"That's just bad storytelling!"
This reaction to the lack of "bad guys" in a game was one of the few worthwhile lines in Strange World, last year's Disney animation offering. I didn't care for the film, for slightly ignoble reasons.
I could claim that it was because of the bland characters, the unengaging generational conflict which compares very poorly to similar themes in Encanto, the unflattering character design which favours mushroomy noses and small eyes or the sometimes yawn-inducing story. But to tell the truth, what really annoyed me was the eco message, which I knew was coming in one form or another throughout the film. When it was delivered, it was in a different way than I expected, but the moral conveyed still boils down to the same: that we should abandon our modern, comfortable way of life to Save Mother Earth. The "get back in the caves" message always acts a red flag on me. If we'd been spared that, I think I could have forgiven the film much, even the three-legged dog (what demographic is he supposed to appeal to, exactly?).
But, to get back to the quote above from the disreputable adventurer grandfather we're not supposed to root for. (Nor did I: if anyone had my sympathy, it was the farmer dad, especially as his son was such a whiny, ungrateful brat.) When the old reprobate is right, he's right, and he was right here. As per usual, however, his views and those the film wished to pitch didn't match; there's no villain in Strange World. Nor is this a new thing in Disney animation.
Somehow, Disney managed to go from the played-out twist villain trope to no villain at all in several films in a row. Moana's head villain turned out to be something else, though it did still have the crab Tamatoa and his catchy villain song. The only antagonist in Wreck-It Ralph 2 - Ralph Breaks The Internet was a computer virus created by mistake by Ralph and his insecurities. In Frozen 2, the villain was Elsa's and Anna's long-dead grandfather, shown briefly in snow-statue flashbacks, which hardly counts. In Raya and the Last Dragon, the threat was the Druun, a faceless, impersonal plague. No villain in Encanto – though the villain-song style of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" could be a part of the song's success (however, Bruno turns out to be a sweetie). And now Strange World, where the only villains are Ourselves. After all that, I'd begun to despair of ever seeing a memorable bad guy in a Disney film again. For some reason I couldn't quite understand, villains didn't seem to be fashionable.
And, then, suddenly, a new hope. Disney's animated film of 2023 is set to be Wish, and the trailer features: a villainous king! Voiced by Chris Pine in honour of the good old heartthrob-turns-villain-actor tradition, King Magnifico (subtle) is a good-looking, seemingly popular monarch who promises good times for everyone as long as they "give your wish... to me". Whereupon his eyes turn menacingly yellow, and we hear a sinister laugh echoing in the trailer's background.
Oh boy oh boy, as Mickey himself would say, how I've missed this. I'm a little nervous that Wish will try to accomplish too much, cramming in callbacks to previous Disney films and a lot of side characters. But for Magnifico, the bar isn't set very high. The very fact that he exists pretty much gets him over it. I'm quite happy to give one of my wishes – to once again set my eyes on a front-and-centre, larger-than-life Disney villain – to him for safekeeping.
Does this mean that Disney animation is on the right track again? Not really. After having once again swapped producers, Disney animation has announced that its new projects will be: Frozen 3, Zootopia 2 and, for Pixar, Toy Story 5. Yes, the sequel avalanche is upon us again. One thing one can say about Disney's animated output these last years, villain-less as it has been, it has featured several new stories which didn't build on already existing franchises. Look, you don't need me to tell you how uninspiring these new titles are. Toy Story 5, really?
As for villains, things look bleak. But hey, I could be wrong. It's not as if the original Frozen and Zootopia didn't have worlds worth revisiting. Maybe Frozen 3 will forgo the nature-vs-civilisation rhetoric of the second installment and dive more deeply into Scandinavian folklore and fairy tales instead? And maybe we get to see Hans again?
