#100 Years of Disney

[terrythemerry]

I just watched Wish (2023) and it made me realize something kind of sad about Disney’s treatment of villains.

So Disney has a long history of villainy from the OG Evil Queen who is willing to murder a girl just for being pretty to the misguided like Auto thinking he’s protecting humanity in Wall-E. They are mean, jealous, prideful, vain, and many relish in just being the worst of the worst. However every now and then we get a glimpse of more complexity. Zootopia’s Bellwether dealing with years of racism and mistreatment, Gantu trying to stop what he thinks is a monster in Lilo and Stitch, Up’s Muntz being a heroic explorer before paranoia consumed him, etc. The thing that makes me sad about these villains is that not one of them has ever had a chance at redemption or change in Disney’s eyes and nowhere is that sadder to me than their latest villain, King Magnifico.

(Spoilers below)

King Magnifico is the magical founder of a utopian society that accepts people of all races, religions, and backgrounds. Who created this wonderful place after what is heavily implied to be a violent invasion destroyed his homeland when he was but a child. This past trauma led him to study magic and become a powerful sorcerer so that nothing could hurt him or the people he cared about ever again. His magic is a protection that he extends to all who choose to live in the city. The city is vibrant with a colorful community full of artisans, musicians, and dancers. He takes no taxes from them, but does take their one true wish upon joining this society.

When given these wishes it is understood that he will ensure their safety and possibly grant them one day. Something important to note about the physical manifestations of the wishes is that they give off a warm and comforting aura as they represent some of the purest parts of a person’s soul. Magnifico has been surrounding himself with this magical comfort for a very very long time by himself and I don’t think it’s unfair to say he has become addicted to their presence. The wishes are giving him a magical comfort through the kind souls within them, a feeling he could’ve probably also gotten if he had spent more time with his people.

It doesn’t look like he ever really got the chance to commune with his people properly because somehow the society kicked off on his wish granting abilities. People had to give him their wishes if they wanted them granted and eventually the ones that he couldn’t grant in good conscience or out of fear started adding up so he began locking them away. Keeping them safe so no harm came to the people. The rare occasions that anyone else interacts with these wishes is during wish granting ceremonies that the people are borderline rabid for. With good reason, it is their souls they’re thirsting for after all even if they don’t really know it.

However, Magnifico clearly doesn’t see it that way. He sees it as he’s given these people a wonderful safe haven from the horrors of the outside world where they can be whoever they want to be, do what they want to do, make what they want to make, and still all they see in him is a tool to fastpass to something else they want even more than the peace he’s given them.

This is clearly shown early on, before any of his evil behavior starts to take root, in relation to his assistants. We get a expo dump after the first song telling us that Asha wants to become one of his assistant to increase the odds of her grandfather’s wish being granted as there is a correlation between past assistants and having wishes granted. Something important here is that there have clearly been many assistants, suggesting that it’s a revolving door position without really explaining why. Who would want to keep finding assistants over and over again, when really you should find someone who could do the job long term right? Well we get to find out the likely reason when Asha steps up for the role.

When Asha comes to interview for his assistant position he sees she is nervous, he tries to calm her down, and he even manages to relate to her through fond memories of her kindly father who he clearly knew. After seeing her true resolve to do good he decides to trust her with something few people in the entire kingdom get to see, the vault of wishes. To which Asha doesn’t even hesitate to ask, after politely being told not to prior, if he’ll grant her grandfather’s wish.

Magnifico is blatantly stricken by her request, sadly remarking that most people at least wait a few months before doing so a.k.a pretend to be interested in helping him rather than trying to use him to grant a wish. This is likely why the assistant job is a revolving door. Magnifico tries to find someone who he thinks will truly and selflessly fulfill the role only to discover time and again that people are just using it to get direct access to him to ask for a wish. Then he can’t trust their true intentions anymore and moves them along.

