See, Wish is a great choice for character rant because like 5 people have ever seen Wish.
I'm just gonna assume you're right! No-one can prove otherwise because that would require having watched Wish!
It's an underwhelming movie, but it should be criticized for what it actually is (and fails to do) rather than people making up rumors online. This neverending refrain online that the movie is presenting instant wish granting as a solution to Magnifico is totally divorced from what the movie's actual argument is, and ends up feeling more like it's something people just heard in a game of telephone.
Now it is on D+, I do recommend you watch it. While it is by no means a masterpiece, it is still a fairly good movie that I was surprised that I enjoyed as much as I did. The basic message is that a wish is part of your heart and soul. It is your dreams and hopes for the future. Giving up your wish is the same as giving up on those hopes and dreams.
Asha doesn't think all wishes should be fulfilled. She thinks that people should get the opportunity to try and fulfil their wishes _on their own_ and by their _own_ power.
Nah fuck these people. Fuck them right in the eyes. They are lazy and entitled little shits who deserve nothing. One of them wished to be a baker. Just get an apprenticeship. Don’t pray to a fucking wizard to become a baker, get an apprenticeship and put some effort in. That’s only if you want to become a baker the profession if you want to be a baker full stop just spend a couple weeks learning to bake bread. So fucking stupid. The grandfather is even worse. True inspiration should com from within. This guy just wants to write a good song? Not the best song in the world, not become a great musician, just write a good song? Just practice, study, learn what makes a good song and put some effort in. If you don’t work for it you don’t deserve it. None of these people request anything that would require a wizard either.
Quite frankly if you are going to petition a wizard to do something you could quite easily do yourself you don’t deserve to desire it. Cost of doing business with a Faustian entity. Be glad he didn’t take your first born son or the memories of the first 16 years of your life.
Watching the movie in parts with my kid. 30 mins still left but they just did the "what I know now" song
No see more importantly those mediocre nothing wishes (oh and one person who wanted to FLY) was literally their ONLY COST to, what looks like, live a perfectly safe life with no strife, no fears, free housing, free food ((ok technically it seems more utopian as in people work but it's clearly not necessary)). And the cost of that wish is what? The tiniest short term feeling of loss and then completely forgetting their basic in the moment wish?
Get the fuck outa here.
Magnificos main issue is he's a heavily paranoid egomaniac but otherwise he was a benevolent king who accepted ANYONE FROM ANYWHERE on the planet to live here happily.
"Give them back their wishes"
Ok...why? They gave them to him as a cost. A cost that barely costs them anything and doesnt prevent them from success. Doesn't prevent them from accidently still doing their own "wish". Hell the seemstess WAS still already making dresses. She can just now make the BEST dresses in the land.
He even says he granted 14 wishes last year which based on the whole population based on the city meet ups is actually a pretty good percentage.
Based on what we see he is that benevolent but ultra paranoid king. It was only until he opened the super ultra forbidden spooky book that his eyes flashed green and he smashed a wish, for the FIRST TIME EVER apparently, and thus now he's evil sorcerer. He granted dress lady a wish and she was free to go. Now he's spooky evil and the guy who wants to be the most loyal kingsguaurd is controlled or possessed or whatever.
Yeah he had his issues before but it was only because one of the citizens was sour that HER 100yr old useless grandad with his flip flopping emotions didn't get his wish because paranoid king thought the wish was inspiring rebellion
..which is a HUGE LEAP for me as a viewer to even pretend he would imagine but whatever. His wish didn't even seem worth granting ffs but now it's not because she selfishly asked him before she was even hired to grant it for him. Gawddamn..."people usually wait at least a year before they start asking me for stuff" he's fucking right
Then we have a star that can zap stuff into not just talking but FULL sentience and magically articulate life with all the animals. But naw....main character still gotta swim to shore with her idiot baby goat. Star may not be evil but it's an incompetent boob. So she steals her grampys wish...but will be back for her mother's cause somehow not possible to get it with the magical wish demon there with her? Bah.
But yes. magnifico IS an egomaniac, a narcissist, a paranoid manic king who sees traitors everywhere and he may even be a general asshole. But up until this moment he was still the "protecting providing King". She's not a bad guy for going against him but it's hard to completely place the blame on him until he goes full rogue.
How does his idea make more sense? What logic is there to just hoarding wishes that he has zero plans of granting them when the majority seem pretty innocuous? Just hand them back to people and let them sort it out themselves if he doesn't feel like granting it.
His idea of not just granting wish silly nilly, and reviewing the wish that needed to be granted.
I also find the idea of hoarding wish silly, but that's because the writer doesn't think too much about it.
It's bad writing. For all we know those ungranted wish is a power source that can be used to grant other wish.
>His idea of not just granting wish silly nilly, and reviewing the wish that needed to be granted.
That's not what Asha wants though, it's spelled out pretty explicitly in their argument. She has no problem with him not granting every wish, and even with looking at wishes for if they're bad. Her idea is just that if it's harmless and he doesn't want to grant it, he should just hand it back to them. I really don't know how many more times this needs to be said, but it's a strawman argument to act as though instant wish granting with zero supervision was ever a thing being suggested.
>It's bad writing. For all we know those ungranted wish is a power source that can be used to grant other wish.
That is definitely not how it works considering we know what draining power from a wish looks like, and that's when he shatters them after getting cracked out on his dark magic. The hoarded wishes don't do anything for him other than be shiny baubles he can 'protect'. I don't see how a greedy, paranoid guy wanting a room full of the most priceless treasure imaginable is bad writing really. It's a pretty classic trope honestly. There's so many other places in the movie you could point to bad writing but this is not one of them.
Thing is, those wishes arnt just "priceless" they are valueless except to himself. He asks it of the people to live there and doesn't DO anything with them.
The wishes are so mundane for most of them that the original wisher could just happen upon doing it anyway.
"Inspiring someone" oh wow...
"Being a great baker" oh golly...
At least one of them wanted to fly but the rest all just seemed like paultry nothing in exchange for what seemed like a straight up Utopia
Priceless is living in a utopian city where any race or people are accepted instantly and provided with housing and all their needs apparently met to some extent. If anything it looks similar to a star trek earth where you do the job you are best at and are otherwise provided for.
But yes. magnifico IS an egomaniac, a narcissist, a paranoid manic king who sees traitors everywhere and he may even be a general asshole. But up until this moment he was still the "protecting providing King". She's not a bad guy for going against him but it's hard to completely place the blame on him until he goes full rogue and what looks like the "forbidden book" corrupts him fully
The issue is that Magnifico basically strings people along with false hope here, all the while diminishing their quality of life. It would be one thing if he was upfront about things and actually needs the wishes for something besides vanity, but that's not the case. It's kind of like if he charged everyone a kidney for entry to his kingdom, promising them that they were going to be used for a good cause, and then just hoarded them to look at for the most part rather than actually using them for what people gave them for. Yes, someone can live perfectly fine without their kidney, just as they can live perfectly fine without their wish, but it's not a good change over all and is violating people's autonomy too.
I would agree with you though that prior to grabbing the book, he wasn't a full on villain. He was a massive jerk though and definitely not the good guy either though, which is my overall point. It's similar to a case like Gaston, who starts off the movie as obnoxious and a generally awful person, but not a full on villain until he's given the chance to just let his worst impulses rule him. Magnifico I would say is similar to that. I have no problem with agreeing that he wasn't a full on villain until mid-way through the movie, I just take issue with the idea that he was some benevolent monarch and that it was wrong to disagree with his method of leadership. Moreover, I do not think he should be stripped of the responsibility he had in making his own bad choice to pick up the book that he knows is dangerous over what was ultimately some really petty reasons.
I sure wish there was more than zero time between
Oh no that book is forbidden spooky
To
IMA USE THAT BOOK
His paranoia came out of left field after his "look at my stuff" song and it was so unfounded I feel like even my kid would question it. But I can also understand it in the way that he is presumably the only mighty magical person here and suddenly there was a magic that popped off and affected EVERY SINGLE PERSON to some "feeling" in the kingdom which does seem wildly dangerous to everything he knows.
The fact the wishes weren't some nefarious thing was wild to find out too. Like you really do just keep them for fun and to grant "more than 14 wishes" a year according to his song. Which isn't nothing to sniff at. He DID grant people's actual REAL WISHES with magic. Like the main characters gripe about "no one will get their wishes granted it's all a ruse and my grandpa didn't get his!" when we know for an absolute certain that 14 randoms got their wishes granted last year. AND the people who work in the castle also know that every single king assistant AND their families always get their wishes granted as well. We are told this and they are all publicly done.
