’s just a whole mantra against putting in effort. yeah, just sit there and do nothing, accept what we’re giving you in the vain hopes that someday it will improve. the truth is, if you want your situation to improve, you need to do something. and in fact that is exactly what asha does, by challenging the status quo of magnifico and in essence taking his place as wishgranter. but then… she just says “oh yeah don’t do what i did to get here lmao”.
It also doesn't help that the "villain" is just an overly generous, traumatised man who spent a lifetime building a thriving kingdom only to be usurped by a child who doesn't understand what a bad wish is. We all know that Rosas won't last a week under it's "Fairy Godmother," but the movie assumes that we've never seen Aladin or Pinochio and the Island of Pleasures (I forgot the title, it's Disney's 2nd movie) and don't understand that we should be careful what we wish for! This movie unironically preaches a message that is completely antithetical to past Disney stories, and even children can't reconcile that.
The fact we were this close to getting an evil Disney couple and they didn’t go with it baffles me, it would have been the first in Disney history and really fun.
My absolute least favorite lyric in this movie is the little friend girl popping up to say "I was sweet but now I'm something else!" I think I literally shouted at the TV, "WHO ARE YOU?" I still don't remember her name and there was zero characterization to show that she was sweet. It was just so incredibly Tell, not Show.
Also, I maintain "At All Costs" could have justified itself if it came back as a Dark Reprise villain song for Magnifico later. It was sitting RIGHT THERE, we didn't need the worst villain song I've ever heard.
@@Mockingdragon I've not watched the movie, only heard the soundtrack, and that's exactly what I thought "At All Costs" was! Some kind of origin song for Magnifico explaining his love for his wife and Rosas, which would then get warped over the course of the movie to explain his villainous motivation. Imagine my surprise in watching this video and finding out that, no, it's a duet with Asha, and Magnifico has no motivation.
Me too. They're so lazy, like I get what they were going for but they didn't put enough effort into it. So instead of looking like a watercolor, it just looks unrendered.
They’re so bad I didn’t even clock them as “watercolors” (they aren't, not at all) 1-they’re too dark. It’s really hard to get darks with watercolors 2-it looks too pristine. Watercolors have splotches and brushstrokes and pigment going over the line Just the main points on why it doesn’t read like watercolors. I saw someone say it looks like a show for disney jr And I have to agree
@@idontneedachannelthanksyou7292 YES THIS! I kept thinking that Wish reminded me of *something* Disney related but I couldn't put my finger on it. It looks like a slightly higher budget Sophia the First!
First time watching Wish I got whiplash from how fast Asha goes from “you are our beloved king and a borderline demigod I’d serve unconditionally” to wanting to rebel and change the whole system. Like there’s not even a song’s length and he barely gets to explain his logic so she can poke holes in it. We don’t know what happened to his family to make home so paranoid but it’s implied to be really violent. Like realistically you can’t be granting vague wishes and if she took slightly longer to think there could’ve been a middle ground option he rejected THEN she’d rebel and he’d fall to dark magic.
The best thing that has happened with wish are the artists out there that were able to draw, animate, and write a million times better (Highly recommend the channel Jonah Who Two who has rewritten a few of the songs)
speaking of merchandise sales: the second week this movie was out there was a huge Wish display at both Walmart, and some dolls in Aldi, all untouched or barely picked at. Meanwhile there was frozen merch that looked like it sold more units.
I work in a grocery store bakery and we have these special designs and kits with edible images and little toys/toppers to put on cakes. We've got a bunch of Disney themed ones (Mickey, princesses, Stitch, etc) and for Wish's release we had a special sign to display that we'd gotten a themed kit for the movie in. I kid you not, since Wish's release we've had 1 ( *ONE* ) order for that kit. The movie's been out for almost a year.
I am SO GLAD the goat wasn’t just my red flag too. The amount of “omg my voice sounds like that?” and butt jokes really gave me some “I’m losing to a BIRD” energy but not as good or memorable.
@@arandomidiot1593 it’s the Jason Alexander gargoyle in Hunchback of Notre Dame but the reason it sticks in a lot of people’s brains so much is because Lindsay Ellis used the clip a LOT in one/some of her videos
Short People is a brilliant song that you would miss if you take it at face value. It's actually a condemnation of bigotry by applying it absurdly to hating short people. Randy Newman's satire can sometimes end up being so subtle that you can't even catch it.
I promise you nimona was better off not being in disneys hands. The amazing stuff you see in the film now would most likely would not have been in it if Disney took control.
probably for the best. If Nimona was under disney's hands it would've looked exactly like wish, and you bet all the queer parts would've been nowhere to be seen
The reason "The Family Madrigal" works while "Welcome to Rosas" doesn't, is because its sung in-character by a character who has a personality. Mirabel is giving exposition about her family and the setting, but she is also acting as the hype-man for the Madrigals, almost like a brand ambassador. She reveals each character's super power, and the kids keep asking what her power is, and she keeps deflecting and diverting praise back to her family. Almost like she is shoving down her own feelings to be a good member of the family and trying too hard to be supportive. Even "We don't talk about bruno" shows the supporting casts personality, with Dolores being secretive and gossipy, Camilo being over the top and dramatic, Felix only caring about Pepa and Pepa only focusing on herself. Songs need to be sung BY a character, not by the writers.
when it cut to the outro and you suddenly had a beard i got scared because i thought you had been replaced by an entirely different man. i have the mind of a very small baby.
I will forever wonder why they didn't also hire LMM to do the music in wish. They didn't even get Alan Menken, a dude who's won them so many Tonys and Oscars before. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot like that?
Scheduling. The answer is scheduling. Wish *had* to come out at Disney's centennial, so the timeline had no room for flexibility. Someone like Lin-Manuel Miranda would require flexibility, since (much like Howard Ashman before him) he's the kind of songwriter that gives feedback and suggestions to the story while it's being written. Julia Michaels seemed like a terrible choice (because it absolutely was), but I can kind of see the logic from an executive's point of view: you want more Billboard Hot 100 hits like Let It Go and viral Tiktok music like We Don't Talk About Bruno, so you hire someone who's written Billboard Hot 100 hits/Tiktok dance music AND is willing to work on a tight deadline. If you get her to write enough catchy hooks, odds are SOMETHING is gonna stick in the audience's heads, right? Right?
I figured it was because LMM was working on other projects at the time like Encanto and then The Little Mermaid live action remake. And Alan Menken was also working on TLM remake. I'm not sure what else they were up to during Wish's 5(?) year production but they most likely didn't have the time to work on it. Also, they both probably would've wanted to be more involved with the story or at least know as much as they possibly could about it to write the music for it. And well... with all the constant changes being made to it, LMM and Menken might've ended up jumping ship.
Imagine being one half of the dynamic duo that basically saved the entire animation department back in the 80s-90s with a film called The Little Mermaid and the company you helped saved DOESNT ask you to help out with their most important film of the century 🫠
7:39 The fact that I saw it in theaters and didn't even know that proves your point even more lmao (aside from my response to "name 3 new characters in Frozen 2" just being "there were new characters???" 💀)
@@VictorianWaistcoat I remember him! He's Pascal's cousin (The design is very similar to Pascal the cameleon from Tangled but he's blue and spits fire. It's cute but not very original!) At least, he is not annoying like Valentino to goat from Wish 😐That animal says nothing funny and an adult's voice coming from a baby goat is weird!
the modern adorkable should be like scott pilgrim characters. very awkward but entertaining and relatable, even in moments that matter so their personalities are cohesive.
I think Disney's complacency falls purely on stagnation due to success. In the early-to-mid 2000s, Disney was struggling because 2D animation was on its way out and 3D animation was becoming more and more viable thanks to DreamWorks and Pixar. Films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet got good reviews but failed financially, Disney was looking to other avenues of revenue while they were working out how to bounce back, one of which was video games. Their Japanese branch was situated in the same building as Squaresoft, and after an elevator pitch, kickstarted a series of games still running to this day. But the funny thing is, Disney invested in the experiment because of how desperate they were for money. They were still cautious in case Kingdom Hearts flopped though, and that's why Mickey barely shows up in the first game. The hard truth is, Disney would NEVER greenlight Kingdom Hearts in 2024.
There’s a reason this quote is a thing: “necessity is the mother of invention”. When you become complacent, that’s when true stagnation and failure rears its head. Great things can come when you experiment with something new, but unfortunately it seems modern Disney can’t grasp that. They’re scared shitless of new things, it seems.
The fact that they deemed the music good enough to be used in the film baffles me. Especially when I think back to the Frozen II documentary and how much they struggled to nail down the right voices and angles, there's a whole section dedicated to all the versions Show Yourself went through. And regardless of one's opinion of that film, the songs are decent.
you know, i was just thinking as i listened to the sounds of the songs themselves that the "Knowing What I Know Now" feels more like a villain song in tone, tempo and lyrics than "This is the Thanks I Get". It's dark, heavy, has bassy percussion and an insistent, scheming feel. Musical Freudian slip?
Consider this: the Anderson-Lopez team who made the music for "Coco" and "Frozen" was supposed to do the music for "Gigantic," a Disney film inspired by "Jack and the Beanstalk" SET IN SPAIN. The film was cancelled...but they never got moved onto "Wish"? I think Disney screwed Julia over anyway, but still!
I think the animal sidekick trope was also a way for Disney characters to have a support system but still be independently driven in their respective journeys. Alot of the Disney classics begin with their protagonist isolated in one way or another; Their support system (family, friends, etc.) may not be able to follow them on their journey, actively ignore or discourage the protagonist wants/needs, or just doesn't exist at all. (Think Hercules, Little Mermaid, Aladdin) An animal sidekick gives that unwavering loyalty and love a pet has while also being personified enough through the animation or voice acting for the protagonist to banter with before they gain other companions. However the sidekicks remain dependent on the main character, so they still have to find their own solutions to problems. The goat feels redundant not only because of the star fitting the role better, but because Asha never fully loses her support system. I agree with what you said about why the star works but the goat doesn't. At some point it occurred to me, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if the unfunny goat scenes were replaced by one of the 7 friends helping her to flesh out both them as characters beyond the dwarf they represent and their bonds with Asha?" I mean you can get rid of 5/7 friends and nothing is lost. I seriously think they only wrote two friends initially and the 7 dwarfs thing was a reference shoe horned in out of obligation, not unlike the terrible, terrible goat.
My pet theory is that Disney absolutely wanted to continue hiring successful Broadway songwriters, but the problem is that right now, the big thing is Hadestown. I can just picture some Disney executive inviting Anais Mitchell to a very nice lunch at a very nice Manhattan restaurant where they pitched an idea for the next family friendly Disney musical hit to the person who wrote Global Warming And The Horrors Of Poverty According To Greek Mythology: The Musical, and she laughed at them and said “no”
00:40 it's literally called program music. That's why the introduction is done that way. The tradition of European Classical music had that as composers pushed the bounds of instrumental music in trying to paint literal images without using words
“Name three new characters from Frozen 2” Uhhhmm the lizard… “Go on I’ll wait” “THE LIZARD??” I genuinely could not get “the lizard” out of my head omg 😭
Omg i forgot about the lizard. My mind went to the bridge people? the 1 soldier guy, the 1 other guy, the leaves & the big giants...or where they trolls?🤔
As a fan of broadway musicals, it pisses me off to no end how horribly Hollywood has treated musicals recently. With Disney hiring pop writers for their musicals, to Wonka intentionally hiding that they're a musical in their marketing because 'Modern audience reacts badly to musical movies'. I'm just done.
