I started this a few days back, and in my rare spare moments returned to the open laptop tab to keep my thoughts going (not unlike my mother's letters, I suppose). I didn't particularly like this movie, but I also don't have the hate-on for this movie. And, I didn't mean for this to turn into a treatise...but here we are.
I finally sat and watched Disney's most recent original story Wish from start to finish. And, since the kids put on Moana 2 while I did kitchen work, we finally caught up to the current time with the Disney animated feature cannon.
It seems to be popular to rip Wish online, and probably in person, too, but I don't spend time talking about these Disney movies to people unrelated to me. Some people like the songs; some people hate the songs...
Wish was written by the Boss-lady of Animation as a celebration of the Disney cannon, and as possibly a wish-upon-a-star origin story...and if that sounds preposterous, it's because it kinda is.
When I first saw the trailer, I thought the animation of the Alan Tudyk-voiced baby goat (snort)(that's a plus for me) looking 2D while everything else looked 3D...or a mix...?...anyway, I thought it was interesting. I wasn't immediately turned off. If they're trying to celebrate the centennial legacy, a mix of 2D and 3D animation wasn't a terrible idea.
Okay...Rosas is the name of the Mediterranean island kingdom in the movie, and Asha, the heroine, is of Afro-Iberian heritage, marking a first for the studio. She has fair skin, freckles, hazel eyes, and long braids. She's 17 years old and has an interview set up to apprentice with the magical king, Magnifico. This king is voiced by Chris Pine because they needed someone charming and personable, because he's certainly a little off, but it needs to be believable that he could be put in power.
So...so far so good?
Now it starts to go sideways. The magical conceit/magical currency are wishes, core pieces/spiritual fire/manifestations of dreams/whatever you want to call it---your spark, your inner fire, your wish---and once you turn 18 you can hand it over to Magnifico for safe keeping. He'll pull it out of you, where it gets encased in glass, and floats up to join the other wishes he cares for and watches over in the upper levels of the castle. In exchange for handing over your wish, you get to forget what it was, and forget the possible disappointment of never achieving it. Every once in a while, he'll grant a wish, give someone the chance to have their wish granted, and this wish-granting ceremony is what keeps the people excited about this arrangement...I guess...
While handing over your wish doesn't seem mandatory, it seems like everyone in Rosas, once of age, does it.
And because Magnifico is...not infallible, he decides which wishes are best for Rosas, and the granting of which wishes becomes an issue, because some wishes are deemed too dangerous for Rosas as a whole. Instead of "redistribution of wishes," think more "wants to play guitar for friends." This is where Magnifico's slip shows. The issue is both deep and creepy.
It's this central conflict that I think people complain about when they set up shop of "Eff-Wish Island." It's...weird.
Something else to mention is that the stakes are, frankly, very low. Asha wants to save her grandpa's wish, and her mom's wish. She's not trying to save the world, or stop an evil king---even if it goes in that direction eventually---her motivation is to make her mom and grandpa happier, since giving up your wish has the unintended consequence of you feeling a bit lost.
There are no love interests for Asha---cool, no problems there, since we have Elsa and Vanellope and Moana and Maribel in the same boat---but her friend list is long, as we essentially don't get to know them. There are seven of them---shout out to Snow White---and while there's potential there, the execution of getting to know them falls short.
One spot the online community was divided on was the music. Some people love the main song and sang it to their newborns (per their own reportage). Some people think the songs are garbage because they're too vague because they were written before the script was done. I thought (1) there were too many songs, but I generally don't like musicals so there's a bias (it did feel like there were a lot); and (2) I couldn't make out the words, so I couldn't tell how generic they were, but I generally struggle with making out the words as it is anyway, so, whatever.
I guess that animation deal---the mix of 2D and 3D animation styles---was not a conscious decision as much as a fight between timing and cost and animation department personnel, which sounds like a "production from hell" issue.
One idea I also wanted to state, and that I told Corrie about when we talked about it, was that in my time working with teenagers, the teenagers by and large would have very little grasp on a dream or a wish or an inner fire that stokes your spirit, a wish to be able to give up for safe keeping once the age of 18 is reached. I think that the belief of the movie, or its writers---that the connection of your dreams/wishes to your drive to be successful---is lost on the core audience.
The teens I know would not be able to identify with this idea, and won't be able to for a few more years at least. A certain level of maturity is needed to to feel deeply the connection between what drives you and how meaningful it is. Who are you? What do you want to do in this world? How can you get there? How can you motivate yourself to keep the sustained effort needed for that? These teenagers would struggle with every aspect of each of those questions.
In the end, Magnifico realizes what kind of power he can harness if he steals and absorbs the wishes, and the third act conflict is set up.
I never got the sense that it wouldn't work out for Asha; I never felt like the stakes were very dire; I thought the whole premise was supremely weird, and I haven't even mentioned the tiny star character that Asha made appear when she literally wished upon a star; I felt the friends were underdeveloped; and while I harbor no opinion of the quality of the songs, I felt like there were too many.
But, really, I felt like the exact same sentence could be written for Moana 2 (save for the star character). And while I do have some critical issues, I still don't hate the movie. I can see how it may have failed to find an audience, or failed to speak to the audience it was designed to cater to. That happens often in the collaborative arts industry.
One thing I just thought of is it seems like the producers made a movie for the kids that they were 30 years back instead of the kids we have today. Thanks social media!
It is pretty to look at, which is often the case with these movies. Is it worth hating?
Seriously? Masked gestapo gangsters are scooping up brown people off the street and sending them away---for misdemeanors!---and a silly imperfect movie with issues gets you all angry?