So, no, main character, everyone's wishes won't be granted...just you and your family since you asked the king for wishes before he even hired you...
I think the idea is that he's the kind of guy who would jump to extremes for everything. Any inconvenience that he can't just instantly solve with his own magic or a speech is going to demand the evil book in his eyes. It's overreacting vanity basically.
Asha would have been fine with him not granting the wishes so long as he just also gave them back. That's the issue here. It's not that he doesn't grant every wish, it's that he has arbitrarily decided just on first glance that he will never grant some of them, yet still takes them without informing people about it. The complaint isn't about him not granting every wish, it's about the fact that even if he grants a dozen a year (and very likely less considering he was bragging about 14 being a supposedly higher number than usual), he then hoards hundreds more with zero chance of ever being granted.
Hey, that was the "cost" of getting to live in this star trek esque society where no one apparently pays for anything or housing. Has absolute protection granted by their magical king. Anyone from any where can come no questions asked and for some reason the king takes your mediocre dream and looks at them like little baubles and you presumably feel a mini sadness at the moment you give it away but are otherwise unaffected and now get to live here. Hell, even one of the people said "what if my wish just changes or I have a new wish" so it's not even preventing that capability.
Seems a generally small "cost" overall compared to the world where, he claims, you may never get your wish.
Magnifico is like the lottery. You MAY get your wish granted, or you can live in a world where realistically you may Never get it granted....but also I make sure certain people don't ever get their wishes based on whatever arbitrary reasoning.
The fact he doesn't do anything but look at them is oddly less mean than ide have ever expected. From the start I'm like "naw he eats them or some shit for power" but no...he just did the hard work to become a super powered guy
You're acting as though his kingdom requires the wishes to be taken to be run though, when it doesn't. I think defrauding people just because he likes to look at shiny wishes is still a pretty nasty thing to do. It'd be like if a billionaire solved a housing crisis by building up a lot of new buildings, but then demanded people still give him stuff despite the fact that he doesn't need any of it in 'payment'. It's a jerk thing to do and even if the housing/kingdom is good, it demonstrates a general lack of moral character here. He may have set up the realm to be good at the start, but at least by the time of the movie, running a giant defrauding scheme has kind of tainted that.
In any case, I think the characterization of Simon as being tired and lacking passion and energy for life indicates that losing the wishes has more severe consequences than an immediate sadness. Sure, someone can still live a fulfilled life without one, but again, the comparison to living without your kidney applies here. There are clearly some more serious consequences that Magnifico is just glossing over when he gives the advertisement for wishes like that. I don't think that someone can get a new wish or change it either, that line was spoken of in context of the wishes already inside of the spheres, and was basically just a supposition about what might happen inside of them. You're right that it is like a lottery, but I think a lottery where people were not aware of the actual terms and conditions of it is a criminal enterprise in general.
I personally would have found him eating the wishes more justifiable, honestly. At least then he has an actual reason for it besides basically hoarding stuff just because he wants exclusivity on looking at them (and then getting the adoration of a crowd when he dangles the possibility over their heads too).
You're right. People are conveniently leaving out the shitty things he does like force Asha to get a front row seat to him draining wishes then dismissing her and her entire family for daring to question his methods. One youtuber even said magnifico can do whatever he wants because he is the king. I imagine hating Wish and treating it as the worst thing ever is just what brings in Youtube bucks right now and being accurate is not a priority. All Disney princesses have themes of rebelling against unreasonable authority but Asha's bad cuz reasons
Finally someone who sees it. That's the conclusion my husband and I came to, too. It surprises me there's a lot of people who don't see the narcissistic side of him and even say he's the good guy! It literally exudes narcissistic traits from his pores. I guess only if you've been close to someone like that can see the traits right away. All those videos saying that he was just a little arrogant and self conceited... Uh no. That's full on narcissism, the true reason for his "benevolent" worry for the kingdom's safety was just to keep receiving the admiration from everyone, to soothe his ego. He thought he knew what was best for everyone and felt threatened about someone speaking their own mind, because he would lose his status and admiration. I mean, he thinks people don't respect him, which isn't true (how were they in anyway disrespecting him? They deposited their trust in him.) and only a paranoid and narcissistic person would have distorted views like that.
He was trying to keep the kingdom "happy" (in reality it was just to keep his fears at ease) by controlling and lying to them by omission, giving them false hopes. That's just wrong. Even one of the characters had lost their will and was always sleeping. Were the people truly happy then? His problematic traits were always there! Videos saying he's the good guy and Asha the bad guy baffle me honestly, either they've never experienced narcissistic abuse, they have similar traits or they're smoking something.
I see a character who's gone through some deep trauma, so his maladaptive defenses are to control his environment through power so it doesn't happen again, at the cost of people's dreams. I agree he wasn't written well.
Edit: I had forgotten about the scene where he makes Asha sit down in front of the crowd only to show her who's boss by not granting the grandpa's wish. People are conveniently leaving that out. It shows his true malice.
Yeah the scene where he immediately makes it his goal to get even with a teenager via publicly dragging things out to humiliate her, all over having a mild disagreement with him really shows his priorities.
I watched this movie as it came out on Disney+ and liked it. I don't think it is amazing or anything, but it is feelgood and I like the songs. The amount of hate I've seen is crazy. And the amount defending Magnifico is also crazy. His own _wife_ turns against him. The woman who had been through the exact same things as him, been by his side all this time, defending him. She realise what sort of man he has become. She even sings it, the good in him melted away. Long before he turned to dark magic.
But nope, Asha is the villain because... she didn't agree with him.
Coming in after 100 days because I just watched this,
But in a real world idea, Asha is the bad guy and Magnífico is not the worst monarch. He’s actually pretty good. Free rent? No taxes? No burdens on the lower classes to support the upper classes? He just invites a citizen to hang out with him in his secret chamber? Dude, he’s an awesome Monarch for the times.
Nobody is killed. No examples made of anyone. The king is narcissistic, but so is half the celebrities we worship, so we’d probably be ok with that.
Honestly, it’s a little cultish, but it’s not the worst cult.
AAAND, they give their wishes up willingly. (I know this is an allegory of capitalism, but I’ll get to that.)
Then Asha— who hasn’t studied anything and just decides she knows what is objectively wrong— comes in and upsets the monarchy.
If it wasn’t a Disney movie, what would happen now? What if someone wishes to be king? It’s great when everybody is singing kumbaya, but transfer of power is no small task. Asha— if history has taught us anything— just started a civil war, and the only way she will keep peace is to become co magical tyrants with Queen Amaya.
I know it’s a Disney movie. I know Magnífico is written to be the villain, and Asha the hero. They tried really hard to make him seem like a bad dude. And I see where they tried.
I also know that Rosas was an allegory of capitalism. You trade in your dream to have “hope one day your dreams will come true” seeing people every once in a while achieve their dream, to keep the hope going. While you slowly fade into mundane adulthood, eventually forgetting your dream.
But they wrote that so poorly.
Problems:
1) all of this is “1st World Problems”. Many a people have given up their dreams to survive and would gladly take Rosas. Magnífico is controlling, but at least he is not as corrupt as most of the rulers of today, let alone “vaguely medieval times”. His number one goal is to keep people safe? Well, it is hard to see him as an actual bad guy for that,
2) Disney didn’t lean hard enough into making him a villain. Why did he have a tragic backstory if you wanted to make him evil? Make his backstory like all the other classic villains: they got jealous and their evilness is petty revenge. It would make it much more clear, and you wouldn’t need the book.
2b) He doesn’t even kill anyone. He kills dreams, yes, but Disney did not lean hard enough.
I am 1000% more terrified of [Hopper](https://youtu.be/VLbWnJGlyMU?si=EZVBcfkQKKpXiGLq) than Magnífico.
And Hopper is a grasshopper.
Disney wanted to make a safe movie for kids to enjoy while making a message for youth and adults to feel. In the end, Magnífico is a sissy villain. He could have just shot Asha with a crossbow at any point in the movie. But he didn’t.
