Oh good you've seen Wicked Wonderland I can yell freely. So much happens and yet it also feels like nothing happened in a series way? Like I will be fair in that I think even if the best version of this story, you don't have time to do everything. Like if they had cut the main cast down to Red, Chloe, Max, Luis, and Pink, that's a pretty standard five man band which is a tried and true method of "enough characters to have variety but not so many that not all of them can contribute" and even THEN you have the Pink and Red sister stuff, the Chloe and Red fallout, the Red/Luis stuff, the Chloe-max bonding, Max finding out about the other timeline, Evil Chloe, and the queens in 90 minutes. This is an 8 episode mini series plot at minimum, and more if you're going to have everyone else
But also. How do Max and Red NEVER have an in-person confrontation with Maddox? Maddox actually doesn't even do anything in the final third of this movie. Aside from getting Max to look at the oraculum, Chessy actually doesn't seem to contribute because all the conflicts she stokes just feel like things that would have boiled over anyway and then would have been actual character conflict. Also, is Luis like, even actually wrong in his distrust of Max? Because it seems like from his perspective Max snuck off in the middle of the night, came back and turned Chloe evil and then betrayed them.
Also. Am truly bummed that Chloe gets turned evil via magic instead of getting a corruption arc because like, going from so lawful good she can't break a school rule to save her mom from getting decapitated to overcompensating so much she nose dives into chaotic evil would be interesting and now it just means her main contributions to the plot are suggesting a plan that could have worked but got ignored, suggesting a plan that they listen to that immediately goes wrong, getting used by Chloe and getting used by Max (i weirdly wish they could have interacted more genuinely?) which is weird! For the other person on the poster! I don't think she ever even learns Maddox had her mom?
Soundtrack rocks though, I am NOT immune to how adorable "For Once In My Life" is. I liked the first movie's soundtrack but I think this one's got a higher ratio of like "oh yeah I want to listen to that again." Oh also I really do like the chess dance battle. It's big, it's campy, it's one of the moments that feels the most like it's making use of wonderland as a setting. And even though they do not need to be there I kind of love the implication that Felix and Robbie are off on their own weird yaoi Sidequest. It wouldn't have helped the movie but if they had just kept the bit up and cutting away to them in increasingly weird Wonderland bs and then they show up at the end riding a Jabberwocky and nothing is explained, that would be a fun use of like three minutes.
Lol, buckle up this is about to be an essay.
Let me start this by saying I had a genuinely good time with the movie. Fun music, fun chaos, Wonderland had a fun aesthetic, I had some genuine laughs, it actually has a real conclusion unlike the last one. I had fun. I will be watching D6 when they make it.
That being said, I have some notes.
The first one being that this was, in my opinion, not the best story to follow up directly after Rise of Red. The events of Rise of Red show a status quo and then the movie ends with Red and Chloe upending that status quo: Bridget is now a good queen and a loving mom. And then we start Wicked Wonderland and it seems like we're digging even deeper into exploring that! Not only is Red's mom nice now, she also has a little sister! She has a completely different room and a favorite bow apparently suggesting that this version of her has a totally different fashion sense and personality. And we have the whole Perfect Princess song which is about how, all of a sudden, there's a whole world expecting her to be a stereotypical sweet, smiling, proper princess. Excellent, love that. Really juicy material to work with. But does that opener lead into a plot where Red is expected to host a ball in Wonderland but can't hack it? Or a story where her mom and sister are suspicious that she's not acting like the perfect princess they're used to? A story where she is trying to live up to these new expectations and breaks under the pressure? Nope! It's a romp in Wonderland where these themes barely come up at all. It's such a good setup that they hardly do anything with. No one questions what is, as far as we can tell, a huge departure in style and attitude from Red. And Red doesn't really try to keep up any kind of act to the people who should know she's acting weird. Wouldn't it have made way more sense for her to come to school dressed in some ridiculous dress with a big ass bow in her hair and rhinestones on her face because she let her mom and sister dress her the way she's "supposed to look"? Or, alternatively, for her to come to school with her leather and such and for Pink to be like, "Hey Red, you usually don't shop at Wonderland Hot Topic and you've been kinda weird with me and Mom all morning. Are you OK?"