Ughhh even hearing a SECOND of that “you’re a star!” song makes my will to live SHRIVEL. I’m glad you knocked that “it’s so bad it’s ai” idea. It always seemed like an odd half-joke that was unaware of its implications.
The closest I can think of explaining the “thank you, I feel seen” joke is that the goat appreciates another non-clothes wearing creature wearing clothes? Which could maybe make sense if the star was another animal? It really doesn’t land
as someone who recently binged starkid's hatchetfield trilogy, I can confidently say that making good musical is possible regardless of what kind of company you are, its just a matter of making the right choices and sticking to them. I also find it kinda fucking astonishing that between a multi billion dollar conglomerate with years of experience in musical theatre and an indie theatre company that started out making harry potter parodies, the latter was the one that made the better quality musical that came out in late 2023 (NPMD)
i dont mean this in a bad way but genuinely i love when you show up with a long ass video months late to the topic..... mean girls now this.... i get to relive the whole thing
The saddest part is that you KNOW that there was a better movie buried in there somewhere. The burnt tapestry that is NEVER EXPLAINED says to me that there was so much more of Magnifico's backstory to uncover and they just completely threw that out, but aLSO didn't have the capacity to change that scene before release, which...is a really bad indicator of what things were like behind the scenes of this film.
I think the best thing to come out of Wish, is all the 'rewriting/redesigning' works artists have been making that shows how much better Wish could have been if Disney....actually cared.
I’m so happy there make be snakes isn’t JUST living rent free in my brain only and that there is a chance when I quote it someone will know wtf I’m talking about
I loved that movie but probably only because I was a child (I’ll still probably defend it if someone comes out to say it’s garbage because it’s probably not)
I was genuinely surpised by this. Do people consider it a bad movie?? I like it a lot. I guess I've never watched it critically, more for simple enjoyment. (Yes, I can only do one at a time. I have a small brain.)
@@SchnortI wouldn’t say Bolt is good but it’s enjoyable, if that makes sense. Things don’t have to be technically good to be likable. But also, a movie that is “bad” in a funny way is much easier to watch than a movie that is “bad” in a fundamental way that ruins even ironic enjoyment. My family loves stuff that is stupid and silly even if the level of artistry or music isn’t 100% on point, but even they couldn’t find a way to liked Wish bc it’s not silly, it just sucks in a depressing way.
31:15 Honestly we know more about Magnifico than Asha and he (in the 1st 20 minutes) a much more relatable character. Then the movie remembered he was supposed to be the bad guy and had to undo it. Terribly
Magnifico was honestly the most relatable character in the movie. Like the whole reason he created Rosas was to protect people due to the PTSD he was suffering. Magnifico then told the people about taking their wishes and they all gave it up willingly knowing the possibility of Magnifico granting it and if he didn't he would then protect the wishes. Which he does up until the book controls him. Magnifico even used the book in the first place as a solution to protect his people. Magnifico is the biggest victim of the movie and he's the villain
21:53 and there's this unexplained idea that maybe.... your wish is part of your soul... but like. It's never fully explained or explored. And its the most interesting idea the film has.
The thing that annoys me most is that there's the hint of a really interesting movie there. Maginifco saying that there would be chaos if everyone just got their wishes, which is true, they could have done a really interesting and poignant tale about how no one can really take your wish away from you and sometime you need to be the magic in the world. But they totally bungled it. You can steal peoples wishes, you just need to free them.
It would be interesting of Magnifico had some kind of backstory where maybe Magnifico is able to grant wishes, as a teen he did so freely, granting everyone's wishes, but one day he granted the wrong wish and it caused his kingdom to be destroyed, as everything went out of control. He managed to make it out alive to start a new kingdom, but from then on he vowed to never lose control again. Leading to him becoming something of a dictator. But then by the end of the movie people kind of make their own magic to overthrow Magnifico as he went too far in the other direction. Something like that im not a writer.
What's also crap... like maybe the guy that is granting wishes should get to decide which wishes he grants? Like... no really, some peoples wishes are a little messed up. Maybe he's.... got *A* point? No? Just gonna be blatantly pointlessly evil because.... of some reason? K...
My take on Wish, keeping in mind that I only know the broad strokes and that it's supposed to be a 100th year anniversary movie: I think that Asha should be competent, good at helping out others in an unobtrusive way, the kind of person who just casually starts cleaning the used dishes when someone is cooking, slotting into the work of others so well most barely notice, always the supporting role, never the lead. She's low energy, not particularly expressive, but always willing to help her family, friends, even strangers on the street, because she feels a sense of loyalty and sincere empathy for the people of her city, even if constantly molding herself to fit into others stories, being selfless all the time, it's left her burnt out and... not quite jaded, so much as wistful, having lost the childish enthusiasm that originally fueled her actions. Her grandfather is going to have a wishing ceremony soon, so a good chunk of the first third of the movie is about prepping for that, specifically showing how she and her mother direct the preparations, and the ways Asha interacts with the townspeople, but mostly with her seven friends, showing each of their relationships with her, how she's helped each of them actualize their passions which now allow them to help with the prep (baking cake, carpentry for repairing tables and chairs, gardening to make bouquets, etc.), and the ways how she still helps each of them with those passions, even in ways that they don't really need her to anymore, each one playfully waving her off to help her next friend after their characters and relationships with her are established. Finally, the wish-taking ceremony happens, and it goes great! Except for the fact that Asha has been so busy, she's barely had the chance to even talk with her grandfather, let alone relax a little during what is supposed to be a celebration. In the aftermath though, Asha is able to meet the royal couple, because her dedication to the town and general competency caught their eye. They take turns explaining more about the wish bubbles and the history of the kingdom, guiding her through the castle with her grandfather's wish in hand, ending with the grand chamber where all the wish bubbles are kept. And then, they drop the bomb; because of reasons that they won't get into, they can't have an heir, and so they want to teach Asha wish magic! How to harvest them, preserve them, keep them safe here in the castle, and learn how to figure out what wishes to grant, and when. Hearing this, looking up at the antechamber filled to the brim with wishes, they reflect like stars in her eyes as, for the first time in what feels like forever to her, she feels this giddy anticipation and energy she can't even explain properly. And, when she looks down at her grandfather's own wish in her hands, she asks if she'd be able to grant his wish with her own two hands. But then the king and queen take the wish from her hands-gently, it must be said-and reprimand her. 'You can't be selfish like that, Asha' they say, 'Bias like that is what could bring the whole system down. You need to be more realistic, if you want to help.' And Asha... agrees. She has always felt the need to be helpful, half because it was what was needed of her in a family still in mourning, and half because she feels like it's expected of her, that being selfish at all would make her a Bad Person. So even as that giddy feeling in her heart withers once more, she meekly nods along, just happy to help. As always. Then, the middle section of the movie. Asha goes to sit on the tree her father used to take her to, to watch the stars and try to settle that quiet ache, not even sure why she feels so bad. This is a good thing right? She'll be able to help the most people this way. So why does it feel like she's barely holding back tears? This could be a good place to put an 'I Want' song, but I think it'd be interesting to make it more of an 'I Can't' song, trying to convince herself that she's on the right path, and that these fanciful wis-dreams, just dreams, that are floating around in her head, that's all they can ever be. Maybe have the last line be a somber toned 'when you wish upon a star...' before trailing off as the little star guy falls down to earth. Star is a little bundle of sunshine, ironically enough, full of a childish, naive optimism that leads to him granting any and every wish he hears, which leads to some fun for us, stressful for Asha moments in the second act, exploring more of the city and having Asha try to pass off these granted wishes as completely mundane, trying to hide the little star. After all, everyone knows that you need to be careful when granting wishes, everyone's heard the fairy tales of wishes gone wrong, monkeys paw twists on good intentions. That's why the king and queen can only grant some of them, right? Except, all these granted wishes... They all tend to work out right? The way the wish happens might be zany, or it might not quite come true in the way you'd expect, but the spirit of the wish is always followed, if not the word. And, somewhere along the line, Asha starts to have... Fun? Obviously it's still bad to have to chase a little magical creature around town, to keep it secret and risk her own hide to do it, but it's all just so whimsical, by the end of the shenanigans she's giggling, relaxed, probably broke into a song and dance number or two, she feels better than she has in a long while. But good times never last, and eventually the both of them are caught granting wishes and brought to the castle. I haven't fully fleshed out how the villain couple would work out, but the general idea is that they have great PR, but they have effectively been farming the populace for wishes, granting the easy and simple ones while building up a stockpile of 'wishes in waiting', the ones that are 'too complicated to grant on a whim'. In reality, they wait for people to get old and infirm or even just die, then harvest their wishes to extend their life, increase their magic power, and prep for their ultimate goal; cresting life, a child of their own where no wish could help them thanks to their own hubris in experimenting with dark magic while they were young and stupid. The touch of dark magic enacts a price, you see, that your own hearts desire be cut off from you, whether you know what it is or not. The star is chock full of pure wish magic, which would make him a perfect ingredient and increase their chances of success dramatically, so obviously they want to take him. But Asha has seen how wishes could work, has started to see the gaps in the royal families arguments, which unravel more and more during their confrontation until she finds out the truth, and that for however much the king and queen espoused selflessness as a virtue, they'd been the most selfish people in the kingdom all along, taking their own short-sightedness out on everyone. However, the royals rock her world with another revelation. Asha wants to be selfish too, doesn't she? And it would be oh-so-easy, too, hasn't she been a tool for others all her life? Wouldn't she like to turn the tables, for once? Even if Asha realizes that there's at least a kernel of truth in there though, she also realizes that if she joined them, she'd just end up as a tool for them instead, so she manages to escape, albeit with star ending up trapped at the castle. The third and final act is about Asha running away, hiding somewhere that she feels safe-under the stargazing tree once more. Maybe there could be another song here, this time about how she does want to be a dreamer, have wishes of her own, to be loud and silly and make mistakes, to mess up and be able to just laugh it off. Then her mother and grandfather, who had been searching for her since she didn't come home when the sun set, join in on the song and sing about how they hadn't realized how much pressure they'd put her under, and all of them grieve the hole in their lives, a missing son, husband and father. Once Asha's had that emotionally charged repairing of family relationships, she talks with them about what had happened that day with the star, about how helpless she feels. Mom and Grandpa look to each other, eyes hardening as they nod, and suddenly things are happening very quickly. Asha's mom gets the gossip vines rustling with news about what's really going on in that castle, and scandal this juicy always travels fast. Grandpa talks to old buddies, veterans, grouchy old prunes, weathered matriarchs and patriarchs to get their wrinkly butts in gear! And her friends help too, gathering the teens of the town, garnering the attention of the different hobbyist groups and Craftsman's guilds they're part of, all to hear the tale of a little wishing star who had spent all day granting wishes, who was about to be used up for their king and queens own goals. And it's overwhelming for Asha, to realize how many people just... Take her at her word, not because of some Disney princess plot armor but because they know her, she can match just about every face to a name, is the kid who raised a village, and now it's time for them to help her realize that it's ok for her to need help, too. This isn't a fairy tale where one girl stops the evil rulers and saves the day all on her own. This is the story of a community standing up for what's right, for Listening when something has gone terribly wrong, and standing up to do something about it. No matter how much magic the king and queen have, they can't stop the whole town coming down on them at once to save the star. And even if they could, where would they get more wishes? And suddenly it becomes very clear that the royals need the citizens, not the other way around. I'm not quite sure how I'd want to end it, and it's getting pretty late, but that's roughly what I'd like to see.
