Analyzing the Flaws and Storytelling of Disney's Wish While REWRITING Them

Thank you everyone for tuning into this video! ;0; this is the first time a solo video of mine got pushed out over 10k views so I’m very honored everyone was able to listen to me ramble about storytelling !!

I’m really on my way to watch all the Wish character analysis videos and not the actual movie LMAO

Magnifico destroying the grandfather’s wish makes so more sense to the story than destroying the mom’s. Asha put more emphasis on granting his wish and we never even learn what the mom’s wish was. Disney played it WAY too safe for this movie

I just realized why the animation bugs me so much. Their clothes look painted on. They don't wrinkle. They warp and bend with the body of the character rather than moving like cloth like other 3D movies do. FROZONE WE FOUND YOUR SUPERSUIT!

Was "Wish" Supposed to be an origin story for the Fairy Godmother? If so, I would've loved it if Asha started out as an ACTUAL Godmother to a child, who would one day grow to be the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella" and her journey to becoming the first Fairy Godmother.

One of my biggest gripes about this is how Amaya isnt heartwrecked by Magnifico turning to evil. That is the person she loved, she married, she has shared her life with, and the emotional impact of him turning evil before her eyes is practically non-existent. She even mocks him after he gets trapped. That was the true love of her life and losing him was, to quote Pitch Meeting, "barely an inconvenience".

Wish is so disappointing because it doesn’t feel like Disney’s centennial movie at all. They played it way too safe and the results show. It’s also crazy how a main studio Disney movie hasn’t had a romance be a major part of a film since Tangled over ten years ago. (Not counting Anna and Kristoff). This movie could have been a cross between the Sorcerer’s Apprentice with Asha and Peter Pan with the Star not to mention the scrapped ideas of Magnifico and Amaya being an evil couple. Asha isn’t even a princess and that just adds salt to the wound. Disney as a creative studio has to change because this predictable formula for its storytelling has definitely run its course.

Me personally I'd go with the with a "just because you can do something it doesn't always mean that you should" lesson. Asha would get what she wants early in the story and the fall out of it would be the fact that she got exactly what she wanted. To the detriment of everyone.

The superior Disney movie with a prominent wishing star motif and themes is Princess and the Frog.

The concept art looked so good like Star had a human form and was Asha’s love interest and both Magnifico and Amaya were evil. This is my personal rewrite Asha would be Magnifico and Amaya’s actual daughter and so she grew up thinking that keeping the wishes was the right thing. I would also make her personality more similar to Elsa and Mulan rather than Rapunzel and Anna. She’s smart and serious but also stubborn. (Little nitpick but I would also change her design to look more like her concept art. She would have her natural hair out and her color palette more orange and red. When I think purple I think Rapunzel and Isabella.) Magnifico I would go the sympathetic route since it honestly works better for him. I would make that due to a traumatic experience he’s now a very paranoid man who truly just wants to keep everyone safe and he picks wishes that he deems best for everyone. Amaya would also be traumatized but instead of focusing on wishes she focuses on appearance. Like she wants her family to look good to the kingdom so that they don’t question them and believe that they’re all safe. The seven friends could be people who work around the castle and Asha then helps them throughout the story. I also like the betrayal but I like to imagine that Simon has a crush on Asha so he wants to be the greatest knight in order to hopefully impress her.

I’ve been working on a rewrite myself as a writing exercise, and one idea I had was to take the vagueness of Asha’s desires and goals and make that part of her character. She doesn’t know what to wish for and feels tremendous pressure to get a wish of her own, but her father’s influence means her views on wishes differ from the kingdom’s. I am also including the Starboy as a character, but he’s got a connection with Asha already. See, Asha promised to give him her wish as a child, before he showed up, and he heard that and took an interest. Asha ended up talking to that star every night, unaware he was listening, to have someone to vent her frustrations and concerns about the kingdom to. The star also develops a wish of his own after coming to Earth… guess what it is.

Three easy changes to make (story-wise): 1. Make Asha's personality more in line with Ariel, Jasmine, or Pocahontas--fun, intelligent, and curious. And give us more info on her dad if he's fonna have this profound impact on her. 2. Focus on the grey message; the people of Rosas are selfish and codependent, fueling Manifico's trauma and making him micromanage the wishes (which are still optional). And maybe make him ACTUALLY magical, since learning magic makes a huge plot hole in the film. 3. Make Asha's family involved and fleshed out, though maybe reduce the number of friends since that's a huge cast. And side note: was it really THAT hard to adapt "The Fisherman and His Wife" or expand on "The Sorceror's Apprentice"?

My idea of the story: Asha is able to fulfill all wishes immediately, but has to learn that this leads to chaos and destruction. Magnifico has to help her to solve the mess she created and together they can settle everything back to normal. Asha came to learn that not all wishes can be granted, at least not immediately, ar the same time, Magnifico learned that keeping unfulfilled wishes is not okay and is returning them to their owners. Also, from now on, he and Asha together fulfill the wishes of the people, but more than one every month, maybe five-ish or so.

King Magnifico's story could've played more into the story to tell why he won't grant wishes when he can. My idea is that he started out as a good and benevolent traveling sorcerer who loved granting wishes wherever he went until one day he made a seemingly harmless wish to someone who proceeded to use that magic for evil and destroyed the town he and his wife were staying in. Magnifico and his wife survived and founded Rosas, but he was traumatized by the event and disillusioned by wishes in general seeing only the potential danger and selfishness in them. Over the years he grew more fearful of anything happening to his perfect kingdom so when news gets out that someone else is granting wishes willy-nilly, he fears losing everything including his power which is why he finally opens the Dark Fairies' Book of Forbidden Arts that he found while traveling and uses it to destroy the wishes being granted and eventually the kingdom, becoming the same as the person who destroyed his home.

FINALLY there's a video critisizing Wish that doesn't start with "Well, my kid loved it" or "Disney is going downhill" but instead comes from a person who acknowledges Disney/Pixar movies as examples of great, serious storytelling

Personally, I would love to just separate Magnifico into two villains: one redeemable with the whole backstory and pragmatic wish granting, and the other (Queen) pure evil with green magic book and megalomaniac wish to absorb Star. As for why she was with him (the other way around is pretty understandable, true love), maybe it's the just a wish to absord those unused and powerful yet "dangerous" wishes, but pure magic of wishes can not be controlled by heinous green magic, or something like that.

One change I'd make from your changes is that the king doesn't tell someone he's met for the first time his true intentions, especially since he has no intention of hiring her! She'd have to get hired to find that out, one would logically assume

Ooooo I have an idea! What if magnifico was the wishing star of Asha’s great grandfather? He couldn’t grant the wish or the wish led to unintentional consequences that destroyed the kingdom. Magnifico is banished from the stars for his failure and is desperately trying to make up for his mistake by keeping the wishes.

I hate how asha says “I’m so nervous” like girl we can see your face and tell ourselves. Don’t patronize us

Honestly, if they had just fleshed out the magic system to have it so that possessing vast amounts of wishes granted the king his powers to grant a few would have made his motives make way more sense. Like the King draws power from the ungranted wishes to grant the few he thinks would have benefits the kingdom the most without losing his powers