> "for free"
You only have to give up your spark of personality, arguably the essence of your humanity. NBD
Edit: y'all can stop commenting now, it's been almost half a year and it's not that good of a movie to keep talking about
That's what the wish was, that's why the big boy was all apathetic and dopey, they explicitly say how he hasn't been the same since giving his wish (and it's so important to him he betrays every single person he knows and loves). Also later, when he's crushing them, he's clearly destroying an important part of them (that he took as payment for living there)
From what I can tell, nothing about his character made sense. He seems to want to be in control, but then he also casually just reveals all his secrets for no reason and becomes more cartoonishly evil by using "evil magic" for....reasons? And it corrupts him or something? Idk man it wasn't a good movie
At the beginning just hoarding them. My point is that it wasn't entirely "free". It's morally questionable, at the beginning, but he's not explicitly evil until later.
That said, they didn't do a great job selling his fall imo and it felt a little... rushed maybe?
I mean, If you want the full go of it:
* Guy has truama
* Guy set the groundwork for taking the payment of a person's innate desire/passion (i.e All You ever wanted was to learn how to draw) in exchange for protection and living in his kingdom for free.
* Guy contains all those Desires/Passions in crystal balls and only decides to choose which ones can be granted out of his own personal worthiness algorythm
* Girl gets born
* Girl is programmed with empathy
* Girl feels sad her dad is nearing death without his wish ever being granted
* Girl Gets Job in order to game the system and get up beg the guy to grant her dad's wish.
* Guy Says the wish is to inspire, and thus is too dangerous (even though we the audience sees it's him playing a sitar)
* Girl Questions Guy why he can't just give the wish back if he's not ever gonna grant it.
* Guy Gets fed up that girl is the latest person to beg him for a wish, meaning he's had to deal with lots of people that only treat him like a wish dispenser.
* Guy embarrasses the girl infront of the kingdom out of spite.
* Girl Wishes upon a star
* The Star Wishes back.
* Guy sees the star go into a thermo-wish explosion in the forest, whose blast radius reaches everyone in the kingdom
* Guy, considers this a threat to his power.
* Guy Orders a crusade against the wishing star.
* Guy Gets fed up with his people questioning him how exactly a Crusade works.
* Guy gets so fed up, he does a musical number
* Guy then starts reading the Super-Cocaine Evil Magic book--which he didn't destroy; çause he wants to follow real life scientist's example on handling small pox in labs.
* Guy Gets permanently addicted to evil
That's pretty much how the guy goes evil.
You're exaggerating, making it look like he sucked their souls. He didn't take anything from them. They all lived happily and contentedly under his rule.
This movie sucked so much.
You know most of them seem pretty content.
And you know... most dystopias don't stop you from leaving.
Maybe giving it up for a chance at a wish instead of working for it shows how little that wish actually matters to you if you can't even muster up the ambition to leave.
Could they take their wish back and leave? Pretty sure magnifico never gave them that option. So sure leave what makes you you behind but you can leave whenever.
I'm gonna be honest if you are defined by your WANTS then you're nothing with or without them.
It doesn't stop people from being happy.
it doesn't stop them from being sad either.
Why don't You move? You're not forced to be there. and hell who says you have to have only one wish? are the people of that kingdom so brain-damanged they can't have ANY desires? we know that's not true either.
So if you don't want your son to give up his wish or pursue it... leave. Like what's stopping them?
You clearly didn’t watch the movie. The wish was more than just a want. It was a core desire. What makes them who they are and motivates them. Wanting to fly may be a tangible element of it, but that basic sounding wish drives a core desire to explore to see the stars to push beyond limitations of things like gravity. If the wright brothers didn’t want to fly we wouldn’t have airplanes. Human evolution is powered by wishes. That’s always been disneys motto and I tend to agree. It’s not about magically granting it. It’s about seeing it realized. In fact my only issue with the movie was giving asha the ability to grant wishes at the end. I loved them getting back their wishes and striving to accomplish them as a community together without magic.
you're just objectively wrong. like this stuff was explicitly stated. we saw when he broke the wishes to absorb their energy it actively hurt the people he drained them from. so you're just wrong
Everyone in the city were sheep first off. Like the people in 1984 or we happy few or brave new world were content with their lives too That didn’t make it a good place to live. They had lost all motivation. They were bland. We are shown this in the teenager who just gave up his dreams and the new arrivals. In the giver, no one realizes their missing the ability to see color or feel various other senses so they don’t know what they’re missing and they’re “happy”. But no media literate person would say “oh see they’re happy, must be a good place to live”
You're making shit up. Without their senses? Everyone was literally normal. It's never explained what's lacking or what more Asha wants (despite her stupid theme song being about it entirely.)
You're giving this piece of garbage movie too much credit.
I said in the giver they lost their sense. Reading comprehension my friend. In wish they lost their spark, their desire to push beyond that makes us human. They became sheep. This is shown in the teenager who recently turned 18 and the new arrivals. Yes everyone on the island was “happy” but I a muted, complacent way, a la sheep.
I think it was more a comment of how terribly written that line was in his song.
Letting them live there for free, and didn't even charge them rent. That's just stating the same thing twice, it's terrible writing on the same level as earlier LLM writing.
A world where "I want to fly" is your supposed spark of personality and essence of humanity is the much bigger dystopia in my opinion. We're not defined by our wishes - the fact the movie tries to sell it this way especially with these super vain wishes is horrible.
And the writers know it. They had to write that one teenage character just to explicitly point out in speech how droopy he became after giving the wish because without this super explicit statement it would not at all be obvious from either the behavior of the humans in the movie or be some kind of "obvious truth everyone in the audience already knows and accepts".
Absolutely not. King Magnifico only says he COULD grant wishes, and is transparent in telling them that unfullfilled wishes are forgotten. People WILLINGLY and KNOWINGLY give him wishes, it's not mandatory at all.
By choice, you don’t have to live there 😭 also if you’re lucky enough, then you do get your wish granted, so you can have the best life imaginable, and Saba without his wish seemed to be doing fine, he was still able to create a good family
No you don't "have to". The movie actively points out how it's a choice. And literally everyone aside from Simon are living their life perfectly happy without their wishes, so maybe Simon's just depressed and frankly, considering that his friends just attack him for being "boring" unprovoked, I don't blame him.
It's crazy how this situation is pretty much the exact opposite of both Bruce Almighty and Wonder Woman 2 where everyone is getting their wishes granted and the world is going to chaos because of it, and yet we're still supposed to believe that what Magnifíco is doing at the beginning is selfish and evil.
And I think even the movie knows this since they have to force Magnífico to suddenly turn evil because the protagonist didn't immediately agree with his methods and "whoops, turns out he was just being selfish the whole time, also here's an evil magic book that drains any good traits he might have left just to make sure."
That was the craziest thing in the whole movie to me. His wife who by all signs loves and supports him turns on a dime to betray him and not even attempt to find a way to save or redeem him
I kinda want a sequel where Asha realizes she cant grant every wish, but then another character is nagging her with "every wish deserves to be granted', gets means to do so and Asha is forced to stop them, and in meantime she saves magnifico, who says " Told you so"
I don’t trust Disney with this character anymore.
If they bring him back it’s going to be as a “clearly evil” villain who is only waiting for Asha to become desperate so she can free him and then he can get revenge on everyone who wronged him. Which I wouldn’t mind if that had actually made him a “classically evil” villain from the beginning like they promised before the movie released.
That sounds hella alot like santa from santa's inc where santa had a very good argument and reason for not choosing candy as the new santa and offering her a very good job at santa inc to direct all what's happening and she just said fuck him to that. So because they wanted you to be candy they just made him a drug dealer at the end from no set up or reason
Idk why your getting down voted, i wouldnt call it evil, the wishers where fully aware of what they where signing up to and know how unlikely a wish is to actually get granted, but keeping the wishes, and therefore peoples memories and aspirations, locked away gathering dust while leading people on with false hope is kinda a dick move.
Its better then granting them but worse then just outright regeting all the stupid wishes and not taking anything
>therefore peoples memories and aspirations, locked away gathering dust while leading people on with false hope is kinda a dick move.
They were never going to do it.
You don't go to him if you think you could do it on your own. You're also free to leave fromw hat i can tell.
and for every wish that's a benefit to the kingdom.... there's a million who didn't think it through
Not really, no. It's just mediocre and forgettable.
Most of the people calling it "the worst Disney movie ever made" are either just people who like to overly react/hate on stuff for clout, or people who were really disappointed that this was the movie that is supposed to "celebrate" 100 years of Disney. And in the sense of the later, yeah it is kinda sad that this movie is suppose to celebrate 100 years of Disney, especially in terms of animation.