After Asha makes her request he does take the time to look at her grandfather’s wish but dismisses it as too dangerous because it is the vague desire to inspire the next generation. Clearly we as the audience know that her grandfather means to inspire them to do good, but we have to remember Magnifico has seen the worst of society. He has seen the darkest wishes and desires of mankind and survived them. He brushes Asha off telling her she’s too young to understand, which is honestly true. She’s lived her entire life cloistered in peace and comfort thanks to him and the rules he has made. She has never had to know war, strife, or hardship thanks to him, yet she doubts his decision without understanding the trauma that guides it. This is what I believe pushes Magnifico into his villain arc, something that I don’t think we’ve ever really witnessed in a Disney movie.

Usually a villain already is the villain by the time the film rolls around, even the twist villains. Lotso had already been deliberately sentencing other toys to torture. Prince Hans was already planning to murder his way to a throne. Evelyn was already plotting her revenge. Magnifico wasn’t though. He was the hero. He had saved his wife and a whole city’s worth of people from whatever drove them from the mainlands. He wasn’t physically abusing/mistreating people like Gaston even if he was vainly basking in their adoration.

When Asha pushes him on the wishes he pulls back from her, identifying her in his mind as a threat and treats her as one. He dismisses her and tells her that her family’s wishes will never be granted by him, but he will still keep them safe as he has been doing. Essentially meaning nothing will change for her from what it has been. You know a happy loving existence of complete acceptance and wholesome family life or as Asha interprets it, a fate worse than death.

His interaction with Asha triggers him, as she’s pushed at the flaws in his reasoning for holding onto the wishes. The flaws are true, but his mind is clouded by fear of a lack of control, likely stemming from the horrors he witnessed in his childhood when he had no control. He also likely has a bit of an addiction to the warm fuzzies that the wishes give on top of his fears. While he’s ruminating on that some massive wave of magic blows through the kingdom and messes with the thing he’s already stressed beyond reason about, the wishes.

Magnifico frantically searches for any answer, even considering a dangerous tome of forbidden magic that he knows is trouble before his wife manages to talk him down.

The fact that he could even be talked down rather than ignoring her outright shows that Magnifico does have good in him. He’s just reacting out of a genuine panic. His panic is only worsened by huge mob continuing to beg him for wishes in exchange for doing what should be the selfless act of defending their kingdom from what is essentially perceived as an attack. Not having any faith left in his people he turns back to the evil book to give him the key to stopping this perceived attack.

Just to be clear King Magnifico goes to the big bad evil book not to gain more power for funsies, but to try to find a way to stop a perceived threat. Everything he does from this point on, such as threatening his wife, can no longer be fairly tied to him, because as the movie repeatedly tells us he is under the EVIL book’s influence. His wife even looks through the same book to try and see if there is a way to break the sway she knows it has over him, but says she can’t because the EVIL book said no.

Yada yada yada and Magnifico is sealed inside a magic mirror and smugly told to rot in the dungeon by his previously loving wife.

Seriously?! What the heck?! This guy was the perfect candidate for rehabilitation. He wasn’t flawless, but he wasn’t a murderous psycho like most of the other Disney villains. Disney loves to preach kindness, acceptance, and good will with their heroes, but never does it allow the message of change.

I was shocked going back through the catalogue and slowly realizing none of their villains, regardless of how tragic their origins are, are ever truly allowed a second chance. The hero may offer it, but the baddy never is truly expected to change or reform. Which is honestly super messed up to me. People make mistakes. Some can be small/insignificant, but some are big and do hurt people sometimes. That doesn’t mean they can’t change for the better.

Now I’m not saying every villain is redeemable or good, it’s just a bit surprising that for all the messages of kindness and acceptance we haven’t really gotten forgiveness in 100 years. Seeing the “bad guy’s punishment” just deeply bothered me this time. Probably because so much of the bad that Magnifico does is clearly a trauma response and as a punishment for not acting appropriately to said response he gets sentenced to eternity is magical cell.

[pussinbootsandbountyhunter]

From @princess-ibri post about Asha x Star’s At All Costs Animatic by Krimanga on YouTube, here’s something that I’ve found which made all of you cry!

A beautiful Human!Star x Princess Asha’s At All Costs

Animated by Saffiro on YouTube which they called it Disney’s Wish Reimagined

[pixiedust111]

Once upon a studio 🥺

[artist-issues]

Okay, signing off after this, I promise.