Dude, you mentioned the girl (Asha?) struggling to justify that her wishes weren't selfish, and I was suddenly struck with how awesome it would have been if the surprising twist at the end had been her granting a bunch of wishes, seeing the horrors that follow, and Magnifico saves the day, proving that everyone getting everything they want all the time isn't actually a beautiful thing and his efforts to protect the kingdom from rampant wishes was not only well intended, but actually the right thing to do.
There is something puzzling about the villain. Like he seems genuine in the beginning because he he tells her that he cares about his people but doesn’t explain much about his past in which I was curious about. But then he turns into a narcissist and sings about how good he is. So what are his motivations now? I guess more power but his power is consumed by evil magic when he opens to book. No too mention that the Queen read that book and I was expecting like a true love kiss but no, she just traps him.
One thing I do not understand is why this movie was rushed at all? They knew this milestone was coming for decades. This movie was literally THE generational opportunity. Why wasn't this movie worked on for a decade? Why wasn't it started as soon as the century started? They knew this would be big and important and instead of doing the most obvious slam dunk they could've possibly done, they crunched it for what???
15:55 *You talking about how we learn nothing through the opening number* Me: man skid row was a good opener, establishes the setting, how terrible it is, two of the main characters and their struggles and desires... You: skid row is a great opener Me: 😱 But for real, howard ashman and alan menken, absolute legends
I just realized why Wish’s animation looks so unfinished (along w the complete lack of contrast) - it doesn’t use motion blur NOR does it use smear frames 😐😐😬 ^these are animation techniques to make the motions look a lot more fluid and like how your eye actually perceives motion. motion blur is used in live action and 3D animation, and smear frames are used in 2D. because Wish is trying to be a 2D/3D animation style, the team decided to not use motion blur, but they also didn’t use any smear frames either ???? The more 2D elements (like the Star and magic) seem to use standard smear frames and look really good, but the 3D animated elements (everything else) just looks like it’s been played at the wrong frame rate or something 😭😭😭
I've never seen this movie, only heard the music, and I'm flabbergasted to find out that "At All Costs" is a duet between Magnifico and ASHA. I thought it was an origin song, a duet with his wife, where the two are promising to protect each other and, metaphorically, their beloved city of Rosas. And "I'm a Star" is a bunch of random forest animals, NOT Asha's seven dwarf friends? Those songs seemingly made no sense in their soundtrack placement, but now that I know the context...they make even LESS sense!
Wish is like they remember last minute that their 100 years was coming up and they had to scramble to create a "masterpiece". Like a rush project in school after procrastinating too long. I think that if they really started earlier it would have been so much better.
I think people see Wish as made by AI bc of its lack of depth. AI images, for example, at first glance look like whatever it’s trying to emulate but the second you look closer, think critically, try to understand the inner workings or choices,, it all falls apart. and Wish feels the same way bc it’s only based on the Appearance of a “Classic Disney Musical” rather than the flesh and bones of one
Remember that one scene from "The Lego Movie" where Bad Cop is interrogating Emmet by saying he believes him too while doing sarcastic quotations with his claw hands then proceeding to tell Emmet "You see the quotations I'm making with my claw hands? It means I DON'T believe you!" That's what it feels like Asha is doing when she keeps verbally telling the audience things instead of showing us, like we're stupid and won't get it the first time.
The raspy "this is the thanks i get" at the end of the song is as laughable an attempt to give the villain song a bite to it as when i had a Gallade oc i inverted the colors on and to make him LOOK scarier, i just splashed his mask with blood. It doesnt do anything with the rest of the composition and acts only as a last minute "oh, crap, right. Need to make it evilerererererer"
I enjoy the deconstruction of the whole ‘adorkable’ trope. Makes me wonder how a Disney princess style character could work if they had social anxiety that wasn’t all prettied up. Let them be overwhelmed, give them panic attacks. Why not Also Magnifico is funny cause it’s not even that we don’t know anything about him, but that the little we do know contradicts itself
33:05 okay, counter argument. Encanto is perfect and it's the most fun I've had since Moana and Tangled. I love how the movie focuses mostly on sisterhood and parental misunderstanding. There's no real villain, but there's a lot of tension and trauma that leads to a matriarch making the wrong decision for the rest of her family. I actually can't think of a single other Disney movie in the past decade. That has felt so incredibly magical in the same way. Moana I guess.
Also, Moana didn't really focus on a central villain and was about responsibility And being humbled. I mean as far as Maui is concerned. From Moana it was her realizing the true impact she could have on her people and the path forward. She had to dramatically go against the expectations of her own family in order to truly accomplish what needed to be done. They are both movies that have really great plots surrounding themes and expectations other than villain plots. Perhaps partially Disney has just lost direction on how to do good villain movies. I Like The witch in Tangled and I can't think of much else that comes to that level.
I think convincing someone to give something up under false pretenses counts as stealing. Like, legally. That's like, the definition of fraud. Also there doesn't seem to actually be any option NOT to give up your wish to him. Also no, Magnifico wasn't "right". He had a point in saying that some wishes are too dangerous to be granted, yeah, but one guy with no oversight or accountability definitely should not have the authority to decide which people are and aren't allowed to pursue happiness. We have a word for that in real life, actually, and it's not one with generally good connotations.
@AugustQ-p1w so by that logic, national lottery is illegal too, right? There's no false pretense, people know ceremonies happen and when. so if they don't lack braincells they realize what the chances are. Still, they all sing and dance being happy and excited about it up until the plot suddenly needs them to not be. Also, asha clearly says you "get to" give your wish in a ceremony, not have to, not forced to, she gleefully talks about how "maybe someday" your wish could become true. They are all aware, except the poor writing of the movie ig.
@@WobblesandBean fr like tbh when I heard that Magnifico is just not cut out to be a villain but is actually a really good character, that changed my whole view on how badly they shoehorned him into the role. The movie explains what he went through to want to make a safe haven, and that he doesn't want to grant wishes that may jeopardize that, and like the people aren't even oppressed??? They live happy lives and give him nothing, and they get mad cause he won't give them even more stuff, and he has to struggle against that the entire time
About the romance stuff: Strange World attempted to have a romance, but it was so downplayed & badly-written it came off as a one-sided crush that barely had relevance.
This is the, what, 9th time that Disney's been like "hey this movie's gonna have gay characters in it!!" and it's totally blink-and-you-miss-it so they can edit it out for the foreign releases.
10:38 I know everybody loves to shot on the Gargoyles, but they’re a worthy example of what you’re talking about. They make sense- they’re literally part of the architecture, and they’re functional because they give Quasimodo a sounding board and voice of confidence. They blow the Goat out of the water.
I hate that musicals have just been so neglected recently, people don’t hate musicals, they hate BAD musicals
And the bad ones are the ones that get the spotlight!!! Tick tick boom did not deserve straight to Netflix
Exactly! Also, Disney should understand that people don’t hate original stories (in fact, people would prefer them over sequels and remakes), but people despise bad writing.
Nah, people don't hate bad musicals. They hate bad musicals without a heart.
Source: ratatouille musical
@@Ryzard tru, good source, I also think the same goes for a musical like cats, which people seem to like because it has a lot of heart and meaning in it, despite it being (imo) incredibly terrible and uncomfortable. I can't watch it and I'm not a fan of the music but again, I'm outnumbered lol. Just makes me think of it cause it's a cult classic despite being "bad"
@Ryzard isn't that an independently made musical? I don't think we should be comparing it to big name industry musicals
Wish was literally just the musical embodiment of a checklist
god thats exactly it, isnt it? they had a big anniversary coming up, they looked at all the elements from their past successful films, dumped them into a mixer and poured the resulting sludge out onto a film reel.
THIS
“It’s the definition of a charts movie. It tries so hard to have everything that it ends up having nothing.”
-the art of war
Howard Ashman has a really good quote that I found thru a Sideways video that goes something like “if you can cut out a song in a musical and it still makes sense, you’ve done something wrong”
Heck yeah, Sideways!
Counterargument: "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." You could still tell the story of the musical if you cut out all of the "Ballad" seections, but when Tim Burton did so for his film desecration it completely changed the tenor of the story and took out a good deal of connective tissue.
For anyone that loves musicals and somehow hasn't discovered Sideways yet this is your chance to find your next favorite youtuber (after max ofc)
@@tjenadonn6158that's an example, not a counterexample.
SIDEWAYS MENTION !!!!
The saddest part about Wish is that all the creatives that worked on this movie were SO OBVIOUSLY held back by disney executives telling them what to cut and what would bring most money "according to test groups"
Even Julia Michaels!! I saw an intervew she did talking about how it was to work for disney and she says she had ABOUT 3 WEEKS to deliver each song but only using a cliffnotes version of the script... They didn't even tell her the name of the protagonist, just described Asha as "a young activist that loves her people" After knowing that and seeing scrapped storyboards and animatics of a previous version of wish I feel so sorry for her and everyone who worked on this movie
I remember hearing that, and while I was entirely unsurprised, I do feel very bad. Especially since a lot of the early concepts looked really great!
@@SugarSpice07 The first draft of the film looked spectacular. Asha and her grandfather lived outside the city away from the kingdom to avoid capture, the whole "looking at the stars" thing was wisdom passed down from him to her in a really touching scene, and of course, Starboy.
Then Disney happened and all that good stuff went away.
Okay giving her three weeks for each song and such barebones details is actually criminal, I don’t think even a Broadway writer would be able to make that work!
Disney writers are god's greatest soldiers, I could NOT bear with this amount of disrespect to my craft
I don’t know if Julie Michaels having more time would have helped. Her style just isn’t good for musicals.
Personally my favorite part of Wish's plot is that the main conflict is that a greedy collector is trying to take and seal away the art of a centenarian old man who just wants to make people smile with his art.
So like, it's basically Disney seething that Mickey Mouse is entering the public domain as they turn 100 years old as a company.
yeah how dare asha do that to magnifico
(/j)
see if they’d leaned into that it could’ve been interesting, but no way is Disney gonna criticize itself to that level lol
@@rainydayjules I could see DreamWorks doing this, like how they subverted the "villain sees the light in the hero's eyes and motives" with Puss in Boots 2.
my personal favorite part is that the king was supposed to be a bad person who collects wishes with force and makes people live bad lives but he ended up being the hero who does nothing wrong, helps his people and spoils them but is punished anyway
He wants to inspire people with music by using magic to make it come true instead of working for it himself. Walt used to work for a living, didn't manipulate people to like his art through magic.
first animated black woman lead in 14 years, first black animated woman lead to stay human for the majority of the movie, and yet, she's completely unremarkable, boring, and stale. it feels like disney said "here, are you happy?" and it's lemonade made of piss.