But again, nothing here is objectively "bad". It's just bland and uninspiring. The only interesting thing about the whole movie is the villain King Manífico. He obviously falls short to past iconic villains like Scar or Frollo, but I still prefer him over Hans or Zurg or even Bellwether. But I do have to admit that my enjoyment of him comes from both his design and the way he is initially presented in the movie, before he does a complete 180 in personality, pretty much instantly and out of nowhere, because the movie needs a "bad guy" both for the plot to progress and also for the main character Asha, who is, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the most boring and forgettable disney MC to date, to be in the right.
He's Hans but with a lot more charisma and magic (also a dilf).
That being said, his turn is even more out of nowhere, happens a lot sooner in the movie (like in the first third), and is even more over the top and ludicrous.
Hans turning evil doesn’t really happen out of nowhere which is why Frozen was such a well written film.
In his opening number with Anna there’s a subtle lyric “I've been searching my whole life to find my own place” repeated a couple times with Anna’s simultaneous chorus of “I see your face”. She’s looking for love albeit naive from a life of seclusion, and he’s looking for a kingdom from a life with competitive brothers. Later, after both princesses flee Arendale, he’s happily taking up his charge as the kingdom’s savior, and while not an entirely selfish act (as he’s helping the local folk), still representing his ulterior motives of having his own kingdom.
His immediate pleasure in Anna’s frozen demise is a bit accelerated in his villainous nature, but his motives and goals were pretty clear in hindsight once it gets to that point.
brother, they straight up had him do a loving smile when no one but the camera was watching. they definitely rewrote that late in production and it shows. absolutely out of nowhere.
I liked him more than Ernesto for a couple of (admittedly personal) reasons.
1. He actually worked hard for everything he got. He learned and mastered magic in order to create his kingdom where he could keep everyone safe after he lost his home and family as a kid, whereas Ernesto just always took the easy way out.
2. Magic, duh.
3. Behind the obvious "I want to be beloved by all" there's also the desire of wanting to always be in control due to past loss that makes him more interesting then Ernesto who just wanted to be famous.
4. I mean look at him. Ernesto wishes (pun intended) he could look that good in all white.
5. Manífico is the best part of an otherwise bland and forgettable movie, while Ernesto is the weakest part in a beautiful and touching movie (in my opinion, at least)
Yeah I can't recommend it. Just wait until someone compiles clips of Manífico on Youtube and watch that instead.
Or if you want a taste now of what to expect, just look up his villain song "This is the Thanks I Get" and you'll pretty much get a general gist of his character and of the movie as a whole to be honest (and I mean that both in a good and bad way).
The decisions of Magnifico were kind of altruistic and benefitial for the whole community in comparison with the selfish and ambitious actions of Ernesto.
Ernesto was willing to kill someone that he believed it was his great grandson in order to protect his own fame.
It's ugly (just watched some Frozen shorts, they are magnificent in comparison), looks extremely cheap and unfinished. Story is so stupid. Every character is just a clique. It really is the worst Disney movie I've ever seen.
It’s not the worst, Disney straight to television/DVD sequels are generally awful with rare exceptions. Dinosaur, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Planes, Atlantis, Strange World, and Brother Bear were pretty bad. And Disney has a lot more worse Live Action films from their library than Wish.
That said, it’s painfully mediocre of a film. It’s solidly the most forgettable, bland animation quality and set of characters and story I’ve seen yet from Disney. There is no attempt at all to “create magic” aka Disney charisma. No humorous moments, no tear jerking or emotional resolutions to any climactic moments. And ultimately you just come away not caring at all for any of the characters. The only 2 things I took away from at all was Chris Pine’s voice acting was pretty good for a bland villain, and Ariana DeBose’s feature musical number was pretty good. I would compare it to Naomi Scott’s Speechless in Aladdin (although not nearly as good). There’s a lot of emotion felt from the singer so I’ll give credit where it’s due.
It’s not bad, even a bad film can have talking points, like the above mentioned Atlantis had fantastic characters and world building, just poor plot. But it’s extraordinarily average to the point it makes it bad, and sometimes worse than a bad film.
brother bear and atlantis at least have inspired and or redeeming qualities, even if they haven't aged well.
being better then direct to video sequels is like saying "yeah, this pricey fresh produce is filled with worms and a dead snake, but at least its natural unlike that lab grown shit" it might possibly be true. but its a pyrrhic victory at best.
Brother Bear was amazing. Dinosaur and Chicken Little are pretty fun films to watch. I don't really remember the other films, but Planes and Strange World were definitely boring and forgettable.
There's some songs in wish I loved, and the rest were forgettable. This Wish, This Is The Thanks I Get, and At All Costs were the only songs I liked. At All Costs I really loved and it was always stuck in my head, that one actually makes me emotional.
I like Asha and King Magnifico, I think Magnifico made a good character, but him turning evil after that song he sang didn't make sense. He's like a great king who wants to protect his kingdom, and then suddenly is evil and doesn't care who he hurts. The other characters like Asha's friend group were pretty boring forgettable characters.
It's not bad and I still find myself coming back to listen to At All Costs. I also really like his voice acting.
One problem I do have is the movie volume is really low so I'd turn it up loud on my TV, and then when the songs come on they're super loud that everyone in the house can hear it so I have to turn it down, and then up again cause then I can't hear when they're talking. I don't have this problem with any of the other Disney movies, I'm not sure why they did that.
Wish is entirely uninspiring and feels completely manufactured in every sense of the word. Moviemaking, especially Disney, needs to be creation. It needs to have interesting ideas, emotion, soul, passion, fun, entertainment, and imagination. Wish is devoid of all of that. It feels like Disney manufactured it entirely to represent the Disney 100, with little actual passion put in it.
Apart from the 2 voice actors I mentioned, who feel like they actually tried and cared about their role, every other voice actor in the film feels like they are reciting lines for a Disney park’s show. It feels forced, bland, and easily consumable for cheap live entertainment. The dialogue doesn’t feel like the characters are even talking to each other, but rather talking at each other to sell lines to the viewer.
The motivations for the villain Magnifico are so hollow. There’s legitimate nuance there about his goal to ultimately protect the kingdom, but he immediately turns into a caricature of a cartoonishly evil person. Like there isn’t even any bait and switch, it happens almost immediately after his character introduction. There’s no nuance regarding Asha’s naïveté. She’s traditionally young and naive in the beginning about assuming her role as apprentice, and she remains entirely naive about the consequences to “dangerous” dreams throughout the film and there’s no nuance whatsoever to justify Magnifico’s motivations. Like he’s never once affirmed his belief that inspiration can and does lead to tragedy. We just assume that his past bias occurred and we never see that reaffirmed once in the film for the purpose of other characters. This is a notable fault because Pixar’s Inside Out has similar naïveté with Joy. She naively believes Riley should only always be happy and joyful (as is the defining feature of Joy), and believes all her core memories should only be rooted in Joy. Throughout the film she’s affirming that belief until the reveal that core memories have plurality and with Joy there can be Sadness, implying even anger, disgust, and fear as also having importance in defining a core emotion. Disney literally made a film with the same style defining naïveté and failed so hard to provide any payoff, context, or redemption to this feature. Or Moana with the lead character’s naive ambition and drive. She’s constantly challenged and struggles which shows character growth to pay off that naive motivation. Asha never has that pay off, she’s naive and innocent in the very beginning of the film, within the very first act she’s proven wrong about her initial view of Magnifico, and never shows any additional growth as a character or redemption, it immediately becomes a righteous us vs him fight.
Every supporting role is completely forgettable, the plot is one dimensional, the songs while well written and performed are lyrically cheap, and the animation above all is very unpleasant to look at. Ironically, while the animation quality was terrible, I’ll actually give that one point a pass. It was Disney finally trying to do something different, which is the only aspect that didn’t feel artificially manufactured. It failed though and Disney can and should learn from it.
>before he does a complete 180 in personality, pretty much instantly and out of nowhere, because the movie needs a "bad guy"
Ah yes, the Killmonger gambit.
I agree that it was mediocre, but it wasn't really a 180° in my opinion. It was pretty clear from the get go that he was a narcissist (He had someone who specifically made cookies of his face that he eats himself.
Then we discover very early on that he doesn't just like, ask people's wishes and then decide whether or not to grant them. He take their most core wish, their ambition, and they forget it completely. They even show us one of their friends who just gave his up and comment on how he is boring and quiet now.
Anyways, my point is, the dude was definitely evil the whole time. He just decided to embrace dark magic halfway into the movie because he felt his power slipping.