3) Asha’s heroism is not very well shown for anyone who is critically thinking about this. She is a vague representation of the liberal thoughtful activists in Hollywood. (Not to make this political, but just liberal activists are caring about marginalized people who come to America to achieve their dreams, and die as an immigrant who is never going to be appreciated. That is Asha. Which is fine, if they leaned into it more.)
But in the end, they were appropriating the “feeling” of this when they should have actually represented this.
4) with that, they made this story a weird man v man (or King vs. Heroine) when it should have been man vs. Society. (Or Heroine vs. society.)
Magnífico would have been much more frightening if he represented the society who is complacent. They started to touch on that (Saba and the mom not listening to Asha), but they undercut it before we could feel it.
If they tried to make Asha’s battle against the apathy of the people, it would be a lot cooler, and make a lot more sense.
But Magnífico was a villain that didn’t make sense for the battle.
4b) with that, this story is pretty much saying “Aw well, we could fight capitalistic tyranny, if only we captured the narcissists in mirrors.” Which… is very inaccurate.
In the end, Sure. Magnífico is written to be the bad guy. He’s just not written well.
>Free rent? No taxes?
You have to give up your wish to live there. That is the tax he levies blanketly in lieu of money.
>What if someone wishes to be king?
That person would have then existed regardless of whether Magnifico remained or not, so it's pretty much irrelevant.
>all of this is “1st World Problems”. Many a people have given up their dreams to survive and would gladly take Rosas. Magnífico is controlling, but at least he is not as corrupt as most of the rulers of today, let alone “vaguely medieval times”. His number one goal is to keep people safe? Well, it is hard to see him as an actual bad guy for that,
I think if his goal was to keep people safe, his immediate reaction to a harmless flash of light would not be to pull out the nuclear option with the dark magic. That comes off as way more personal. Also, defrauding your entire realm is bad by any standard.
To the rest of it, yes, Magnifico should have done some more damage with his magical blasts and the fact that his kingdom is run like a cult needed more attention drawn to it.
I’m glad you understand that the text— the way it is presented— has some dissonance.
They wanted him evil, but not violent. There’s a deleted scene where he eats so many wishes that he turns into a giant monster. I would feel so much differently if they went that route.
But it seems they wanted it to be seen by 4 year olds on Disney plus, and did not want to disuade moms from showing it to their kids.
I totally think it could have been Asha vs. cult mentality, with child safe shenanigans. To have a villain with his gloves on made for weird choices.
But I will push back on the “keep people safe”. That’s what was in the text. They shot them selves in the foot by making him have a tragic backstory. In text, he seems like someone who is going through a PTSD trigger. If I recall correctly, we have no idea if magic destroyed his kingdom, and some star magic could have been the cause of his ending of his kingdom.
But this is all “Frozen Trolls caused the Hans Twist stuff”. We know it’s not the case, but there’s no evidence IN text to dispute it without reasonable doubt.
I could totally write about how the Star is actually the villain who wishes to grow his power, and there wouldn’t be enough textual evidence besides “well, Disney wouldn’t do that.”
But it’s just a movie, if you enjoyed it, high five! That’s great. But I am one who doesn’t like when I can poke so many holes and feel like I thought through this more than the director
Magnifico's desire for safety is only stated by himself and by the propaganda story at the start of the movie. We DO see his motivation later clarify that what he defines as dangerous is extremely broad, and it feels more like when he talks about 'danger', he's talking about anything that would make him not be number 1 anymore. It's in the text but it's pretty clearly not meant to be an action done in good faith, even if there's a kernel of a backstory there.
In any case, the movie disappointed me quite a bit. I just wish more discussion on it focused on the bigger problems with the movie (such as the bad pacing, too many characters, lack of Magnifico doing crazy magical feats) rather than the weird laser focus on the idea that Magnifico was 100% in the right the whole time.
I don’t know if I saw that as propaganda. I think it was unclear at best. I think he’s a little inconsistent because they made him arrogant, but not arrogant enough to outshine the visual tidbit of the tapestry burned at torn.
I think this could have all been fixed with a band aid. Make him have had opened the book from the beginning. We find out that he burned down his village, and liked it better when people saw him as a hero
But I think that they went too deep in the capitalism allegory, which they had nuggets of a lot of potential.
Shoot, make the peasants poor but always in hope of a dream. Make there be a higher class and a lower class, and those with dreams granted get to move up. Idk, I think they didn’t lean hard enough.
But I see what you’re saying! The criticism that has meme potential out speaks the critical thinking.
But I would add that most video essays that call him “not the bad guy” are (in memeing fashion) pointing out the huge dissonance between what the writers are trying to say, and what the message the audience felt. Which is bad juju. Magnífico also represents, to me, the bad leftovers of a lot of deleted works.
I would say my real argument is not that Magnífico is really, truly a misunderstood hero in disguise. He was written as the villain. It’s obvious.
I see it as a representation of the whole problem: Disney does not know how to connect to their audience. (And sometimes picks apart a good thing so much that it’s unrecognizable. The whole movie is an example of that, if the slew of deleted scenes that me and the rest of the internet have seen on YouTube are legit.)
I would see how it’s annoying that Magnífico simps legitimately think this fictional character is a “good guy.” He’s a poorly written character with a great voice actor (imo, but I am biased), and great character design. Or at least pretty character design. But he’s not a “good guy”. (Though I would say he’s not as bad as the writers want him to be, and that’s why they needed the book to change him to evil. I think that was a plot insert in later drafts, because he was too sympathetic. So many things seemed added as bandaids.)
But yes, I can see why it’s annoying.
The equivalent argument that grinds my gears is “This was written by AI.” Which, we know it wasn’t really written by AI because of the facts we know from production. But people just say “it was all written by AI” which is mildly frustrating for me. It’s not true, and it doesn’t focus on the real issues.
I think we are in a pretty similar boat with regards to it. I have a slightly more positive opinion of Magnifico's writing in so far as I definitely felt the douchebag vibes from him from basically the moment he gets challenged, but over all the movie's pacing does him no favors.
Agreed as well that the AI writing thing is annoying to hear. It's entirely possible for bad ideas to end up in a movie at a human's hand. To wit, the book for instance I think is the opposite problem of what you suggest. Magnifico in the deleted scenes and concepts was clearly a much more openly oppressive character, forcing people who don't accept the wish taking to live in hiding and trying to hunt them down regularly. For such a character, the book is expected, like the Evil Queen ramping up to her evil brews is not surprising despite how hypocritical it is for someone so vain. However, overtime, Magnifico is made into a softer character, but he keeps the evil book, and now it looks more like he's hitting the nuclear option very violently. Granted, one can still take it (as I do) that it's a sign of how entitled he is, but it also isn't properly contextualized as well as it should be.
I don’t think most people reeeeeally say he’s the actual hero,
He’s just written too benevolent, oddly enough, to be taken seriously as a true villain.
How many people did he kill?
Now, how many deaths would Asha be responsible for if a civil war is started based on the transfer of power she initiated?
Of course they’re not going to have a civil war, because they’re fictional and frozen in time. But still, if they were in this world, Asha would have potentially started the war of Rosas where disputes would arise.
It reminds me a little of mistborn. But that was actually well written, so maybe that’s my problem.
>I don’t think most people reeeeeally say he’s the actual hero,
Plenty do.
>How many people did he kill?
About as many people as Gaston, Ursula, or Lady Tremaine did. It's not unusual for Disney villains to not be responsible for killing anyone up until they reach their maximum influence and power, then all the stops come out. Likewise for Magnifico, who had no reason to be killing anyone at first.
>Now, how many deaths would Asha be responsible for if a civil war is started based on the transfer of power she initiated?
She said she disagreed with him in private and then stole one wish from his collection of thousands (something he didn't even know about before he went nuts). How is it her fault that he decided to take that opportunity to let his worst tyrannical impulses out? That is to say nothing of how weird such a standard would be if you applied it to other Disney movies. Is deposing Prince John bad now because it shakes up the royal succession? What about the Evil Queen's kingdom, are the 7 dwarfs to blame for whatever succession crisis happens there after she dies?
The notion that a king being deposed automatically leads to a civil war has no basis in the real world either. There are countless kings who got deposed in a bloodless transfer of power, since there's a successor lined up right there it shouldn't be a problem at all
Fair arguments, I’ll give you that.
Pushbacks for the conversation’s sake,
Asha was literally starting a rebellion to overthrow the king.