Also, She’s Afro-Latina! So she also put a stain on The Hispanic representation As well. Asha would have been a great character if her motives were better and she didn’t present herself as a Selfish, Annoying Brat that lacks No thinking skills and common sense to those around her whatsoever. Remember, the kingdom is now in jeopardy of bad wishes now all because Asha couldn’t Handel being Told “No”…The Concept Asha was MUCH Better.
@@virtual_fairy also she could have been a princess with a pretty dress. 😭😭😭
And still no black prince/male love interest. None
@@Cheezitnator Doesn't prince Naveen count as black prince and love interest?
@@Cheezitnator Ok no, nevermind, he's transformed for a good part of the movie rip
Interesting thing to note about animal sidekicks- 9 times out of 10 they tend to be character foils to the mc. Think Flounder's cowardice vs Ariel's outgoing exploratory nature, or Pascal being surprisingly stern and down to earth while Rapunzel is very much a head in the clouds kind of gal. Even Abuu, who at first glance seems exactly like Aladdin, is much more greedy and selfish to contrast with Aladdin's generous nature. The goat does not act as a foil to Asha in any way, not just because it was only ever meant to be plushie bait, but in part because Asha's character is as 2d as the movie wants to look.
“Asha's character is as 2D as the movie wants to look”
I love how people are just coming up with so many creative insults for this film lmfao
That’s a fascinating take! I’d never thought of that, but you’re right.
It’s a classic staple of comedy to have “character plus their opposite”. It’s utilized time and time again because it works, when used correctly.
And Ariel has flounder AND Sebastian, both her opposites, in flounders cowardice, and Sebastian’s parental, sometimes overbearing nature, they balance her out and keep her (mostly) out of trouble.
If you want to count princess and the frog, Ray and Louis are very laid back and believe strongly in what seems impossible. Ray is a more obvious foil because he believes more in the power of stars and how real they are than most of the other characters.
Also, princess and the frog is everything wish wanted to be. It already did the wishing on stars thing and it was decided by the end of the movie that you should work hard but still have a touch of wonder and let yourself enjoy life too. It even says in the movie it's not always about what you WANT, what you NEED (spiritually, emotionally) is more important. Wish basically spits on that message.
The worst part is that Disney is going to take these failures as “we need to make more sequels”
They already have. They announced Incredibles 3 (rip Brad Bird's efforts) along with some other soulless sequels
Especially after the success of Inside Out 2, they will think it made money just for being a sequel and not from being a GOOD sequel
@@aynohalopesdealmeida9932 part of the reason I didn't go see Inside Out 2. Not that the lack of my one ticket sale matters.
Pixar keeps kicking Disney's ass when it comes to original movies and sequels but instead of learning from that they get milked dry. I will never forgive what they're doing to Toy Story... @@aynohalopesdealmeida9932
@@aynohalopesdealmeida9932 A part of me regrets going to see it for that reason even though I enjoyed it
You know the last three big disney musicals before Wish did their "obligatory animal sidekick" in a lot more fun ways. Sven wasn't Anna's or Elsa's, he was Kristoph's. the Moana rooster was a bait-and-switch, replacing the obvious and promoted funny-cute-pig with an ugly, unintelligent, borderline detrimental chicken, and that was a good bit. Encanto didn't even have one, unless you count Bruno's rat friends, which would probably be a nice thing to do for the guy.
The Goat is so barebones in the face of this that it's a wonder why they did it outside of Monkey's Paw-ing everyone's complaints; "Oh, 'modern Disney' isn't good enough for you? Fine, HERE'S your CLASSIC Disney!"
You could argue the "side kick" in Encanto, if we must categorize something under that, is Casita itself
i heard the goat was supposed to have a cutesy voice and sound like a child, which i feel wouldve given the character an entirely different vibe
Jolly>>>>>>>>>>Valentino
Heiheis the goat
I love the trope of "dumb guy saves the day by being dumb" and heihei is that trope
@@carolkoski4875It's true, someone uploaded a deleted storyboard where he had a cutesy voice. (He also did more in that 3 minute draft than he did in the whole movie, he stalled Magnifico by pretending to be Star while Star was actually off trying to free the wishes, and called in a bunch of animals to overwhelm Magnifico)
33:44 What's sad is At All Costs had a purpose... as a love song from an earlier draft in the movie. The fact that when that plotline was removed they stuck this song into a completely different scene with the villain is bonkers. Can you imagine moving A Whole New World and now it's Jafar taking Aladdin to the Cave of Wonders or something?
OK, that makes SO much sense. When I got to that part of the movie I thought, "huh, this feels like a love song, and that's weird because they're singing to these wish ball things...?" I legit thought he might try to make a move on her or something at the end LOL
That last part is genuinely the best way to explain why this song feels so weird in this context.
legit imo it feels like those gacha life 1 music videos where gachatubers would get edgy ocs to sing a pop song sung by one singer to serve as a "moving on from my cheater boyfriend" drama story, it's THAT awkward
i like the actual song itself outside of the context, it’s sort of lovely. but in the movie’s context??? it makes no sense. and with the added external context having it be between teenage asha and magnifico just makes it feel so gross
@@oncreativemode5486 oddly specific but okay
It’s actually kind of impressive how even the scenes that are full of people and movement look empty and dead
I saw someone else point out that Rosas look more empty than the plague-ridden streets of Paris in the Hunchback of Notre Dame
The UA-camr *art at midnight* has a great video about why that is! In her video she compares Rosas to Corona, Rapunzel's kingdom. It really opened my eyes about why Rosas felt so empty all the time, even in Welcome to Rosas, when it should feel the most vibrant and lived-in.
It reminded me of Kingdom Hearts cutscenes so many times 😭
Worst part is, the star character was initially designed to be a humanoid prince type character doing a fish out of water bit, and potential love interest for the main character. We could have had a peak Tumblr sexyman
He also would've been a younger version of Asha's grandfather!
Every time we're refused a Tumblr sexyman, an angel loses it's wings
@@SleepyHollow-eu2vl you're referring to hotel Transylvania Dracula arent you
@@sinfulloccultist950 Sony animations have to suffer the consequences of what they did
@@SleepyHollow-eu2vl Bold to assume tumblr couldn’t have sexyman’d the Dracula we got
The other thing that bugs me with characters being “adorkable” for the sake of it is that the behavior the characters are showing should come from someone. Of course rapunzel is awkward and too much, she hasn’t grown up around enough people. Same with Anna to an extent but she’s also coping with hurt of losing her family during formative years (Elsa emotionally from a young age then her parents). These behaviors exist Because of peoples life not because it’s cute to watch and when you take that away this character trope is always going to fall flat.
EXACTLY. Awkward people aren't born awkward, there's a reason behind them. Just like everyone else.
i have my criticisms over moments of mirabel's adorkableness for the sake of it, but the narrative purpose is if she were 100% competent it would make a lower contrast between her capabilities and other family members (especially with the ones without gifts like her grandmother, dad, and uncle)
When you started playing clips from songs, I was like "wow that sounds terrible" and then I realized I was watching it on x1.25, so I slowed it down and wow that still sounds terrible
this is my favorite comment lmaooo
I will never forgive Disney for cutting the adorable romance that could’ve been Asha and Starboy. Also, a king and queen villain couple would’ve been so cool.
True
Let's face it: villain couples kick ass, especially in stories with villain protagonists. Magenta and Riff-Raff from "The Rocky Horror Show," Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett from "Sweeney Todd," Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler from "Better Call Saul:" I mean if you want an iconic king and queen villainous power couple look now further than the titular pair from "Macbeth." It never doesn't work.
@@tjenadonn6158Heinz and Charlene Doofenshmirtz from PnF: back to the 2nd dimension rocked as well lmao
@@tjenadonn6158ROCKY HORROR MY BELOVED
Misconception. The starboard was going to be revealed as the personification of her grandpa's wish. In other words, it's a younger version of him.
Trying to explain the pajama joke.
1. Asha is right and the star DID put on pajamas, the gag is supposed to be that it's strutting and putting on a fashion show with pajamas on + the pajamas are ridiculous and sparkly + it's making silly faces and gestures
2. Goat says thank you I feel seen because goat wears a little jumpsuit/"pajamas" throughout the whole movie, which means he likes pajamas and appreciates when someone else recognizes how great pajamas are
...I think????
that was my interpretation too. the neckline and style of the goat pajamas are similar to the star's ones except theirs are sparkly
I’m crying I thought the joke was that the goat is implying he’s gay (“I feel seen” when star is strutting around in a dress) and I was flabbergasted
@@moonfish3638no i fully thought it was a coming out joke, especially cause asha says “you can come out now”
I swear I always forget Wish even exists. I feel like I get jump scared at the store when I see merch for it like "Oh shit yeah that's a movie that exists"
Oh, "Wish" I remember XD hatewatching is powerful lol.
However I legit think nobody remembers Raya and the Last Dragon
Of course they will forget it. Now that "Inside Out 2" is making the money they thought "Wish" would, they can just ignore it and possibly put out merchandise for the few who would still want it ernestly.
@@mer_acle8101 Except for Lindsey Ellis 💀💀💀
@@mer_acle8101 I dont get why raya is so universaly liked where I live. Everyone loves and recommends it. I watched it and hated it.
Went to CVS the other week and they had a whole shelf of unsold, untouched Wish toys. That was satisfying to see.
You can tell that Welcome to Rosas wanted to be The Family Madrigal so bad, but what made The Family Madrigal so good was that they gave us so much information on the STORY and the characters we’re supposed to care about.
In four minutes (an absolute fricking banger four minutes)we can deduce that the Madrigals are the unofficial head family of the village. They’re the “Amazing Madrigals”, and Antonio’s gift ceremony is a community wide event that kicks off the entire plot.
We can deduce that Abuela is a bit of a severe figure hyperfocused on “the miracle” and serving the community. We learn that her son has been completely excommunicated, and while her daughters are married to sweethearts, their gifts can be a bit burdensome, Pepa’s being “hard to control” and Julieta’s being in high demand. When Mirabel introduces her sisters she says “the beauty and the brawn do no wrong”, implying that *she* does wrong, and she’s the family screwup/scapegoat. “She’s the perfect golden child” lets us know that things are tense bewteeen her and Isabela in particular, and her telling Mariano she’s a “primadonna” lets us know it’s full on hostility. AND this also lets us know that Mariano marrying Isabela will also be something to remember for later in the film.
The way everyone’s color palette lets you know whose kid is whose, and they move in accordance with their personality. Camilo is the goofball shapeshifter, Dolores listens more than she speaks, Augustín is accident prone, which even gives us insight on how he ended up with Julieta.
Then you look at Welcome to Rosas. It doesn’t seem like a particularly tight knit community like the encanto. It’s supposed to be this magical lamd of wishes, but it looks generic. Despite what the lyrics say, there are no “creations on display”. Mirabel sings the opening number as a member of La Familia Madrigal singing her relatives’ praises. Asha is…a tour guide? Like, is she PR? Does she have a W-2 with the palace?
She could’ve easily just been the naive princess singing about how wonderful her kingdom is without knowing about her father’s true intentions with people’s wishes were, but nooooo. That would be compelling. That would be substantial. This film is just EMPTY, my dudes.
Oh look at you, looking straight on and denouncing this movie.
