Disney's Wish

[Bill1978]

I call this the Let It Go effect. Even though Frozen had songs written by people who cut their teeth on Broadway shows and written for a musical film, the unexpected success of the movie version of Let It Go (and the other songs) on the Billboard Charts made Disney sit up and realise they've not only got a new money making option but free promotion. So, most of the musicals after Frozen have clearly had the songwriting team informed to have one foot on the chart path. We Don't Talk About Bruno has just cemented this musical direction. Instead of writing lyrics to propel plot, the lyrics are designed for radio play. Even the presentation of the songs have changed from being presented like a musical, to being presented as a music video clip. And the instrumentation of songs are also designed for radio and not for a musical. (But this may just be me wishing to here an orchestra behind my musicals)

[Ben]

As an unwritten rule, musical songs don’t generally have choruses. Well, they *do* but they’re not generally repeats of those same lines as in a typical song made to hook you through radio play.

That did indeed all change with Let It Go, which did have a quasi-recurring chorus, as did a couple of the other songs, and blurred the lines between the "musical" version of songs and the "pop" version, and now the instrumentation and slick pop-production vocals are barely perceptible between versions.

As a modern movie musical, The Greatest Showman didn’t "help" (great as that was), and here we are now in a new world of "pop-musicals" where, instead of pop songs inserted into the narrative, the narrative songs have now become the pop songs. It can be quite exhilarating when done well, but can also come off as pale imitation when one tries to catch the lightning in a bottle and force a repeat of the same trick.

[Ben]

Had no idea Wish was doing quite so badly at the box-office: just about $105m as of this weekend and no boost from any Globe noms, including song or score. Yeah, it got an animated feature nod, but that’s a strong category this year and will probably go to Spidey again, or either Elemental or Heron. Poor Wish…!

[gaastra]

Wish got a bit of good news for once off to a great start in japan the third biggest movie market in the world even knocking wonka out of first. Japan loved disney movies like frozen and tangled so this should not be a surprise but a little bit of good news for disney for wish.

https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comm ... illion_on/

[Ben]

Here we go again…!

Wish is getting a DVD and Blu-ray edition in March, but it doesn’t look like there will be a wide 4K version outside of a pretty basic Walmart-exclusive steelbook, and not even the usual DMC offering.

That might make it "easier" for those outside the States, like me, to pick up a 4K, since there will no doubt be many scalpers selling on eBay, but I’m actually tempted to just go with the Blu version simply for the better artwork. I’m not a massive fan of steels at the best of times, unless they really fit a title and make it special for that reason, but the Wish one doesn’t feature the title on the front and the back just doesn’t look great.

Anyone know if a DMC 4K is forthcoming? Apparently they sometimes don't announce them until nearer the release date, so I guess there is still some hope…?

[Farerb]

Why do you even want to own this movie??

[Ben]

I have the other 99+ ones and am a completist.

And I want to see it, however bad it is.

[Randall]

Why do you even want to own this movie??

So, did you see it? Just curious.

[Ben]

So no one here went to see the movie??

I’m guessing…not.

[Farerb]

I did see it. I thought it was a superficial and rather empty movie. Disney's worst "princess" musical.

[Bill1978]

I saw it just before Christmas and by the end of the movie I was feeling very 'meh' about and then the credits made me angry.

In terms of the story, it was hard to empathise with Asha's quest because the King really wasn't being evil with not granting everybody's wishes immediately. I mean technically its 12 wishes a year (even handed out 2 extra ones the year before according to his song). The kingdom doesn't seem that big so everyone would get there wish eventually if they were specific. And The King is right, Asha's grandfather's wish was too vague to be granted - it's amazing that they thought that was a good enough catalyst to set the plot in motion.