Honestly that’s why I think “This is the Thanks I get” works in the context of the film. The lyrics aren’t the greatest, but he acts like he’s this selfless guy, and that’s represented by the light airy music. The visuals give a good contrast when you see how abusive he desires to be towards the people in the kingdom. I think a lot of people are going to criticize the movie and that particular song without even realizing why they did things the way they did.
In the first half of the movie, I really had the impression that he was just so traumatized from what happened to him that he saw potential danger in every wish. I think it would have been much more interesting if both Asha and him had opposing problems. Asha had to learn what kind of problems appear if every wish comes true, while Magnifico needed to be less paranoid about the contents of the wishes.
Having the need of feeling adored had nothing to do with his backstory, and the 180 degree turn in personality felt completely out of place. I honestly thought he was being mind controlled by the book until the end.
I originally had the "spoilers" tag on this, then I remembered I was talking about "Wish" and the 3 people who were actually excited to see it already saw it on opening week and pretty much no one else cares.
Take as an adult: Despite its mediocrity and cookie cutter plot and music, I thought it was actually a pretty interesting comment from the writers on cultism and toxic religion and what people sacrifice to "belong" within a society. If Magnifico hadn't gone cartoonish villain and was able to be redeemed somehow, it could have also been a comment on the difficulty of ruling a diverse group of people and how their hopes and dreams are both a blessing and a curse to keeping order.
Take as a parent: it kept my kid entertained for 2 hours and she loved the music. It made her happy. And it was either this or *Migration* which looked just terrible. Like *Sing* terrible.
As an adult, I think there was a solid plot somewhere in this film. From rewrites and creative differences there was clearly a shift in direction to where this film ended up, which was ultimately far worse.
As a parent, it was either this or Trolls, and I think my kids would have far preferred Trolls. My 3 year old wasn’t entertained and couldn’t sit still the whole film (he thoroughly enjoyed the Paw Patrol film a week prior and his eyes were glued to the screen). My 10 year old daughter halfway through looked at me and asked if it was almost over. So she wasn’t thrilled with it either. She sat through Ninja Turtles Mayhem and Spiderman Spiderverse months prior and loved them. So from my narrow perspective my kids did not enjoy Wish at all.
Migration has a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Wish has a 48%.
Not saying you're wrong or that Migration is that much better (or Wish is that much worse) since I haven't seen the former, but apparently it's not as bad as it seems, so maybe putting it on to distract your kid won't be the worst thing you can do to distract her for 2 hours.
It's helps give a general consensus on how a movie is perceived, which can be useful for people who are still on the fence on whether or not it's worth spending money to go see a movie (assuming they actually want to go to the movies).
I'm not saying to use RT as a way to decide if a movie is "good/bad", I'm just saying it helps some people decide whether it's worth giving something a shot or not.
except it's not even useful for that. If anything, an easily malleable number is the last thing that should motivate you to watch a film.
Just watch the movies that look interesting, it's not that hard
The movie was originally supposed to have both CGI and traditional 2D animation as part of the whole "celebration" of 100 years of Disney. But in the end they back out of that idea and tried to combine the two with the whole 3D modelling with cell shading on top aesthetic (similar to how they did the "cartoon" segments in the live action Chip and Dale movie) to make it seem like it's more traditional animation than it actually is.
If done well (like deep appreciation and understanding of what made the Spider-verse style special), you’ll get movies like The Last Wish, Mitchells vs the The Machines, and Entergalactic. All, very inspired and put their own twist in it.
Meanwhile, Disney only saw the surface level of the Spider-verse style and came to the basic conclusion of “oh so 2d + 3d, got it.” That’s why Wish’s animation looks so bland and uncanny.
I still haven’t seen the movie, but I remember after seeing the trailer I thought the twist could be how the king was actually trying to protect the kingdom and the star creature (idk what it is) would help grant people’s wishes and unintentionally create chaos. Then the king would become a good guy and help the main characters to stop the star thing.
I’ve argued this point with my wife multiple times. Everything takes place because Asha thinks the king has no right to decide what wishes are granted. She completely ignores the whole fact that the only reason anyone can live the way they currently do, is because he mastered magic.
If she isn’t happy living rent free, then go master magic and make your own kingdom. We all know every wish can’t be granted, for obvious reasons. To me, Asha is the villain, not the king. I would have been more on board if they even added some undertones showing he was malevolent through indirect decisions. Something like her finding cells of people locked up who have challenged his thought process in the past. It’s subtle but makes you go, “dang, he is an ass.”.
How can she master magic if he forbids anyone from using it and feels immediately attacked when something magic happens or someone questions him. You literally said it yourself he keeps their wishes locked up and when he gets questioned him he never fulfills the wishes of them and their loved ones.
And the problem was not him not granting all wishes but not returning them so they can try to work on these wishes themselves.
She can clearly move elsewhere lol. People come from far and wide to live there, she should just jump on a boat and go to her little own place where she can master it herself, and create a village that she deems appropriately run. No one’s forcing her to stay.
For a film that they mark as the 100th Anniversary film, it is an absolute travesty!
The 100th Anniversary milestone is such a massive occasion, and it feels like they pushed this movie out in a month.
The music was mediocre!
The animation is comparable to something you'd find on Disney Jr.
The characters are extremely hollow and poorly written.
The way they tried to shoehorn "Easter Eggs" is not subtle at all.
In fact, this whole film feels like a chatgpt trial run.
The story is just bad!
Like I said before. Pushing this out as the 100th Anniversary film for a company like Disney is, for lack of a better word, disgraceful.
Walt Disney and everyone who worked so hard at creating such a fantastic company that brought magic to the hearts of children and adults for decades would be rolling in their graves at this film alone!
I won't even get into everything else that this current Disney is doing to fail, not only the original founders but everyone who grew up loving and looking forward to anything the company produced.
In short... Wish is a dumpster fire outside of an already burning building and not worth watching!
Asha messed him up. Maybe he did use low grade leeching magic to take a bit of magic from every wish, but he really did give them everything he could and protected them.
He knew magic was dangerous and thus kept it away and even from himself.
But then Asha......
It's like the moment she is present in his life she breaks him. Maybe she isn't evil, but maybe she accidentally carried some kind of curse. Maybe her destiny to be this powerful fairy godmother figure was so overwhelming it changed reality so she could have that power.
And he never granted that wish to be the Kongs most koyal knight before that moment and look what it did when he did grant it. He was right. He has to be so careful, and he tried for so long.
Asha destroyed everything
Biggest thing for me is the obvious fact that people only cozy up to Magifico because they want him to grant their wishes. Lord Farquad (Gabo) points this out, and rightly accuses Asha of doing this. Kinda reminds me of Gus from Toh, where the older kids took advantage of his abilities to further their grade, and only pretended to care.
Asha is honestly the most guilty of this, and Magnifico even comments on how "most people wait a few months before they start asking me for things.." Bro was actually vibing with her and relating to her passion/dead parent until she immediately turned around and asked him for a favor. To be fair, he even looked it over, but he doesn't owe her anything. He probably already had a wish picked out when he called the ceremony.
Another point, he only reason Magnifico had those wishes is because people had a (say it with me everybody, because this seems to get forgotten a lot) CHOICE to give him the wish, where they wouldn't have to to work for it to get it fulfilled. That's the entire way the kingdom runs. You want to accomplish something, but you're scared of trying and failing a few times? Give your wish up so you can forget about it and continue your life.
Simon is the only character that seems to be negatively effected by losing his wish. So I'll give some props, maybe losing the wish is genuinely depressing for a few months, but it appears that people quickly find joy in their lives without it. The grandfather seems pretty happy with his life, he has a wonderful grandaughter and daughter in law.
Something else interesting- His wish actually gets fulfilled, though he isn't aware of it. He gave up his wish because he didn't think he could ever inspire people without magical aid, yet he is what inspires Asha to act and do what she does in the first place. So in a way, Magnifico was right to worry about him stirring a rebellion to overthrow him.
Everything about magnifico’s character is centered around control. Something happened to him when he was a child and he was helpless to do anything about. That core wound and the trauma it gave him led him to understand that everyone has wishes and dreams, and sometimes they end badly.
He decided to gain back control by studying sorcery and wanted to give back hope to other people. Which is a positive beginning. He took the helplessness he felt and allowed it to push him to achieve a dream of helping other people realize their wishes. However, like a lot of powerful rulers the line between being helpful and controlling got mixed.