If only there was something like this that happened in Disney’s history that was about people criticizing one thing and com-
You know what, I’ll cut the bullshit.
THIS MOVIE WAS MADE TO BE HATED ON! THIS MOVIE WAS MADE TO EXPOSE THE UGLINESS OF DISNEY’S HISTORY!
SO SHUT UP!
Another thing I've noticed is that Disney only uses one word titles because they want them to become a hashtag. Frozen, Tangled, Moana, Wish. BRING BACK LONGER TITLES, DISNEY!
Yes! Thank you for noticing.
Oof that actually stinks
Though, to be fair, most older titles also were like that
Pinnochio, Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella, Pocahontas, Rescuers, Tarzan, Mulan, Aladdin, and probably more I'm missing (just while writing that Hercules came to mind)
I don't think hashtags were really a thing when Tangled came out though. That movie was originally supposed to just be called "Rapunzel", but they switched to "Tangled" because they were hoping to give the movie more gender neutral appeal.
"The Princess and the Frog" came out just a year before Tangled, and after Tangled we got Wreck-It Ralph
@@Commenter839 might be an unexpected thing where with Tangled and Frozen it became so popular and the names so short the hashtags increased, and they realised short names = more hashtags, so they went with that for the following titres
Kinda how Beauty and the Beast unexpectedly won them an oscar which made them try to replicate it with Pocahontas
long titles or short titles dont matter. good writing and animation does.
Thank you internet for taking all the concept art and behind the scenes and cut ideas and just…making a new version of Wish out of that that is so much better just because you can.
that's something i find beautiful about the internet, how people come together to give back the soul to a piece of art that was washed out by capitalism
Honestly I wish they remade this movie while focusing on more ideas that were scrapped.
@@galantina4086Agreed. It's probably never gonna happen, but I never wanted a movie to be remade as much as this one, it had so much potential to be something special.
@@carolkoski4875 same. disney tried to stifle creativity and ended up making something so bad it inspired so much MORE creativity than it wouldve otherwise. doesnt stop them from making money, but it does make me happy to see nobody will ever stop creating, no matter what.
the internet did the same with Varian and the Seven Kingdoms :) i appreciate that things that dont exist or only exist in concept are still getting their flowers!
On a note on 'I'm A Star'... The song gets even worse when you realize that what they are *trying* to achieve with it is foreshadowing that everyone is stardust and thus has wishing-star powers... And not only is the song so bad that that gets completely lost, but it's also literally something that could have been done in about 1-2 lines of dialogue. Have Asha mention how her dad always used to tell her that everyone is made of stardust and then have her figure the meaning out at a crucial moment. Bam. works much better
I also feel like the song kind of misses (or at least undermines) its own joke? Like these animals just gained the ability to talk so of course when they try to explain *the meaning of the universe* it comes out as word salad, har har. But because Disney wants people to listen to it out of context and have it go viral, they play it as (mostly) unironically deep and inspiring instead of comedic. It's like if the Mean Girls musical played "Sexy" as unironically empowering.
@@GapingGorble Also there's an additional level of undermining to it because it's portrayed as if they been able to very well communicate with each other before and know more about stuff than the goat, so they'd know how to speak without forced wordsalad.
somebody said the art and animation style looked like sophia the first and i can't unsee it anymore
OH SO IT WASN'T JUST ME. It hit me when watching this video, the shading and lighting and rendering don't succeed in making the film look 2D but they do make it look _flat._ And not in a good way. It makes the film look cheaper and unfinished.
At least Sophia as the excuse of being a TV show made in like 2012
Wish is a big budget movie made in 2023
They wanted to go for a water color look for the movie so they removed the motion blur. The problem is that they didn't replace it with another technique to make the movement look more fluid.
Most made for TV animation lacks motion blur because they are usually working on shorter deadlines with less money. Most people associate animation without motion blur with something cheaply made for this specific reason.
Don’t involve poor Sofia , her show is honestly way more entertaining than Wish :/
@@Owl_BunnyXD yeah and the animation looks better despite being a TV show from 2012 with a much smaller budget.
Wish was the big budget 100th anniversary Movie for Disney made in 2023 and has worse animation
A few added thoughts, If you'll indulge me:
-Another function of the animal sidekick is to give the lead reason to vocalize their thoughts without talking to themselves, which can function better when the sidekick doesn't talk back. (See: Pascal)
-I saw speculation that Star was being primed to be a new mascot for Disney as they lose more and more of Mickey to Public Domain. Disney's held onto the "When you wish upon a star" song for so long, taking a literal wishing star as their mascot makes sense, they've even shown in concept material how the star's expressions were modeled off of classic Mickey. I don't know if I fully believe it, but given the way that the star was originally made to be human-esque and was then mascotified, for lack of a better term, I can see where the belief comes from.
-It is SO obvious that At All Costs was meant to be a duet between Asha and Human Star back when that was still a thing and production materials imply that the relationship might even be romantic.
-This is the Thanks I Get was 100% released so they could go "We have a villain song this time guys!" Since that's something people have been begging for the return of for years.
- While I don't have much hope for Moana 2 knowing that they didn't bring Lin back and knowing the history that it was originally meant to be a Disney+ series, it VERY MUCH worries me that the only music that is in the Moana 2 trailers is from the first film, giving me the impression that they don't have much faith in the sequel's music.
Such a shame that “This Is the Thanks I Get” absolutely doesn’t fit the bill for a Disney villain song. 😂 It’s there on the technicality that a supposed villain sang the song. And that sucks because a title like that would have made for a banger villain song, especially if it were a decent guy enraged that all of his “benevolent efforts” were taken for granted by the ungrateful masses. That’s certainly what it seems the song was going for, but the lyrics and melody do not work at all.
I heard the sequel’s music is being written by the artist for the unlicensed Brigerton Musical and I do not have hope.
they did get Lin on board for Moana 2 though! I completely agree with all that you said, especially about the villain song being bare minimum😭😭
@@karathewolfsfanficchannel933 the WHAT
Star being their mascot makes perfect sense- every Disney film starts with that intro with the castle and a _shooting star._ *He's that star.*
One if the worst things about this film is the bland character design. My 2-year-old daughter LOVES Encanto and when walking in stores will often mistake merchandise featuring Asha with Isabella from Encanto. "Look! Isabella!" It's understandable mistake even for a non-toddler, as they have very similar looks and color scheme. And stores are still crowded with Wish, Raya, and Frozen 2 merch because NOBODY wants it.
I made the same mistake while watching Once Upon A Studio and I was 18 at the time
"A middle-aged man scheming and rubbing his hands together in a Kohl's parking lot."
That is a *damn* fine burn.
Frankly all I have to say about this movie is that at some point a bunch of woodland creatures describe themselves as "shareholders" in a song.
I have so many questions about this I don't even care to ask, let alone seek answers for.
@@EvilMastermindOfDoom The shareholders thing was probably the most jarring and disappointing lyric I've ever heard in a song.
Wait, Max, do you know about the original ideas for Wish? It was gonna be 2D animated, Asha was gonna be more reserved and stern, the King AND Queen were gonna be evil with their pet cat Charo, and Star was gonna be a human star prince, he and Asha would've fallen in love, and At All Costs was their song. We almost got a LOVE song!
Ok actually if Wish, even in this current state, was 2D animated I would've found it so much more charming
Tired of Disney always making their female protagonists "adorkable". There's nothing wrong with those personality types but when almost every single main female protagonist from Rapunzel, Anna, Judy, Moana, Raya, Mirabel, and Asha end up landing somewhere on that spectrum, then its clear there is a formula at play, a formula that is growing increasingly tiring. Why are they so opposed to introverted or more serious female leads? Hell, they had Elsa and everyone loved her.
@@Nopeasaurus I think Elsa was carried mostly by her iconic design and song rather than her characterization but you’re absolutely right that we desperately need more variety. I’ve noticed that introverted female protagonists are not that common in general. It’s just much easier for writers to use a character who is more talkative and impulsive to drive the plot forward. I’ve also seen so many people call introverted characters boring that I’m inclined to believe that a considerable amount of people just don’t get introverts.
saeranch, I think that's what they were going for. An stern, introverted Kings apprentice and a goofy, fun-loving, but kind hearted star prince that manages to slowly make her realize that she can have fun every once in a while, and not be so stressed out about everything that happened by herself. I've called the movie version of At All Costs 'The Imposter' and the demo version 'At All Costs' because I REFUSE to call that duet about bubbles (I know they're wishes, but you get what I mean) At All Costs, since it is a LOVE SONG!
@@CapedCrusader77 100% agree, based on their dynamic in the deleted scenes. With more polished lyrics, At All Costs could have been one of Disney’s greatest love songs but they completely wasted its potential by using it in a scene that didn’t do it justice.
I just think Wish (and tbh modern disney as a whole) is a perfect example of what happens when you as a company treat your films as commodities instead of works of art. Its the reason they chose pop artists instead of theartre writers, celebrity casting instead of genuine talent and making stories made to supposedly relate to the widest population possible but in reality there something no one actually asked for
"When you try to reach everyone, you end up reaching no one"
I don't remember who said that, but it's a pretty good line imo
Its interesting. Makes me wonder if there's someway to slightly restructure the economic system, not to remove capital or personal property, but simply to encourage art to be treated as art rather than commodity. Then again, it kind of already is doing that just taking a real long time.
@Yipper64 It's pretty simple, just promote the idea of meritocracy(which is a capitalist concept). I'd argue it's Disney the reson became such a power house in the first place. If any company should take risks to make good art it's Disney as they can afford to do so and will be reward if it's a good choice it's what happened with Encanto or even now with Puss in Boots or Into the Spidervers
@@NotD-kp3by Ah yeah but how do you promote meritocracy when everything is about "DEI"?
The "E" in that acronym being the most blatant problem point.
@Yipper64 ...you can still do that??? DEI's aren't that influential when it comes to employment its more of a foot note for companies if anything and it also in many way promotes meritocracy as many white people are often chosen over People of colour despite being less qualified. Especially in art, People of colour are kind of the backbone for the industry
my dad walked by as i was watching the part about magnifico's song and when he heard "it feels like a middle-aged man rubbing his hands together and laughing" he started cackling maniacally and yelling about how evil he was
Dad move
realistically, yes, asking for magnifico to grant wishes you want is in fact selfish. he does it at his own convenience to be sure, but the fact is that you are asking someone else to make something happen for you or someone you know with nothing in return, as opposed to doing something about it yourself - as grandpa does by the end. the entire kingdom seems void of ambition because they’re all just counting on their wish being granted by this ruler, to the point where they just see him as the guy who grants their wishes every once in a while.
the entire thing of “just keep wishing” at the end seems like a particular part of that: if you just keep hoping, maybe someday disney will actually listen and make a good movie again. it’s just a whole mantra against putting in effort. yeah, just sit there and do nothing, accept what we’re giving you in the vain hopes that someday it will improve.
the truth is, if you want your situation to improve, you need to do something. and in fact that is exactly what asha does, by challenging the status quo of magnifico and in essence taking his place as wishgranter. but then… she just says “oh yeah don’t do what i did to get here lmao”.