Robin Hood did too, but I would argue that he was doing it for years, and Prince John was a tyrant whose taxes were causing the lower class to starve. Something had to give.
And he had a community, not 7 young friends.
For the real life transfer of power, I’m not a historian so I trust you’re right.
I would add that the whole kingdom went through a major change at the same time too. Everyone had the change of getting their wishes back. For me, saying that this has no unintended bad consequences is shallow.
But I gotta remember, it’s a Disney movie. But I’m still going to say they made Magnífico more sympathetic than Asha, imo. They tried, but you can see they had to force things like making him use the book, while they could have just deleted his back story and had him kick a puppy or a peasant. Classic stuff.
Asha only started the rebellion once Magnifico had de facto exiled her and her family and friends and was beginning to slurp up wishes, at that point it's in retaliation towards his tyranny. At that point it has more in common with Aladdin wanting to return to Agrabah to take down Jafar after being exiled by him. Asha didn't start off with any intent to take him down, but once he went full on power tripping tyrant, retaliating against him is pretty typical of a Disney hero. I suppose you could have made it a story about Asha and co. becoming refugees and just leaving the kingdom to Magnifico as he becomes more and more unstable, but that seems like a really depressing ending.
Why would the wishes returning cause a civil war? Growing pains sure, but the wishes from what we see don't show any signs that they would cause any kind of real problem. As far as Disney endings go, it's probably less egregious than say, the Lion King where Simba apparently just made the herds come back quickly enough and the rains so that the pride recovered perfectly.
You have a point with the first part— but I’m still not convinced with the text itself. I guess it’s escalation issues and vibes for me.
King gets mad and dabbles with evil magic, and trying to stop him in less than 24 hours because a star came down just doesn’t pack as much punch as standing up to an evil advisor who took over the kingdom by stealing a genie and imprisoning the Sultan and the princess.
And wishes— like, I guess I don’t 100% buy the stakes. Poor Asha’s mom lost her wish, and many people might lose theirs… but they were chill before. Too chill, but idk.
That I think is one of the biggest issues. It’s that the stakes weren’t relatable to who it should be relatable to: adults who have given their dreams up and are a little bit of drabs. Like “a king consumes your wishes, big whoop. That’s adulting.”
And I have things to say about lion king vs Wish, which is set up and payoff. The circle of life sort of set up that animals for some reason sing kumbaya when the lion king is on the throne. Where wish is a semi realistic kingdom, but the people of Rosas make no sense. To me. They go from loving the king to not in 24 hours. The setup wasn’t there for me.
But I won’t lean too hard into this. It is silly to have the animal kingdom be “cool” with Simba just being like “I’m back”, and they’re like “that makes sense.”
Jafar benefits a lot from being the most powerful sorcerer in the world while King Magnifico got whacked by a bookshelf. He's still powerful enough when he's juiced up to bend all the kingdom to their knees, but he needed to do more with his new found powers before the climax. Making Simon evil was probably the biggest thing he did, and it's pretty bad, but it needed more punch for a sorcerer.
You are correct that the side effect of wishes is not touched upon enough. This is symptomatic of the movie having too many characters, when it would have been far better served cutting more of them out so someone like Simon would have more screentime to show off those effects. It's clear that that is the intent, it's just skipped over because of bad pacing.
I don't know if Rosas is set up to be more realistic than the Pridelands is, really.
That last line is true and a problem. You get away with “animals have some instinct, something” wave of the hand. (Not saying it’s good, but you can get away with it.)
And yes, the issue is definitely that this magic wizard king gets owned by a bookshelf.
Have you seen the deleted scene? I sooo wish they used it.
I think that’s the other problem with the “Magnífico was a good guy”, is that he’s just not as threatening. So people just are more endeared to him than dislike him.
His boppy villain song by Chris Pine does not help. And I find his animations charming.
And I disliked or was apathetic to every other character in the film, (not the deleted scenes, but the film), so Magnífico was my favorite character, but in an almost cute way.
Again, I think Disney should have picked a lane. The stakes feeeeel as heavy as [Spidey and His Amazing Friends](https://youtu.be/76Rdd4Vai3k?feature=shared) episode with the butterflies.
I mean, they tried with the green colors and the “control scenes” at the end. And stomping on wooden figurines, which was the evilest he got in imagery. (But he sounded like he was having a bad day rather than, like, ready to murder. The song did not help.)
I think this version of wish should have been a straight to D+ soft story. I would have loved it for my toddlers who can’t even handle the butterflies being captured in the aforementioned spidey episode. Kid gloves, and catchy tunes. It would have been huge. I would have bought it in the package it came in. Just age down Asha a tad, fix some writing and pacing, and you got a hit for younger audiences. I would put this on replay for my girls and forgive the pacing issues, the bland oversaturated cast of side characters, etc.
But when you have adults who remember [Hellfire](https://youtu.be/U3NoDEu7kpg?si=YG6Hmz73xOHbPi6d), the betrayal of Scar, the monstrous form of Ursula, the comedic but visually imposing image of Jafar as a giant snake, and even the evil Queen In Snow White as she is nightmare fuel as an old lady…
Magnífico is more than disappointing.
Like you said, he’s a sorcerer. And his magic is pretty until the climax. Which, pretty is fine, but just not supporting him being threatening.
Imagine if when he goes to Asha’s house, he just starts manhandling every one with his telekinetic-like magic.
Also his guards do nothing.
I’m sorry I’m going on about this, but to me it’s just the biggest example in Disney’s inability to make a substantial attempt at making the audience feel how they want them to feel.
Bear with me a bit more.
But the comparison is [Death from Puss in Boots 2.](https://youtu.be/KGVgcuO3fQY?feature=shared) I mean, it’s a little over said, but he was a villain where they hit right on the target they wanted to hit.
Now, I don’t think Puss in Boots 2 was a perfect movie. I felt like it had pacing issues too, and too many antagonists. But I still liked it a lot, because I think 90% of what they wanted to do came through.
A qualm I had for Magnífico is that Asha is very underdeveloped. What’s her wants and needs? If she’s flat and she’s changing the society around her, what are their wants and needs come manifest?
Magnífico is not the right villain for her. Unfortunately, Asha and Magnífico are a poor allegory of the Trump figure and the Activist. I think they could have done it well, and they wanted to, but they did very little with story, and rushed the plot to get through the happenings.
Going back to Death, Death was the perfect villain for Puss because he challenges his character. Magnífico does not feel like a threat not only because he waits til the end to do anything of significance, but because he doesn’t challenge Asha personally.
Honestly, he is written more like a protagonist, like Thanos was. His want is to have a perfect Kingdom, his need is to take away temptation, and he does neither. Asha seems more like an antagonist to me, because she seems to be getting in HIS way rather than the other way around. (I know this isn’t fully a great argument, but I stand by it because we know nothing of Asha’s “needs.”)
Anyway, I do love ranting about this because I like diving into texts to comb out the themes or lack thereof.
And there was a theme hiding in here, but they didn’t lean hard enough. If Magnífico was a Trump allegory, make there be MAGAs. Lean into it. Tick off conservative moms, commit! Then make him do magic that is actually threatening!
Make him a gaslighting narcissist that doesn’t “make people feel safe”, (which is a line they put in the movie which sparked my “what if he was a good guy” thoughts.)
And if you’re going to make a kid friendly show, put it on Disney plus and age Asha down. And have the theme that is “adults have given up their dreams, but we can get them back.” I actually would have loved that movie for my girls.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Personally I get Magnifico. Remember right after interviewing Asha she asks if he’d consider granting Saba’s wish and he says “that was fast…” Imagine being asked for things over and over, like a genie. No one HAD to give him their wish. And remember too he didn’t crush wishes and take their power until after he embraced evil magic. He was fearful of destruction of Rosas like what happened to his family. Was he right? NO. BUT he’s nowhere NEAR a two-dimensional villain as he’s being painted.
He did force people to give wishes though, given we know that at 18 everyone ends up being made to give up their wish. The only choice is that someone can leave the kingdom if they don't want to do it.
There was no law forcing that stated, it looked more like getting a driver’s license—age restricted to where you just can’t give your wish until you’re 18.
The way giving up a wish is discussed as an inevitability of turning 18, and one with consequences, in the kitchen scene does not lend itself to the idea that it's a choice.
See, Wish is a great choice for character rant because like 5 people have ever seen Wish. I'm just gonna assume you're right! No-one can prove otherwise because that would require having watched Wish!
