Disney Wish… A Trash Heap of A Film

If you a Disney fan that is thinking of watching Disney’s Wish (2023), I would suggest to skip it.  The movie leaves a lot to desired when you have watched many of the older Disney films. If you want to watch a woke (the current message) communist movie through and through, then the movie might be appealing to you.

Let’s get to the breakdown…

 

:::SPOILERS BELOW:::

 

Visuals:

The first thing to breakdown is how the movie looks which will portray a certain feeling. The colors throughout the film feel muted in pastels. The movie could have been a little more dynamic  range of colors. Disney seems to have made the decision to use muted colors in this film and the latest Disney films like the live action little mermaid. The only thing that really stood out for colors and style was the dream orbs. The rest of the styles and scenes all had a feeling like other Disney films without really creating their own world, so it felt copy and pasted. That copy and pasted feel brought me out of being immersed into the film.

 

Characters:

The characters were a little off putting because they were “diverse” trying to cater to every group. Again this was a distraction from the story because this level of each diverse character does not happen in real life. People tend to stay with their own group and culture. Also the ambiguous nature of all the characters where you could not really place what they were clearly in certain sexual and racial categories was weird.

The characters were also many stereotypical racist designs and colors. Each of the friends of the main character were color coded into the colors of the rainbow. This is Disney’s nod to the LGBT community of the pride flag. The colors were a distraction from the story because they were all the different colors compared to the colors of the background characters. The background colors also had a problem with them. The colors were the white, pink, blue/purple of the transgender pride flag. That caused me to really shake my head each time the crowd of the kingdom was shown. One main racist color was the Asian women with the classic eyeglasses and bowl style haircut wearing the color red. This was really the only red colored character in the movie, which was a large nod to the CCP (Chinese communist party). Have to pander to the Chinese audience by having the Asian character being the wise friend. The short Mexican/Spanish looking character that was loud and obnoxious like the stereotype of loud parties that are scene in movies.

The sex (male or female, yes there are only two) of each of characters was mostly able to be ascertained at quick glance. A few of the characters I could not tell what they were. That also brought me out of the immersive experience and gave me again an uneasy feeling. The portrayal of male and female characters was negative for males and positive of females. The male characters were portrayed as goofy, incompetent, and depressed. The female characters were portrayed as knowledgeable, competent, strong, and hopeful.

 

Plot:

The plot was weak. Character wants to be apprentice. Finds out reality of what is happening  in the kingdom, does not like it. Tries to stage a revolution. Or more simply “Everyone should have their dream come true.” This plot feels like a twelve year old wrote it the night before the paper was due pulling an all nighter trying to get it done on time. Compared to past Disney plots it did not have the basic structure that makes a good movie. The basic structure is: character has hope/dream and tells everyone, things happen to push the character into a different place, resolution of the problem and the character gets its dream/hope. Wish had the structure of: I don’t like something so I will force my way to make what I feel is correct happen. I could go though each plot point but realized it is not worth your time to read.

Also all the blatant use of call backs to other Disney films was distracting. One example was a rabbit that did a scene of thumping his leg exactly like the character Thumper from the movie Bambi. Another one was brother bear telling a deer “come along Bambi” implying the deer was Bambi. This is another one example of horrible story telling because they “Tell” the story instead of “showing” the story.

 

Themes:

The themes in this film was primarily communist. Every part of the film felt like a twelve year olds understanding of the world, how everyone should be nice and kind to each other. Also to have all their dreams be granted without any hard work. The only person that seemed to do hard work was the King that built up the kingdom in the first place. So obviously he should be mad when a young 17 year old comes in to start telling him how she thinks the kingdom should be.

The oppressor and oppressed dynamic was littered in the film from start to finish. The King (oppressor) has stolen everyone’s dream (oppressed), lets take back our dreams with revolution.  This tells more about the people currently working at Disney than the company itself. Then there is the idea that stealing, breaking and entering, and revolution is promoted in the film. These themes really should not be taught to children or in a children’s film. Values of do NOT steal, do not break into a castle to steal, and try to understand a place before you think about revolution. Also the wife who helped the king build the kingdom turned on a dime to the revolutionary side instead of having loyalty to her husband and the kingdom. There is so many more bad themes and values that can be mentioned but with this dumpster fire of a movie it’s hard to complain about them all and your time reader is valuable.

There was one part that actually was good. The scene where the grandfather told Asha that he did not want to know about a dream that would happen was what an elderly person would say. The idea of painful knowledge of what could happen matches with psychology of desire and regret.

 

Music / Sound

The last category to talk about is the music and sound. The songs were all over the place with their music and lyrics. Each song did not seem to fit, even within itself, like a twelve year old writing a song that felt disjointed. There was also no feeling or life in the songs. This is a hard thing to quantify because the song has to be relatable to make you feel. The last song in the movie at around 1 hour 18ish minutes I labeled as the communist solidarity song. The song was just about “standing with each other against the oppressor(the king).” It reminded me of old soviet songs from the mid 20^th century where all the proletarian were singing in solidarity of brotherhood. Very scary and concerning stuff.

 

Final thoughts:

Was there anything good about this movie? It is only entertaining if you shut down all higher brain functions and ideas. So, NO.

 

Disney, Do better!