It all feels so backwards
It also doesn't help that the "villain" is just an overly generous, traumatised man who spent a lifetime building a thriving kingdom only to be usurped by a child who doesn't understand what a bad wish is. We all know that Rosas won't last a week under it's "Fairy Godmother," but the movie assumes that we've never seen Aladin or Pinochio and the Island of Pleasures (I forgot the title, it's Disney's 2nd movie) and don't understand that we should be careful what we wish for!
This movie unironically preaches a message that is completely antithetical to past Disney stories, and even children can't reconcile that.
The fact we were this close to getting an evil Disney couple and they didn’t go with it baffles me, it would have been the first in Disney history and really fun.
My absolute least favorite lyric in this movie is the little friend girl popping up to say "I was sweet but now I'm something else!"
I think I literally shouted at the TV, "WHO ARE YOU?" I still don't remember her name and there was zero characterization to show that she was sweet. It was just so incredibly Tell, not Show.
Also, I maintain "At All Costs" could have justified itself if it came back as a Dark Reprise villain song for Magnifico later. It was sitting RIGHT THERE, we didn't need the worst villain song I've ever heard.
Bro even the moments where she was on screen you couldn’t get “sweet” from her actions or words lmao
@@Mockingdragon I've not watched the movie, only heard the soundtrack, and that's exactly what I thought "At All Costs" was! Some kind of origin song for Magnifico explaining his love for his wife and Rosas, which would then get warped over the course of the movie to explain his villainous motivation.
Imagine my surprise in watching this video and finding out that, no, it's a duet with Asha, and Magnifico has no motivation.
@@snuffles504 Magnifico does have motivation but it's heroic not villainous, so like why do we have to dislike him lol
One of my least favourite is "Look out world, here I are!" Like... Grammar? Anywhere? PLEASE???
As an artist, the visuals of wish piss me the hell off.
Me too. They're so lazy, like I get what they were going for but they didn't put enough effort into it. So instead of looking like a watercolor, it just looks unrendered.
They’re so bad I didn’t even clock them as “watercolors” (they aren't, not at all)
1-they’re too dark. It’s really hard to get darks with watercolors
2-it looks too pristine. Watercolors have splotches and brushstrokes and pigment going over the line
Just the main points on why it doesn’t read like watercolors. I saw someone say it looks like a show for disney jr And I have to agree
I've developed a major disdain for Jennifer Lee after she bashed traditional animation and said it was limited.
@@idontneedachannelthanksyou7292 YES THIS! I kept thinking that Wish reminded me of *something* Disney related but I couldn't put my finger on it. It looks like a slightly higher budget Sophia the First!
@@MissJasmine305the Sofia the first bit,,,wow you’re right. Which is hilariously sad bc unlike Wish, I at least enjoyed Sofia the First lmao.
First time watching Wish I got whiplash from how fast Asha goes from “you are our beloved king and a borderline demigod I’d serve unconditionally” to wanting to rebel and change the whole system. Like there’s not even a song’s length and he barely gets to explain his logic so she can poke holes in it. We don’t know what happened to his family to make home so paranoid but it’s implied to be really violent. Like realistically you can’t be granting vague wishes and if she took slightly longer to think there could’ve been a middle ground option he rejected THEN she’d rebel and he’d fall to dark magic.
The best thing that has happened with wish are the artists out there that were able to draw, animate, and write a million times better
(Highly recommend the channel Jonah Who Two who has rewritten a few of the songs)
Oh my dog, I love the Jonah's versions!
YESSS JONAH!!
speaking of merchandise sales: the second week this movie was out there was a huge Wish display at both Walmart, and some dolls in Aldi, all untouched or barely picked at. Meanwhile there was frozen merch that looked like it sold more units.
I work in a grocery store bakery and we have these special designs and kits with edible images and little toys/toppers to put on cakes. We've got a bunch of Disney themed ones (Mickey, princesses, Stitch, etc) and for Wish's release we had a special sign to display that we'd gotten a themed kit for the movie in. I kid you not, since Wish's release we've had 1 ( *ONE* ) order for that kit. The movie's been out for almost a year.
How have I not seen an "*I DECIDE* the rate at which lobsters die!" Meme?
@@Ryzard Tmestamp please friend 🙏 it sounds so funny
@@papermr.magolorguy7957 unfortunately it was not in the video, I was just surprised that they didn't think to make it! May need to myself lol
I am SO GLAD the goat wasn’t just my red flag too. The amount of “omg my voice sounds like that?” and butt jokes really gave me some “I’m losing to a BIRD” energy but not as good or memorable.
what's "I'm losing to a BIRD" from again?? it's familiar but I don't remember what movie it was from
@@arandomidiot1593 it’s the Jason Alexander gargoyle in Hunchback of Notre Dame but the reason it sticks in a lot of people’s brains so much is because Lindsay Ellis used the clip a LOT in one/some of her videos
Short People is a brilliant song that you would miss if you take it at face value. It's actually a condemnation of bigotry by applying it absurdly to hating short people. Randy Newman's satire can sometimes end up being so subtle that you can't even catch it.
Remember when Disney passed on the beautiful film Nimona to make…this
I promise you nimona was better off not being in disneys hands. The amazing stuff you see in the film now would most likely would not have been in it if Disney took control.
probably for the best. If Nimona was under disney's hands it would've looked exactly like wish, and you bet all the queer parts would've been nowhere to be seen
Necessary evil. Nimona would have been massacred by Disney's "keep it safe" strategy.
Nimona? Beautiful? I feel like I didn’t watch the same movie
@@whatastandupguy3050 can I ask why you didn’t like it?
i WISH they hadn’t make this movie hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
The original concept was so much better. Disney should've follow the original concept with 2d.
The reason "The Family Madrigal" works while "Welcome to Rosas" doesn't, is because its sung in-character by a character who has a personality. Mirabel is giving exposition about her family and the setting, but she is also acting as the hype-man for the Madrigals, almost like a brand ambassador. She reveals each character's super power, and the kids keep asking what her power is, and she keeps deflecting and diverting praise back to her family. Almost like she is shoving down her own feelings to be a good member of the family and trying too hard to be supportive.
Even "We don't talk about bruno" shows the supporting casts personality, with Dolores being secretive and gossipy, Camilo being over the top and dramatic, Felix only caring about Pepa and Pepa only focusing on herself.
Songs need to be sung BY a character, not by the writers.
when it cut to the outro and you suddenly had a beard i got scared because i thought you had been replaced by an entirely different man. i have the mind of a very small baby.
I will forever wonder why they didn't also hire LMM to do the music in wish. They didn't even get Alan Menken, a dude who's won them so many Tonys and Oscars before. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot like that?
Scheduling. The answer is scheduling. Wish *had* to come out at Disney's centennial, so the timeline had no room for flexibility. Someone like Lin-Manuel Miranda would require flexibility, since (much like Howard Ashman before him) he's the kind of songwriter that gives feedback and suggestions to the story while it's being written. Julia Michaels seemed like a terrible choice (because it absolutely was), but I can kind of see the logic from an executive's point of view: you want more Billboard Hot 100 hits like Let It Go and viral Tiktok music like We Don't Talk About Bruno, so you hire someone who's written Billboard Hot 100 hits/Tiktok dance music AND is willing to work on a tight deadline. If you get her to write enough catchy hooks, odds are SOMETHING is gonna stick in the audience's heads, right? Right?
@@carolkoski4875 To be fair, looking at Little Mermaid and the leaks from the Mufasa movie, it's clear LMM is starting to get burnout
I figured it was because LMM was working on other projects at the time like Encanto and then The Little Mermaid live action remake. And Alan Menken was also working on TLM remake. I'm not sure what else they were up to during Wish's 5(?) year production but they most likely didn't have the time to work on it. Also, they both probably would've wanted to be more involved with the story or at least know as much as they possibly could about it to write the music for it. And well... with all the constant changes being made to it, LMM and Menken might've ended up jumping ship.
Imagine being one half of the dynamic duo that basically saved the entire animation department back in the 80s-90s with a film called The Little Mermaid and the company you helped saved DOESNT ask you to help out with their most important film of the century 🫠
Very simple. Because with all these live-action remakes Disney doesn't give A FUCK about their animation.
7:39 The fact that I saw it in theaters and didn't even know that proves your point even more lmao (aside from my response to "name 3 new characters in Frozen 2" just being "there were new characters???" 💀)
mine was "THE SALAMANDER!!"
Why have new characters when you could have that lil guy
@@VictorianWaistcoat I remember him! He's Pascal's cousin (The design is very similar to Pascal the cameleon from Tangled but he's blue and spits fire. It's cute but not very original!) At least, he is not annoying like Valentino to goat from Wish 😐That animal says nothing funny and an adult's voice coming from a baby goat is weird!
The salamander, Gale the wind spirit, and that water horse.
The only one I know is the new girl who people on tumblr were excited to have to ship with Elsa. Honeydew or something??
@@rainydayjulesHoneymaren
encanto wouldn’t have been as successful without lin manuel miranda, hate that man all you want, but he EATS!!!!
exactly! Wish they had him write the songs for wish
the modern adorkable should be like scott pilgrim characters. very awkward but entertaining and relatable, even in moments that matter so their personalities are cohesive.
I think Disney's complacency falls purely on stagnation due to success.
In the early-to-mid 2000s, Disney was struggling because 2D animation was on its way out and 3D animation was becoming more and more viable thanks to DreamWorks and Pixar. Films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet got good reviews but failed financially, Disney was looking to other avenues of revenue while they were working out how to bounce back, one of which was video games. Their Japanese branch was situated in the same building as Squaresoft, and after an elevator pitch, kickstarted a series of games still running to this day. But the funny thing is, Disney invested in the experiment because of how desperate they were for money. They were still cautious in case Kingdom Hearts flopped though, and that's why Mickey barely shows up in the first game.
The hard truth is, Disney would NEVER greenlight Kingdom Hearts in 2024.
There’s a reason this quote is a thing: “necessity is the mother of invention”. When you become complacent, that’s when true stagnation and failure rears its head. Great things can come when you experiment with something new, but unfortunately it seems modern Disney can’t grasp that. They’re scared shitless of new things, it seems.
It’s sad that their modern desperation just leads to “Make Toy Story 5 and Frozen 3.”
The fact that they deemed the music good enough to be used in the film baffles me. Especially when I think back to the Frozen II documentary and how much they struggled to nail down the right voices and angles, there's a whole section dedicated to all the versions Show Yourself went through. And regardless of one's opinion of that film, the songs are decent.
you know, i was just thinking as i listened to the sounds of the songs themselves that the "Knowing What I Know Now" feels more like a villain song in tone, tempo and lyrics than "This is the Thanks I Get". It's dark, heavy, has bassy percussion and an insistent, scheming feel. Musical Freudian slip?
Consider this: the Anderson-Lopez team who made the music for "Coco" and "Frozen" was supposed to do the music for "Gigantic," a Disney film inspired by "Jack and the Beanstalk" SET IN SPAIN. The film was cancelled...but they never got moved onto "Wish"? I think Disney screwed Julia over anyway, but still!
I think the animal sidekick trope was also a way for Disney characters to have a support system but still be independently driven in their respective journeys.