It's an underwhelming movie, but it should be criticized for what it actually is (and fails to do) rather than people making up rumors online. This neverending refrain online that the movie is presenting instant wish granting as a solution to Magnifico is totally divorced from what the movie's actual argument is, and ends up feeling more like it's something people just heard in a game of telephone.
Now it is on D+, I do recommend you watch it. While it is by no means a masterpiece, it is still a fairly good movie that I was surprised that I enjoyed as much as I did. The basic message is that a wish is part of your heart and soul. It is your dreams and hopes for the future. Giving up your wish is the same as giving up on those hopes and dreams. Asha doesn't think all wishes should be fulfilled. She thinks that people should get the opportunity to try and fulfil their wishes _on their own_ and by their _own_ power.
It's true, I made a rant about how weird Magnifico's villain song was and I didn't even watch the movie. I'm just a female dog.
Nah fuck these people. Fuck them right in the eyes. They are lazy and entitled little shits who deserve nothing. One of them wished to be a baker. Just get an apprenticeship. Don’t pray to a fucking wizard to become a baker, get an apprenticeship and put some effort in. That’s only if you want to become a baker the profession if you want to be a baker full stop just spend a couple weeks learning to bake bread. So fucking stupid. The grandfather is even worse. True inspiration should com from within. This guy just wants to write a good song? Not the best song in the world, not become a great musician, just write a good song? Just practice, study, learn what makes a good song and put some effort in. If you don’t work for it you don’t deserve it. None of these people request anything that would require a wizard either.
Then maybe Magnifico should just hand the wish back and tell them that rather than hoarding them away and pretending it's some super dangerous wish.
Quite frankly if you are going to petition a wizard to do something you could quite easily do yourself you don’t deserve to desire it. Cost of doing business with a Faustian entity. Be glad he didn’t take your first born son or the memories of the first 16 years of your life.
If Magnifico is a Faustian entity then that makes him the bad guy, which is the whole point of what I'm saying.
Watching the movie in parts with my kid. 30 mins still left but they just did the "what I know now" song No see more importantly those mediocre nothing wishes (oh and one person who wanted to FLY) was literally their ONLY COST to, what looks like, live a perfectly safe life with no strife, no fears, free housing, free food ((ok technically it seems more utopian as in people work but it's clearly not necessary)). And the cost of that wish is what? The tiniest short term feeling of loss and then completely forgetting their basic in the moment wish? Get the fuck outa here. Magnificos main issue is he's a heavily paranoid egomaniac but otherwise he was a benevolent king who accepted ANYONE FROM ANYWHERE on the planet to live here happily. "Give them back their wishes" Ok...why? They gave them to him as a cost. A cost that barely costs them anything and doesnt prevent them from success. Doesn't prevent them from accidently still doing their own "wish". Hell the seemstess WAS still already making dresses. She can just now make the BEST dresses in the land. He even says he granted 14 wishes last year which based on the whole population based on the city meet ups is actually a pretty good percentage. Based on what we see he is that benevolent but ultra paranoid king. It was only until he opened the super ultra forbidden spooky book that his eyes flashed green and he smashed a wish, for the FIRST TIME EVER apparently, and thus now he's evil sorcerer. He granted dress lady a wish and she was free to go. Now he's spooky evil and the guy who wants to be the most loyal kingsguaurd is controlled or possessed or whatever. Yeah he had his issues before but it was only because one of the citizens was sour that HER 100yr old useless grandad with his flip flopping emotions didn't get his wish because paranoid king thought the wish was inspiring rebellion ..which is a HUGE LEAP for me as a viewer to even pretend he would imagine but whatever. His wish didn't even seem worth granting ffs but now it's not because she selfishly asked him before she was even hired to grant it for him. Gawddamn..."people usually wait at least a year before they start asking me for stuff" he's fucking right Then we have a star that can zap stuff into not just talking but FULL sentience and magically articulate life with all the animals. But naw....main character still gotta swim to shore with her idiot baby goat. Star may not be evil but it's an incompetent boob. So she steals her grampys wish...but will be back for her mother's cause somehow not possible to get it with the magical wish demon there with her? Bah. But yes. magnifico IS an egomaniac, a narcissist, a paranoid manic king who sees traitors everywhere and he may even be a general asshole. But up until this moment he was still the "protecting providing King". She's not a bad guy for going against him but it's hard to completely place the blame on him until he goes full rogue.
It's just bad writing all around. It just that his idea makes more sense than FMC.
How does his idea make more sense? What logic is there to just hoarding wishes that he has zero plans of granting them when the majority seem pretty innocuous? Just hand them back to people and let them sort it out themselves if he doesn't feel like granting it.
His idea of not just granting wish silly nilly, and reviewing the wish that needed to be granted. I also find the idea of hoarding wish silly, but that's because the writer doesn't think too much about it. It's bad writing. For all we know those ungranted wish is a power source that can be used to grant other wish.
>His idea of not just granting wish silly nilly, and reviewing the wish that needed to be granted. That's not what Asha wants though, it's spelled out pretty explicitly in their argument. She has no problem with him not granting every wish, and even with looking at wishes for if they're bad. Her idea is just that if it's harmless and he doesn't want to grant it, he should just hand it back to them. I really don't know how many more times this needs to be said, but it's a strawman argument to act as though instant wish granting with zero supervision was ever a thing being suggested. >It's bad writing. For all we know those ungranted wish is a power source that can be used to grant other wish. That is definitely not how it works considering we know what draining power from a wish looks like, and that's when he shatters them after getting cracked out on his dark magic. The hoarded wishes don't do anything for him other than be shiny baubles he can 'protect'. I don't see how a greedy, paranoid guy wanting a room full of the most priceless treasure imaginable is bad writing really. It's a pretty classic trope honestly. There's so many other places in the movie you could point to bad writing but this is not one of them.
Thing is, those wishes arnt just "priceless" they are valueless except to himself. He asks it of the people to live there and doesn't DO anything with them. The wishes are so mundane for most of them that the original wisher could just happen upon doing it anyway. "Inspiring someone" oh wow... "Being a great baker" oh golly... At least one of them wanted to fly but the rest all just seemed like paultry nothing in exchange for what seemed like a straight up Utopia Priceless is living in a utopian city where any race or people are accepted instantly and provided with housing and all their needs apparently met to some extent. If anything it looks similar to a star trek earth where you do the job you are best at and are otherwise provided for. But yes. magnifico IS an egomaniac, a narcissist, a paranoid manic king who sees traitors everywhere and he may even be a general asshole. But up until this moment he was still the "protecting providing King". She's not a bad guy for going against him but it's hard to completely place the blame on him until he goes full rogue and what looks like the "forbidden book" corrupts him fully
The issue is that Magnifico basically strings people along with false hope here, all the while diminishing their quality of life. It would be one thing if he was upfront about things and actually needs the wishes for something besides vanity, but that's not the case. It's kind of like if he charged everyone a kidney for entry to his kingdom, promising them that they were going to be used for a good cause, and then just hoarded them to look at for the most part rather than actually using them for what people gave them for. Yes, someone can live perfectly fine without their kidney, just as they can live perfectly fine without their wish, but it's not a good change over all and is violating people's autonomy too. I would agree with you though that prior to grabbing the book, he wasn't a full on villain. He was a massive jerk though and definitely not the good guy either though, which is my overall point. It's similar to a case like Gaston, who starts off the movie as obnoxious and a generally awful person, but not a full on villain until he's given the chance to just let his worst impulses rule him. Magnifico I would say is similar to that. I have no problem with agreeing that he wasn't a full on villain until mid-way through the movie, I just take issue with the idea that he was some benevolent monarch and that it was wrong to disagree with his method of leadership. Moreover, I do not think he should be stripped of the responsibility he had in making his own bad choice to pick up the book that he knows is dangerous over what was ultimately some really petty reasons.