But if you saw WISH this past weekend and hated it like I hated it, help me warn other people off of it. Do not go give your money to this movie. I watched it the day after it released with my family, and it was an empty theater besides us: let’s keep that up.

I believed in going to this movie to give it a chance, because the Disney Feature Animation department has never let me down. Their live-action department? Yes. So I don’t go see those anymore. Their television department? Yes. So I don’t see those anymore.

But I went and saw this movie because they haven’t broken my trust yet. Now they have. It’s bad. Bad content, bad form. It’s lazy, because they know they can be lazy, and you’ll still fill the seats. It pushes a New Age humanist ideology, and it does so because it knows it can, because you’ll fill the seats and not expect anything more from them.

Expect something more. By not going, now that I’ve warned you.

It takes everything that classic Disney movies proclaimed, and it lazily says the opposite—but while it says the opposite, it throws Easter eggs of old Disney movies in there, and adds bits of “When You Wish Upon a Star” into the soundtrack, as if to pay tribute. When what it’s really doing is betraying. If you love any Disney Animated movie, don’t go see this one; it stabs those movies in the heart and then waves the bleeding things around on a stick like a celebration-parade-float. Don’t. Go. See it.

[puertoricanbelle]

As today marks 100 years of Disney, it was only right to share just 10 pieces of art inspired by Disney characters.

I eagerly await the premiere of Wish, and I will be at Disneyland in a little over a week, and I’m so freaking excited to experience the magic this year!

Happy 100 years of Disney!

[elsa1aksks]

°` my lovely girls

[marvelmaniac715]

The movie Brave was a revolution for me as a child. I’m Scottish, but I was born and raised in England - my mum moved down when she was pregnant with me and never moved back - and so I never really felt like I was Scottish. I don’t even have a Scottish accent, and any attempts at one are very bad. Brave was my favourite movie for a long time as a little girl, because I was a huge Disney fan and it finally felt like I was learning about where I’m from. I even had a Merida doll once, I idolised that feisty red headed princess so much, and even though some people don’t like Brave that much I still think it has its merits. Though that might be my nostalgia talking 😅.

[arjengelly]

Wish Theories 🌟

Queen Amaya is the real villain puppeteering Magnifico.

Maybe Magnifico’s wish never came true

1. Can’t grant his own wish

2. No one made a selfless wish for his behalf

3. Maybe someone else’s wish hurt him

4. He & Amaya can’t have a baby

A dolphin either pops out of the well or is in the movie 🐬 (I had a dream about it😜)

[therealnostalgialover808]

I don't care what the critics have to say about WISH. It was worth watching tonight. ;)

[cecil2311413]

Still celebrating the 100th birthday of Disney!!

[angrymonkie]

[pussinbootsandbountyhunter]

Asha’s Villain Song

It’s finally out!

(Spoilers)

Love to see Magnifico’s past revealed and the fact that he had to watch his own wish be broken, he regrets for what he had done with tears in his eyes… he never wanted to do this but he had no choice but to do the wrong thing for a right reason, I was wondering what will happen next if Asha going after Amaya…

This is absolutely the best song I’ve ever heard so far! I mean, I also like the details of purple/orange/green that combine the strongest emotions with hint of blue and yellow.

But I also felt bad for Magnifico, I mean… he had no choice just to protect everyone as he doesn’t want everything repeated in time…

[disneydude94]

Celebrating 100 years of Disney, Warner Bros., Hollywood, and the Flying Scotsman! Good thing I photoshopped here before the end of the year. Please enjoy!

[hannathecartoonlover]

I have to be honest I was really really disappointed in Disneys wish I just wanted this to be a good movie but it's whatever I did redesigns of asha and star I really am proud of these but I do see some people doing rewrites to give this story the justice it deserves

[toonstarterz]

Disney has always been kinda personal for me. I'm not stupid enough to ignore the shit that permeates the corporation as whole.

But I still want to believe in it. I'm fucking almost thirty and a part of me still wants to believe in the magic. That the people behind the studio known for its beautiful, artistic masterpieces are still keeping that light alive even when the real world tries to put it out.

I really hope that amidst everything else, Wish still captures that magic.

[elsa1aksks]

°` WOWWW