Another thing about Perfect Princess, it's kind of weird that Chloe sings it with Red because, even in a world where we properly explored this theme for Red, Chloe was already expected to be a perfect princess in the main timeline. She's the daughter of Ella and Charming. She's the prototypical HK. When she sings the line, "I never believed there'd be a world looking at me to be a perfect princess," I'm like girl, what are you talking about? I think she says her mom is, "Even more strict" (key word being more, meaning she was already strict) in this timeline, which implies that it's not a drastic change in the same way it was for Red. So I don't think the song really works for her. This is literally my favorite song on the soundtrack, but I don't think it works super well as the kickoff for the plot they actually went with. I almost wonder if it was a holdover from an earlier version of the script.
Speaking of Chloe, I think she gets done really dirty in this movie for reasons partially related to the set up of Rise of Red. When I found out she was going to have an "Evil Chloe" arc, I was willing to be proven wrong but my first thought was, "This is about to be underwhelming," and I was right. I am convinced that this was a decision born of mostly two things: (1) wanting to sell dolls and (2) not knowing what else to do with her. Because, think about it. In Rise of Red, Red and Chloe both have strong motivations for their actions. Red wants to reverse the execution of Ella/stop her mom from being evil and Chloe wants her mom to not be dead. Wicked Wonderland is largely a movie about the consequences of Rise of Red. In Rise of Red, Red goes from evil dictator mom to loving family and a reputation as the super nice Queen's daughter. Which leads to her ally from the first movie becoming a villain in this movie. And that leads to her now-loving mom getting kidnapped. This is all fallout from the first movie that flows into the second movie and ties into Red's struggles and motivations. She's struggling with her new lot in life and she's trying to save her mom from Hatter. But Chloe's life has basically just gone back to status quo. It's not like they got to this new world and her mom was missing or cruel or her parents never got together and it's a Marty McFly situation. Not that I think any of those things should have happened specifically. I'm just saying the effects of time travel really only changed Red's life in a tangible way which means Chloe feels really ancillary to the main plot. Even though, as you point out, her mom is also trapped with Bridget and she never finds out! She doesn't even have the motivation of, "Save my mom," again. She's just tagging along to help Red, which makes her feel like a sidekick in a movie she is supposed to be the co-lead of. So it's like, OK, we set this movie up in such a way that all the plot threads are kinda centered on Red. What do we do with Chloe? Evil glow up.
Which like, sigh. I don't hate the idea of a villain arc for her but I don't like how they handled it. The tiff she was having with Red was so contrived to me. Like, first of all, I understand that they trauma bonded but they met like a week ago. She's acting like her best friend of 10 years is suddenly being cold to her when it's her friend of 7 days who just isn't on the same wavelength with her yet on certain things because they had vastly different upbringings and haven't worked out the communication kinks yet. I understand that this is a Disney movie and if I have to accept love at first sight I also have to accept best friendship at first movie, but it still feels a bit silly. Also, Chloe's accusation that Red was acting like a VK feels so weird to me because, (1) for all intents and purposes, she is one. She was still raised by Tyrant Bridget not Cupcakes Bridget and (2) except for using her as bait during the chess game (which I see why someone would be upset at that but I wouldn't call villainous as much as reckless) what exactly did Red do that was so VK-like? Not use her Dodo idea? Talk to Max alone--a completely reasonable thing to do seeing as this Max has her same backstory and is also Wonderlandian (I feel like Chloe being there wouldn't help him open up). Red doesn't even get up to much villain-y in Rise of Red honestly. Like, what does she do? Vandalize her own house? Red has consistently been characterized as kinda sarcastic and aloof but deeply love starved, good at heart, and terrified of ending up like her mom. Which is all to say, it feels so strange that Chloe was so mad at Red in the first place. That should not have pushed her into an angsty ballad during the rescue mission to save Red's mom. I was like girl, you need to lock in. But then, as weak as a reason for a heel turn as that would be, they didn't even let her have a proper heel turn! Max just sweet talks her into putting on a shiny bracelet and boom, she's evil now. In the lyrics, it's not even necessarily framed as if she knows it's a bracelet that will make her heartless. Max is just like, "Ooh, it's sparkly like you and will cheer you up." Like boo, at least say something like, "This will take your pain away" or "Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you want to go apeshit?" Like, something that makes it feel like she has some real agency in the situation.
