Just blerd girl things

Wish starts off with our protagonist Asha, explaining the background of the kingdom where she lives, Rosas. Rosas is a Mediterranean island ruled by the magical king Magnifico and his non-magical queen Amaya. Rosas is special because on the 18th birthday of a citizen, or when anybody becomes a new citizen, they offer up their wish--essentially their dream for their life--to Magnifico. They end up forgetting their wish in the process, which makes them stop pursuing it, but it also allows them to never have to deal with the pain of it never happening. The ultimate trade off to this though is that King Magnifico occasionally holds a "Wish Granting" ceremony, where he choses one or two wishes to grant, returning the wish to its owner but also giving them the ability to attain it.

Asha, a few months shy of her own 18th birthday, hopes to become the newest King's apprentice and prepares for her interview. She is then brought to the King's study by Queen Amaya, who tells her that she is aware how much Asha loves the kingdom and wishes her luck.

~~And this is where things get...well, rushed. Also, was it weird for Amaya to bring Asha to the King? Shouldn't that have been a knight or another servant or something??~~

While waiting for the King in his study, Asha is drawn to a book of forbidden magic, which Magnifico quickly appears and tries to deters her from, but not before she triggers the protective charm around it.

~~The vibe around this plot point is reminiscent of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" scene from Fantasia, where Mickey was the big-dreaming apprentice to another magician, which is a nice parallel~~

Asha clumsily makes her way through the interview, and after she and Magnifico connect over having lost family in their childhoods, Magnifico is drawn to show Asha where he stores all the wishes of Rosas. They then have a duet expressing how they desire to protect the wishes "at all costs".

~~To me this was...weird? Aren't they supposed to be kept safe and hidden? Why show this to a person who hasn't taken the job yet? Also, I felt a song here really should have been more about the wishes themselves rather than the desire to protect them. "At All Costs" reads more like a love song, even a little between Magnifico and Asha without the badly needed context, rather than be centered around the wishes. Instead, it should have been around all the wishes that Magnifico has granted, and the joy its brought to others and Rosas. It would set up the "reveal" a bit better, and "show, but not tell" people how precious the wishes are.~~

During the song, Asha discovers her grandfather's wish. Her grandfather is 100 years old today, and she quickly ~~too quicky!!~~ asks Magnifico if she would grant her grandfather's wish during the day's wish ceremony. Magnifico considers it, but ultimately refuses. He explains that her grandfather's wish to "inspire others" is too vague, and it could potentially be a danger to Rosas. Asha tries to argue that her grandfather is a good person and would never wish harm, but Magnifico flares in a sharp rage. He insists that only he knows best for Rosas and he will not grant the wish. Before Asha can go off, he insists that she join Queen Amaya on the main stage to watch him receive the wishes of new citizens while also granting a wish.

~~So, this was weird to me? Sure, there were promos that exposed the fact that King Magnifico was the villain, but it didn't need to be confirmed so quickly. But in addition, I felt it would have been more key for Magnifico to hold it together for at least a little longer, to make the audience better understand why Magnifico was regarded as such a beloved king. For him to slip so quickly so sudden felt...amateurish. He should have gotten lessons from Hans. But on the note of his refusal to grant Sabino's wish. I couldn't say he was wrong, really. A lot of problems around people having wishes is that they're vague. Like, if someone wished to be "happy", there wouldn't be a real way to know what would make them happy. A loving family? Wealth? Cocaine? World Domination? When Sabino wants to inspire others...well how? To do what? This is what makes the wish "dangerous" to Magnifico.

Now, it would have been nice if Magnifico was clear that the more specific and grounded the wish was, the more likely it would be granted. Or even that the reason he only grants one wish at a time could be because his magic is limited so he has to think in the terms of which wish has the most good. It would have allowed him to keep his "good" image to Asha while still making her consider people whose wishes were "rejected" should just have them returned.

That said, this was a fun shout out to the fact that Sabino, like Disney, is 100 years old. His wish to inspire the next generation is a sweet touchpoint to the way Disney has inspired others in its century.~~

After the wish ceremony, Asha is at her grandfather's birthday dinner along with her mother, all at different levels of disappointment at Sabino not being chosen. Eventually, Asha tells him his wish will never be granted because Magnifico has deemed it "dangerous." She wants to tell her grandfather what it is, but Sabino refuses. He adamantly tells her that he doesn't want to know what such a dangerous wish would be, even though Asha tries to tell him it wasn't to her. Asha leaves the dinner in tears.

Asha then sings about how she wants more for Rosas, that people who will never get their wishes granted should just be allowed to try to pursue them, even if they fail or get disappointed, than to just live without them. She wishes on a star, and...well, the star shows up.

