I saw it this afternoon. I thought it was enjoyable, but for a film meant to celebrate Disney’s 100th anniversary, I was expecting more.
They were supposed to play the “Once Upon a Studio” short in front of Wish, but for whatever reason there was no short.
Chris Pine was excellent as King Magnifico, I was disappointed that he didn’t get much screentime. I was frustrated that Valentino (the goat) didn’t have much to do in the film, and you could remove him from the plot and it would make very little difference. Asha seemed like a nice, funny, dorky kid, but the plot made her seem selfish, and made Magnifico seem completely justified in his decision.
I thought the animation looked…okay. It’s cel-shaded CGI, but it feels like it doesn’t really commit to the style. It mostly feels like any recent Disney animated film but with an added filter. I heard rumors that the film would also be animated in 2D, but that seemed to be reserved for the special effects such as Magnifico’s green magic (or whatever it was called).
I enjoyed the musical numbers, especially “Welcome to Rosas”, “This is The Thanks I Get?!”, and “Knowing What I Know Now”. However, some songs like “This Wish” and “You’re a Star” feel like the songwriters were cramming in too many words (for example “So I make this wish/to have something more for us than this” could have been shortened to “to have something more than this”).
I also heard rumors that every Disney animated character would appear, but unfortunately that’s not the case. There are a few references to other films here and there (and Peter Pan himself has a cameo at the end). I expected the end credits to go all-out on the crossover element (because early screening reactions on social media said to sit through the credits) but it was just a series of constellations in the shape of Disney characters (they even referenced Home on the Range, Chicken Little and Strange World, considered to be some of Disney’s worst animated films!) The whole movie just felt like a wasted opportunity.
In conclusion: if you want to watch a movie with stylized 3D animation about a wishing star, go see Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
5-8 years ago this would have been fantastic news.
But Filoni has spiraled into Great Value George Lucas.
“Act as much like a plank of wood as humanly possible.” direction.
Write as boring and inconsistent a plot as possible.
Honestly, everytime I go back and watch ATLA, the first 2-3 episodes are really not that great. And after Filoni left the quality just improved from then on.
Maybe Filoni + Lucas was some sort of magical fusion greater than the sum of its parts, or maybe it was just luck. Either way, Filoni on his own has become this boring stale potato chip writer and has the direction capability of a carpenter.
Movie itself was pretty even keel, not great, not terrible.
Cons: weak uninspired villain, that fucking singing planet
Pros: Kamala and her family, cool explorations of the the Marvels’ powers, taking advantage of their quantum entaglement, and probably one of the best real hype post credits scenes since the OG thanos teaser.
I liked the singing planet but wish they had leaned much harder into it.
When we arrive everyone is just standing around and don’t start singing until they notice the Marvels. I understand the reveal joke but they could have handled it better.
The prince being bilingual was fine.
However when it came to battle that should have been a huge musical number. It could have been an added step to the Marvels working in unison. Have them try to time things together but occasionally messing up. Then they could have hummed/sung along to get more in sync.
Disney spent $4 billion for Marvel back in 2009. They’ve made far more than that back already, and I’d argue the superhero / comic movie space is now ridiculously saturated.
Personally I hope this just leads to more varied projects instead of executives resting on a single IP until the end of time (and yes, all Marvel stuff is one big IP).
... I'm trying to remember what my gripe was. It's not anarchist enough? Too much vendetta not enough revolution? Book V had a vision for the future, Movie V only had revenge?
Fuck me guess it's time to reread and rewatch and remind myself why I thought that.
I’d love to say that V isn’t much of an anarchist because anarchists are supposed to act in solidarity with the people they are hoping to liberate (which includes themselves) and not unilaterally in the way that V does… but then I remember Alexander Berkman assassinating capitalist Henry Clay Frick without bothering to properly understand the position of the strikers Frick was repressing.
I’d say that the “super” genre is utterly incompatible with anarchist thought… the “super” genre is, after all, based on individualist power fantasy - something quite useless to someone viewing power relations through an anarchist lens.
So, there’s that… and I lost all sympathy for V when he shoved Evey in a cell. That’s some straight-up abusive shit right there.
@elbarto777 I felt the same way as @Xariphon . For me the book is anti fascism so it's a critique of the ideology of fascism but it's also nuanced and critical of aspects of the V character who is quite problematic.
The movie is more about "fascism we don't like" (with clear US political references) and V is made more unambiguously heroic and even romantic, with Evie falling in love with him and the crowds on his side (i.e crypto-democratic leader).
[The movie] has been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. ... It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives – which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England.
These reboots of movies that doesn’t require reboots achieves only two things for me… it reminds me to go and watch the origial movie again, while guaranteeing that I won’t bother watching the reboot.
Remake movies that had good ideas and poor execution, or visa versa. Don’t bother remaking movies that are already good.
I just watched Highlander a few weeks ago and I think this one qualifies as good idea, poor execution. The one scottish person on the cast played a spaniard, and it’s not just some scottish dude. Why didn’t they make the main character a frenchman?! He doesnt even use a scottish sword!
I just watched Highlander a few weeks ago and I think this one qualifies as good idea, poor execution.
Wash yer mouth out! It’s definitely a case of terrible idea, great execution - in fact, it’s such a terrible idea that there was literally nothing with which to build a sequel out of. Every other Highlander movie and the tv show was little more than an awkward retcon milking exercise and little more.
Why didn’t they make the main character a frenchman?!
A French main character? In a USian movie? I guess you forgot about that whole anti-French “Freedom Fries” charade.
As opposed to the very real science of time travel? Marty fading was an excellent visualisation of how Marty’s altering the past, and hinted that there’s a level of housekeeping the timeline does to keep the world consistent. It’s just one of many theories about time travel that have been depicted in film, even if it’s not your personal favourite theory.
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