It also doesn't do Chloe any favors to pair her with Max for this who is having, imo, a much more valid crashout. Like, oh you just found out Red foisted her shitty backstory onto you and you want to get your happy life back? Entirely understandable! It just makes Chloe's motivations seem much weaker in comparison. There are potential ways to make her villain turn stronger but, tbh, I just wouldn't have given her a falling out w/ Chloe arc at all. I have given her something different to do. Something I discussed with the friend that I watched this with was Rise of Red had Ella in danger while Red experienced the pressure of having a really abusive parent. It would have been interesting to flip that in this movie--now it's Red's mom in danger and Chloe is facing the pressure of having not abusive parents by any means but parents who have really high expectations of her. Though it's not really shown, the movie pays lip service to the idea of Ella being "strict". She escorts her to school which Chloe mentions as being smothering. If she feels she has to live up to the Charming legacy and make sure that her friends/loved ones get their happily ever after, that would be a motivation I could get behind for her in this movie AND it would give her a better reason to be singing Perfect Princess at the start of the movie btw--for Red, this is her new status quo, for Chloe, this has been every day of her life and we'd be seeing how exhausted it makes her. My friend's suggestion was to really lean into the perfectionist angle for Chloe, leading to her wanting to use the pocket watch again to fix everything because things are better but still not perfect--Red feels out of place, she still feels like she's not good enough, now they've screwed up things with Max and Maddox--while Red is opposed to using time travel again because even when they were using it for a very unselfish reason, it really changed things a lot and she's not willing to take the chance that they cause more problems. So when Max has his crashout and tries to get Chloe to join him, Chloe does but it's not actually for whatever reason Max tempted her with, she just wants to use it to fix things. In fact, I think there's a world where SHE recruits HIM actually. Like, she wants to fix things but needs help getting back to the vault and Red won't take her because she's against the plan. So she's like Max, I know you're hurting, we didn't mean to do what we did to you, I want to fix this but I need help, you're Wonderlandian can you navigate this maze to get me to the vault and I know the code because I saw Red open it before. It's taking teen Ella's "Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty" advice and kicking it up a notch. So in this version Red and Chloe are still butting heads but ideologically, not interpersonally. Again, it's possible to do a version where their fight makes more sense, but it's hard to do it in a way that's not overshadowed by the much stronger beef Max has with her, so I'd just avoid it. Also, the big falling out between leads has been done a million times. If it's not done really well, I'm not impressed.
(There's not a good place to put this but Chloe getting on Red's case for supposedly switching between different roles--I think she said VK, HK, Sister, Friend--as they suited her to get what she wants felt so ridiculous to me. Red isn't switching between those roles, she is legit all of those things lol. She was raised a VK, changing the timeline made her an HK with a sister, and she has friends. Like, that's such a weird dunk. Red needed to be acting way more conniving to elicit that reaction imo. And I understand that it can suck when someone hurts your feelings and they don't even realize it but beloved, Red grew up in an environment where she was being groomed to be a ruthless tyrant. You're gonna need to tell her when your feelings are hurt sometimes. She didn't exactly grow up learning to engage her empathy in the same way as you. If she asks you what's wrong, you gotta tell her.)
