Wish is a Mediocre Mess 

Download Honkai: Star Rail with my link hoyo.link/1QEfFWAL and use the code 5S9BND25CRBK to redeem 50 Stellar Jades! . . Okay SPOILERS the thought that I had for this film while watching was that I was hoping that they would reveal that Magnifico’s wife was actually HIS WISH. That he wished to fall in love with a princess only for said magical construct to need more wishes to continue to exist.Hence why he was stockpiling wishes. I assumed this off of nothing. Wife’s delivery was so the good wife and placid I thought they were setting up a reveal that would tie into his tragic backstory.

The film's mediocrity makes me hate it because it truly is a testament to how Disney no longer wants to innovate. It's such a shameful way to celebrate their 100th anniversary.

I remember hearing someone say in the comments there were original plans where both the King and Queen were meant to be evil together. Honestly, it would have been engaging with Disney to have an evil couple.

Fun, or unfunny, piece of trivia: the idea was to have a villainous couple with an evil king and queen. The only unique thing it could've had, and they deleted it.

"The art style makes the movie look unfinished." "Actually, we made it that way on purpose as an artistic decision." "Your artist vision makes the movie look unfinished."

Really makes you look back at old Disney and realize how low they've fallen in the past century. Artists would be given paid trips to foreign countries to study the geography, culture, and people to draw inspiration. Writers would have workshops that would last months to read and research in order to get their own inspiration. And all the teams would work together in order to make sure they got a good product leading to them to become the front runner in American animation. Nowadays? They lay off half their artists and rely on AI to shodily write their scripts.

I think the movie would've been way better in 2D and it feels like the art style is less of a creative choice and more of a financial one. Fitting for modern disney.

It's completely fine as a babysitter film, but as film championing 100 years of Disney, it was doomed to fail. I'd blame the studio and the producers forcing this. Pine and DeBose are the best things with their incredible singing skills.

Wish really feels like a Disney direct to video film that somehow ended up in theaters that just happens to have good animation.

Disney will NOT be dodging the AI songwriting allegations after lines like "I let you live here for free without even charging rent" for their main villains songs. 💀

Disney had so many ideas with this (Star was a shapeshifter that developed a relationship with Asha, The Evil Royal couple, 2D to the attempts of 2.5 design) and they ended up getting rid of anything to make it more memorable. We've had so many good examples if successful 2.5 animated film, some from just this year, and it's sad seeing this film ment to celebrate a century of magic ended up so mid.

It's a shame a celebration of 100 years turned out to be so generic and forgetable, even with all it had going for it. Cool hybrid animation, bringing back true villains, Ariana DeBose, and they still screwed up. Those songs actually felt AI generated. They need to start taking risks and changing up their formula, or they'll be left in the dust. I know some of us want that, but while I dislike the corporation, I still want the studio to do great things again.

What's utterly devastating is that the initial idea for Wish sounds perfect for a 100th anniversary film. Star was going to be a shapeshifter with a personality like a fusion between Peter Pan and the Genie, he was going to be Asha's love interest, and the king and queen were going to be an evil couple. That could have been amazing, it was right there... and Disney didn't do it. Heck, I'm so disappointed they didn't I'm going to write my own musical movie using that premise because it needs to exist in some form.

Do you know Walt Disney himself, and the company itself through 2010, would allow the writers MONTHS to work out the stories? Walt once threw out six months worth of work by his storyboard artists/writers when it became apparent to them and him the direction of the film wasn't working. (Pinocchio was delayed because they weren't happy with the character design). A writer on Toy Story 3 took six weeks to unknot a story problem and everyone was cool with that and liked his solution. Now, things are rushed through to feed the content pipeline and there's no time given to put something aside, ponder it, and rework it if necessary.

A Mid Disney Movie would have been a mid Disney Movie in the past. Nothing special. They have a lot of those. But this was supposed to be their 100-year anniversary. A testament to their greatest animated features. This just had to be something but it just wasn't. Couple that with everything else the company is failing at and you get another reason to laugh at Disney. Disney had it all. But no... They just had to blow it up.

You know what annoys me most about twist villain it's the fact most writers think a twist villain needs to be the main villain. For once I would like to a see a Disney movie where a side character turns out to be a twist villain and is working for the main villain.