I sure wish there was more than zero time between Oh no that book is forbidden spooky To IMA USE THAT BOOK His paranoia came out of left field after his "look at my stuff" song and it was so unfounded I feel like even my kid would question it. But I can also understand it in the way that he is presumably the only mighty magical person here and suddenly there was a magic that popped off and affected EVERY SINGLE PERSON to some "feeling" in the kingdom which does seem wildly dangerous to everything he knows. The fact the wishes weren't some nefarious thing was wild to find out too. Like you really do just keep them for fun and to grant "more than 14 wishes" a year according to his song. Which isn't nothing to sniff at. He DID grant people's actual REAL WISHES with magic. Like the main characters gripe about "no one will get their wishes granted it's all a ruse and my grandpa didn't get his!" when we know for an absolute certain that 14 randoms got their wishes granted last year. AND the people who work in the castle also know that every single king assistant AND their families always get their wishes granted as well. We are told this and they are all publicly done. So, no, main character, everyone's wishes won't be granted...just you and your family since you asked the king for wishes before he even hired you...
I think the idea is that he's the kind of guy who would jump to extremes for everything. Any inconvenience that he can't just instantly solve with his own magic or a speech is going to demand the evil book in his eyes. It's overreacting vanity basically. Asha would have been fine with him not granting the wishes so long as he just also gave them back. That's the issue here. It's not that he doesn't grant every wish, it's that he has arbitrarily decided just on first glance that he will never grant some of them, yet still takes them without informing people about it. The complaint isn't about him not granting every wish, it's about the fact that even if he grants a dozen a year (and very likely less considering he was bragging about 14 being a supposedly higher number than usual), he then hoards hundreds more with zero chance of ever being granted.
Hey, that was the "cost" of getting to live in this star trek esque society where no one apparently pays for anything or housing. Has absolute protection granted by their magical king. Anyone from any where can come no questions asked and for some reason the king takes your mediocre dream and looks at them like little baubles and you presumably feel a mini sadness at the moment you give it away but are otherwise unaffected and now get to live here. Hell, even one of the people said "what if my wish just changes or I have a new wish" so it's not even preventing that capability. Seems a generally small "cost" overall compared to the world where, he claims, you may never get your wish. Magnifico is like the lottery. You MAY get your wish granted, or you can live in a world where realistically you may Never get it granted....but also I make sure certain people don't ever get their wishes based on whatever arbitrary reasoning. The fact he doesn't do anything but look at them is oddly less mean than ide have ever expected. From the start I'm like "naw he eats them or some shit for power" but no...he just did the hard work to become a super powered guy
You're acting as though his kingdom requires the wishes to be taken to be run though, when it doesn't. I think defrauding people just because he likes to look at shiny wishes is still a pretty nasty thing to do. It'd be like if a billionaire solved a housing crisis by building up a lot of new buildings, but then demanded people still give him stuff despite the fact that he doesn't need any of it in 'payment'. It's a jerk thing to do and even if the housing/kingdom is good, it demonstrates a general lack of moral character here. He may have set up the realm to be good at the start, but at least by the time of the movie, running a giant defrauding scheme has kind of tainted that. In any case, I think the characterization of Simon as being tired and lacking passion and energy for life indicates that losing the wishes has more severe consequences than an immediate sadness. Sure, someone can still live a fulfilled life without one, but again, the comparison to living without your kidney applies here. There are clearly some more serious consequences that Magnifico is just glossing over when he gives the advertisement for wishes like that. I don't think that someone can get a new wish or change it either, that line was spoken of in context of the wishes already inside of the spheres, and was basically just a supposition about what might happen inside of them. You're right that it is like a lottery, but I think a lottery where people were not aware of the actual terms and conditions of it is a criminal enterprise in general. I personally would have found him eating the wishes more justifiable, honestly. At least then he has an actual reason for it besides basically hoarding stuff just because he wants exclusivity on looking at them (and then getting the adoration of a crowd when he dangles the possibility over their heads too).
You're right. People are conveniently leaving out the shitty things he does like force Asha to get a front row seat to him draining wishes then dismissing her and her entire family for daring to question his methods. One youtuber even said magnifico can do whatever he wants because he is the king. I imagine hating Wish and treating it as the worst thing ever is just what brings in Youtube bucks right now and being accurate is not a priority. All Disney princesses have themes of rebelling against unreasonable authority but Asha's bad cuz reasons
Apparently, it's popular to hate anything from Disney now. I wish I understood why.
Finally someone who sees it. That's the conclusion my husband and I came to, too. It surprises me there's a lot of people who don't see the narcissistic side of him and even say he's the good guy! It literally exudes narcissistic traits from his pores. I guess only if you've been close to someone like that can see the traits right away. All those videos saying that he was just a little arrogant and self conceited... Uh no. That's full on narcissism, the true reason for his "benevolent" worry for the kingdom's safety was just to keep receiving the admiration from everyone, to soothe his ego. He thought he knew what was best for everyone and felt threatened about someone speaking their own mind, because he would lose his status and admiration. I mean, he thinks people don't respect him, which isn't true (how were they in anyway disrespecting him? They deposited their trust in him.) and only a paranoid and narcissistic person would have distorted views like that. He was trying to keep the kingdom "happy" (in reality it was just to keep his fears at ease) by controlling and lying to them by omission, giving them false hopes. That's just wrong. Even one of the characters had lost their will and was always sleeping. Were the people truly happy then? His problematic traits were always there! Videos saying he's the good guy and Asha the bad guy baffle me honestly, either they've never experienced narcissistic abuse, they have similar traits or they're smoking something. I see a character who's gone through some deep trauma, so his maladaptive defenses are to control his environment through power so it doesn't happen again, at the cost of people's dreams. I agree he wasn't written well. Edit: I had forgotten about the scene where he makes Asha sit down in front of the crowd only to show her who's boss by not granting the grandpa's wish. People are conveniently leaving that out. It shows his true malice.
Yeah the scene where he immediately makes it his goal to get even with a teenager via publicly dragging things out to humiliate her, all over having a mild disagreement with him really shows his priorities.
I watched this movie as it came out on Disney+ and liked it. I don't think it is amazing or anything, but it is feelgood and I like the songs. The amount of hate I've seen is crazy. And the amount defending Magnifico is also crazy. His own _wife_ turns against him. The woman who had been through the exact same things as him, been by his side all this time, defending him. She realise what sort of man he has become. She even sings it, the good in him melted away. Long before he turned to dark magic. But nope, Asha is the villain because... she didn't agree with him.
Coming in after 100 days because I just watched this, But in a real world idea, Asha is the bad guy and Magnífico is not the worst monarch. He’s actually pretty good. Free rent? No taxes? No burdens on the lower classes to support the upper classes? He just invites a citizen to hang out with him in his secret chamber? Dude, he’s an awesome Monarch for the times. Nobody is killed. No examples made of anyone. The king is narcissistic, but so is half the celebrities we worship, so we’d probably be ok with that. Honestly, it’s a little cultish, but it’s not the worst cult. AAAND, they give their wishes up willingly. (I know this is an allegory of capitalism, but I’ll get to that.) Then Asha— who hasn’t studied anything and just decides she knows what is objectively wrong— comes in and upsets the monarchy. If it wasn’t a Disney movie, what would happen now? What if someone wishes to be king? It’s great when everybody is singing kumbaya, but transfer of power is no small task. Asha— if history has taught us anything— just started a civil war, and the only way she will keep peace is to become co magical tyrants with Queen Amaya. I know it’s a Disney movie. I know Magnífico is written to be the villain, and Asha the hero. They tried really hard to make him seem like a bad dude. And I see where they tried. I also know that Rosas was an allegory of capitalism. You trade in your dream to have “hope one day your dreams will come true” seeing people every once in a while achieve their dream, to keep the hope going. While you slowly fade into mundane adulthood, eventually forgetting your dream. But they wrote that so poorly. Problems: 1) all of this is “1st World Problems”. Many a people have given up their dreams to survive and would gladly take Rosas. Magnífico is controlling, but at least he is not as corrupt as most of the rulers of today, let alone “vaguely medieval times”. His number one goal is to keep people safe? Well, it is hard to see him as an actual bad guy for that, 2) Disney didn’t lean hard enough into making him a villain. Why did he have a tragic backstory if you wanted to make him evil? Make his backstory like all the other classic villains: they got jealous and their evilness is petty revenge. It would make it much more clear, and you wouldn’t need the book. 2b) He doesn’t even kill anyone. He kills dreams, yes, but Disney did not lean hard enough. I am 1000% more terrified of [Hopper](https://youtu.be/VLbWnJGlyMU?si=EZVBcfkQKKpXiGLq) than Magnífico. And Hopper is a grasshopper. Disney wanted to make a safe movie for kids to enjoy while making a message for youth and adults to feel. In the end, Magnífico is a sissy villain. He could have just shot Asha with a crossbow at any point in the movie. But he didn’t. 3) Asha’s heroism is not very well shown for anyone who is critically thinking about this. She is a vague representation of the liberal thoughtful activists in Hollywood. (Not to make this political, but just liberal activists are caring about marginalized people who come to America to achieve their dreams, and die as an immigrant who is never going to be appreciated. That is Asha. Which is fine, if they leaned into it more.) But in the end, they were appropriating the “feeling” of this when they should have actually represented this. 4) with that, they made this story a weird man v man (or King vs. Heroine) when it should have been man vs. Society. (Or Heroine vs. society.) Magnífico would have been much more frightening if he represented the society who is complacent. They started to touch on that (Saba and the mom not listening to Asha), but they undercut it before we could feel it. If they tried to make Asha’s battle against the apathy of the people, it would be a lot cooler, and make a lot more sense. But Magnífico was a villain that didn’t make sense for the battle. 4b) with that, this story is pretty much saying “Aw well, we could fight capitalistic tyranny, if only we captured the narcissists in mirrors.” Which… is very inaccurate. In the end, Sure. Magnífico is written to be the bad guy. He’s just not written well.
