Wish

As much as summer blockbusters are now around the corner—Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens this week—film trailers have already begun to focus on the all-important holiday season, surely in an effort to capitalize on the similarly sizeable summer theatre-going public. A key case in point would be Disney’s latest animated effort, a film that pays homage to the company’s heritage on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. In keeping with this, even the trailer for the film exhibits some stylistic borrowings from trailers of old—and to great effect. At the outset of the trailer, we hear a single, reverberant piano key (itself a trope in trailer music). This quickly leads into a melody that turns from wistful, to hopeful, to triumphant as the arrangement swells to include tubular bells, strings, and a wordless choir. Accompanying this fairly typical musical arrangement is an off-screen narrator whose identity is maddeningly obscure. He speaks in a tone and manner reminiscent of trailer narrators like Don LaFontaine (“in a world…”), and in hypotheticals that could as much address another, diegetic off-screen character as it could the audience. And this is undoubtedly the point: Through this diegetic obscurity, the audioviewer could instantly feel more engaged and secure, and this itself is a reminder of the virtues of the classic trailer narrator of yesteryear.

All of this, however, is upended and answered by 0:29, as we do see the narrator—who appears to elicit evil mannerisms as he—King Magnifico (Chris Pine)—growls “to me”, his eyes a menacing green. An audiovisual blackout at 0:30 presages his maniacal laughter, leading into a more sombre musical track featuring harp and synthesizer at 0:36. At 0:48 as the wishing star the protagonist (Asha) calls upon gives her pet goat, Valentino, some star dust, some epic percussion fills the role of anticipatory instrument, leading up to a pause to herald the arrival of Valentino’s voice.

With these opening dramatic and comedic sections covered, we then hear a segment of “This Wish”, one of the film’s songs, as sung by Ariana DeBose (who also voices Asha). Notice how the singing opens directly in tandem with the studio title card that fastidiously reminds you that they’re behind the cinematic and musical hits Frozen, The Lion King, and Moana. The first of these remains tremendously popular for its soundtrack with the generation-defining Disney tune “Let It Go”, perhaps promising similar musical gold in Wish. Notice also how the cards are trotted out to the beat of epic percussion—really sending the point home, unabashedly. To further reinforce this, they do it again a moment later—this time trotting out Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Encanto. To be sure, it’s a pedigree that only Disney can boast—and they know it. The song becomes in this instance an essential underpinning that ties together this march of titles and the various scenes between them.

Reading the comments to the YouTube video above, the overwhelming sentiment is one of relief or even excitement for the return of a clear villain. The first and last third of the trailer hearken to older conventions in trailers. At the beginning, there is a narrator who at least appears to address the audience; at the end, there is an original song left relatively untouched, allowed to simply play without extensive trailerization or stylistic edits in its arrangement. Perhaps counterintuitively, this trailer feels fresher by embracing (or returning to) such conventions, offering a candid presentation of the film’s ideas and some of its music rather than being predominantly committed to novelty or spectacle.

Wish arrives in theatres November 22nd, 2023.

— Curtis Perry