I would love to have another Emperors New Groove kind of movie, the MC is actually evil and sees nothing wrong with it but they get humbled by being put in the same scenario as the ppl that they oppress and turns into a good person and in the end is not the one who benefits the most out of the meaning, extra points if they die at the end for the benefit of the many but no Disney is going to literally die on the hill they are currently on

Wish looks so hurried. Like they didn’t take time to make it 💀

The fact that people actually FORGOT this film was even out really says a lot about Disney’s current state.

I will never not be mad that I wanted Magnifico to have a redemption arc after I left the theater, and that was my main takeaway. That was it. They had Ariana DeBose!! How do you mess that up!! She deserves better!! There was so much in this that felt like a by the numbers checklist. Argument with a family member leading into the I want song? Check. Dead parent that’s literally only mentioned twice? Check. Talking unnecessary animal sidekick? Check. Quirky protagonist? Check. A shit ton of comedic relief side characters based after characters from the original Disney Princess movie? Check. Every Disney cameo/reference fucking IMAGINABLE? Check check check. It didn’t feel like it’s own movie at all - it felt like a cameo celebration with a movie crammed into the cracks in between the 100 years milestone. Best part was Chris Pine villain, otherwise wow. I’m sad this came out the way it did. Also ngl the opening number was just a shittier version of Family Madrigal which just made me love Encanto more.

Oddly enough, this is the 1st disney film I heard NOTHING about before it came out. No trailers, no adds, no relatives mentioning it. My 1st exposure to it was someone grilling the shit out of the lyrics and the jankiest few shots in the trailer. I probably wouldn't watch it even if it was good but fuck I'm amazed noone was even talking about it.

Man...I sure Wish this studio got its act together.

Others have said it before and I’ll say it again here: _Wish_ feels like the writers fed every single Disney animated film to an algorithm and told it to sum them all up in just one script. It’s had a very been-there-done-that feel since its first announcement.

i genuinely feel we've been spoiled by great movies in the past few years and it makes it so easy to see when a movie is half assed like this one

"Raphael's Final Act" being the best Disney Villain Song in 2023 is honestly well-deserved.

As soon as you say the movie is okay, I remembered what someone said from their video review of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, which was "Mediocre is not acceptable anymore". It's a bold statement but a true one considering how animated movies have been presented over this last decade or so with a minority of really good ideas actually being well received.

If you want to see a watercolor movie that makes every frame look like a painting, please see Wolfwalkers. That movie is a hidden gem.

And once you see the concept artbook of Wish that had actual love interest for Asha, the Star being an actual twink, and the queen was suppose to be a villain with Magnifico, a villain couple, it just makes us wish that should have been the 100th movie.

You made me realize, the characters are not textured ! That has to be one of the reasons they don't look finished ! Their clothed don't have cloth texture on them, some items have a little of drawn textures through lines, but disney has made such good texture in Frozen 2 for exemple (the clothes are incredible) that here everything is smooth :o When looking closely it's like lookking at an old 3d movie !

i think for the art direction it would've looked a lot better if disney would've committed to the painting look. if they really wanted it to fit, they either should've just made a 2D movie or should've taken a similar approach to what was done with arcane (yes the league of legends series). or even taking notes from the spiderverse movies, i'm sure disney could've made it work somehow if they cared more about the movie.

“You could trouble the leads from Tangled into Frozen and no one would question it from a distance…” The fact that the leads from Tangled can actually be spotted in Frozen 1 makes this statement so much funnier 😂

I wish the art style was the same as Klaus from Netflix. Love how it is 2D art but has a light 3D feel to it that gives it such uniqueness and still minimal detail but great execution. I think if they went with that style the film would have been more entertaining

This movie definitely feels unfinished even with lyrics to songs. My favorite song is just “What We Know Now” but that’s because I enjoy songs that I can relate to my own ocs. But even some parts of that song feel odd and it feels like some lyrics are missing. My favorite part of the song is when the queen joins in and tbh that did hit hard but the rest still feels odd

It felt like a short film with how quick they hopped from one to the next (example of cutting from Magnifico being pissed then to Asha with her family, I honestly thought she was having a nightmare of being captured but nope), and not build upon or give enough breathing moments for the characters relations to grow more for us to care fully. Magnifico would've been great if they went all out on his transition to further evil, and genuinely leave an impact on the cast like previous classic villains have done to further push, "Oh shit, they're not just bark." When it comes to their actions. He took the wishes but in the end it lost impact and at most he done was cause depression and be a dick.