I agree with you that there were a lot of plots to juggle in this one which was an entirely self imposed problem. They could have made this movie just focusing on the problems caused by movie one and introducing nothing new but then they dumped a bunch of new stuff in! That being said, let's run through the ones you mentioned:
Pink and Red sister stuff: I think they easily could have beefed this up and it would have made the story a lot stronger without upping the run time much if at all. Just have Pink react more strongly in her scenes where Red is brushing her off. Have a quick scene with her and let's say Chloe where she asks if Red is mad at her or something and have Chloe be cagey in a way that makes Pink feel like something big is being hidden from her (which it is lol). The big blowup that Red has with Chloe can be between them instead. Maybe have Red let it slip up and say that she's not even really her sister (which, btw, INSANE that this info is never revealed to Pink, Ella, or Bridget THE MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE TO LEARN THIS INFORMATION) which causes Pink to be really upset (either because she really gets what Red is telling her or because she interprets it as Red just saying she doesn't love her). And then have Pink still try to save her at the end like in the movie because she still loves her despite everything. The mechanics of Red getting the new timeline memories of Pink in this movie are very nebulous. I'm not mad that it happens but I wish they set it up better. For the tone they're going for, she does kinda need to get those memories because otherwise this is so sad for Pink lol. But I think you can honor the reality of the situation while keeping it sweet. Like, Red gets those memories and explains to Pink the situation and is like, I feel so lucky because I have these amazing memories of knowing you and now I have a chance to get to know you all over again. Something like that. If I could be in charge of re-writing one thing in this movie, I think it would be this.
The Chloe and Red Fallout: I covered this already. I simply would not have done this. I think this is all time that could have been better spent and it's my main beef with this movie. I think a lot of this movie is underbaked potential but this is just a full miss for me. if I could cut one thing from the movie, it would be this.
Red/Luis: OK, so I don't think this movie needed a romance subplot strictly speaking but it was inevitable and they were cute. I like that their duet was less, "I'm in love with you" and more, "I'd like to get to know you better" which feels a lot more realistic. This would be a big departure but I'm also picturing a version of this story where Red pops into this timeline and Luis is already her boyfriend--let's say it's a new development. Let's say he's her boyfriend of one week or less. And she's like, "??????????????????????????" And then she has this conflict of, (1) I don't know this guy and then (2) OK maybe he's cute and I am crushing little but he liked the old me, he would never like this version of me. So she confesses to Luis and she's not his Red and she's not really an HK and he seems really sweet and she doesn't want to lead him on. And he's like I understand and no hard feelings, we can pump the breaks on this but this version of you is not that as different from the version that I know and I'd still like to get to know you better if you'd let me. It could be a fun way for Red to get more comfortable bridging the gap between timelines. And also, it would help her realize that she's never really been a bad guy. She just wears a lot of leather and engages in some light graffiti. But I don't actually have a problem with how it played out. Like I said, cute.
Chloe and Max Bonding: Without the Chloe villain subplot, this wouldn't be necessary in the way that it is in the movie currently but sure, they could stand to have some time together. Maybe it could help her get over her anti-VK hang-up she clearly still has despite befriending Red.
Max finding out about the other timeline: This is load bearing plot and I'm more or less fine with how it went. Chessy's involvement is whatever--which is how I feel about her in general--but it's a good plot beat.
Evil Chloe: Already talked about this too but I'll say here, I find it kinda odd that Chessy is the one who is whispering doubt into people's heads all movie but then it's Max who brings Chloe to the dark side. And even though I wouldn't necessarily have gone with this plot, I think going from lawful good to chaotic evil can work really well. But you need to push a lawful good character really hard (or really precisely) to make that drastic a leap and we just didn't get that.
