Aside from a prominent cameo in
Once Upon a Studio,
Snow White remains an inspiration to the current movie-makers at Disney. That includes Buck and Veerasunthorn, who used hand-drawn animation for the environments of
Wish alongside the CG-animated Asha and Magnifico as a nod to the watercolors used for the 1937 film. In a slightly more overt nod to the classic, Asha maintains seven close friends in the kingdom of Rosas. Not only do each resemble one of the seven dwarfs, but their names also share the same initials. Dahlia (Jennifer Kumiyama) boasts brains and glasses like Doc, Simon (
Evan Peters) is just as fatigued as Sleepy, Gabo (
Harvey Guillén) is a tad Grumpy, Safi (
Ramy Youssef) is constantly sneezing, Dario (
Jon Rudnitsky) has the same wiggling ears and rosy cheeks as Dopey, Hal (Niko Vargas) smiles as much as Happy, and Bazeema (Della Saba) is as painfully shy as Bashful.
"When the idea came up of [Asha] having a group of friends, we thought, 'Well, it's the 100th anniversary. Could we do
sevenfriends? Can we actually do this?'" Buck recalls of concocting just one of dozens upon dozens of similar legacy nods to the Golden Age era of classic Disney sprinkled throughout the film. "This movie has been so much fun to bring out all these things that mean so much to us. And if the audience doesn't pick up on it, that's okay. Hopefully, the characters stand on their own.”
At the start of
Wish, Buck and Veerasunthorn, who first worked together on
Frozen, pulled one image from each Disney Animation film and placed them together on a bulletin board to see the entire breadth of the studio's work. One could consider Pine's Magnifico to be a legacy nod, as he evokes the same vibe as the Evil Queen in
Snow White or Maleficent in
Sleeping Beauty. (And the visuals of his dark magic may remind audiences of another classic Disney baddie.) Lee considers Magnifico to be "a real delicious villain," which is something folks at the studio were craving when thinking of a movie that would embody the 100-year legacy. "I was terrified of being a part of creating it, because how do you compete with some of the incredible villains that have been in the cinematic canon across the board? It's a scary undertaking, but who wouldn't want to try?"
If Magnifico represents old-school Disney, then Asha is very much a modern Disney heroine. Living a perfectly content life with her grandfather and mother, years after her dad passed away, she scores an interview to become the king's personal assistant. At first, she aligns with Magnifico's creed, which is to protect the kingdom's wishes. Once you offer up your wish to him, you forget it so that you don't have to suffer the grief of a wish unfulfilled, as Magnifico once did. But when Asha discovers the sorcerer will only use his magic to grant a select few wishes, leaving the rest to waste away in his castle, she sets out to release them with the help of a magical star that comes to life in response to her wish.
Unlike with their villain, the filmmakers didn't base Asha on any past Disney hero. "We wanted her to be her own person," Veerasunthorn says. "We were inspired by Ariana and what she brings to the recording session. Not only her performance, but as a person." For the
West Side Story Oscar winner's first recording session, Veerasunthorn and Buck placed a squishy ball on the end of a selfie stick and waved it in front of DeBose's face as a physical reference for Star. "It was so much fun and so quirky," Veerasunthorn recalls. "That's when we got to know what she could really bring to Asha."
Similar to Anna, Mirabel, or Moana, Lee sees Asha as a modern Disney heroine — she doesn't need anyone to save her. "They have to fight their way through," she says. "To me, the greatest power of a fairy tale is when it's giving you ways to cope through something and watching Asha, very relatably, be that kind of person that's like all of us." Reflective of the film's title and Disney's anthem, Lee points to the power of Asha's wish. "[It's] her journey to say, 'I wish for more for my family, for my community,' and she's going to try to make that happen. She's going to suffer the consequences of those choices, as well as discover the true leader she is inside. She's evolving. In the past, what you'd see a lot of is the character stays the same and others are changed by that character. And that's great, but with modern storytelling, we want to give the challenge to that main character and we want to see her triumph. She doesn't do it alone, no one does in life, but she still has to make the hard choices." It may feel like an ambitious task to make a film that bridges the past and present of a 100-year legacy of storytelling, but having worked with Buck directing
Frozen 2, Lee says they would often joke, "If we survived our first musical sequel to a project that a lot of people were like, 'How do you dare do another one?' we can't be afraid to do this."
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