The star can't talk, but it is clearly magic and can grant speech to other things, including not just the forest animals, but Asha's goat Valentino.

~~Note that Valentino has been in the movie the whole time to this point, but for the animal mascot didn't provide much value to me~~

When Asha asks how this is possible, the animals and plants of the forest sing a song, credited as "sung by Cast", that tells her that "We are all Stars". Afterwards, Asha tells Star what has been happening, and that because of her her mother's nor her grandfather's wishes would be granted. Star is shocked by this, and immediately suggests that the best solution to this problem is crime. Specifically, stealing the two wishes back from the king. Asha...agrees.

~~This is the plot point that I felt that the Disney Magic wasn't there. For starters, a lot of the time in Disney movies, people aren't just "wishing"--they do. They try everything they can themselves, and only when they're at the despair horizon does a macguffin come. Cinderella is a great example--she and her animal friends do all they can to finish the chores and get her dress ready, and it was only after her stepfamily tore the dress, and therefore Cinderella's "wish" to shreds, does she get magical help. Another example is Tiana, who worked and hustled her way to save up for her own restaurant, only for it to be tore to shreds by the racism/sexism machine, and was then granted help by her fate twisting with Prince Naveen. Or when seven-year-old Lilo wishes on a star, but only after the plot makes it clear that the friendless Lilo will be separated from her sister so soon after the deaths of their parents. I could go on.

I couldn't help but feel that Asha could have come up with "crime" by herself, we could have seen a "heist gone wrong" scene, and then Star would show up and give Asha the power/courage to try again. Especially since we see that Star's magic has mostly been just for 'fun' at this point, and offered no real ability beyond what Asha had herself. Asha asked her friend for a shortcut to the King's Study. Asha asked her friends to distract Magnifico so he wouldn't come back too soon. And ultimately, they could only save just one of the wishes--Sabino's--which Asha was also capable of doing.~~

As Asha is getting Sabino's wish back, Magnifico has been advised by Amaya to talk to the citizen's about the light that was seen last night--Star's light. Despite the citizens believing the light was from him, due to its warmth and radiance, Magnifico is convinced that it was from a potential threat. Magnifico informs the populace of this event, calling the light both a "threat" but also "from an amateur", and tells them to let him know any information. Asha's friend Dahlia questions him to stall for time for Asha, asking him how he knows that information and what would he consider information (evidence vs hunch)? Her questions motivate others to join in, and ultimately someone asks what could incentive people to provide it? Magnifico agrees that in exchange for information, he will perform another wish granting ceremony.

Magnifico returns to the castle, alone and enraged that his citizens are ungrateful. He laments that this is the "thanks he gets" for providing for them.

~~ The song had some odd lyrics, but this should have been the "mask off" scene. With the request to his people for information, we see just enough of the veneer's dark underbelly--"our enemy is both weak and strong"--and now in his private moment we can see how he really thinks and feels. Having the mask come off during Asha's interview was much too soon and made the citizens look more foolish than they should have been shown to be.~~

As Asha manages to barely leave the study in time, Magnifico decides to utilize the forbidden magic book to help track down the light. Asha returns home and gives Sabino back his wish, showing him that it wasn't dangerous at all. Sabino embraces it, and it returns back to him. However, this moment is cut off by Magnifico, who tracks them down. An informant ratted Asha out, and now, armed with new dark magic, he intends to punish Asha by destroying her mother's, Sakina's, wish. Sakina feels an intense feeling of grief as Magnifico absorbs the wish and found that it has increased his powers.

The five of them--Asha, Sabino, Sakina, Star, and Valentino--manage to escape, especially once Valentino convinces the knights' horses to let them go "as one domesticated animal to another". They managed to get in a boat and Asha rows them to safety until Star helps out with magic. As Asha laments that this is now putting all of Rosas at risk, she realizes that she has to go back and make things right.

Meanwhile, Magnifico is practically high off his new discovery. He proceeds to use the forbidden magic book to make a dark magic wand, using more wishes as ingredients. Amaya learns about this and is shocked to find how far her husband has fallen, and rebuffs his claim that Asha is a threat to the kingdom. Magnifico turns his staff on her to test her loyalty, and Amaya assures him that there is nothing more important to her than Rosas.

Magnifico then performs his wish granting ceremony, identifying his informant as Asha's friend Simon. Simon, who was the first of the friend group to turn 18, had already given his wish to Magnifico and his friends observed he seemed more "tired" and "boring" since. Magnifico grants Simon's wish to be the best knight in Rosas, but by infusing Simon with his dark magic making Simon a malevolent puppet for Magnifico.

