Why Wish and similar Disney films don't work

Wish is an attempt at combining the biggest motif of Disney’s biggest hits into one new and original movie for its 100th anniversary—a film that focuses on wishes coming true. However, it falls exceedingly short of being interesting or even fun—an unfortunate pattern that many recent Disney films have followed as of recently.

The film opens with a brief history on the kingdom of Rosas—being founded by King Magnifico (Chris Pine) and his wife Queen Amaya (Angelique Cabral) with the idea that anybody could immigrate to in hopes of fulfilling their biggest wish. The catch was that they would give it up, forgetting it entirely so Magnifico could seal it away and keep it safe. Every month, Magnifico would hold a ceremony known as the wish ceremony, in which he would choose someone’s wish and grant it to them.

Enter Asha (Ariana DeBose) years later, the main character of Wish. She’s getting ready for her interview with Magnifico to potentially become his new apprentice. It just so happens that this day is also the day of the wish ceremony and her grandfather Sabino’s 100th birthday—and Sabino, as it turns out, has not had his wish granted yet. Asha’s interview starts off a bit of a disaster, but after a brief heart-to-heart Magnifico and Asha find that they have similar reasons for wanting to protect and care for the kingdom. Magnifico decides to show Asha his study, which is where he keeps all of his subjects’ wishes—and Asha takes the opportunity to ask Magnifico about her grandfather’s wish. He takes a look at it before deciding that Sabino’s wish is entirely too vague, and therefore too dangerous. This upsets Asha, arguing that wishes that Magnifico wasn’t ever going to grant should be returned to the person it belonged to—which in turn angers Magnifico. At the wish ceremony, he taunts Asha indirectly before choosing someone entirely different—before telling her afterwards that not only did she not get the apprentice position but that her mother would never receive her wish either.

After returning home, she tells Sabino and her mother Sakina (Natasha Rothwell) that Magnifico will never grant Sabino his wish and tries to tell him what it is. Sabino refuses, stating that it would break his heart to know what he cannot have. Asha tries to convince them further, but is ultimately unsuccessful. Devastated, Asha runs away to the nearby hill that she and her father used to sit on and makes a wish upon a star. The star responds—descending onto earth, flooding the sky in bright colors and showering the nearby forest in magic. Asha, upon finally catching up with the star, nicknames it Star and requests its help in retrieving the wishes of her grandfather and mother. On the other side of the kingdom, Magnifico feels Star’s presence and watches as the wishes he’d promised to protect bob dangerously up and down. Choosing to believe that he has been threatened, he quickly becomes paranoid and bitter—ignoring his wife’s words as he decides to corrupt himself by using the forbidden magic he’d once swore to never use. Now, instead of protecting his subjects’ wishes, he begins destroying them and absorbing their power for his own use in order to quell this rising threat.

The aesthetics of this movie are pretty good for what it wants to do—as a mix of old and new, a combination of 3D but with a touch of traditional animation. The voice acting is fantastic considering all of what the voice actors had to work with. The attempt at an original movie is appreciated at the very least, but that’s just about where the list of positives end. There’s really no sugarcoating it—this film simply isn’t good.

Let’s start with one of the staples of Disney—the songs. The tunes of every single one of these songs aren’t particularly catchy and the lyrics are an absolute mouthful—often trying to fit too many words into a measure where it just doesn’t fit. “I’m a Star” is probably the most egregious example—not only is it completely unclear as to what is happening, but the lyrics contain phrases like “shareholders” (which doesn’t make sense in the context of this movie) and calling flowers “eloquent dancers” (when something like “elegant” would’ve made much more sense, both in general and to the intended audience). There’s also a part where a deer sings “watch out world, here I are” in an effort to rhyme with “I’m a star”… which could be easily remedied by simply changing “I” with “we”. It’s obvious that the voice actors did their absolute best with what they were given—but even their efforts could not save these songs from odd key changes and even odder time signature changes.

As for the plot, the film is trying far too hard to be something that it’s not. It bends far too many rules for itself, to the point that I was just convinced the movie was doing what it wanted after a certain point. There are so many characters introduced, none of which we’re really given much of a reason to care about (besides the fact that they’re references to the seven dwarves, which isn’t reason enough). They talk so, so much—to the point that I actively wished they would stop talking because it wasn’t adding anything to the experience besides irreversible boredom. It’d be fine if we were made to actually care about the characters, but again, we’re really not.

Magnifico isn’t even entirely wrong when it comes to not granting wishes to certain people, but it feels like he was character-assassinated just for the sake of justifying him as a villain. When Asha questions Magnifico about returning the wishes back to the people he was never going to grant them to, Magnifico instantly flips out instead of trying to explain it to the girl he had just had a heart-to-heart with a few moments prior. Keep in mind that Asha is 17, and he even acknowledges her youth during this sequence. Also, this whole apprentice plot point—which is important up until this point—is never acknowledged after this point! There was a whole group of people he had interviews with and it’s just never mentioned again!

Later on, after arguing with her family, she runs off and sings about how she knows she’s not wrong and how she’s ignoring all the warning signs—which honestly just made her sound annoying and unlikable. She’s self-aware, yet chooses to be stubborn. It’d be an admirable trait if Asha was someone we the audience could root for wholeheartedly, but she’s really not. There are no stakes up until this point—nothing time-sensitive or urgent to push the plot along. It’s all driven by Asha’s hunches, bitterness, and impatience, which is too ambiguous of a hook.

While Wish itself is a new franchise, it is still an attempt at a more modern and generalized version of older Disney films—and in its attempt to do so, it becomes disorganized and falls flat. These sorts of films that attempt to build on a preexisting franchise—live action remakes and sequels especially—are seemingly created for the sake of capitalizing on earnings, rather out of love for the originals. While each situation is different, there’s a good reason why general audiences are skeptical about these two kinds of movies nowadays—and it’s simply because this sort of soullessness is a recurring issue. These sorts of films that were made for a purpose outside of the desire to create have an issue answering the following question: what is the point of this movie (besides profit, that is)?

As with any art piece, it is quite obvious when a work of art has genuine care and thought put into it. After all, with these sorts of big budget films, there are hundreds of people behind the scenes working to create. Sometimes though, these people are not given the time and/or freedom to create as they wish—and it instead just feels like a greedy corporate cash-grab. Take Lilo & Stitch (2025), for example. First off, making a live action of the original Lilo & Stitch is completely unnecessary—catering towards that mindset of how animated films are for children only, and attempting to turn it into a “real” movie—removing the fun and whimsy from a lot of what made the originals so enjoyable. Some things simply cannot be portrayed in real life as opposed to animation. Also, a fair amount of the changes don’t really make much sense, undermining major plot points and subtracting from the original rather than adding something new. And how about Moana 2? It was released last year, and yet it was woefully forgettable—with a plot more directionless than Hei Hei the Rooster and songs taking a drastic downward turn at the noticeable lack of Lin-Manuel Miranda as the composer.

Revisiting Wish, I mentioned that it’s trying too hard to be something it’s not. There are so many concepts pushing and pulling at the plot that it doesn’t feel authentic. I’m usually all for references and Easter eggs—and as Disney’s celebration for their 100th anniversary, I fully understand why—but too many of them influence in the plot in some way or another makes the whole story incoherent. It’s trying to be something new and original and exciting yet relying heavily on the culmination of years of Disney animation to push it forward the entire way. Fan service alone is not enough to carry a film like this.

In conclusion? Wish’s (and other recent Disney films’) many flaws teach us to stop putting a foot in every single doorway—pick one and go forth with pride. Audiences are counting on films to tell a story, so commit to actually making it a good one.

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