Disney’s Wish 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release date is March 12th, 2024, and it is exclusive to Walmart in a SteelBook package.
New Disney Animation films can be cause for jubilation when it comes to the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format. They have the potential of brilliantly shining in 4K at home, and 2023’s Wish thankfully fires on almost all cylinders despite its blended mix of art styles that take a moment to adjust to.
It wouldn’t have been very “Disney” of Disney to forego creating a movie celebrating the 100th anniversary of their Animation studio. To hammer the connection between that movie and the celebration home, the idea powering Wish draws from the lyrics forever associated with the company, “When you wish upon a star.”
But what happens when your wishes are protected by an egotistical king who makes you forget them and hoards them for himself? In true Disney fashion a hero, or in this case a heroine named Asha (Ariana DeBose), must rise up and do what’s right for her family and the kingdom of Rosas.
Buying the idea that an entire kingdom would willingly give their greatest wish to a king in hopes they might win a lottery and have that wish granted does feel like a bit of a stretch. But Wish overcomes this odd scenario by keeping the story steadily propelling forward, both in plot and character revelations. The collection of wishes being kept and controlled by Chris Pine’s sorcerer King Magnifico are the McGuffin that everything and everyone is constantly moving toward.
Where Encanto and Moana are steeped in real world culture, Wish follows closer to the path of Frozen by placing its story in another time and fairy tale-inspired place. As such it feels more like classic Disney than modern, though Chris Pine’s anger-driven rendition of This is the Thanks I Get plays with an upbeat peppy flair – even if it’s inspired by great Disney villain songs of yore.
Wish plays brilliantly in 4K Ultra HD from the opening fairy tale book sequence that sets up the story. Though I was caught off-guard by a blend of more traditional line-drawn 2D animation in some backgrounds and objects versus the more modern 3D characters, the colorful film with HDR10 pops on the screen. The Star character in particular throws off a powerful glow.
Disney presents Wish in 4K with a Dolby Atmos track that’s a lot more hit than miss. I didn’t have to touch the volume knob once due to drowned out voices. The spaciousness of King Magnifico’s hidden chambers come through in the mix, and the song numbers bring the whole soundstage to life. I figured it would be a solid mix following the first song’s strong reveal, Welcome to Rosas.
Disney has packed Wish with an amazing array of extras. Apart from no feature-length commentary, it runs the gamut; from making-of featurettes to deleted scenes to outtakes to song selections so you can easily jump to them – with on-screen lyrics. The Wish D-Classified featurette is especially intriguing as it points out numerous obvious and not-so-obvious references to other Disney films
- Sing Along With The Movie
- Featurette: Once Upon A Studio
- 100 Years In The Making
- What Makes Disney, Disney
- The Wish Equation
- Looking Backward To Go Forward
- Where Dreams And Reality Collide
- Asha Means Wish
- The Return Of The Disney Villain
- Star Is Born
- Those Who Stand Beside Me
- When Wishes Come True
- Featurette: WISH D-Classified
- Featurette: Outtakes
- Featurette: Deleted Song “A Wish Worth Making”
- 5 Deleted Scenes
- Song Selection
There have been a lot of all-time classics to come out of Disney Animation over the past 100 years. Is Wish one of them? No. But it is a solid film that takes an unusual concept and runs with it to a satisfying conclusion, delivering a couple “get stuck in your head” songs along the way. The 4K presentation with HDR10 and Dolby Atmos gets the job done and rounds out an all-around entertaining couple hours in front of the TV.