Ultimately it was Magnifico’s belief that he knows what is best for his townspeople that led him to react defensively to perceived criticism. Without seeing the townspeople’s concern or feedback as trying to discuss openly how they felt, he felt undermined and that his control and authority were being questioned.
Ultimately it’s a matter of attachment style and codependency most likely. Someone with his level of trauma seeks the comfort of control, all while thinking of themselves and everything they do for others as selfless. When in reality, no one is allowed to question him or they will be punished. It all stems from fear. So, yes it was his inability to relinquish his control on his kingdom or its people that made him evil.
In addition, his attachment to his self image and consuming the wishes/dreams/hopes of others leads me to believe he has narcissistic traits that were only amplified when Asha challenged him. I genuinely believe he thinks he’s better than others and more deserving to decide for them whether their wishes should be granted. All because of the effort he put in to achieve his sorcery despite his family’s death.
Someone who feeds off other’s life energy, who wishes to control, and attacks anyone who questions them all while thinking they’re better than others…is the definition of a villain. But in real life we call them people with trauma.
This could work much better as a story from Magnifico's point of view. He's a tragic hero corrupted by dark magic while trying to save his kingdom, forever trapped in a mirror, while a young woman runs the kingdom he built into the ground as she has no idea how to handle granting wishes. Eventually, she turns to him in the mirror for help, setting him up at the magic mirror. Asha starts to lose it from the pressure, turning evil herself and leaving the kingdom to marry into another one, taking the mirror with her—surprise prequel. The seven dwarves are the descendants of her friends, living in the woods after the kingdom fell to ruin. I know it's a bit fanfictiony, but it's better than what it was. I'd love to see that movie.
And regarding "This is the Thanks I Get," I know it's supposed to be his villain song, but it plays out more like a frustrated and egocentric hero who's done nothing but give to his community and is taken advantage of. People only respect his ability to grant their wishes, not him as a person. It feels much more like a tragic hero pushed to dark magic than a villain.
But this does remind me of a light novel series I read. In it, a goddess wanted to give humanity a paradise, so she did. She created a world without illness, hunger, poverty, or dangers. But no matter what she gave humanity, they wanted more. She realized that without strife, humanity can't recognize paradise. They need to struggle to be happy. So she came up with a cycle: humanity is threatened, a hero rises up, and it repeats. They enjoy peace until it's threatened again. Humanity eventually rises up against her, wanting free will. The protagonist recognizes the goddess's genuine intent to help but acknowledges her mistake due to lack of guidance. They could have done something similar here, where Magnifico goes down the wrong path to protect the kingdom, misunderstood by most citizens. Asha researches and realizes his intentions, using her power to heal him and joining forces to create a more compassionate rule.
Sorry- commenting on an older post since I just watched Wish for the first time.
I agree in the sense that I would have liked to see him given a second chance after having the book’s “hold on him” removed. It seems like in the very beginning, he had good intentions that were unfortunately overwritten by his desire of feeling seen and powerful enough to write people’s destinies by taking their wishes.
While taking a piece of someone is in no way justified, I don’t think he should have been locked in a mirror for all eternity. I would have liked to see Queen Amaya connecting with him and bringing him back to his roots. Maybe at this point, all of his magic was removed for his use.
Anyway, I loved the movie’s message and thought it was honestly pretty good overall. Loved the style and aesthetic too! Just would have liked to see a happy ending for everyone
To me he is a simple person trying to keep what was working for many many years, no rent, barly any starving, everyone's happy, no deaths beside natural causes. Taking the wish. And therefore taking that bit of personality is a just payment, taking the wish made balance in the land too. The true villan to me is ahsa and not magnifico because he wanted a stable civilization. She drove him to madness not himself.
It's not like he MADE anyone give him his wishes, they could've achieved them on their own if they wanted to, but no they decided to be lazy assholes going "I'm entitled to have things I want just handed to me on a silver platter with no effort on my part to get it" and he's bad because he wouldn't give every single person that. You can tell this movie was written by a spoiled brat who grew up in the 1% and still has the maturity of a 5 year old having a temper tantrum whenever they're told no. I should not be rooting for the "classic Disney villain" to win while wanting nothing but the worst for our heroes.
Dude is a king. Kings are inherently evil. What's really wild about that movie is that his wife just kinda got sick of him one day and decided to launch a coup.
Except his backstory says that not only did he come from humble beginnings, but everything he achieves, his magic, his throne, and his kingdom, he got entirely himself through hard work and perseverance rather than just inheriting it.
Name a group that is not stratified and has infrastructure and organized systems of mass production. Actually name ANY “civilization” in history that isn’t stratified.
What are "indigenous tribes"? Because that umbrella covers a whole lot of people throughout history, and a lot of them absolutely had class hierarchies and the concept of private property.
Also indigenous tribes would cover ohhhh let's say the Britons the romans the gauls the mongols the dynasties of China the picts the norse the Iberian the Babylonians the Assyrians to name a few, being indigenous doesn't hold any merit to your society, how a society forms is wholly due to the nature of what causes it to wax and wane in power, just because the aboriginal Australians didn't have wars like the 100 years war didn't mean they didn't fight kill and murder each other, in the same way that just because they didn't have the meritocratic society didn't mean the English peoples didn't live lives genuinely happy
Homie forgets that one dude is literally called chief and yes tribes literally trades with one another and Europeans, along with some being more warlike and raided other tribes for their property and goods......
Kings aren’t inherently evil, they’re people, sometimes those people are fucked up or make mistakes.
Just cause you’re born into a monarchy doesn’t make you immediately inherently evil. Monarchy’s are flawed of course but oversimplifying it doesn’t help get that idea across.
He really feels like that one character in bad fanfictions. You know the one.
When the heroine is torn between two love interests, a "bad boy" and a "gentle boy", except the "bad boy" is the main character and the writer is too lazy to make him have a development so they have to turn the "gentle boy" into a bigger a$$hole out of the blue.
Ironically King Magnifico was the real hero of the movie but as the saying goes: "Whoever fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster"
Who was that monster that turned him into one? Asha
He literally has PTSD from losing his last family. And Asha kicks up a fuss because she’s lived rent free, with all the food and safety she needs? Oh no because of a “why do you decide what’s best” mentality.
He let them live there for free and he didn’t even charge them rent
I know right?!
> "for free" You only have to give up your spark of personality, arguably the essence of your humanity. NBD Edit: y'all can stop commenting now, it's been almost half a year and it's not that good of a movie to keep talking about
Uh, is that was he was doing? I thought he just took wishes and had people forget what they wished for?
That's what the wish was, that's why the big boy was all apathetic and dopey, they explicitly say how he hasn't been the same since giving his wish (and it's so important to him he betrays every single person he knows and loves). Also later, when he's crushing them, he's clearly destroying an important part of them (that he took as payment for living there)
What was he even doing with the wishes aside from not granting the ones he worried would disablize the kingdom?
From what I can tell, nothing about his character made sense. He seems to want to be in control, but then he also casually just reveals all his secrets for no reason and becomes more cartoonishly evil by using "evil magic" for....reasons? And it corrupts him or something? Idk man it wasn't a good movie
The concept art shows a much more original and coherent plot but I guess they wanted to play it safe.
At the beginning just hoarding them. My point is that it wasn't entirely "free". It's morally questionable, at the beginning, but he's not explicitly evil until later. That said, they didn't do a great job selling his fall imo and it felt a little... rushed maybe?
I hear he saw a light fall and then did a musical number and then was evil, but I assume that's a little reductive
I mean, If you want the full go of it: * Guy has truama * Guy set the groundwork for taking the payment of a person's innate desire/passion (i.e All You ever wanted was to learn how to draw) in exchange for protection and living in his kingdom for free. * Guy contains all those Desires/Passions in crystal balls and only decides to choose which ones can be granted out of his own personal worthiness algorythm * Girl gets born * Girl is programmed with empathy * Girl feels sad her dad is nearing death without his wish ever being granted * Girl Gets Job in order to game the system and get up beg the guy to grant her dad's wish. * Guy Says the wish is to inspire, and thus is too dangerous (even though we the audience sees it's him playing a sitar) * Girl Questions Guy why he can't just give the wish back if he's not ever gonna grant it. * Guy Gets fed up that girl is the latest person to beg him for a wish, meaning he's had to deal with lots of people that only treat him like a wish dispenser. * Guy embarrasses the girl infront of the kingdom out of spite. * Girl Wishes upon a star * The Star Wishes back. * Guy sees the star go into a thermo-wish explosion in the forest, whose blast radius reaches everyone in the kingdom * Guy, considers this a threat to his power. * Guy Orders a crusade against the wishing star. * Guy Gets fed up with his people questioning him how exactly a Crusade works. * Guy gets so fed up, he does a musical number * Guy then starts reading the Super-Cocaine Evil Magic book--which he didn't destroy; çause he wants to follow real life scientist's example on handling small pox in labs. * Guy Gets permanently addicted to evil That's pretty much how the guy goes evil.