Wish feels like if AI got trained on all Disney movies to make the most accurate approximation with anniversary flavour.

A lot of people will say "oh it's Disney fatigue" but this is far from the first time in the company's history we get yearly or near yearly releases. Let's look at the Renaissance films. The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), and Tarzan (1999). That is one movie released almost every year. And all of them were bangers. So this whole misconception people have of "oh we need Disney to wait" is kind of out of nowhere. Yes back during the time he was alive, Walt demanded excellence from his writers and would throw out whole screenplays if he thought they weren't up to standard. But clearly, once they got out of their funk after he died, the Walt Disney Company, hit their STRIDE in the 90s. They would also have a few good movies in the 2000s, with Brother Bear and Treasure Planet, but the 2000s really nearly killed the studio with the late 2000s being where we enter the Revival Era. Let's look at the ones from the *Revival Era.* Bolt (2008), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Winnie the Pooh (2011), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014), Zootopia (2016), Moana (2016), Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Frozen II (2019), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Encanto (2021), and Strange World (2022). We even had two films that were bangers in 2016 in Zootopia and Moana. I think where the downslide happened, was going back to the sequels. Frozen II and Ralph Breaks the Internet started the trend of "oh huh Disney seems to be losing its touch." with the one exception being Encanto. Disney is no stranger to highs and lows. Remember every company even DreamWorks has these dips and peaks. Disney right now, is in a dip. But this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has actually studied the company's history. And that's another major problem I've noticed when it comes to talking about films from recent Disney; too often people seem to still EXPECT Disney to break the mold as they used to. But when there are so many other players in the game, I'm honestly not surprised that Disney doesn't seem, up to par. But that doesn't make Disney LAZY; just looking at Wish's animation style you can tell a lot of thought and effort went into making this living watercolor film. It's certainly different from Spider-Verse of Mutant Mayhem. In FACT, we should all be GLAD that Disney has INSPIRED these other companies to step up their game. Because at one point in time, if you couldn't beat Disney, you did exactly what they did. And people hated it. So I'm all for the diversity in animation. One day, Disney will be back on their a game. For now, I'm gonna look towards the past with fondness, and the future with hope because things certainly can't get as bad as they were in the early to mid 2000s when there were only 600 people working in Walt Disney Animation Studios. Also yeah Wish is going to get a 5/10 from me; just average.

Saw the potential for a sexy villainous couple and they scrapped it. Like sexy villainous couples are ICONIC. Did they not take note of the Briarwoods? And the fact that the star could’ve been a shapeshifting prince??? 😭😭😭 missed opportunities all around.

Rather than learning from Encanto’s success… They just continue repeating their own stupid mistakes.

I've seen a few pages of what Asha looked like in the art book on Tiktok before the movie came out and MAN... Her designs then looked SO MUCH more lively and interesting than what we got with the finished product.

I love how we all wanted a new evil villain, but by the end of the movie this guy deserved a redemption 🫡

Fully agree with this as it felt very okay but lacks the charm and felt like a cop out especially with the same cliches and all. It just didn’t have the “magic” as most Disney films had.

I like the part where she said "Its wishing time" and wished all over the place

I like the movie, but it felt...safe. Like it wasn't trying to try something new or subvert your expectations in any way. I honestly feel like if it wasn't advertised to celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary, it'd just fall in the background. It's not bad, but not fantastic either. 😐

The animation style was also pretty trippy. It felt like they were trying to mimic the Spider-Verse animation style other companies have been doing, but it just wasn’t working for them lol

THE animation studio releasing such an nothing film for the 100th anniversary is truly one of the saddest things I had ever seem.