Alot of the Disney classics begin with their protagonist isolated in one way or another; Their support system (family, friends, etc.) may not be able to follow them on their journey, actively ignore or discourage the protagonist wants/needs, or just doesn't exist at all. (Think Hercules, Little Mermaid, Aladdin) An animal sidekick gives that unwavering loyalty and love a pet has while also being personified enough through the animation or voice acting for the protagonist to banter with before they gain other companions. However the sidekicks remain dependent on the main character, so they still have to find their own solutions to problems. The goat feels redundant not only because of the star fitting the role better, but because Asha never fully loses her support system.
I agree with what you said about why the star works but the goat doesn't. At some point it occurred to me, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if the unfunny goat scenes were replaced by one of the 7 friends helping her to flesh out both them as characters beyond the dwarf they represent and their bonds with Asha?" I mean you can get rid of 5/7 friends and nothing is lost. I seriously think they only wrote two friends initially and the 7 dwarfs thing was a reference shoe horned in out of obligation, not unlike the terrible, terrible goat.
My pet theory is that Disney absolutely wanted to continue hiring successful Broadway songwriters, but the problem is that right now, the big thing is Hadestown. I can just picture some Disney executive inviting Anais Mitchell to a very nice lunch at a very nice Manhattan restaurant where they pitched an idea for the next family friendly Disney musical hit to the person who wrote Global Warming And The Horrors Of Poverty According To Greek Mythology: The Musical, and she laughed at them and said “no”
00:40 it's literally called program music. That's why the introduction is done that way. The tradition of European Classical music had that as composers pushed the bounds of instrumental music in trying to paint literal images without using words
“Name three new characters from Frozen 2”
Uhhhmm the lizard…
“Go on I’ll wait”
“THE LIZARD??”
I genuinely could not get “the lizard” out of my head omg 😭
Omg i forgot about the lizard. My mind went to the bridge people? the 1 soldier guy, the 1 other guy, the leaves & the big giants...or where they trolls?🤔
As a fan of broadway musicals, it pisses me off to no end how horribly Hollywood has treated musicals recently. With Disney hiring pop writers for their musicals, to Wonka intentionally hiding that they're a musical in their marketing because 'Modern audience reacts badly to musical movies'. I'm just done.
this reminds me of the time where i was trapped in a disney movie
Please drop new hamburger review pleaaaaaeeese🙏🏻
@@maxwellgreenee only if you feature in it
I’d be honored
Some shit Peter would say to lead to a Family Guy cutaway
Ughhh even hearing a SECOND of that “you’re a star!” song makes my will to live SHRIVEL.
I’m glad you knocked that “it’s so bad it’s ai” idea. It always seemed like an odd half-joke that was unaware of its implications.
The closest I can think of explaining the “thank you, I feel seen” joke is that the goat appreciates another non-clothes wearing creature wearing clothes? Which could maybe make sense if the star was another animal? It really doesn’t land
as someone who recently binged starkid's hatchetfield trilogy, I can confidently say that making good musical is possible regardless of what kind of company you are, its just a matter of making the right choices and sticking to them.
I also find it kinda fucking astonishing that between a multi billion dollar conglomerate with years of experience in musical theatre and an indie theatre company that started out making harry potter parodies, the latter was the one that made the better quality musical that came out in late 2023 (NPMD)
i mean , hell!!! even starkids Twisted was better than an official Disney production
NPMD MY BELOVED!!!
disney's next villain needs to take notes from the lords in black
@@AYWYC for realllll omg
i roar and you cry
i was 100% sure you had already made a video about this. glad to be proven wrong!
Disney probably forgot that Alan menken is still alive
Max, I beg you make a whole video about Bambi because none of my friends understand it and think its boring
i dont mean this in a bad way but genuinely i love when you show up with a long ass video months late to the topic..... mean girls now this.... i get to relive the whole thing
Star Boy would be so cool as a Disney Prince! I hope to dress up for him (or rather his concept art) for Halloween!! ❤️
The saddest part is that you KNOW that there was a better movie buried in there somewhere. The burnt tapestry that is NEVER EXPLAINED says to me that there was so much more of Magnifico's backstory to uncover and they just completely threw that out, but aLSO didn't have the capacity to change that scene before release, which...is a really bad indicator of what things were like behind the scenes of this film.
I think the best thing to come out of Wish, is all the 'rewriting/redesigning' works artists have been making that shows how much better Wish could have been if Disney....actually cared.
I'm so YT brain rotted everytime I see your 'they might be giants' poster I think 'there make be snakes'
I’m so happy there make be snakes isn’t JUST living rent free in my brain only and that there is a chance when I quote it someone will know wtf I’m talking about
A veritable dervish!
4 minutes in and we're swinging at bolt, i see how it is, okay, okay
I loved that movie but probably only because I was a child (I’ll still probably defend it if someone comes out to say it’s garbage because it’s probably not)
I was genuinely surpised by this. Do people consider it a bad movie?? I like it a lot. I guess I've never watched it critically, more for simple enjoyment. (Yes, I can only do one at a time. I have a small brain.)
@@Schnort I remember seeing a video that "Bolt" is a brilliant critique on how Hollywood works (i.e. it sucks)
and also The Rescuers slander??
@@SchnortI wouldn’t say Bolt is good but it’s enjoyable, if that makes sense. Things don’t have to be technically good to be likable. But also, a movie that is “bad” in a funny way is much easier to watch than a movie that is “bad” in a fundamental way that ruins even ironic enjoyment. My family loves stuff that is stupid and silly even if the level of artistry or music isn’t 100% on point, but even they couldn’t find a way to liked Wish bc it’s not silly, it just sucks in a depressing way.
31:15
Honestly we know more about Magnifico than Asha and he (in the 1st 20 minutes) a much more relatable character.
Then the movie remembered he was supposed to be the bad guy and had to undo it.
Terribly
Magnifico was honestly the most relatable character in the movie. Like the whole reason he created Rosas was to protect people due to the PTSD he was suffering. Magnifico then told the people about taking their wishes and they all gave it up willingly knowing the possibility of Magnifico granting it and if he didn't he would then protect the wishes. Which he does up until the book controls him. Magnifico even used the book in the first place as a solution to protect his people. Magnifico is the biggest victim of the movie and he's the villain
21:53 and there's this unexplained idea that maybe.... your wish is part of your soul... but like. It's never fully explained or explored. And its the most interesting idea the film has.
This film just screams "we forgot about our upcoming anniversary until not enough time was left to make a movie". Great coverage!
The thing that annoys me most is that there's the hint of a really interesting movie there. Maginifco saying that there would be chaos if everyone just got their wishes, which is true, they could have done a really interesting and poignant tale about how no one can really take your wish away from you and sometime you need to be the magic in the world. But they totally bungled it. You can steal peoples wishes, you just need to free them.
It would be interesting of Magnifico had some kind of backstory where maybe Magnifico is able to grant wishes, as a teen he did so freely, granting everyone's wishes, but one day he granted the wrong wish and it caused his kingdom to be destroyed, as everything went out of control. He managed to make it out alive to start a new kingdom, but from then on he vowed to never lose control again. Leading to him becoming something of a dictator.
But then by the end of the movie people kind of make their own magic to overthrow Magnifico as he went too far in the other direction.
Something like that im not a writer.
Hey! Bolts my favourite movie, I watched it every day in the hospital and it saved my life!
Bolt is a wonderful movie!
The live action remakes and Frozen 2 taught Disney that they don't have to try. And so they stopped trying.
That's been a lesson learned since the direct to video remakes over a decade ago.
What's also crap... like maybe the guy that is granting wishes should get to decide which wishes he grants? Like... no really, some peoples wishes are a little messed up. Maybe he's.... got *A* point? No? Just gonna be blatantly pointlessly evil because.... of some reason? K...
"This total Melvin"
My take on Wish, keeping in mind that I only know the broad strokes and that it's supposed to be a 100th year anniversary movie:
I think that Asha should be competent, good at helping out others in an unobtrusive way, the kind of person who just casually starts cleaning the used dishes when someone is cooking, slotting into the work of others so well most barely notice, always the supporting role, never the lead. She's low energy, not particularly expressive, but always willing to help her family, friends, even strangers on the street, because she feels a sense of loyalty and sincere empathy for the people of her city, even if constantly molding herself to fit into others stories, being selfless all the time, it's left her burnt out and... not quite jaded, so much as wistful, having lost the childish enthusiasm that originally fueled her actions.
Her grandfather is going to have a wishing ceremony soon, so a good chunk of the first third of the movie is about prepping for that, specifically showing how she and her mother direct the preparations, and the ways Asha interacts with the townspeople, but mostly with her seven friends, showing each of their relationships with her, how she's helped each of them actualize their passions which now allow them to help with the prep (baking cake, carpentry for repairing tables and chairs, gardening to make bouquets, etc.), and the ways how she still helps each of them with those passions, even in ways that they don't really need her to anymore, each one playfully waving her off to help her next friend after their characters and relationships with her are established.
Finally, the wish-taking ceremony happens, and it goes great! Except for the fact that Asha has been so busy, she's barely had the chance to even talk with her grandfather, let alone relax a little during what is supposed to be a celebration. In the aftermath though, Asha is able to meet the royal couple, because her dedication to the town and general competency caught their eye. They take turns explaining more about the wish bubbles and the history of the kingdom, guiding her through the castle with her grandfather's wish in hand, ending with the grand chamber where all the wish bubbles are kept.
And then, they drop the bomb; because of reasons that they won't get into, they can't have an heir, and so they want to teach Asha wish magic! How to harvest them, preserve them, keep them safe here in the castle, and learn how to figure out what wishes to grant, and when.
Hearing this, looking up at the antechamber filled to the brim with wishes, they reflect like stars in her eyes as, for the first time in what feels like forever to her, she feels this giddy anticipation and energy she can't even explain properly. And, when she looks down at her grandfather's own wish in her hands, she asks if she'd be able to grant his wish with her own two hands.
But then the king and queen take the wish from her hands-gently, it must be said-and reprimand her. 'You can't be selfish like that, Asha' they say, 'Bias like that is what could bring the whole system down. You need to be more realistic, if you want to help.'
And Asha... agrees. She has always felt the need to be helpful, half because it was what was needed of her in a family still in mourning, and half because she feels like it's expected of her, that being selfish at all would make her a Bad Person. So even as that giddy feeling in her heart withers once more, she meekly nods along, just happy to help. As always.
Then, the middle section of the movie. Asha goes to sit on the tree her father used to take her to, to watch the stars and try to settle that quiet ache, not even sure why she feels so bad. This is a good thing right? She'll be able to help the most people this way. So why does it feel like she's barely holding back tears? This could be a good place to put an 'I Want' song, but I think it'd be interesting to make it more of an 'I Can't' song, trying to convince herself that she's on the right path, and that these fanciful wis-dreams, just dreams, that are floating around in her head, that's all they can ever be. Maybe have the last line be a somber toned 'when you wish upon a star...' before trailing off as the little star guy falls down to earth.
Star is a little bundle of sunshine, ironically enough, full of a childish, naive optimism that leads to him granting any and every wish he hears, which leads to some fun for us, stressful for Asha moments in the second act, exploring more of the city and having Asha try to pass off these granted wishes as completely mundane, trying to hide the little star. After all, everyone knows that you need to be careful when granting wishes, everyone's heard the fairy tales of wishes gone wrong, monkeys paw twists on good intentions. That's why the king and queen can only grant some of them, right?