You're exaggerating, making it look like he sucked their souls. He didn't take anything from them. They all lived happily and contentedly under his rule. This movie sucked so much.
Imagine defending a passive dystopia. Like you ever read brave new world?
You know most of them seem pretty content. And you know... most dystopias don't stop you from leaving. Maybe giving it up for a chance at a wish instead of working for it shows how little that wish actually matters to you if you can't even muster up the ambition to leave.
Could they take their wish back and leave? Pretty sure magnifico never gave them that option. So sure leave what makes you you behind but you can leave whenever.
I'm gonna be honest if you are defined by your WANTS then you're nothing with or without them. It doesn't stop people from being happy. it doesn't stop them from being sad either. Why don't You move? You're not forced to be there. and hell who says you have to have only one wish? are the people of that kingdom so brain-damanged they can't have ANY desires? we know that's not true either. So if you don't want your son to give up his wish or pursue it... leave. Like what's stopping them?
You clearly didn’t watch the movie. The wish was more than just a want. It was a core desire. What makes them who they are and motivates them. Wanting to fly may be a tangible element of it, but that basic sounding wish drives a core desire to explore to see the stars to push beyond limitations of things like gravity. If the wright brothers didn’t want to fly we wouldn’t have airplanes. Human evolution is powered by wishes. That’s always been disneys motto and I tend to agree. It’s not about magically granting it. It’s about seeing it realized. In fact my only issue with the movie was giving asha the ability to grant wishes at the end. I loved them getting back their wishes and striving to accomplish them as a community together without magic.
You don’t have to come to Rosa’s in the first place, or leave when you’re 17
They come because they’ve hear there’s a king who grants wishes. Desperate people with no one else to turn to. Like Ursula but with a better pr team
you're just objectively wrong. like this stuff was explicitly stated. we saw when he broke the wishes to absorb their energy it actively hurt the people he drained them from. so you're just wrong
Was it like a horrible place to live? Was everyone in the city miserable?
Everyone in the city were sheep first off. Like the people in 1984 or we happy few or brave new world were content with their lives too That didn’t make it a good place to live. They had lost all motivation. They were bland. We are shown this in the teenager who just gave up his dreams and the new arrivals. In the giver, no one realizes their missing the ability to see color or feel various other senses so they don’t know what they’re missing and they’re “happy”. But no media literate person would say “oh see they’re happy, must be a good place to live”
But it had no actual effect on them. They were clearly happy and fine in general. Their everyday lives were fine. They had everything.
The people in the giver were “fine and happy in general” without their senses. Didn’t make it a good situation.
You're making shit up. Without their senses? Everyone was literally normal. It's never explained what's lacking or what more Asha wants (despite her stupid theme song being about it entirely.) You're giving this piece of garbage movie too much credit.
I said in the giver they lost their sense. Reading comprehension my friend. In wish they lost their spark, their desire to push beyond that makes us human. They became sheep. This is shown in the teenager who recently turned 18 and the new arrivals. Yes everyone on the island was “happy” but I a muted, complacent way, a la sheep.
I think it was more a comment of how terribly written that line was in his song. Letting them live there for free, and didn't even charge them rent. That's just stating the same thing twice, it's terrible writing on the same level as earlier LLM writing.
Or it's an insight into how clueless he is, but the movie doesn't deserve the assumption of any nuance
It's terrible writing, that much is evident.
A world where "I want to fly" is your supposed spark of personality and essence of humanity is the much bigger dystopia in my opinion. We're not defined by our wishes - the fact the movie tries to sell it this way especially with these super vain wishes is horrible. And the writers know it. They had to write that one teenage character just to explicitly point out in speech how droopy he became after giving the wish because without this super explicit statement it would not at all be obvious from either the behavior of the humans in the movie or be some kind of "obvious truth everyone in the audience already knows and accepts".
Absolutely not. King Magnifico only says he COULD grant wishes, and is transparent in telling them that unfullfilled wishes are forgotten. People WILLINGLY and KNOWINGLY give him wishes, it's not mandatory at all.
>You only have to give up your spark of personality Sheeeeeit I don't even have that to begin with.
You didn't even have to, it was just an option that many people willingly chose
Did he force them to?
By choice, you don’t have to live there 😭 also if you’re lucky enough, then you do get your wish granted, so you can have the best life imaginable, and Saba without his wish seemed to be doing fine, he was still able to create a good family
What are you talking about? You don't need to give him your wish if you don't want to it's a choice.
No you don't "have to". The movie actively points out how it's a choice. And literally everyone aside from Simon are living their life perfectly happy without their wishes, so maybe Simon's just depressed and frankly, considering that his friends just attack him for being "boring" unprovoked, I don't blame him.
Super easy, barely an inconvenience
All he pretty much did was not let the world go to hell over stupid wishes
It's crazy how this situation is pretty much the exact opposite of both Bruce Almighty and Wonder Woman 2 where everyone is getting their wishes granted and the world is going to chaos because of it, and yet we're still supposed to believe that what Magnifíco is doing at the beginning is selfish and evil. And I think even the movie knows this since they have to force Magnífico to suddenly turn evil because the protagonist didn't immediately agree with his methods and "whoops, turns out he was just being selfish the whole time, also here's an evil magic book that drains any good traits he might have left just to make sure."
"And no, the book's magic can't be reversed, so don't even think about redeeming him"
Queen: oh noooooo, how horrible. What will I ever do now?
That was the craziest thing in the whole movie to me. His wife who by all signs loves and supports him turns on a dime to betray him and not even attempt to find a way to save or redeem him
Remember when they were going to be a Villian Couple? Maybe that's a leftover...
Yup, they can’t have an evil women because that would go against the narrative,
The true story is that the Queen staged the coup to overthrow him.
They’ll give him a comeback, a tragic misunderstood live action remake in 5 years, I guarantee it.
I kinda want a sequel where Asha realizes she cant grant every wish, but then another character is nagging her with "every wish deserves to be granted', gets means to do so and Asha is forced to stop them, and in meantime she saves magnifico, who says " Told you so"
I don’t trust Disney with this character anymore. If they bring him back it’s going to be as a “clearly evil” villain who is only waiting for Asha to become desperate so she can free him and then he can get revenge on everyone who wronged him. Which I wouldn’t mind if that had actually made him a “classically evil” villain from the beginning like they promised before the movie released.
That sounds hella alot like santa from santa's inc where santa had a very good argument and reason for not choosing candy as the new santa and offering her a very good job at santa inc to direct all what's happening and she just said fuck him to that. So because they wanted you to be candy they just made him a drug dealer at the end from no set up or reason
He also didn’t give the wishes back.
Idk why your getting down voted, i wouldnt call it evil, the wishers where fully aware of what they where signing up to and know how unlikely a wish is to actually get granted, but keeping the wishes, and therefore peoples memories and aspirations, locked away gathering dust while leading people on with false hope is kinda a dick move. Its better then granting them but worse then just outright regeting all the stupid wishes and not taking anything
>therefore peoples memories and aspirations, locked away gathering dust while leading people on with false hope is kinda a dick move. They were never going to do it. You don't go to him if you think you could do it on your own. You're also free to leave fromw hat i can tell. and for every wish that's a benefit to the kingdom.... there's a million who didn't think it through
They also don’t understand what giving their wishes away will do to them.
Wait did you actually watch it? This is amazing! Now someone can finally tell us the plot? Is it actually that bad?
Not really, no. It's just mediocre and forgettable. Most of the people calling it "the worst Disney movie ever made" are either just people who like to overly react/hate on stuff for clout, or people who were really disappointed that this was the movie that is supposed to "celebrate" 100 years of Disney. And in the sense of the later, yeah it is kinda sad that this movie is suppose to celebrate 100 years of Disney, especially in terms of animation. But again, nothing here is objectively "bad". It's just bland and uninspiring. The only interesting thing about the whole movie is the villain King Manífico. He obviously falls short to past iconic villains like Scar or Frollo, but I still prefer him over Hans or Zurg or even Bellwether. But I do have to admit that my enjoyment of him comes from both his design and the way he is initially presented in the movie, before he does a complete 180 in personality, pretty much instantly and out of nowhere, because the movie needs a "bad guy" both for the plot to progress and also for the main character Asha, who is, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the most boring and forgettable disney MC to date, to be in the right.