Bro the lighting on Murder Drones, a show created by a small indie team FOR FREE ON RU-vid looks better than this 200 MILLION DOLLAR DISNEY FILM What planet are we living on 💀

As far as celebrations go, the movie feels like a bland and undecorated cake and a gift card. Like sure cake is good and the gift card could be to a place you like; but for a celebration you always expect a bit more effort than that.

I will say from what I've seen- it's a case where mediocrity is kind of more disappointing then just being bad. Especially because I think our lead and the villan both were a good start and they really deserved a better story. I love Asha and Magnifico's designs. The artstyle is a good direction and I feel like all it really needed is a tiny bit more polish to be something great. Also because I saw comments about this- I think Magnifico feels like two concepts haphazardly smashed together because that's what he is. In the early stages he was ment to be the part of an evil duo and I think honestly that would unload some of this strange mischaracterisation if he could just be a funny evil fail-husband to his gatkeep girlboss Maleficient-esque queen, who could be the one creating the more omnious villanous presence.

This is the first time i think Sarcastic Chorus is being too nice

You know you did something wrong when literally a less than 10 minute short does a better job at being a proper 100 year anniversary tribute than your full length animated film

Evidently, this movie was intended to be fully 2D, but they gave up on it when they found it "too complicated for the camera angles" that they wanted to use. Which is...huh? What do you mean? I've seen elsewhere online (that I can't confirm) that Disney has basically let go of the "old guard" of 2D artists and has forgotten/lost the ability to replicate that 2D style, which (if true) is really freaking sad.

This film felt like what Disney believed the fans wanted by crossing off a bunch of boxes on a checklist without putting much effort into any of the tasks on the list.

You could say, that the art style looks like it came from Wish.

Good job Disney! You never fail to disappoint these days! Especially on your 100 anniversary, nonetheless.

9:30: It's, kind of, the same problem Stella has in Helluva Boss. That "not quite hammy/hateful enough to be fun, but not subtle enough to be tragic/empathetic" problem.

If someone told me AI was used to make this movie I would not be surprised.

The art style kinda reminds me of Nemona but like, in a bad way? Nemona had such bright colours and an amazing mix between 2d & 3d the deapth was there in every gesture. In stark contrast this is so…flat. Both in colours and story.

This was strangely enough the one new Disney movie I want to see a redeem villain or at least a tragic one,after I saw this movie because of how they set him up in beginning. I also thought that his wish was his wife rather that be she be real or to save her life in the past and that he was trying get the Star and stop the main character from fear of losing her. I still had fun with him and thought Chris pine did a good job but I can’t help but see the missed opportunities.

My sister and I were extremely excited to see this movie until we heard the soundtrack. Like, I’m glad we finally have a genuine villain after who knows how long but listening to his villain song was really disappointing.

On a fundamental level even in mediocrity of "this style didn't quite work" I'll still be glad Disney tried something different from the style of their previous movies. Like you said, if anything the issue was that they didn't quite commit to it enough and this could have worked really well with 2D painted styled backgrounds and 2D characters. I want that to be "oh, maybe we'll try that next time" and not "oh, this didn't work, let's never try to innovate the art style again."

This film’s artstyle feels like a jar of colored sand, where you have the storybook style on the bottom, the typical 3D artstyle in the middle, and Spiderverse aesthetic on the top. Wish is as if you shook that jar and it became that muddy gray color after you shake the jar. You can also apply that to the storytelling, but I’m too lazy to make an analogy for that one.

I wish Modern Disney was like Classic Disney

The fact that Once Upon a Studio was the far better 100 year anniversary experience than an theatrical production, says a lot.

I am SO compelled to recreate this story into a twisted tale like it was MEANT to be: a protagonist and star in the human form vs a maniacal magic couple. Watch me do it one day lol 😂❤ Edit: hey to that person who had this cool idea for the ending, if you’re still there could you tell me it again? I think my comment just magically disappeared and I didn’t see it haha 😂❤😅

First time I see someone point out that the animation feels unfinished. Personally I had not even noticed they were going for an stylized look. Maybe because when I think "stylized" I am now picturing something along the lines of Spiderverse, The Bad Guys or Mutant Mayhem, which are all films commited to a style! The animation from wish does not commit to the picture book style, making it just look, unpolished. And not to be the guy who says "This would have been better in 2D", I genuinely believe you can do unique things with cgi (look at the name drops from above), but I do genuinely think the storybook style could have worked much better in 2d animation (who would've guessed! 2d animation captures 2d art better), think of stuff like Over the garden wall, whose backgrounds fully capture that fable book vibes, or the Cartoon Saloon studio films where every shot looks like a mural.