~~ So, I did like the theme about how adulthood discourages wishing. While in childhood, potential can seem endless, but in adulthood, real life gets in more and more. You end up too tired, too busy, to remember your wishes and dreams, and this ultimately makes you a boring, uninspired person. I could sympathize with Simon, who barely an adult, longed to be the person who he was barely a few months ago--to have his dream back to make him a whole person rather than spend his life empty and unfilled, with hopes like Sabino to live to 100, but never have to granted. But the fact that he gained his wish at the cost of betraying his friends is what makes it become corrupted. It's a good lesson in that your wish is a part of you, but so is your character and your relationships, and trading one for another will never make you whole.~~

Asha, who has now donned a blue cloak to sneak back to Rosas, learns of the betrayal along with her friends at the ceremony. Asha also sends a talking mouse to relay a message to Amaya, assuring her of her loyalty and her desire to fix things.

Asha then reunites with her remaining friends, who go to "introvert's sanctuary" of one of their friends to regroup and decide what to do next. Here, they have another song where Asha explains that while this wasn't her intention for Rosas, she doesn't regret letting the truth about the wishes and their king's true character be known. Her friends, who have varying degrees of willingness to go along with things, eventually all agree to come to her aid. In addition. they're discovered by Amaya in the latter half of the song, who gives her allegiance to these children against her husband.

~~ Here, I honestly would have preferred to hear an Amaya song over the children's. I felt Amaya had a lot to work through, as it is clear that while she deeply loved her husband, she also loved Rosas and its people. I would have loved to hear her being torn between the love for the man she thought she married and the love for the citizens that are how his victims. To have her find the strength inside her to reclaim herself as not Magnifico's Queen, but the Queen of Rosas. ~~

The plan is for Amaya to tell Magnifico that Asha has been spotted in the nearby woods, and for Asha to distract him while he is there. Meanwhile, everyone else will be helping free all the wishes. While waiting, Star gives Asha a stick infused with magic before they return to Asha's friends to help out. Star however, doesn't give much in the way of an instruction manual. When Magnifico returns, Amaya finds that the magic-infused stick is capable to doing things from making things bigger, to making things move, to probably everything in between.

~~I felt this scene was sort of cute because between the blue cloak and the stick, it gave Asha the look of the Fairy Godmother. However, the movie later explicitly hits its it on the nose, so it's not much of an easter egg~~

Eventually, it's revealed that the Magnifico that Asha is facing is actually a glamoured Simon, and that the real Magnifico is still at the castle. Asha leaves him to his fate to fight a bear, following by a hoard of what I assume are "killer-but-not-really-for-Disney-purposes" rabbits.

Sure enough, Asha's friends and Star are struggling to free the wishes, but they eventually manage to do so through teamwork. As they run outside to bask in their hard work while Star swims amongst the wishes, Magnifico uses his dark magic to imprison them once again, including Star. He then turns all the wish orbs to stone and brings Asha up to him to further taunt her as he absorbs Star in his staff. At this point, Asha tries to take the staff back but fails. Magnifico then takes things up a notch and summons clouds to cover the sky to prevent further "wishing on a star" shenanigans, and ties down the people of Rosas.

At the despair horizon, Asha remembers that "we are all stars". Dahlia joins Asha in song, having the other citizens join in turn "to make this wish to have something more", a reprise of Asha's "I want" song that summoned Star in the first place. The people glow with their internal stars, which frees the wishes and restores them, as well as frees Star. The staff, having what I assume is a "1 occupant minimum" clause, draws Magnifico into it, imprisoning him in the mirror-line stone.

~~This moment, adding into a few other of his lines, makes me think of The Magic Mirror from Snow White. I would think that was more funny, except The Magic Mirror is a huge jerk of a boss in Kingdom Hearts 2.8 and I don't want to think about that anymore.~~

All the wishes return to their owners and Simon returns to normal. Simon apologizes to his friends and they forgive him.

In a new dawn, Asha is now helping Queen Amaya in helping everyone get their wish granted, even connecting people with similar wishes so they can help each other out.

As a goodbye present, Star restores the magic-infused stick Asha had broke earlier into a proper magic wand. Asha initially refuses, but someone points out her destiny is like a fairy godmother and she accepts.

~~Also, the movie does a final on the nose point that Asha's friends, that there are so many of, are the seven dwarfs~~ The end of the credits, we see Sabino playing music to the tune "When you wish upon a star", finishing up the narrative and encouraging everyone to keep wishing.