#wondercrew

✨The Wondercrew✨

Painting by @Jimpluk inspired by the Ariel School case (1994) in South Africa, where over 50 children and adults saw a UFO and its crew land at their school in Ruwa, Zimbabwe.

John E. Mack, a Harvard University Psychiatrist visited the site to interview the witnesses, who all described and drew the collectively coinciding event.

¿Parálisis del Sueño? o ¿Visitantes de dormitorio?

Now Red, Chloe, Max, Hazel, and Luis more oftehn than not end up being the major meat of all the shipping in the fandom, so I think describing them as the main polycule could be appropriate and exclusion of the twins and Robbie doesn't particularly affect shipping here in any other meaningful way (unless it's a joke about Robbie having bromance with Luis or being Chloe's shameful man crush).

Pink, comparatively, is kind of in a limbo where people may or may not ship her with Hazel or Max, but that's rather when she needs to be paired with someone and not because people want her to get with someone, which is understandable considering she's 1) baby of the bunch, so people will be apprehensive, despite her only having 2-year-difference from Red and not lacking any maturity whatsoever and 2) completely consumed by her role as Red's sister to the point people don't register her as anything else for the most part and 3) not having much with Hazel and Max personally to warrant shipping, unless it's to reheat nachos of Charmwaves or HeartHatter, without stepping on toes of Glassheart. Pink may occasionally be shipped with one of the Smee twins, but it's the same situation as mentioned above.

Felix, in general, is only majorly shipped with Robbie, since they're both left out (and I should know, I'm one of the OG shippers and I do love them), and otherwise people also tend to forget his existence or feel bad for him being underutilised despite being primed to be MVP of the party of rescuers with his voodoo magic.

Now, however, as I mentioned in my post, I have written off the twins and Robbie, leaving some room for other characters to breathe, and I think Felix may benefit the most, as I can imagine him being simultaneously very useful and the butt monkey because he's realistically targeted for his usefulness specifically, along with also having more interactions with Wondercrew as a whole.

I could imagine, though, that even with more time, he still may be left a bit in the background, as the polycule would be focused mostly on the five I mentioned above, as there's the biggest meat and chemistry overall. However, this also means that both him and Pink are essentially left together, which could lead fans to pay attention to their relationship, especially if they'd be doing stuff in the background (like how for examplele Felix can replace a Smee that played with Pink in the white rabbit cottage or him potentially saying something when Hazel gives Pink advice), especially since they already do in canon.

First, we're going to talk about the obvious handicap this movie has, that is, yet again, the limited timeframe of the story. Wicked Wonderland is only 95 minutes long, unlike other movies. The budget went big, but we still can't afford at least 15 more minutes that could've been used for more fleshing out of stuff.

Going off-tangent a bit now, but honestly, looking back at today's movie climate, I just know that nowadays the filmmakers don't, in fact, care about whether or not all characters have proper importance. I mean, when you look at Kpop Demon Hunters movie, then despite it having a much smaller cast than the entire Wicked Wonderland (as really, there are only 11 characters in total, heroes and villains alike, that you could say actually matter to the story in the entire movie, which is only 1 person more than our Wondercrew, and there are also characters outside of it that matter to the story which are the adults) still only gives importance to 2 characters, while everyone else is pushed to the side, and at this point you can't really blame it on the pacing of the movie or time because genuinely, even if you reduce the number of characters, they can still be given way less importance, so while additional 10 minutes in general would be nice, I also have to say it right away that giving us more time or cutting characters wouldn't by itself solve the problem, though let's try anyway.

But back to the main subject, now that I have established that I want to give this movie 10-15 more minutes, let's talk about how other characters are handled.

The important players of Wondercrew are definitely Red, Chloe, and Max. The story certainly focuses on them, and they have more narrative weight and significance, as of course Red and Chloe are our protagonists, and Max has direct ties to the villain of this movie, along with his own antagonistic role and how he also contributes to the narrative of Red and Chloe. Ultimately, all of their arcs are pretty strong, with Max being the most grounded overall, so the only thing to be changed about Red and Chloe is just to give them a bit more time to dwell on everything. Have Chloe be a villain a bit longer and do more, for example, along with focusing on breaking her bond with Red. Like, have Red grapple a bit longer with the perfect princess struggles.

This is where I bring Pink up because the movie just underutilised her. While it is a bit of the point that Red just dismisses her, I do think she should still have more of a say in this movie in general. In particular, Pink can help Red confront the fact that she's not the same girl Pink grew up with. Have Pink genuinely confront Red about being different all of a sudden, and maybe for them to clash a bit more (or just have Pink notice on screen how Red talks about her to build it up to Pink's talk about how Red only tolerates her), along with Red apologizing to Pink and maybe explaining a bit why she's strange, even if not right away. Like in general this aspect of Pink despite being her selling point also got unaddressed (and really, out of all the characters to learn the truth, people were mostly prepared for her because her existence is anomaly caused by Red - Max having a crashout is valid, but we didn't know he existed in the original timeline to begin with, while with Pink at least we know she was not meant to exist and this is something that should have been addressed). Thus, we established our main four.