I just recently started re-watching Tarzan, which came out in 1999 by the way, and it still holds up because of its characters and themes. As a protagonist, Tarzan is chalk full of flaws, but you can see where they came from. A place of ignorance and fascination. So to hear that ANOTHER Disney protagonist is just being good for goodness sakes pisses me off so much. There's nothing wrong with a good natured character but for god sakes, CHALLENGE them with SOMETHING.....

At times it felt like they were checking boxes rather than making a movie.

This was one of the few Disney movies I wished the villain had a redemption in. And celebrating Disney’s anniversary, they and the perfect opportunity! Amaya could’ve given Magnifico the True Love’s Kiss to break him out of the dark Magic’s curse. True love conquers all, right? It would’ve been so perfect but they missed the opportunity

The scene where you see him and Asha where they are singing in the beginning he is singing about protecting all of the wishes meanwhile she sees her grandfather's wish and literally no joke runs through all of the other wishes scattering them knocking them all over and only grabs her grandfather's wish singing about only preserving his wish. It's interesting to see the "hero" act like a villain as usually it's the villain who will smash wishes but it's a sharp contrast to see the villain protecting and caring for every wish and the hero trodding underfoot everyone else's wish to serve her own ends. She is a villain end of story

I think the real problem for me when it comes to the animation is just the weird, almost blurry shading. It doesn’t like right, almost like they just took the models and put them in front of the backgrounds with minimal effort in shading or detailing. I’ve seen many 3D animated shows that look 2D (shows like dragon prince or wakfu are great examples of that) and I think if they really committed to that 2D 3D look, it would have looke really pleasing while combining the 2D animation Disney is iconic for and the more modern 3d animation. Instead, most of the shading just seems like someone blurred it way too much until it became basically a gradient with no real texture. The best looking scenes in my opinion are the ones with sharper, more obvious shading and the line art effect they added very prominent. Without that it just has the worst parts of 2d and 3d animation combined to make this kinda flat, unfinished looking style.

Personally I would have preferred the first concept the movie had. We could have gotten a magical star boy, a heroine saving the and a villain couple. A VILLAIN COUPLE!!! I need my magic star boy and married villains! It would have been great!!

Magnifico felt like three characters in one. A tragic villain who believes he knows what is best for Rosas, and stoops to villainous lengths to ensure it is safe. An egotistical, manipulative bastard who only cares about himself and making himself look good. An unhinged monster who is so cartoonishly evil that he feels more like a parody of classic Disney villains than an actual Disney villain. The film keeps switching between these wildly and without proper context.

This is an okay film, but the fact it's meant to be the film that celebrates the 100 year anniversary of the WALT DISNEY COMPANY makes it worse than just being okay.

This film feels like a dreamwork 2018 film rather than a disney

Baldur's Gate has very much ruined me. Whenever I hear someone calling something "fine" repeatedly, Gale's little outburst about the night with him being fine starts playing in my mind: "Fine is fine. Nobody weeps because the weather is fine. No monarchs were overthrown because their ruling was fine. No artworks were burned because they were not masterpieces but merely fine."

Wish is lame, not because it's bad but because it has an interesting concept but it "chooses" to do the most bland and generic take on it

I guess you could say this is Disney….from *wiiiiish…!*

Yeah. It just didn’t feel like it was patient with itself. Scenes were either rushing to the next plot point, or the next joke. But there’s so many moments where we don’t get any build up, cause the film is aware it’s not telling its story for the first time. Like when the main character gets back home with grandpa’s wish, she doesn’t arrive and reveal anything, she’s already there with the goat doing a joke. The villain doesn’t menacingly approach, he’s already there and launching into his speech. There’s just so little care to focus on the story and moments, that the turns and motivations feel rushed

Unfinished is the key here. The story, the animation, even the song lyrics. Wish is completely creatively compromised.

