Wish Analysis Pt. 1/3

Wish Analysis Pt. 1/3

I just saw Wish and 😍😍✨🤩!!!!!! I love it SO MUCH!!!! I have a rule for myself: watch first, analyze later, so I only really have surface level analysis right now, but I figured I’d write and post it anyway! Sorry this is gonna be super long, I typed a whole essay! Obviously spoilers ahead:

First of all, let me just say that I was absolutely dazzled! The animation, the songs, the story, AHHH so good! And STAR 🤩🤩!! YES! The songs felt very Disney, but in a new way that I absolutely loved. I was crying, stifling screams (because movie theater), and I nearly fell off my chair a few times. I’m legit thinking about going to see it again tomorrow.

Ok, enough of me just fangirling haha. There were so many references to other Disney movies in Wish. I know I missed some while watching and I’ve forgotten some since then, but I’ll try to summarize what I saw. Beginning with a storybook was a beautiful choice as a nod to old Disney movies. So many Snow White references, it was insane. Dahlia and the other kitchen workers were the seven dwarves, the wishing well (that was also a hidden Mickey), Magnifico’s whole hidden lair (especially the poison apple and listing ingredients). There was a bear named John (Little John from Robin Hood), a bunny did Thumper’s foot tapping thing, a deer named Bambi, the mushrooms and flowers dancing could be Alice in Wonderland all in the You’re a Star sequence. There were lanterns and the boats as a reference to Tangled. The vines of magic across the castle at the end looked very much like Maleficent’s magic. The swirling clouds above the castle looked like Night on Bald Mountain. When Magnifico got trapped in the staff at the end was very Jafar in the lamp. At one moment in the forest Magnifico directly mirrored a shot of the Headless Horsemen from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad. Asha riding on a deer surrounded by other deer could have been a reference to Lost in the Woods. And all the wishes briefly mentioned/shown were references to other Disney movies; one directly used footage from Peter Pan (and then showed Peter and Wendy in the very end), a wish for true love could be any number of movies, the wish to sail a ship could be Peter Pan, but I think was probably Moana, the wish for a perfect nanny for their children must have been Mary Poppins (which is slightly odd, since every other reference I caught was to an animated movie, but whatever), and the one to climb a mountain was about Strange World. I know I’ve missed dozens of references, but that’s all I can think of right now!

Hi! This is my first time having a tumblr account, but I’ve kind of been lurking for a while! I absolutely love Disney and especially Frozen, and really enjoy writing about them, so I’m planning to post some analyses soon!

Frozen 3 & 4 - more analyzing

So I was thinking that when Jen Lee made F2, she turned her focus to Elsa's magic and where it comes from and why she has it. This was the most obvious direction they could have gone in.

So what would be the most obvious direction for them to go in next?

I think the most obvious direction would be exploration of Anna and Elsa as the fifth spirit, further exploration of Ahtohollan, and their mission as the bridge between the Northuldra and Arendelle, and healing the rift therein.

So I think at least F3 will be lore-heavy (though they gotta keep the story character-centric because that is what makes it SO GOOD).

Some things never change, Happy 4th Anniversary to Frozen II ❄🍁

Was going to make an OFA poster but I'm running out of time so Happy 6th Anniversary to Olaf's Frozen Adventure as well 🔥

I had noticed this a while ago but just learned something in Latin class today that makes this even better, so here we go:

When Anna pulls off Elsa’s glove at the coronation, she pulls off the left glove, which means that all of Elsa’s accidental magic as she flees Arendelle was with her left hand. Traditionally, left handedness and the left hand in general was associated with evil, or the devil. Even the Latin word for left or left handed, siníster, also means harmful or ill-omened. For many years, left handed people were considered strange or wicked and were forced to use their right hand instead. I think this was absolutely an intentional detail that reinforces Elsa’s negative perception of her magic, up until “well now they know,” when she pulls off her other glove and starts using both hands. The magic that caused the initial destruction in Arendelle was from her left hand and therefore symbolically associated with evil in her eyes and the eyes of the townspeople.

Wish Analysis Pt. 3/3

I loved the use of color symbolism throughout the movie, with Magnifico starting as blue and gold and changing to green as he was corrupted. Lime green in Disney movies has traditionally been used to represent the villain, so I love the exaggerated use of it here. I’ve seen the phrase Every Villain Is Lime as E.V.I.L. and I feel like the visual artists really just went with that in Wish.

The use of When You Wish Upon A Star throughout the movie also got me. At several key points the background music was very similar to or exactly WYWUAS. Also, as my sister pointed out; in the after credits scene, Sabo is playing WYWUAS and his wish was to create something to inspire the next generation 🥹🥹

I’ve come up with a phrase to help with story analysis, that I don’t feel like explaining right now (maybe I will at some point, IDK), but part of it is the word “completed.” In stories, when a character says something definitive like “always” or “never” it almost always gets broken. My sister pointed out at the beginning when Amaya was referred to as Magnifico’s “loyal wife” that she would probably betray him, and sure enough. When Asha is talking about her wish to Dahlia and the others, she says it will not affect their lives in any way, and it very much does.

Ok, I think that’s all I’ve got for right now? I will probably do another post about Wish pretty soon when I feel like typing it all out haha. Thanks for reading if you made it this far, I’m so sorry this was so long 😂🤦‍♀️.

TL;DR: I loved everything about Wish. There were lots of references to other Disney movies, the songs followed the classic formula in many ways but also broke out of it in some ways, and there were various other beautiful things I appreciated throughout the movie!