The Great Wish Movie Rewrite Chapter One

Out of curiosity how long do you prefer fanfictions to be? Are you more likely to read something with just a few chapters or do you like a long quality story?

Chapter Nine is Up (Everybody Needs a Thneed)

Summary:

Once-ler's dreams finally start to come true and his family joins him in the valley. Something bad happens at the end.

EXCERPT:

A short response to his letter came to the post office later that week. It read:

Dear Oncie,

It’s so wonderful to hear from you. We’ve all been doing just fine. Gizette just got an eye exam and discovered she needs glasses, but we don’t have enough money. Would it be possible for you to loan us a few hundred since we’re behind on bills? I’ll probably be able to pay it back this fall or the next. I don't think we can come to visit, the journey is too far. Thanks, love you.

-Ma.

All at once, he remembered why his family was so hard to miss.

Once-ler felt a familiar guilt that rose in his stomach whenever his family asked for help. He could hear his dad’s voice echoing in his ears, saying “We could really use the help, Once-ler, otherwise I’ll have to spend my whole night in the forest again.”

He could hear the insults of his siblings, calling him a failure who didn’t work hard enough. After all, it shouldn’t be difficult for someone who was actually successful to do small favors for their struggling family here and there. "You should have yer life figured out by now. Stop being a loser!"

Once-ler went to his bed to get out the money he hid with his old books under his mattress, and counted out three hundreds. Wait. That was all he had left? He’d been in this valley without selling anything for longer than he’d planned. He paused, running a hand through his hair, and stared at the cover of his battered copy of The Virtue of Selfishness.

Slowly he put the money back between its covers, then went back to his desk. He stared at the letter with a frown. Finally he ripped it in half, and tossed it out the window.

It was high time he started being more selfish. After all, if you didn't take care of yourself first, you'd never be able to take care of anyone else. Right?

"Self care and coffee," was a slogan Aunt Grizelda had embroidered and hung above her door, and Uncle Ubb always got away with saying he had too many health problems from smoking and had to stand up for himself. Why could the rest of his family always get away with this attitude but not him?

READ THE FULL CHAPTER AND STORY ON A03!

So far 9 out of 16 chapters are posted, but there might be a few more by the time it's done.

(Comments and kudos on ao3 are really appreciated)!

THANKS FOR 50 KUDOS!!!!!!!!!!!

Because the original had a lot of plot holes and wasn't satisfying.

What to expect:

1. Actually tells the Once-ler's whole story from beginning to end (no Ted)

2. Gives Once-ler more agency and develops his motives beyond "my family made me do it."

3. Includes "You're all going to jail!" scene

4. Animals die/the stakes are raised

5. Logical explanations for why they couldn't just plant more trees or use a ladder, why Once-ler didn't just plant the seed himself, etc.

6. The Lorax is actually significant

7. Characters like Once-ler's dad, Norma, and O'Hare are woven in, but don't steal the spotlight. (Example: Norma isn't an annoying girlfriend who steals the role of the Lorax).

8. NO ANNOYING OCS, MARY SUES, OR STUPID ROMANCES!!!!!!!!!! Just a straightforward, comprehensive narrative of what the movie should've been like.

This entire novel is complete and has been through multiple drafts. If you follow it, you can be sure that it does have an ending and the author knows where it's going with foreshadowing and extra plot twists. Chapters will be released each week.

New chapter is up!

Preview:

The first place Once-ler tried his luck was the city of North Nitch where the biggest businesses were. It was a city of rainbow, sleek buildings twisted into swirly shapes and blinking lights, filled with the latest technology, including traffic lights with seven colors instead of three. He lost track of how many times he almost got run over in traffic trying to understand what they were supposed to mean.

O'Hare's Business and Innovation Center was the biggest, sleekest, twistiest building where he made an appointment to pitch his product. He rode an elevator up to the hundredth floor at the top of the building where helicopters flew so close to the window it looked like he could touch them. The O'Hares were a famous line of CEOs who ran all the major companies in every country.

Once-ler pulled his guitar from his back, mentally going over the pitch he'd carefully prepared for the team of salesmen. He took a deep breath, and began:

"The great is Thneed… I mean, the Thneed is good," he missed a note, completely forgetting how to sing in anapestic tetrameter.

READ THE REST ON AO3!