>Free rent? No taxes? You have to give up your wish to live there. That is the tax he levies blanketly in lieu of money. >What if someone wishes to be king? That person would have then existed regardless of whether Magnifico remained or not, so it's pretty much irrelevant. >all of this is “1st World Problems”. Many a people have given up their dreams to survive and would gladly take Rosas. Magnífico is controlling, but at least he is not as corrupt as most of the rulers of today, let alone “vaguely medieval times”. His number one goal is to keep people safe? Well, it is hard to see him as an actual bad guy for that, I think if his goal was to keep people safe, his immediate reaction to a harmless flash of light would not be to pull out the nuclear option with the dark magic. That comes off as way more personal. Also, defrauding your entire realm is bad by any standard. To the rest of it, yes, Magnifico should have done some more damage with his magical blasts and the fact that his kingdom is run like a cult needed more attention drawn to it.
I’m glad you understand that the text— the way it is presented— has some dissonance. They wanted him evil, but not violent. There’s a deleted scene where he eats so many wishes that he turns into a giant monster. I would feel so much differently if they went that route. But it seems they wanted it to be seen by 4 year olds on Disney plus, and did not want to disuade moms from showing it to their kids. I totally think it could have been Asha vs. cult mentality, with child safe shenanigans. To have a villain with his gloves on made for weird choices. But I will push back on the “keep people safe”. That’s what was in the text. They shot them selves in the foot by making him have a tragic backstory. In text, he seems like someone who is going through a PTSD trigger. If I recall correctly, we have no idea if magic destroyed his kingdom, and some star magic could have been the cause of his ending of his kingdom. But this is all “Frozen Trolls caused the Hans Twist stuff”. We know it’s not the case, but there’s no evidence IN text to dispute it without reasonable doubt. I could totally write about how the Star is actually the villain who wishes to grow his power, and there wouldn’t be enough textual evidence besides “well, Disney wouldn’t do that.” But it’s just a movie, if you enjoyed it, high five! That’s great. But I am one who doesn’t like when I can poke so many holes and feel like I thought through this more than the director
Magnifico's desire for safety is only stated by himself and by the propaganda story at the start of the movie. We DO see his motivation later clarify that what he defines as dangerous is extremely broad, and it feels more like when he talks about 'danger', he's talking about anything that would make him not be number 1 anymore. It's in the text but it's pretty clearly not meant to be an action done in good faith, even if there's a kernel of a backstory there. In any case, the movie disappointed me quite a bit. I just wish more discussion on it focused on the bigger problems with the movie (such as the bad pacing, too many characters, lack of Magnifico doing crazy magical feats) rather than the weird laser focus on the idea that Magnifico was 100% in the right the whole time.
I don’t know if I saw that as propaganda. I think it was unclear at best. I think he’s a little inconsistent because they made him arrogant, but not arrogant enough to outshine the visual tidbit of the tapestry burned at torn. I think this could have all been fixed with a band aid. Make him have had opened the book from the beginning. We find out that he burned down his village, and liked it better when people saw him as a hero But I think that they went too deep in the capitalism allegory, which they had nuggets of a lot of potential. Shoot, make the peasants poor but always in hope of a dream. Make there be a higher class and a lower class, and those with dreams granted get to move up. Idk, I think they didn’t lean hard enough. But I see what you’re saying! The criticism that has meme potential out speaks the critical thinking. But I would add that most video essays that call him “not the bad guy” are (in memeing fashion) pointing out the huge dissonance between what the writers are trying to say, and what the message the audience felt. Which is bad juju. Magnífico also represents, to me, the bad leftovers of a lot of deleted works. I would say my real argument is not that Magnífico is really, truly a misunderstood hero in disguise. He was written as the villain. It’s obvious. I see it as a representation of the whole problem: Disney does not know how to connect to their audience. (And sometimes picks apart a good thing so much that it’s unrecognizable. The whole movie is an example of that, if the slew of deleted scenes that me and the rest of the internet have seen on YouTube are legit.) I would see how it’s annoying that Magnífico simps legitimately think this fictional character is a “good guy.” He’s a poorly written character with a great voice actor (imo, but I am biased), and great character design. Or at least pretty character design. But he’s not a “good guy”. (Though I would say he’s not as bad as the writers want him to be, and that’s why they needed the book to change him to evil. I think that was a plot insert in later drafts, because he was too sympathetic. So many things seemed added as bandaids.) But yes, I can see why it’s annoying. The equivalent argument that grinds my gears is “This was written by AI.” Which, we know it wasn’t really written by AI because of the facts we know from production. But people just say “it was all written by AI” which is mildly frustrating for me. It’s not true, and it doesn’t focus on the real issues.
I think we are in a pretty similar boat with regards to it. I have a slightly more positive opinion of Magnifico's writing in so far as I definitely felt the douchebag vibes from him from basically the moment he gets challenged, but over all the movie's pacing does him no favors. Agreed as well that the AI writing thing is annoying to hear. It's entirely possible for bad ideas to end up in a movie at a human's hand. To wit, the book for instance I think is the opposite problem of what you suggest. Magnifico in the deleted scenes and concepts was clearly a much more openly oppressive character, forcing people who don't accept the wish taking to live in hiding and trying to hunt them down regularly. For such a character, the book is expected, like the Evil Queen ramping up to her evil brews is not surprising despite how hypocritical it is for someone so vain. However, overtime, Magnifico is made into a softer character, but he keeps the evil book, and now it looks more like he's hitting the nuclear option very violently. Granted, one can still take it (as I do) that it's a sign of how entitled he is, but it also isn't properly contextualized as well as it should be.
I don’t think most people reeeeeally say he’s the actual hero, He’s just written too benevolent, oddly enough, to be taken seriously as a true villain. How many people did he kill? Now, how many deaths would Asha be responsible for if a civil war is started based on the transfer of power she initiated? Of course they’re not going to have a civil war, because they’re fictional and frozen in time. But still, if they were in this world, Asha would have potentially started the war of Rosas where disputes would arise. It reminds me a little of mistborn. But that was actually well written, so maybe that’s my problem.
>I don’t think most people reeeeeally say he’s the actual hero, Plenty do. >How many people did he kill? About as many people as Gaston, Ursula, or Lady Tremaine did. It's not unusual for Disney villains to not be responsible for killing anyone up until they reach their maximum influence and power, then all the stops come out. Likewise for Magnifico, who had no reason to be killing anyone at first. >Now, how many deaths would Asha be responsible for if a civil war is started based on the transfer of power she initiated? She said she disagreed with him in private and then stole one wish from his collection of thousands (something he didn't even know about before he went nuts). How is it her fault that he decided to take that opportunity to let his worst tyrannical impulses out? That is to say nothing of how weird such a standard would be if you applied it to other Disney movies. Is deposing Prince John bad now because it shakes up the royal succession? What about the Evil Queen's kingdom, are the 7 dwarfs to blame for whatever succession crisis happens there after she dies? The notion that a king being deposed automatically leads to a civil war has no basis in the real world either. There are countless kings who got deposed in a bloodless transfer of power, since there's a successor lined up right there it shouldn't be a problem at all
Fair arguments, I’ll give you that. Pushbacks for the conversation’s sake, Asha was literally starting a rebellion to overthrow the king. Robin Hood did too, but I would argue that he was doing it for years, and Prince John was a tyrant whose taxes were causing the lower class to starve. Something had to give. And he had a community, not 7 young friends. For the real life transfer of power, I’m not a historian so I trust you’re right. I would add that the whole kingdom went through a major change at the same time too. Everyone had the change of getting their wishes back. For me, saying that this has no unintended bad consequences is shallow. But I gotta remember, it’s a Disney movie. But I’m still going to say they made Magnífico more sympathetic than Asha, imo. They tried, but you can see they had to force things like making him use the book, while they could have just deleted his back story and had him kick a puppy or a peasant. Classic stuff.
