Home Video Review: Disney Wish
Walt Disney Animation Studios 2023 film, “Wish” is now available on home video formats. Wish is an original fairy tale that tells the story of Asha who lives in the Kingdom of Rosas. Asha along with her friends and sidekick Valentino confront Magnifico, the King of Rosas, in an effort to return people’s wishes and sense of hope. For more on the film here is Maggie’s review of Wish from the original theatrical release.
Wish was released on digital platforms on Jan 23rd and on physical disc formats March 12th. At this time no date Disney+ premiere date or offerings have been shared. I had the opportunity to review the Blu-ray bundle that is the Blu-ray, DVD and digital version of the film. The offering includes the short “Once Upon a Studio”, a sing-along version of the film, and a number of bonus features. The full technical specifications for the home video release of Wish are available in this press release.
The keystone bonus feature in this offering is the 64-minute “100 Years in the Making: The Story of Wish”. This documentary is a combination of 9 smaller featurettes that explore Disney History featuring discussions with the creative team that worked on the film. I thought this was a good piece and gave you a lot of insight into the team’s goals and some of the considerations for this film. The focus was more on the legacy of Disney than on the nuts and bolts of making this film. Everything is discussed through that lens.
There are three additional featurettes included. Wish D-Classified is a six minute look at a number of references to previous Disney Animated films that are included in Wish. Compared to a lot of featurettes in this vein this one felt to be a good length and included a fair number of references and explanations of them. There is a brief 2-minute featurette with outtakes from the voice cast recording sessions. And another short 2 minute pieces on a deleted song, “A Wish Worth Making” which was cut from the film but used in the credits.
There are a handful of deleted scenes ranging from 3-5 minutes. Each has an introduction and you can play them all as a 22 minute piece.
There is also a song selection giving direct access to seven songs in the film.
The number, variety and depth of bonus features included in this initial home video offering are above average for recent releases. I found the documentary/ set of featurette interesting and a good length. I would have liked to have seen a bonus feature on the short included.
If you enjoy discussions from creative teams about the development of a film and some Disney animation history you will want to consider this offering. There is no indication if this will be exclusive to the home video releases or if some equivalent will be on Disney+.
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** A review copy of this book was provided to us