Join me as I post an actually finished rewrite of this entire movie! Extra plot twists, foreshadowing, and embellishments, since I did multiple drafts! Nobody ever finished a full rewrite before, so I did it myself.

which movie you think was wasted the most

The Lorax(2012) or Wish(2023)

also explain why

Great question! We've actually been really into rewriting both of these at the same time and see a lot of parallels. These two movies both have extremely sympathetic villains and good guys who seem too mean/bratty. Both movies tend to split up the narratives with too many unnecessary characters at the expense of the interesting ones, and both have a lot of plot holes. Right now I'm having fun releasing the Lorax Rewrite, but I'm also very into working on the first draft of the Wish Rewrite. There's so much lore, character development, and moral themes to fill in with both of them. Each rewrite is a unique, interesting experience, and I get really into whatever I'm working on in the moment!

The Lorax Novelization

Do you ever kinda wish something would exist, so you just decide to make it yourself?

Read here. I release new chapters every week.

Chapter 8 is up!

EXCERPT:

He'd finally become such a joke to the townsfolk, it seemed they'd entirely forgotten he was human.

Instead of just tomatoes, the grocer volunteered wheelbarrows of spoiled produce that some teenagers mixed with glass and rocks. A particularly well aimed stone knocked out a tooth as he was belting out his favorite jingle:

"The Thneed is good, the Thneed is grea—YOW!"

Once-ler usually didn't stop for anything, but the taste of blood made him drop his guitar on his foot. This hurt even worse, so he sprang up and down. The guitar bounced onto the concrete while the crowd laughed and cheered.

Once-ler didn't get a chance to see if the instrument had broken, because, in a fit of enthusiasm, the mean little girl with red hair ensured this was the case. She smashed it on the ground with the second worst noise Once-ler had ever heard.

A tomato landed in his stunned face, but he didn't even feel it. He just watched open-mouthed as fruits and vegetables pelted him and the girl stomped on the pieces, giggling with her parents who stood back and watched.

"Alright, sweetie, that's enough, we have to get to Grandma's house," the mother finally told her. She smiled and pulled out a big bag of chocolate-coated pretzels for her daughter as they walked away.

Once-ler's last shred of optimism finally evaporated. After his father had passed away, the guitar had been the only good memory he'd had from home.

"THAT'S IT!" he roared. "I've had enough!" He stormed from the gazebo with tears in his eyes.

Only the baker looked slightly sympathetic. She twisted a strand of curly brown hair around her finger as he strode past.

"Is this really the way to treat a stranger?!" he heard her yell at the grocer.

"Oh, come on, Norma, he's just a self-centered out-of-towner." The grocer sounded slightly abashed.

Once-ler turned to see Norma stomp her foot. "I know he is, and I know that piece of junk he's selling looks like a wadded up piece of bubblegum with hairs stuck in it, but you just gotta understand! Homeless mentally ill folks need to be shown charity..."

Her words just infuriated Once-ler more. "My family was right. I quit!" He ripped the Thneed from his neck, and accidentally whipped the baker in the face as he threw it away. It knocked off her glasses, which fell to the ground and shattered. Oops.

He walked away faster. Luckily his long legs took him back to the forest before anyone could call the police.

Chapter 9 of The Great Wish Movie Rewrite is up on AO3!

Read it here! Link

Guys, only one more chapter to go after this one! It's been so much fun posting this rewrite! Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading! I can't wait to start the next movie rewrite soon!

In this chapter Magnifico gets sucked into his own black hole of misused magic, and goes through a change.

Excerpt: Magnifico was towed downward by the black hole’s current, the edges of his robes unraveling into threads. He felt himself stretching, as if time itself was taking him apart, strand by strand. Space had swapped places with time, and hurled him toward the void’s inevitable singularity. His head and feet pulled in opposite directions as intense gravity stretched him unthinkably thin. 

As his torso elongated, his legs did not immediately catch up, and the pressure on his head intensified. His arms and legs became uselessly long threads. Horrifically, the magic in his blood denied him death until he became a smeared streak, when his soul was finally released, then he floated out of himself.

Magnifico, now immaterial, continued his descent, then, below, in the blackness from which no light could escape, he began to see dozens of embers. It turns out some light survives after passing through the event horizon’s boundary. As Magnifico sank deeper, time crawled slower and slower, and the lights, getting closer, grew brighter, revealing themselves to be dimming stars. Not alive like the one he’d met, but cold, colourless orbs.