Except, all these granted wishes... They all tend to work out right? The way the wish happens might be zany, or it might not quite come true in the way you'd expect, but the spirit of the wish is always followed, if not the word.
And, somewhere along the line, Asha starts to have... Fun? Obviously it's still bad to have to chase a little magical creature around town, to keep it secret and risk her own hide to do it, but it's all just so whimsical, by the end of the shenanigans she's giggling, relaxed, probably broke into a song and dance number or two, she feels better than she has in a long while. But good times never last, and eventually the both of them are caught granting wishes and brought to the castle.
I haven't fully fleshed out how the villain couple would work out, but the general idea is that they have great PR, but they have effectively been farming the populace for wishes, granting the easy and simple ones while building up a stockpile of 'wishes in waiting', the ones that are 'too complicated to grant on a whim'. In reality, they wait for people to get old and infirm or even just die, then harvest their wishes to extend their life, increase their magic power, and prep for their ultimate goal; cresting life, a child of their own where no wish could help them thanks to their own hubris in experimenting with dark magic while they were young and stupid. The touch of dark magic enacts a price, you see, that your own hearts desire be cut off from you, whether you know what it is or not.
The star is chock full of pure wish magic, which would make him a perfect ingredient and increase their chances of success dramatically, so obviously they want to take him. But Asha has seen how wishes could work, has started to see the gaps in the royal families arguments, which unravel more and more during their confrontation until she finds out the truth, and that for however much the king and queen espoused selflessness as a virtue, they'd been the most selfish people in the kingdom all along, taking their own short-sightedness out on everyone.
However, the royals rock her world with another revelation. Asha wants to be selfish too, doesn't she? And it would be oh-so-easy, too, hasn't she been a tool for others all her life? Wouldn't she like to turn the tables, for once?
Even if Asha realizes that there's at least a kernel of truth in there though, she also realizes that if she joined them, she'd just end up as a tool for them instead, so she manages to escape, albeit with star ending up trapped at the castle.
The third and final act is about Asha running away, hiding somewhere that she feels safe-under the stargazing tree once more. Maybe there could be another song here, this time about how she does want to be a dreamer, have wishes of her own, to be loud and silly and make mistakes, to mess up and be able to just laugh it off.
Then her mother and grandfather, who had been searching for her since she didn't come home when the sun set, join in on the song and sing about how they hadn't realized how much pressure they'd put her under, and all of them grieve the hole in their lives, a missing son, husband and father.
Once Asha's had that emotionally charged repairing of family relationships, she talks with them about what had happened that day with the star, about how helpless she feels.
Mom and Grandpa look to each other, eyes hardening as they nod, and suddenly things are happening very quickly. Asha's mom gets the gossip vines rustling with news about what's really going on in that castle, and scandal this juicy always travels fast. Grandpa talks to old buddies, veterans, grouchy old prunes, weathered matriarchs and patriarchs to get their wrinkly butts in gear! And her friends help too, gathering the teens of the town, garnering the attention of the different hobbyist groups and Craftsman's guilds they're part of, all to hear the tale of a little wishing star who had spent all day granting wishes, who was about to be used up for their king and queens own goals.
And it's overwhelming for Asha, to realize how many people just... Take her at her word, not because of some Disney princess plot armor but because they know her, she can match just about every face to a name, is the kid who raised a village, and now it's time for them to help her realize that it's ok for her to need help, too.
This isn't a fairy tale where one girl stops the evil rulers and saves the day all on her own. This is the story of a community standing up for what's right, for Listening when something has gone terribly wrong, and standing up to do something about it. No matter how much magic the king and queen have, they can't stop the whole town coming down on them at once to save the star. And even if they could, where would they get more wishes? And suddenly it becomes very clear that the royals need the citizens, not the other way around.
I'm not quite sure how I'd want to end it, and it's getting pretty late, but that's roughly what I'd like to see.
I got so unnecessarily excited when you mentioned Skid Row, I love that song.
Dude, you mentioned the girl (Asha?) struggling to justify that her wishes weren't selfish, and I was suddenly struck with how awesome it would have been if the surprising twist at the end had been her granting a bunch of wishes, seeing the horrors that follow, and Magnifico saves the day, proving that everyone getting everything they want all the time isn't actually a beautiful thing and his efforts to protect the kingdom from rampant wishes was not only well intended, but actually the right thing to do.
Rapunzel's sidekick even killed the villain
There is something puzzling about the villain. Like he seems genuine in the beginning because he he tells her that he cares about his people but doesn’t explain much about his past in which I was curious about. But then he turns into a narcissist and sings about how good he is. So what are his motivations now? I guess more power but his power is consumed by evil magic when he opens to book. No too mention that the Queen read that book and I was expecting like a true love kiss but no, she just traps him.
true loves kiss would be too heteronormative for modern disney.
One thing I do not understand is why this movie was rushed at all? They knew this milestone was coming for decades. This movie was literally THE generational opportunity. Why wasn't this movie worked on for a decade? Why wasn't it started as soon as the century started? They knew this would be big and important and instead of doing the most obvious slam dunk they could've possibly done, they crunched it for what???
15:55
*You talking about how we learn nothing through the opening number*
Me: man skid row was a good opener, establishes the setting, how terrible it is, two of the main characters and their struggles and desires...
You: skid row is a great opener
Me: 😱
But for real, howard ashman and alan menken, absolute legends
I just realized why Wish’s animation looks so unfinished (along w the complete lack of contrast) - it doesn’t use motion blur NOR does it use smear frames 😐😐😬
^these are animation techniques to make the motions look a lot more fluid and like how your eye actually perceives motion. motion blur is used in live action and 3D animation, and smear frames are used in 2D. because Wish is trying to be a 2D/3D animation style, the team decided to not use motion blur, but they also didn’t use any smear frames either ???? The more 2D elements (like the Star and magic) seem to use standard smear frames and look really good, but the 3D animated elements (everything else) just looks like it’s been played at the wrong frame rate or something 😭😭😭
I've never seen this movie, only heard the music, and I'm flabbergasted to find out that "At All Costs" is a duet between Magnifico and ASHA. I thought it was an origin song, a duet with his wife, where the two are promising to protect each other and, metaphorically, their beloved city of Rosas.
And "I'm a Star" is a bunch of random forest animals, NOT Asha's seven dwarf friends?
Those songs seemingly made no sense in their soundtrack placement, but now that I know the context...they make even LESS sense!
Wish is like they remember last minute that their 100 years was coming up and they had to scramble to create a "masterpiece". Like a rush project in school after procrastinating too long. I think that if they really started earlier it would have been so much better.
I think people see Wish as made by AI bc of its lack of depth. AI images, for example, at first glance look like whatever it’s trying to emulate but the second you look closer, think critically, try to understand the inner workings or choices,, it all falls apart. and Wish feels the same way bc it’s only based on the Appearance of a “Classic Disney Musical” rather than the flesh and bones of one
Remember that one scene from "The Lego Movie" where Bad Cop is interrogating Emmet by saying he believes him too while doing sarcastic quotations with his claw hands then proceeding to tell Emmet "You see the quotations I'm making with my claw hands? It means I DON'T believe you!"
That's what it feels like Asha is doing when she keeps verbally telling the audience things instead of showing us, like we're stupid and won't get it the first time.
The raspy "this is the thanks i get" at the end of the song is as laughable an attempt to give the villain song a bite to it as when i had a Gallade oc i inverted the colors on and to make him LOOK scarier, i just splashed his mask with blood. It doesnt do anything with the rest of the composition and acts only as a last minute "oh, crap, right. Need to make it evilerererererer"
I enjoy the deconstruction of the whole ‘adorkable’ trope. Makes me wonder how a Disney princess style character could work if they had social anxiety that wasn’t all prettied up. Let them be overwhelmed, give them panic attacks. Why not
Also Magnifico is funny cause it’s not even that we don’t know anything about him, but that the little we do know contradicts itself
50:37 oh my god it took me a second. all of his magic! combined! all of them! all the magics, combined!!!
33:05 okay, counter argument. Encanto is perfect and it's the most fun I've had since Moana and Tangled. I love how the movie focuses mostly on sisterhood and parental misunderstanding. There's no real villain, but there's a lot of tension and trauma that leads to a matriarch making the wrong decision for the rest of her family. I actually can't think of a single other Disney movie in the past decade. That has felt so incredibly magical in the same way. Moana I guess.
Also, Moana didn't really focus on a central villain and was about responsibility And being humbled. I mean as far as Maui is concerned. From Moana it was her realizing the true impact she could have on her people and the path forward. She had to dramatically go against the expectations of her own family in order to truly accomplish what needed to be done. They are both movies that have really great plots surrounding themes and expectations other than villain plots. Perhaps partially Disney has just lost direction on how to do good villain movies. I Like The witch in Tangled and I can't think of much else that comes to that level.
can't pay attention to the essay, too distracted by background oshawott
More invested in this comment than in the movie
Star works because he’s basically a Luma, and lumas are a great and cute design
nice video, one thing did keep bothering me: you say magnifico steals the wishes when it's literally mentioned many times they give them willingly
This. Plus, Magnifico was right all along.
@@WobblesandBean 100%
I think convincing someone to give something up under false pretenses counts as stealing. Like, legally. That's like, the definition of fraud. Also there doesn't seem to actually be any option NOT to give up your wish to him. Also no, Magnifico wasn't "right". He had a point in saying that some wishes are too dangerous to be granted, yeah, but one guy with no oversight or accountability definitely should not have the authority to decide which people are and aren't allowed to pursue happiness. We have a word for that in real life, actually, and it's not one with generally good connotations.
@AugustQ-p1w so by that logic, national lottery is illegal too, right?
There's no false pretense, people know ceremonies happen and when. so if they don't lack braincells they realize what the chances are.
Still, they all sing and dance being happy and excited about it up until the plot suddenly needs them to not be.
Also, asha clearly says you "get to" give your wish in a ceremony, not have to, not forced to, she gleefully talks about how "maybe someday" your wish could become true. They are all aware, except the poor writing of the movie ig.
@@WobblesandBean fr like tbh when I heard that Magnifico is just not cut out to be a villain but is actually a really good character, that changed my whole view on how badly they shoehorned him into the role. The movie explains what he went through to want to make a safe haven, and that he doesn't want to grant wishes that may jeopardize that, and like the people aren't even oppressed??? They live happy lives and give him nothing, and they get mad cause he won't give them even more stuff, and he has to struggle against that the entire time
"..and it's had some absolute stinkers" whilst showing one of my favourates hurt to see.
Yeah, rescuers didnt deserve that!
About the romance stuff: Strange World attempted to have a romance, but it was so downplayed & badly-written it came off as a one-sided crush that barely had relevance.
and was gay.
@@Yipper64
Yeah, some people automatically discount homosexual romances.
This is the, what, 9th time that Disney's been like "hey this movie's gonna have gay characters in it!!" and it's totally blink-and-you-miss-it so they can edit it out for the foreign releases.
that clip from that Cinderella movie is the worst thing ive ever seen in my life thank you
10:38 I know everybody loves to shot on the Gargoyles, but they’re a worthy example of what you’re talking about.
They make sense- they’re literally part of the architecture, and they’re functional because they give Quasimodo a sounding board and voice of confidence. They blow the Goat out of the water.