Disney finally didn’t release another live action remake and it STILL bombed

My problem is even though Disney is definitely running out of ideas for unique franchises it’s not like Dreamworks, Illumination, and Sony are any better. Dreamworks is milking Shrek. Illumination is milking minions and the Mario movie making so much money is because it’s Mario. Sony hasn’t made a good original movie since Mitchells because spiderverse is from a pre existing Ip so doesn’t count.

I really hope WDAS management is able to take this moment to reassess how they're approaching their projects before corporate forces them to lay off even more people than they already have, cause they definitely still have a bunch of fantastic ideas in them that are able to win people over, and even this one has some clear glimmers of that (especially in the background paintings). But there's this itching feeling that *something* is mismanaging it all and, even though I enjoyed Wish on its own, it was also underwhelming enough that I can see why it's a bit of a sticking point for many.

"I'm a habitual hater of speaking animal sidekick" -The guy who voices a magical girl's speaking cat

oh my god. you hit the nail on the head with the actors and a painted background analogy - that's what was bothering me and now I can't unsee it

Love how plain they made the supposedly anniversary movie

I commented this on the cartoonshi video aswell, but it feels and definitely looks like a Disney juniors show and not a movie. It has the same sorta “unfinished” feeling a lot of Disney animated shows have because they just dont have the budget. Its giving me Sofia the first vibes is what im saying.

I'm so mad because they wanted to have a romance between Asha and the wishing star AND there would've been an evil couple instead of just one big bad AND THAT WOULD'VE BEEN SO GREAT

It seems like they decided to give it the storybook look halfway through production and didn't commit to the look.

I also thought the animation style looked like a cheap, badly made version of the style used in, say, Puss in Boots 2

The movie visually is middle-of-the road, they tried to do something stylistic but were too afraid to do so, and it ended up making it look like a TV movie, it's not bad, but it's not that great either, like many people I felt I was watching Elena of Avalor or Princess Sophia, that's the level I thought this movie was. It needs more polish, and I believe they didn't allow the artists to do so. Puss in Boots 2 is what I believe they wanted to do, or even the Bad Guys, this story book aesthetic, but both movies took time to do so, and I believe they weren't given that time. For story, I believe they are stuck, they are lacking someone like Howard Ashman to lead them to creativity, someone from the outside that is not Lin-Manuel Miranda, but someone that the higher ups give the actual creative freedom for them, to innovate, to take actual RISKS. Wish is still playing safe and it shows.

Its so weird Sony, who made the biggest blandest and soulless cashgrab with the Emoji movie, are now the current king of innovation in western animation while Disney is lagging behind.

The last true Disney Villain was Dr. Facillier and that's it.

I just watched The Boy and the Heron. It is bizarre this film is playing at the same time as Wish. It’s like a huge raspberry being blown at modern Disney. You have a cute floaty thing, Disney? Well, I have 200 of them and they are much cuter. You say 2D has limitations? Well, look at what I can do with 2D, Disney. You say love is creepy and unnecessary? Fine, we’ll do it anyway and add some Freud. You hate the past? I will richly explore the past. There is also a parakeet army. You have only a donkey with a deep voice.

It's funny that one of the most impressive translations of a 3D medium mimicking 2D but still having a wonderful art style that looks great is on RU-vid, and stars an extraterrestrial clown superbeing that runs a burger fast-food truck because he failed at his theater dream. *Worthikids* for all 5(?) of you that aren't aware.

honestly the only thing about the artstyle I love is the backgrounds which I like well enough but as soon as I see those odd 3D characters its over. Also those hands are out there reminding me of barbie hands but worse

“Hell is forever” is the best Disney song in a while, and it’s not even Disney😂

How come this wasn't a Disney show, even if it was a Disney Junior one,because they have made great Disney Junior shows that could handle dark themes for the age group

Amazing video as always! And yep the most 6/10 experience ever. You always deliver man. Unlike disney these days

I have a feeling that the "storybook watercolor look" is a PR spin for an executive who decided that stylized meant removing shaders or other settings

Also, you talking about it almost looking like a stage play made me realize that I think most people would LOVE to see what an animated movie would be like if it was created to exactly mimic that exactly. Like, that would be pretty cool to see one movie do.