Here is a list of things that annoyed me:
- the animation. Plenty of films (Klaus, Into The Spiderverse) have shown how you can make CGI look hand drawn, this style looked unfinished. Maybe it will look better on the small screen but on the big screen it looked cheap and DTV and was distracting. I think they should have either gone regular CGI or actually commit to hand drawn.
-the songs reminded me of the songs from Quest For Camelot songs. In that outside of the film, they kinda work and are listenable but within the movie, they seem out of place. They were definitely written for radio and not to further the plot. Most of the songs just start out of nowhere and when finished there is no smooth transition back into the dialogue. I actually tuned out of the duet between The King and Asha and wished it was over. Never a good sign when a musical loving person wants the song to end.
-the songs also suffer from mysterious disconnected backing voices. You know voices that are singing but there is no one shown providing the backing vocals (Hairspray suffered from this a lot as well). Welcome to Rosas is the major culprit. At the start no one in the village is singing but it sounds like they should be. At the end they are singing so why not at the start?
- The King being presented as this supervillain when really all he is, is the kid in The Care Bears Movie that is possessed by the book.
-All the less than subtle nods to previous Disney films
- Not acknowledging The Rescuers. The Black Cauldron or Meet The Robinsons in the End Credits. I've read the claim they said there wasn't room/space for them. But I sat through the credits (partly for nostalgia) and there was definitely space for those 3 films. If you can't acknowledge all your films then you shouldn't do it.

I will admit I liked the goat, I found him humourous. And the voice cast do a good job with what they had.

I think the big problem with the movie was that it wasn't made to tell a story, it was made to promote 100 years of Disney. The sad thing is that Enchanted did it so so so much better nearly 20 years ago. I find it funny that they happily allowed this film to be completed and released with all its cliche storytelling and subpar songs but canned Kingdom of the Sun because it was predictable. Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we got Emperor's New Groove but perhaps instead of giving us Wish, Disney should have completed Kingdom of the Sun as a gift for their animated fans.

And if more care was taken with the story, this could have been a great movie. If I was in charge of the story, I would have tweaked it a little bit. Sure, still have Asha have her entitlement issue over the wishes, still have The King be possessed by the book BUT somehow get Asha to manage to get all the wishes granted and chaos ensures when it turns out vague wishes aren't good or there are some dodgy wishes. This forces Asha to find a way to de-possess The King so they can work together to save the Kingdom. Asha learns a lesson, The King learns a lesson, the villagers learn a lesson and I don't leave the cinema thinking that once again Disney has unnecessarily villainized another character. Oh, and when you hire a song writing team at least make sure one of them has experience writing stage musicals (and ideally won a Tony/Olivier for their efforts - I'd even settle for a nomination)

[Farerb]

Klaus is a hand drawn animated film.

[Bill1978]

Klaus is a hand drawn animated film.

Wow! For some reason I thought it was CGI with 'blending'. I will keep my error in the original post for others to shake their head at me. But I still stand by the fact that what Disney did was truly a bad decision. They should have picked one and not tried a 'blend' approach.

[Ben]

After Bill's post, Wish sounds incredible!

For all the wrong reasons!

Now I just have to see this movie!


Funny, I was just saying the other night that Disney already made their perfect 100 year celebration movie in Enchanted! And then fumbled the ball by fudging what could have been the almost actual 100 year celebration movie in Disenchanted, although that one was probably pretty far from ever being saved, really.

Even as someone who hasn’t seen it, Wish looks exactly how Bill is describing it, from the animation to the songs that sound like other songs. I love that he referenced the just-where-is-this-on-Blu The Care Bears Movie (the film that ironically beat Disney back in '85). The snub to three films in the credits sounds really dumb and stupid, particularly The Rescuers for me especially, since this was the first one I saw in a cinema. Do they randomly acknowledge Down Under?

If they were going for fans (sadly not, but it’s a nice thought), then a third Fantasia would have been the way to do it, and I hold out hope — for now — that we do indeed get a Fantasia100 in 2040. Will say, though, that you don’t need to be a Tony nom or winner to write a good Disney musical. Give me $80m or so to produce my one and you’ll see what I mean…

[Bill1978]

They do not reference Rescuers Down Under in the credits either. To their credit Frozen and Ralph don't get their sequel mentioned but Fantasia does which then makes it odd that Frozen and Ralph don't get their sequels shown. I honestly feel part of the issue I have with this film celebrating 100 years of Disney is that it feels like they are acknowledging the 100th animated feature. They also don't acknowledge the package films either.

I was being a bit facetious with my comment about hiring a songwriter with Tony noms BUT they definitely need to hire someone who understands stage musicals and their conventions. Not just some songwriter who has had success in the mainstream music industry.