The Queens: Bridget and Ella are such a funny duo. Every time we cut back to them (and it was more times that I expected) I perked up. I know this is a Disney Channel movie so the kids are gonna be the stars. And again, I found their shenanigans very entertaining--Yes Ella, roast her for her garbage taste in guys--but remember how I said above that it's crazy that no one but Max finds out about the time travel? Well I wish Ella and Bridget had found out about it. In a world where they weren't just being used for comic relief, it would have been so good for Maddox to use the Oraculum or the Looking Glass or something to further torture Bridget by showing Ella that in the other timeline, Bridget had her killed. Like, you hate her. You have her at your mercy. Why are you just letting her chat with her BFF in her house? Make her suffer! And then you have a bunch of fun options for reactions. Is Ella super upset that Bridget could do that? Is Bridget the one who's super upset that she could do that? Does that make her think maybe she shouldn't be queen actually? Is Ella actually really understanding, completely undermining Hatter's intent and making him do something to escalate? Lotta fun ways you could play this. It's just this big, unspoken thing looming in the background of all their scenes. They have this easy friendship that they don't even know is an anomaly. That's so interesting.
A quick note on Chessy, she feels like a character that was included because the writers didn't want to think of a way to make certain things happen organically. Like, just have the cat start shit because it's a chaos cat. It didn't feel necessary. Oh also, you know what I found so weird? The fact that, during her opening narration, she mentions that Red now has a sister which is the FIRST TIME we get that information. Like, obviously we already knew that because of the promos and stuff but why wouldn't we meet Pink for the first time in the actual story? Why is this cat I've never met just telling me what I could be shown? A plot refresh is one thing but to just tell me this new info? Why? And I don't think she needed to kick off that Luis vs. Hazel song. That could have just happened on its own and I think it would have been a stronger scene for it. Likewise, Chessy didn't need to tempt Max to use the oraculum. He could just say earlier that he never used it because it made his dad crazy and then we could watch him almost look at it, shake his head, and then loose his resolve and take a peek. Simple.
Re: the extraneous characters I must say, Hazel was my favorite new character of this movie (and I love her HK vs VK song w/ Luis and ripping the wings off of Tinkerbell is so out of pocket--that bit followed by the clarification that they grow back really cracked me up) so, even though she's objectively a character that it makes sense to cut to get down to the main 5 you identified, I'd hate to lose her. She strikes a balance of playfully antagonistic that I really enjoyed and I liked her dynamic with Max. The actually ended up feeling softer on the Smees than I expected. They didn't take up a lot of time, they mainly were doing background gags, and it's like, "Hazel keeps around these two dummies to order around? Yeah checks out. That makes sense." Robbie and Felix? No plot relevance. No characterization. It feels like they were literally just in this movie to fill out the dance numbers and hit some kind of Disney tie-in quota. Committing harder to the bit like you said would have made them feel less extraneous at least.
Oh man this is so much longer than even I intended. Home stretch now.
Focusing in on the ending, it's kind of interesting how they chose to resolve it. You're right, not much happens in the end. We're basically at the same status quo that the movie starts at except now Maddox is back in jail. It's messed up that that Max's life got way worse through no fault of his own but I guess (1) a LOT of people are now alive that would have otherwise been dead so it's better overall for more people and (2) the new timeline didn't make Maddox's life worse in any specific way (ie: he didn't become poor which forced him to take up a life of crime), he chose to devote his life to tracking down the watch which became an obsession that led to him being villainous so I guess it was still his free will at the end of the day. But that still sucks so much for Max and I kinda wish he'd been more of a bitch about it to Bridget and Red. Like, oh Ms. Off With Her Head is really gonna get to punish my dad? How is that fair? You guys get to time travel to save your moms but I can't time travel to save my dad? How is that fair? Like, that also would have been an interesting time for the time travel secret to come out. For Bridget to be like, "What on earth are you talking about?" and Red and Chloe having to confess to what they did and figuring out what that means.
Last thing. When Hatter is captured, Bridget goes full evil queen, "OFF WITH HIS HEAD" on him before stopping herself like, "Wait, where did that come from?" and giving him a much less bloody punishment. That read to me as a gag, but oh man I wish that was an actual plot point in this movie or the next. Stuff from the old timeline bleeding in? Your now-loving mom slipping into tyrant mode uncontrollably because you accidentally destabilized the timeline? Your mom and sister having no context for why it's happening and being super scared? Delicious.
In conclusion, Disney should let me write D6.
It is 1:30 AM and this is 4100 words long. Goodnight.
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