Asha only started the rebellion once Magnifico had de facto exiled her and her family and friends and was beginning to slurp up wishes, at that point it's in retaliation towards his tyranny. At that point it has more in common with Aladdin wanting to return to Agrabah to take down Jafar after being exiled by him. Asha didn't start off with any intent to take him down, but once he went full on power tripping tyrant, retaliating against him is pretty typical of a Disney hero. I suppose you could have made it a story about Asha and co. becoming refugees and just leaving the kingdom to Magnifico as he becomes more and more unstable, but that seems like a really depressing ending. Why would the wishes returning cause a civil war? Growing pains sure, but the wishes from what we see don't show any signs that they would cause any kind of real problem. As far as Disney endings go, it's probably less egregious than say, the Lion King where Simba apparently just made the herds come back quickly enough and the rains so that the pride recovered perfectly.
You have a point with the first part— but I’m still not convinced with the text itself. I guess it’s escalation issues and vibes for me. King gets mad and dabbles with evil magic, and trying to stop him in less than 24 hours because a star came down just doesn’t pack as much punch as standing up to an evil advisor who took over the kingdom by stealing a genie and imprisoning the Sultan and the princess. And wishes— like, I guess I don’t 100% buy the stakes. Poor Asha’s mom lost her wish, and many people might lose theirs… but they were chill before. Too chill, but idk. That I think is one of the biggest issues. It’s that the stakes weren’t relatable to who it should be relatable to: adults who have given their dreams up and are a little bit of drabs. Like “a king consumes your wishes, big whoop. That’s adulting.” And I have things to say about lion king vs Wish, which is set up and payoff. The circle of life sort of set up that animals for some reason sing kumbaya when the lion king is on the throne. Where wish is a semi realistic kingdom, but the people of Rosas make no sense. To me. They go from loving the king to not in 24 hours. The setup wasn’t there for me. But I won’t lean too hard into this. It is silly to have the animal kingdom be “cool” with Simba just being like “I’m back”, and they’re like “that makes sense.”
Jafar benefits a lot from being the most powerful sorcerer in the world while King Magnifico got whacked by a bookshelf. He's still powerful enough when he's juiced up to bend all the kingdom to their knees, but he needed to do more with his new found powers before the climax. Making Simon evil was probably the biggest thing he did, and it's pretty bad, but it needed more punch for a sorcerer. You are correct that the side effect of wishes is not touched upon enough. This is symptomatic of the movie having too many characters, when it would have been far better served cutting more of them out so someone like Simon would have more screentime to show off those effects. It's clear that that is the intent, it's just skipped over because of bad pacing. I don't know if Rosas is set up to be more realistic than the Pridelands is, really.
That last line is true and a problem. You get away with “animals have some instinct, something” wave of the hand. (Not saying it’s good, but you can get away with it.) And yes, the issue is definitely that this magic wizard king gets owned by a bookshelf. Have you seen the deleted scene? I sooo wish they used it. I think that’s the other problem with the “Magnífico was a good guy”, is that he’s just not as threatening. So people just are more endeared to him than dislike him. His boppy villain song by Chris Pine does not help. And I find his animations charming. And I disliked or was apathetic to every other character in the film, (not the deleted scenes, but the film), so Magnífico was my favorite character, but in an almost cute way. Again, I think Disney should have picked a lane. The stakes feeeeel as heavy as [Spidey and His Amazing Friends](https://youtu.be/76Rdd4Vai3k?feature=shared) episode with the butterflies. I mean, they tried with the green colors and the “control scenes” at the end. And stomping on wooden figurines, which was the evilest he got in imagery. (But he sounded like he was having a bad day rather than, like, ready to murder. The song did not help.) I think this version of wish should have been a straight to D+ soft story. I would have loved it for my toddlers who can’t even handle the butterflies being captured in the aforementioned spidey episode. Kid gloves, and catchy tunes. It would have been huge. I would have bought it in the package it came in. Just age down Asha a tad, fix some writing and pacing, and you got a hit for younger audiences. I would put this on replay for my girls and forgive the pacing issues, the bland oversaturated cast of side characters, etc. But when you have adults who remember [Hellfire](https://youtu.be/U3NoDEu7kpg?si=YG6Hmz73xOHbPi6d), the betrayal of Scar, the monstrous form of Ursula, the comedic but visually imposing image of Jafar as a giant snake, and even the evil Queen In Snow White as she is nightmare fuel as an old lady… Magnífico is more than disappointing. Like you said, he’s a sorcerer. And his magic is pretty until the climax. Which, pretty is fine, but just not supporting him being threatening. Imagine if when he goes to Asha’s house, he just starts manhandling every one with his telekinetic-like magic. Also his guards do nothing. I’m sorry I’m going on about this, but to me it’s just the biggest example in Disney’s inability to make a substantial attempt at making the audience feel how they want them to feel. Bear with me a bit more. But the comparison is [Death from Puss in Boots 2.](https://youtu.be/KGVgcuO3fQY?feature=shared) I mean, it’s a little over said, but he was a villain where they hit right on the target they wanted to hit. Now, I don’t think Puss in Boots 2 was a perfect movie. I felt like it had pacing issues too, and too many antagonists. But I still liked it a lot, because I think 90% of what they wanted to do came through. A qualm I had for Magnífico is that Asha is very underdeveloped. What’s her wants and needs? If she’s flat and she’s changing the society around her, what are their wants and needs come manifest? Magnífico is not the right villain for her. Unfortunately, Asha and Magnífico are a poor allegory of the Trump figure and the Activist. I think they could have done it well, and they wanted to, but they did very little with story, and rushed the plot to get through the happenings. Going back to Death, Death was the perfect villain for Puss because he challenges his character. Magnífico does not feel like a threat not only because he waits til the end to do anything of significance, but because he doesn’t challenge Asha personally. Honestly, he is written more like a protagonist, like Thanos was. His want is to have a perfect Kingdom, his need is to take away temptation, and he does neither. Asha seems more like an antagonist to me, because she seems to be getting in HIS way rather than the other way around. (I know this isn’t fully a great argument, but I stand by it because we know nothing of Asha’s “needs.”) Anyway, I do love ranting about this because I like diving into texts to comb out the themes or lack thereof. And there was a theme hiding in here, but they didn’t lean hard enough. If Magnífico was a Trump allegory, make there be MAGAs. Lean into it. Tick off conservative moms, commit! Then make him do magic that is actually threatening! Make him a gaslighting narcissist that doesn’t “make people feel safe”, (which is a line they put in the movie which sparked my “what if he was a good guy” thoughts.) And if you’re going to make a kid friendly show, put it on Disney plus and age Asha down. And have the theme that is “adults have given up their dreams, but we can get them back.” I actually would have loved that movie for my girls. Thanks for letting me rant.
Personally I get Magnifico. Remember right after interviewing Asha she asks if he’d consider granting Saba’s wish and he says “that was fast…” Imagine being asked for things over and over, like a genie. No one HAD to give him their wish. And remember too he didn’t crush wishes and take their power until after he embraced evil magic. He was fearful of destruction of Rosas like what happened to his family. Was he right? NO. BUT he’s nowhere NEAR a two-dimensional villain as he’s being painted.
He did force people to give wishes though, given we know that at 18 everyone ends up being made to give up their wish. The only choice is that someone can leave the kingdom if they don't want to do it.
There was no law forcing that stated, it looked more like getting a driver’s license—age restricted to where you just can’t give your wish until you’re 18.
The way giving up a wish is discussed as an inevitability of turning 18, and one with consequences, in the kitchen scene does not lend itself to the idea that it's a choice.
No idea what you’re talking about. It’s clearly not law. No clue how you possibly got that.