The following contains SPOILERS for Disney’s Wish.
Wish is the newest musical adventure from Walt Disney Animation Studios. Coming as it does in this 100th year of The Walt Disney Company, it’s maybe not surprising that Wish is a movie very much following in the footsteps of classic Disney, as it features a female protagonist, a magical villain and incredible music.
Easter Eggs and fun references are nothing new in Disney movies, but Wish takes things to quite another level. The movie celebrates the Disney anniversary by making a lot of nods to the best Disney animated movies. There are too many to list them all, and I won’t pretend I’ve even caught every one, but here are a few of the best.
Storybook Opening
Wish isn’t based on a classic fairy tale like so many of Disney’s animated films from its golden age, but it does open the same way. Snow White, Cinderella and even The Jungle Book include an opening shot of a storybook opening as the story begins, and Wish does the same.
Asha’s Friends Are The Seven Dwarfs
There are a lot of characters in Wish, as Asha has no fewer than seven close friends. The number is significant because each one of Asha’s friends is modeled on the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White. Each character in Wish has a name that shares a first letter with their dwarf counterpart, as well as sharing physical and personality traits with each one. Dario has Dopey’s big ears, Simon is perpetually sleepy, Bazeema is a bashful introvert, Dahlia wears Doc’s trademark glasses, Hal is always smiling, Safi has terrible allergies and Gabo is perpetually angry.
Aurora’s Dress
Many of the classic Disney references come in the form of wishes that the various townspeople of Rosas have. One of the characters wishes to be an incredible dressmaker, and when we see her wish, she is creating a dress that looks like the ones the fairies make for Aurora in Sleeping Beauty.
Snow White Wishing Well & The Poison Apple
The Dwarfs are far from the only references to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs found in Wish. A couple of background easter eggs are also on display for fans. Shortly after Asha makes her wish that brings down Star, she walks past a well in the forest that is modeled after the one that Snow uses during the “I’m Wishing” song. Later, while Disney's newest villain, Magnifico, is working on his magic, an apple covered in green goo, the classic Snow White poison apple, can be seen on the table next to him.
"We Love Crazy"
As the magic of Star begins to fill Rosas animals, trees, and even mushrooms gain the ability to talk. At one point Asha wonders if she’s going crazy, to which one of the mushrooms (potentially an Alice in Wonderland reference in itself) says “We love crazy,” a callback to the same line that was spoken by Hans in Frozen.
Bambi, Thumper And (Maybe) Humphrey
If there is one Disney reference you will absolutely notice in Wish, it’s following the song “You’re A Star” when a talking bear named John talks to a deer whose name, we learn, is Bambi. We don’t get the name of the rabbit who thumps his foot against the ground, but he’s clearly a reference to Bambi’s friend Thumper. The bear might also be a Disney reference, as he dances around at one point in a way that is reminiscent of Humphrey the Bear in the classic Disney short In the Bag.
Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, And Other Destroyed Wishes
When Magnifico discovers he can gain power from his wishes, he destroys several of them. In one scene alone he destroys the wish of somebody who wants to be able to fly, which shows an actual clip from Disney’s Peter Pan. Following that, he destroys the wish of somebody looking for the perfect nanny, a Mary Poppins reference, which Magnifico pops. Then he takes the wish of somebody looking for true love, which, to be honest, could be a reference to any of a dozen Disney movies. The Peter Pan reference comes back around at the end, when we meet a character named Peter, dressed very much like the Disney version of Peter Pan, who is paired up with a woman who wants to fly, whose clothing is similar to that of Wendy Darling.
“Knowing What I Know Now” Is An Homage To Tarzan’s Trashin’ The Camp
One of the last songs in Wish, “Knowing What I Know Now,” sees Asha and her friends together trying to figure out what to do about Magnifico, it leads into the song, where the group begins to sing and play music, using whatever they find lying around. Wish co-director Chris Buck told CinemaBlend’s Sarah El-Mahmoud that the visuals are an homage to Tarzan where the apes do the same thing in the “Trashin’ the Camp” sequence. He explained…
One of our music supervisors keeps teasing me about it because I said, ‘Oh, you kept saying trashing the camp. Trashing the camp. Trashing the camp.’ And it was because they were taking just these found objects, the apes were, and just making music and sounds out of it. So we kind of did that with this. We did it as a homage.
Magnifico Is The Magic Mirror
The mirror is a recurring symbol throughout Wish that is key to Magnifico as a character. He loves his reflection and we see his face in mirrors often. As such, there are multiple connections between himself and the Magic Mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. At one point, Magnifico actually says the classic “Magic mirror on the wall” line. Later, when he is pulled into his own magic staff, we actually get a few quick frames of Magnifico’s face replaced with that of the Magic Mirror. The queen decides to leave him behind the glass hanging on the wall.
Valentino Wants To Live In Zootopia
As the movie comes to a close there is much discussion of the wishes various people have. Valentino the talking goat admits that would like to live in a utopian community where animals live together and also wear clothes. It sounds like a lovely dream, and it also sounds exactly like Zootopia.
Asha Becomes A Fairy Godmother
Before Star returns to the sky, the little guy bestows upon Asha a magic wand. While she’s not sure she knows what to do with magic, her friends say she can be their fairy godmother. Asha's clothes, especially when she's wearing her hood, also strongly resemble the robe of Cinderella's fairy godmother.
So Many Mickey Mouse References
If you’re going to use your movie to celebrate 100 years of Disney, you have to include the guy who started it all, and Mickey Mouse is all over Wish. There are several “hidden Mickeys,” i.e. where the classic three-circle design is hidden in the background, but that’s far from all. Producer Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones told CinemaBlend’s Sarah El-Mahmoud that Star itself was significantly influenced by Mickey. He said…
Star, who is also deeply inspired by Mickey Mouse himself. You know, if you look at the shape on the mask, it's very reminiscent of Mickey. And a lot of the energy is very reminiscent of early Mickey.
In addition to that, during a scene in Magnifico’s lab, Star accidentally enchants a quill pen, which begins to write on its own. Before it stops, it has drawn a partial image of Mickey that resembles the Disney Channel logo. Then, in the movie’s closing moments, fireworks are going off over the castle, with the final shot being three exploding fireworks making one last, not-so-hidden Mickey.
Critics are split on Wish, but the real question is what the audience thinks. Wish is a love letter to Disney fans in every conceivable way. It has all the elements that made Disney the king of animation in the first place. Fans will almost certainly love the movie and the references it makes to Disney's history. Perhaps they’ll love the movie enough to want to see it again, and maybe that way they’ll actually be able to catch all the easter eggs they missed.