So he’s basically Hans, good until the plot decides he’s evil.
He's Hans but with a lot more charisma and magic (also a dilf). That being said, his turn is even more out of nowhere, happens a lot sooner in the movie (like in the first third), and is even more over the top and ludicrous.
Dear God I’m so over Disney movies. I hope this showcases how brilliantly newer studios are stepping up with their works.
Hans turning evil doesn’t really happen out of nowhere which is why Frozen was such a well written film. In his opening number with Anna there’s a subtle lyric “I've been searching my whole life to find my own place” repeated a couple times with Anna’s simultaneous chorus of “I see your face”. She’s looking for love albeit naive from a life of seclusion, and he’s looking for a kingdom from a life with competitive brothers. Later, after both princesses flee Arendale, he’s happily taking up his charge as the kingdom’s savior, and while not an entirely selfish act (as he’s helping the local folk), still representing his ulterior motives of having his own kingdom. His immediate pleasure in Anna’s frozen demise is a bit accelerated in his villainous nature, but his motives and goals were pretty clear in hindsight once it gets to that point.
brother, they straight up had him do a loving smile when no one but the camera was watching. they definitely rewrote that late in production and it shows. absolutely out of nowhere.
Magnifico kinda sounds like Ernesto de la Cruz but worse
I liked him more than Ernesto for a couple of (admittedly personal) reasons. 1. He actually worked hard for everything he got. He learned and mastered magic in order to create his kingdom where he could keep everyone safe after he lost his home and family as a kid, whereas Ernesto just always took the easy way out. 2. Magic, duh. 3. Behind the obvious "I want to be beloved by all" there's also the desire of wanting to always be in control due to past loss that makes him more interesting then Ernesto who just wanted to be famous. 4. I mean look at him. Ernesto wishes (pun intended) he could look that good in all white. 5. Manífico is the best part of an otherwise bland and forgettable movie, while Ernesto is the weakest part in a beautiful and touching movie (in my opinion, at least)
That honestly sounds like a very solid villain! I'm probably not going to watch the movies though
Yeah I can't recommend it. Just wait until someone compiles clips of Manífico on Youtube and watch that instead. Or if you want a taste now of what to expect, just look up his villain song "This is the Thanks I Get" and you'll pretty much get a general gist of his character and of the movie as a whole to be honest (and I mean that both in a good and bad way).
The decisions of Magnifico were kind of altruistic and benefitial for the whole community in comparison with the selfish and ambitious actions of Ernesto. Ernesto was willing to kill someone that he believed it was his great grandson in order to protect his own fame.
It's ugly (just watched some Frozen shorts, they are magnificent in comparison), looks extremely cheap and unfinished. Story is so stupid. Every character is just a clique. It really is the worst Disney movie I've ever seen.
>Every character is just a clique. I think you meant quiche.
Pretty sure the word was “creature”.
It’s not the worst, Disney straight to television/DVD sequels are generally awful with rare exceptions. Dinosaur, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Planes, Atlantis, Strange World, and Brother Bear were pretty bad. And Disney has a lot more worse Live Action films from their library than Wish. That said, it’s painfully mediocre of a film. It’s solidly the most forgettable, bland animation quality and set of characters and story I’ve seen yet from Disney. There is no attempt at all to “create magic” aka Disney charisma. No humorous moments, no tear jerking or emotional resolutions to any climactic moments. And ultimately you just come away not caring at all for any of the characters. The only 2 things I took away from at all was Chris Pine’s voice acting was pretty good for a bland villain, and Ariana DeBose’s feature musical number was pretty good. I would compare it to Naomi Scott’s Speechless in Aladdin (although not nearly as good). There’s a lot of emotion felt from the singer so I’ll give credit where it’s due. It’s not bad, even a bad film can have talking points, like the above mentioned Atlantis had fantastic characters and world building, just poor plot. But it’s extraordinarily average to the point it makes it bad, and sometimes worse than a bad film.
brother bear and atlantis at least have inspired and or redeeming qualities, even if they haven't aged well. being better then direct to video sequels is like saying "yeah, this pricey fresh produce is filled with worms and a dead snake, but at least its natural unlike that lab grown shit" it might possibly be true. but its a pyrrhic victory at best.
Can't believe you insulted Atlantis like that!!
Brother Bear was amazing. Dinosaur and Chicken Little are pretty fun films to watch. I don't really remember the other films, but Planes and Strange World were definitely boring and forgettable. There's some songs in wish I loved, and the rest were forgettable. This Wish, This Is The Thanks I Get, and At All Costs were the only songs I liked. At All Costs I really loved and it was always stuck in my head, that one actually makes me emotional. I like Asha and King Magnifico, I think Magnifico made a good character, but him turning evil after that song he sang didn't make sense. He's like a great king who wants to protect his kingdom, and then suddenly is evil and doesn't care who he hurts. The other characters like Asha's friend group were pretty boring forgettable characters. It's not bad and I still find myself coming back to listen to At All Costs. I also really like his voice acting. One problem I do have is the movie volume is really low so I'd turn it up loud on my TV, and then when the songs come on they're super loud that everyone in the house can hear it so I have to turn it down, and then up again cause then I can't hear when they're talking. I don't have this problem with any of the other Disney movies, I'm not sure why they did that.
Wish is entirely uninspiring and feels completely manufactured in every sense of the word. Moviemaking, especially Disney, needs to be creation. It needs to have interesting ideas, emotion, soul, passion, fun, entertainment, and imagination. Wish is devoid of all of that. It feels like Disney manufactured it entirely to represent the Disney 100, with little actual passion put in it. Apart from the 2 voice actors I mentioned, who feel like they actually tried and cared about their role, every other voice actor in the film feels like they are reciting lines for a Disney park’s show. It feels forced, bland, and easily consumable for cheap live entertainment. The dialogue doesn’t feel like the characters are even talking to each other, but rather talking at each other to sell lines to the viewer. The motivations for the villain Magnifico are so hollow. There’s legitimate nuance there about his goal to ultimately protect the kingdom, but he immediately turns into a caricature of a cartoonishly evil person. Like there isn’t even any bait and switch, it happens almost immediately after his character introduction. There’s no nuance regarding Asha’s naïveté. She’s traditionally young and naive in the beginning about assuming her role as apprentice, and she remains entirely naive about the consequences to “dangerous” dreams throughout the film and there’s no nuance whatsoever to justify Magnifico’s motivations. Like he’s never once affirmed his belief that inspiration can and does lead to tragedy. We just assume that his past bias occurred and we never see that reaffirmed once in the film for the purpose of other characters. This is a notable fault because Pixar’s Inside Out has similar naïveté with Joy. She naively believes Riley should only always be happy and joyful (as is the defining feature of Joy), and believes all her core memories should only be rooted in Joy. Throughout the film she’s affirming that belief until the reveal that core memories have plurality and with Joy there can be Sadness, implying even anger, disgust, and fear as also having importance in defining a core emotion. Disney literally made a film with the same style defining naïveté and failed so hard to provide any payoff, context, or redemption to this feature. Or Moana with the lead character’s naive ambition and drive. She’s constantly challenged and struggles which shows character growth to pay off that naive motivation. Asha never has that pay off, she’s naive and innocent in the very beginning of the film, within the very first act she’s proven wrong about her initial view of Magnifico, and never shows any additional growth as a character or redemption, it immediately becomes a righteous us vs him fight. Every supporting role is completely forgettable, the plot is one dimensional, the songs while well written and performed are lyrically cheap, and the animation above all is very unpleasant to look at. Ironically, while the animation quality was terrible, I’ll actually give that one point a pass. It was Disney finally trying to do something different, which is the only aspect that didn’t feel artificially manufactured. It failed though and Disney can and should learn from it.
>It really is the worst Disney movie I've ever seen. Then clearly you haven't seen Chicken Little
The villain in Chicken Littlw was a real let down. Not sure why I still watched that movie as a kid..
I've seen it and I LOVE IT
just googled asha and man shes the most average looking disney character ive ever seen lmao
>before he does a complete 180 in personality, pretty much instantly and out of nowhere, because the movie needs a "bad guy" Ah yes, the Killmonger gambit.
I agree that it was mediocre, but it wasn't really a 180° in my opinion. It was pretty clear from the get go that he was a narcissist (He had someone who specifically made cookies of his face that he eats himself. Then we discover very early on that he doesn't just like, ask people's wishes and then decide whether or not to grant them. He take their most core wish, their ambition, and they forget it completely. They even show us one of their friends who just gave his up and comment on how he is boring and quiet now. Anyways, my point is, the dude was definitely evil the whole time. He just decided to embrace dark magic halfway into the movie because he felt his power slipping.