Out of all the characters, I do think the Smees are the most useless ones. They serve as the comic relief characters and Hazel's brutes, but they are pretty much even worse at it than Gil was. The joke is basically that they're Hazel's dogs in human bodies. Writing them out only hurts choreography, unless Brendon can lift Kiara (or Zavien; maybe keeping him would help choreo better). I do think it could be an interesting turn if Hazel ultimately is forced into the position where she doesn't have some bodyguard dogs at her disposal, as ultimately her song implies she doesn't really need them anyway. I mean, let's look at the other Hook kids. Harriet, by far, is the "ideal" of Hook siblings, where she's both the captain of her own legitimate pirate crew and the one who looks after her siblings the most. Then there's Harry, who is only first mate to another pirate queen, and despite trying so hard to be exactly like their father, he still feels like he can never be just like him, but still has the strongest case coming for it. Then there's CJ, who is a solo-act adventurer and a wildcard that can help and mess with whoever.

And then there's Hazel, who basically has her own gang with Felix and Max (mimicking Sea Three and Core Four to an extent), but she essentially would be removed the most from pirate aspect of her family, as the Smees are the only other pirates she has on her side as far as we know, and she still is a high schooler, so she absolutely could feel like out of all Hook children, she's not enough the most by herself, so she overcompensates and tries to adapt every other aspects of her siblings (adventurer like CJ; mom friend like Harriet; ultimate support fueled by self-disappointment like Harry). It certainly helps her character stand out a bit. It could also be interesting if Hazel could extend her more caring nature to not just the Smees like a dog mom (and this could play into her potentially building a frienship with Chloe where both see eahc other past their exteriors if Chloe can help Hazel realise how meaningful her friendships are while Hazel helps Chloe come in terms with her own selfishness so to speak, along with adding fuel to her villanous breakdown and fracture in her relationship with Red), but in general look after both Felix and Max. Felix is basically completely forgotten, though at least she supports Max accordingly.

If the Smees are written out, I could imagine Felix actually stepping in without being written off like he was in the actual film. Honestly, a bit of a bias on my side, because I genuinely do like the idea of Felix and would want to see him more regardless. His usage of magic could be potentially beneficial for Wonderland shenanigans (like maybe create a shadow army around Maddox in the throne room or try to reach the dodo bird with shadow magic if he isn't missing on the tea cups), and he could potentially still be a butt monkey of the group, so to speak (as in going through it all) without necessarily being written out constantly. Like out of all the useless characters, I'd still want to keep him. He could also perhaps grow close to Pink too in the meantime, so Pink is also not only Red-centered (granted, it would be mostly in the background).

Let's not forget (this time) about Robbie Hood, and while Smees may be the most useless ones on the team, Robbie is the most forgettable one, and it's not even funny. Like, I like the actor, and his voice, and the idea of Robbie's contribution as the archer and Luis's best bro, but at the same time, Luis's existence already nullifies his input because he and Luis are basically interchangeable (like Luis already has the personality and abilities that make him stand out among male characters). There's nothing really that Robbie ultimately contributes on his own but the numbers and being a victim of the plot. Ultimately, the best fix would be if we got actually multiple friends in Luis's corner, so to speak, that could be references to other Disney characters (so Robbie could be among them), so Luis doesn't look like he's friendless, but also doesn't really have close friends he must bring along.

After all my long rambles, I conclude that Wondercrew, rather than writing off 5 useless characters, only writes off 3, while a longer length of the movie would give existing characters stuff to do. Wondercrew would consist of: Red, Chloe, Pink, Max, Hazel, Felix, and Luis. 3 fully-fledged HKs, 3 fully-fledged VKs, and Red, who's both. Certainly works for the arrangement of "Did you hear about them". It would be nice if, after those arrangements, both Maddox and Felix could get their own posters in this ideal scenario, like everyone else.

So TL;DR regarding my fixes when it comes to the Wondercrew:

First, they all need 10-15 minutes to breathe (but Red and Chloe should be prioritised)

Then we need to write off Robbie and Smee, twins. 7 people is a lot, yes, but it's a bit more balanced comparatively, so rewritten Wondercrew should be just: Red, Chloe, Pink, Max, Luis, Hazel, and Felix.

Felix functions as the butt monkey that still has capacity but also doesn't have much luck. He's there to raise the number of VKs so it's not just Max and Hazel (and Red) along with potentially building a friendship with Pink in the background so Pink also has stuff to do that isn't just related to her sister

Pink actually needs to confront her sister head-on regarding her being amnesiac

Luis needs more friends that stand out more than background dancers but not enough to be considered actual characters; otherwise no corrections needed.

Hazel needs to focus more on Felix, Max, and Chloe, while forgetting about Smees (additionally also bouncing off Luis, Red, and Pink; she manages to do that in canon, though, so good enough)

Max is already perfect, all things considered.

"It's not science fiction, they have always been here." Poster Designed and illustrated by Jim Pluk for his paranormal research group Wonder? Crew.

https://www.instagram.com/jimpluk/