The Missed Potential of WISH
It’s funny.
Last year, I really wanted to watch the new Wish animated film from Disney.
While everyone else were hating on the art and animation style, I actually kind of liked it and was genuinely looking forward to possibly viewing it on the big screen.
Then the reviews came in.
Needless to say, I didn’t watch Wish.
I remember a time when people used to complain about Disney making “too many love stories”. Then Disney stopped making love stories leading to films like Moana, Coco, Encanto and even Turning Red, which weren't bad.
Following the failure of Wish, the biggest complaint I’ve heard for that film is that “it probably would’ve been more successful if it were a love story”.
The last romance Disney had we’re the protagonist was a “black girl” was Tiana from The Princess and the Frog which was technically their last 2D animated feature film.
And don’t get me wrong, til this day, The Princess and the Frog still tracks. Second to Tangled, I still very much love TPATF and it's one of Disney's classics that definitely have the rewatchability.
That being said, Wish is the first Disney film I've seen where the missed potential of what its story was originally supposed to be (herego a love story between a human girl and shape-shifting star boy) versus what we actually got is more popular.
Aww Disney, what were you thinking?!
How could you think a film where the main character, who is a PoC, the first "black girl" (well technically I think Asha is meant to be mixed) female lead/love interest that you've had since Tiana in The Princess and the Frog in 14 YEARS where she is actually human for all of the movie and gets to share a love story with a handsome "star boy" who can literally make all of her dreams come and think that that's NOT gonna make you money!
I haven't even watched Wish yet I've seen more artwork and fan-made animatics of Asha and Star Boy than anything from the actual film.
At this point, Disney should just take all of the original ideas they left on the chopping block for Wish and revise them into a future title which is an actual love story they could market from.
Or…as an audience, we can just wait for one of their competitors, like Dreamworks to smell the blood in the water like the sharks they are and capitalize on Disney’s latest flop by taking the ideas they didn’t use and coming up with something that could potentially usurp the popularity of Wish’s failure.
In the case of Dreamworks, they don’t even need to make a new star boy since, technically, they already have potential “star boy” they can use.
Remember Rise of the Guardians?
Hahaaaaa OF COURSE you do, since it gave us the original immortal boy internet heart throb (also ironically voiced by Chris Pine who played King Magnifico in Wish) ---Jack Frost.
I find it hilarious that another reason why folks are hating on Wish so much is because Disney could've given us another potential immortal boy heart throb "Star Boy" to finally usurp the chokehold that Jack Frost has had on our generation of weebs and artists for the past 12 years since RoTG first dropped.
We could've had it all.
But as I mentioned Rise of the Guardians, did you know that there is character in the original series it was based off of called Nightlight?
While technically not a “star boy”, Nightlight is the closest thing to one in an already established universe from a Dreamworks property and since this squiggle meister never misses a beat to push for continuation of Rise of Guardians, hear me out:
Imagine a Rise of the Guardian prequel-sequel about the character Nightlight and make it a love story.
(Because apparently there's a girl that Nightlight grows close to in his story called Katherine. It's just a friendship but needless to say, there is potential there).
I know it’s been 12 years since Rise of Guardians first dropped and I know I've be hollering for a sequel since 2012.
But c'mon, if there was ever a time for Dreamworks to capitalize on an RoTG sequel, it's now.
As Wish has proven, the internet is hungry for another handsome immortal boy with magical powers.
Dreamworks set the ball rolling with Jack Frost.
If Dreamworks were to revisit RoTG again, take Nightlight's story. Take his design and give him the "Jack Frost" treatment and make it a love story on top of that.
I'm not saying it will happen.
Not even saying it could happen.
But if somehow thought becomes reality and something like this does actually happen, whoever does it will be rolling in dough.
This is just a longwinded way of me to say that somebody needs to bank on the concept of a star falling in love with a human and do it now since as the internet has shown, it's what the people want and what Wish failed to give.
~LMS (2024)
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