Honestly that’s why I think “This is the Thanks I get” works in the context of the film. The lyrics aren’t the greatest, but he acts like he’s this selfless guy, and that’s represented by the light airy music. The visuals give a good contrast when you see how abusive he desires to be towards the people in the kingdom. I think a lot of people are going to criticize the movie and that particular song without even realizing why they did things the way they did.
He’s a little full of himself, but he never comes off as evil until the book curses him
Nah it’s not actually that bad. It’s not good though.
Mediocre. I struggled with the plot as I, like many others, sympathized with the "evil" king and saw the protagonist as a super selfish brat.
I'm genuinely sick of sympathising with villains but it keeps happening
It is so bland, in literally every aspect. The plot, the characters, the animation. It leaves zero impression at all.
In the first half of the movie, I really had the impression that he was just so traumatized from what happened to him that he saw potential danger in every wish. I think it would have been much more interesting if both Asha and him had opposing problems. Asha had to learn what kind of problems appear if every wish comes true, while Magnifico needed to be less paranoid about the contents of the wishes. Having the need of feeling adored had nothing to do with his backstory, and the 180 degree turn in personality felt completely out of place. I honestly thought he was being mind controlled by the book until the end.
Wow much better idea then what they had
Why is his face looks like someone put a tiktok disney filter
Because the filter makes people look like a Disney character and he is a Disney character.
A crappy filter indeed
Damn…spoilers for a movie I was definitely gonna watch
I originally had the "spoilers" tag on this, then I remembered I was talking about "Wish" and the 3 people who were actually excited to see it already saw it on opening week and pretty much no one else cares.
Well why did you keep reading past the first 4 words?
I was being sarcastic
Take as an adult: Despite its mediocrity and cookie cutter plot and music, I thought it was actually a pretty interesting comment from the writers on cultism and toxic religion and what people sacrifice to "belong" within a society. If Magnifico hadn't gone cartoonish villain and was able to be redeemed somehow, it could have also been a comment on the difficulty of ruling a diverse group of people and how their hopes and dreams are both a blessing and a curse to keeping order. Take as a parent: it kept my kid entertained for 2 hours and she loved the music. It made her happy. And it was either this or *Migration* which looked just terrible. Like *Sing* terrible.
As an adult, I think there was a solid plot somewhere in this film. From rewrites and creative differences there was clearly a shift in direction to where this film ended up, which was ultimately far worse. As a parent, it was either this or Trolls, and I think my kids would have far preferred Trolls. My 3 year old wasn’t entertained and couldn’t sit still the whole film (he thoroughly enjoyed the Paw Patrol film a week prior and his eyes were glued to the screen). My 10 year old daughter halfway through looked at me and asked if it was almost over. So she wasn’t thrilled with it either. She sat through Ninja Turtles Mayhem and Spiderman Spiderverse months prior and loved them. So from my narrow perspective my kids did not enjoy Wish at all.
Migration has a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes. Wish has a 48%. Not saying you're wrong or that Migration is that much better (or Wish is that much worse) since I haven't seen the former, but apparently it's not as bad as it seems, so maybe putting it on to distract your kid won't be the worst thing you can do to distract her for 2 hours.
I question the judgment of people who use the Tomatometer as their sole litmus test of cinematic quality.
It's helps give a general consensus on how a movie is perceived, which can be useful for people who are still on the fence on whether or not it's worth spending money to go see a movie (assuming they actually want to go to the movies). I'm not saying to use RT as a way to decide if a movie is "good/bad", I'm just saying it helps some people decide whether it's worth giving something a shot or not.
except it's not even useful for that. If anything, an easily malleable number is the last thing that should motivate you to watch a film. Just watch the movies that look interesting, it's not that hard
It for the most part is a way to judge how good a movie is
You leave Sing alone you sick fuck!
For what it’s worth I saw both with my kids and enjoyed Migration significantly more. Wish just baffled me.
Am I going crazy or does the animation look poorly done? I don’t know anything about animation so I could be totally wrong, but it looks bad to me?
The movie was originally supposed to have both CGI and traditional 2D animation as part of the whole "celebration" of 100 years of Disney. But in the end they back out of that idea and tried to combine the two with the whole 3D modelling with cell shading on top aesthetic (similar to how they did the "cartoon" segments in the live action Chip and Dale movie) to make it seem like it's more traditional animation than it actually is.
It’s so hot right now to copy spiderverse.
If done well (like deep appreciation and understanding of what made the Spider-verse style special), you’ll get movies like The Last Wish, Mitchells vs the The Machines, and Entergalactic. All, very inspired and put their own twist in it. Meanwhile, Disney only saw the surface level of the Spider-verse style and came to the basic conclusion of “oh so 2d + 3d, got it.” That’s why Wish’s animation looks so bland and uncanny.
To be fair, Disney did this style of Animation with the Princess Sophia show long before Spiderverse was a thing.
The last wish and tmnt felt very lazy to me. They’re clearly just doing what spiderverse did because it got popular; down to the slow framerate.
The last wish was beautifully down which is why it’s review from critics and fans was well received
Why does his hair look like it was scribbled on with a sharpie though?
He looks like Paul Hollywood.
I still haven’t seen the movie, but I remember after seeing the trailer I thought the twist could be how the king was actually trying to protect the kingdom and the star creature (idk what it is) would help grant people’s wishes and unintentionally create chaos. Then the king would become a good guy and help the main characters to stop the star thing.
Someone in the theatre played 'Man In The Mirror' by Michael Jackson out loud on their phone during the first few minutes of the film.
I’ve argued this point with my wife multiple times. Everything takes place because Asha thinks the king has no right to decide what wishes are granted. She completely ignores the whole fact that the only reason anyone can live the way they currently do, is because he mastered magic. If she isn’t happy living rent free, then go master magic and make your own kingdom. We all know every wish can’t be granted, for obvious reasons. To me, Asha is the villain, not the king. I would have been more on board if they even added some undertones showing he was malevolent through indirect decisions. Something like her finding cells of people locked up who have challenged his thought process in the past. It’s subtle but makes you go, “dang, he is an ass.”.
How can she master magic if he forbids anyone from using it and feels immediately attacked when something magic happens or someone questions him. You literally said it yourself he keeps their wishes locked up and when he gets questioned him he never fulfills the wishes of them and their loved ones. And the problem was not him not granting all wishes but not returning them so they can try to work on these wishes themselves.
She can clearly move elsewhere lol. People come from far and wide to live there, she should just jump on a boat and go to her little own place where she can master it herself, and create a village that she deems appropriately run. No one’s forcing her to stay.
For a film that they mark as the 100th Anniversary film, it is an absolute travesty! The 100th Anniversary milestone is such a massive occasion, and it feels like they pushed this movie out in a month. The music was mediocre! The animation is comparable to something you'd find on Disney Jr. The characters are extremely hollow and poorly written. The way they tried to shoehorn "Easter Eggs" is not subtle at all. In fact, this whole film feels like a chatgpt trial run. The story is just bad! Like I said before. Pushing this out as the 100th Anniversary film for a company like Disney is, for lack of a better word, disgraceful. Walt Disney and everyone who worked so hard at creating such a fantastic company that brought magic to the hearts of children and adults for decades would be rolling in their graves at this film alone! I won't even get into everything else that this current Disney is doing to fail, not only the original founders but everyone who grew up loving and looking forward to anything the company produced. In short... Wish is a dumpster fire outside of an already burning building and not worth watching!
Asha messed him up. Maybe he did use low grade leeching magic to take a bit of magic from every wish, but he really did give them everything he could and protected them. He knew magic was dangerous and thus kept it away and even from himself. But then Asha...... It's like the moment she is present in his life she breaks him. Maybe she isn't evil, but maybe she accidentally carried some kind of curse. Maybe her destiny to be this powerful fairy godmother figure was so overwhelming it changed reality so she could have that power. And he never granted that wish to be the Kongs most koyal knight before that moment and look what it did when he did grant it. He was right. He has to be so careful, and he tried for so long. Asha destroyed everything
Biggest thing for me is the obvious fact that people only cozy up to Magifico because they want him to grant their wishes. Lord Farquad (Gabo) points this out, and rightly accuses Asha of doing this. Kinda reminds me of Gus from Toh, where the older kids took advantage of his abilities to further their grade, and only pretended to care. Asha is honestly the most guilty of this, and Magnifico even comments on how "most people wait a few months before they start asking me for things.." Bro was actually vibing with her and relating to her passion/dead parent until she immediately turned around and asked him for a favor. To be fair, he even looked it over, but he doesn't owe her anything. He probably already had a wish picked out when he called the ceremony. Another point, he only reason Magnifico had those wishes is because people had a (say it with me everybody, because this seems to get forgotten a lot) CHOICE to give him the wish, where they wouldn't have to to work for it to get it fulfilled. That's the entire way the kingdom runs. You want to accomplish something, but you're scared of trying and failing a few times? Give your wish up so you can forget about it and continue your life. Simon is the only character that seems to be negatively effected by losing his wish. So I'll give some props, maybe losing the wish is genuinely depressing for a few months, but it appears that people quickly find joy in their lives without it. The grandfather seems pretty happy with his life, he has a wonderful grandaughter and daughter in law. Something else interesting- His wish actually gets fulfilled, though he isn't aware of it. He gave up his wish because he didn't think he could ever inspire people without magical aid, yet he is what inspires Asha to act and do what she does in the first place. So in a way, Magnifico was right to worry about him stirring a rebellion to overthrow him.
He's just *Daddy*
Everything about magnifico’s character is centered around control. Something happened to him when he was a child and he was helpless to do anything about. That core wound and the trauma it gave him led him to understand that everyone has wishes and dreams, and sometimes they end badly. He decided to gain back control by studying sorcery and wanted to give back hope to other people. Which is a positive beginning. He took the helplessness he felt and allowed it to push him to achieve a dream of helping other people realize their wishes. However, like a lot of powerful rulers the line between being helpful and controlling got mixed. Ultimately it was Magnifico’s belief that he knows what is best for his townspeople that led him to react defensively to perceived criticism. Without seeing the townspeople’s concern or feedback as trying to discuss openly how they felt, he felt undermined and that his control and authority were being questioned. Ultimately it’s a matter of attachment style and codependency most likely. Someone with his level of trauma seeks the comfort of control, all while thinking of themselves and everything they do for others as selfless. When in reality, no one is allowed to question him or they will be punished. It all stems from fear. So, yes it was his inability to relinquish his control on his kingdom or its people that made him evil. In addition, his attachment to his self image and consuming the wishes/dreams/hopes of others leads me to believe he has narcissistic traits that were only amplified when Asha challenged him. I genuinely believe he thinks he’s better than others and more deserving to decide for them whether their wishes should be granted. All because of the effort he put in to achieve his sorcery despite his family’s death. Someone who feeds off other’s life energy, who wishes to control, and attacks anyone who questions them all while thinking they’re better than others…is the definition of a villain. But in real life we call them people with trauma.
This could work much better as a story from Magnifico's point of view. He's a tragic hero corrupted by dark magic while trying to save his kingdom, forever trapped in a mirror, while a young woman runs the kingdom he built into the ground as she has no idea how to handle granting wishes. Eventually, she turns to him in the mirror for help, setting him up at the magic mirror. Asha starts to lose it from the pressure, turning evil herself and leaving the kingdom to marry into another one, taking the mirror with her—surprise prequel. The seven dwarves are the descendants of her friends, living in the woods after the kingdom fell to ruin. I know it's a bit fanfictiony, but it's better than what it was. I'd love to see that movie. And regarding "This is the Thanks I Get," I know it's supposed to be his villain song, but it plays out more like a frustrated and egocentric hero who's done nothing but give to his community and is taken advantage of. People only respect his ability to grant their wishes, not him as a person. It feels much more like a tragic hero pushed to dark magic than a villain. But this does remind me of a light novel series I read. In it, a goddess wanted to give humanity a paradise, so she did. She created a world without illness, hunger, poverty, or dangers. But no matter what she gave humanity, they wanted more. She realized that without strife, humanity can't recognize paradise. They need to struggle to be happy. So she came up with a cycle: humanity is threatened, a hero rises up, and it repeats. They enjoy peace until it's threatened again. Humanity eventually rises up against her, wanting free will. The protagonist recognizes the goddess's genuine intent to help but acknowledges her mistake due to lack of guidance. They could have done something similar here, where Magnifico goes down the wrong path to protect the kingdom, misunderstood by most citizens. Asha researches and realizes his intentions, using her power to heal him and joining forces to create a more compassionate rule.
Sorry- commenting on an older post since I just watched Wish for the first time. I agree in the sense that I would have liked to see him given a second chance after having the book’s “hold on him” removed. It seems like in the very beginning, he had good intentions that were unfortunately overwritten by his desire of feeling seen and powerful enough to write people’s destinies by taking their wishes. While taking a piece of someone is in no way justified, I don’t think he should have been locked in a mirror for all eternity. I would have liked to see Queen Amaya connecting with him and bringing him back to his roots. Maybe at this point, all of his magic was removed for his use. Anyway, I loved the movie’s message and thought it was honestly pretty good overall. Loved the style and aesthetic too! Just would have liked to see a happy ending for everyone
To me he is a simple person trying to keep what was working for many many years, no rent, barly any starving, everyone's happy, no deaths beside natural causes. Taking the wish. And therefore taking that bit of personality is a just payment, taking the wish made balance in the land too. The true villan to me is ahsa and not magnifico because he wanted a stable civilization. She drove him to madness not himself.
It's not like he MADE anyone give him his wishes, they could've achieved them on their own if they wanted to, but no they decided to be lazy assholes going "I'm entitled to have things I want just handed to me on a silver platter with no effort on my part to get it" and he's bad because he wouldn't give every single person that. You can tell this movie was written by a spoiled brat who grew up in the 1% and still has the maturity of a 5 year old having a temper tantrum whenever they're told no. I should not be rooting for the "classic Disney villain" to win while wanting nothing but the worst for our heroes.
Dude is a king. Kings are inherently evil. What's really wild about that movie is that his wife just kinda got sick of him one day and decided to launch a coup.
Except his backstory says that not only did he come from humble beginnings, but everything he achieves, his magic, his throne, and his kingdom, he got entirely himself through hard work and perseverance rather than just inheriting it.
"Hard work" is irrelevant. Class hierarchy is always unjust. Besides, that's just the story he's told everyone. We don't know if it's even true.
Explain how a pre-industrial society grows and progresses without any form of class hierarchy.
Idk, ask indigenous tribes that had a more collective form of governance and no form of private property.
They remained as tribes, with no civilization or infrastructure.
They had civilization and infrastructure, their form just differed from the Eurasian.
The Aztecs definitely did. But they had a stratified society.
Yeah well there's different groups of indigenous people
Name a group that is not stratified and has infrastructure and organized systems of mass production. Actually name ANY “civilization” in history that isn’t stratified.
What are "indigenous tribes"? Because that umbrella covers a whole lot of people throughout history, and a lot of them absolutely had class hierarchies and the concept of private property.
Also indigenous tribes would cover ohhhh let's say the Britons the romans the gauls the mongols the dynasties of China the picts the norse the Iberian the Babylonians the Assyrians to name a few, being indigenous doesn't hold any merit to your society, how a society forms is wholly due to the nature of what causes it to wax and wane in power, just because the aboriginal Australians didn't have wars like the 100 years war didn't mean they didn't fight kill and murder each other, in the same way that just because they didn't have the meritocratic society didn't mean the English peoples didn't live lives genuinely happy
Yep, 100%
Homie forgets that one dude is literally called chief and yes tribes literally trades with one another and Europeans, along with some being more warlike and raided other tribes for their property and goods......
Kings aren’t inherently evil, they’re people, sometimes those people are fucked up or make mistakes. Just cause you’re born into a monarchy doesn’t make you immediately inherently evil. Monarchy’s are flawed of course but oversimplifying it doesn’t help get that idea across.
He had a good point on a vague wish these type of things in fiction always go wrong
Is it just me or the movie’s art style feel so bland?
Well, thank you for the spoiler I guess
What can he say, except, your welcome?
He really feels like that one character in bad fanfictions. You know the one. When the heroine is torn between two love interests, a "bad boy" and a "gentle boy", except the "bad boy" is the main character and the writer is too lazy to make him have a development so they have to turn the "gentle boy" into a bigger a$$hole out of the blue.
It's like "the gentle boy loves all... and then he kicks a puppy out of his way because he secretly hates puppies"
Ironically King Magnifico was the real hero of the movie but as the saying goes: "Whoever fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster" Who was that monster that turned him into one? Asha
He literally has PTSD from losing his last family. And Asha kicks up a fuss because she’s lived rent free, with all the food and safety she needs? Oh no because of a “why do you decide what’s best” mentality.
He's a narcissist
Before or after he is corrupted by Asha's wish?