Gravity no longer affected him, so Magnifico floated leisurely through their midst.

The stars’ surfaces were webbed with cracks that spilled streams of gold like blood. Some flickered weakly, while others were grey and lightless, perhaps dead, but they were all doomed to spin round together in the current. One floated through Magnifico, its edges curled inward as if it were devouring itself. They clustered in groups, grazing each other, shedding shards of brilliance like falling snow, while a few floated alone, then disappeared into the blackness beyond. Magnifico watched one brighter star shrink away from him as if it knew he were there.

He watched the creeping shadows where the star vanished, that were creating patterns around him: an endless staircase led downward, each step dripping with despair as it dissolved into nothingness, then the shadows became piercing shards that hurled themselves at him, and stabbed through him, though they only passed through him like smoke. These burst into fragments like pieces of glass from his terrible mirrors, and Magnifico finally saw his own reflection in them. The eyes of his shadow self were empty and sunken, and he did not recognise himself.

The darkness closed in, and laughter rang out from each of his reflections, then Magnifico realised they were one and the same with him. At this understanding the dark magic's grip loosened a tiny bit, and he knew that to reclaim his sanity, he would have to confront these distortions of himself.

As he drifted further down, a shadow formed into the shape of a man.

“Is that. . .?” Now Magnifico knew he was dead. “I think I remember you.” The words he’d said to Asha earlier, during her interview echoed through his mind: “He was a philosopher, was he not? Had great magic running through his blood. Always warning people about the consequences of getting whatever your heart desires. . .”

It was him. Asha’s father, the renowned philosopher. The tall man with a short beard and an eyepatch over his right eye, whose hair still stuck straight up after being killed by lightning, spoke. “Remember when magic was the pursuit of knowledge, not a weapon of tyranny?”

Magnifico studied the philosopher, then he nearly laughed. “I should have known you would appear here to mock me. You always were popping up at the most inconvenient of times. But save your laughter. You speak falsely. Magic is not knowledge, it is power. That is all it has ever been.” He found communicating intuitive despite no longer having a body, and could not explain how.

Time became so slow it was as if they no longer moved at all, and Magnifico could not look away from the man.

“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one and sixty years?” The philosopher’s gaze pierced him. “Or have you forgotten yourself in the midst of wielding power so mindlessly?”

Finish reading here: Link

Wicked Rewrite Chapter 2 (Not Like Other Girls)

Didn't expect to continue this, but didn't expect to get 6 kudos that fast. Join us for a story about the Wicked Witch actually being wicked. A twist on the twist.

Excerpt:

“I don’t read the same thing every day, you know,” Elphaba said, flipping a page. “That's the thing about books. Once you get all the information out of one, then you can get more from another. You should try it sometime."

"Oh, I like reading about poetry, philosophy, and architecture," said Glinda, feeling a stab of irritation at whatever stereotype her roommate was trying to pin on her. "Like I said, I got into Shzzz for my literary merits."

"I'm sure whatever references you made to nursery rhymes were very insightful. But I'm talking about actually familiarizing yourself with our politics and history," said Elphaba. "Tonight, I’m reading some of the speeches from the Codified Chronicles of Ozma’s Reign. I want to accomplish important things, like changing our outdated laws.”

“That sounds interesting," said Glinda. "What kind of laws do you want to change?"

Elphaba let out a long-suffering sigh, as if Glinda couldn't possibly understand the depths of what she was doing. "Well," she said, finally sitting all the way up, and turning to look at Glinda down her crooked nose. She adjusted her glasses. "I think that anyone with green skin should be automatically exempt from having to share a room with anyone. And we shouldn't have to go outside to any social gatherings. The sun, after all, makes us a walking target for sunburns and rain."

"I see."

"Furthermore, I think that anyone with green skin should be legally required to wear a crown. It’s only fair. After all, if we can't blend in, why shouldn't we stand out royally?"

Glinda nodded, only half sure Elphaba was making a joke. "I don't know what to make of what you say sometimes," she admitted. "Why should anyone treat you differently for being green?"

"I think it's actually a superior way of being," said Elphaba. "I'm not like other girls, after all. My brain works completely differently. I read actual books instead of wasting time gossiping about fashion trends or boys."

"We don't really talk about those things," said Glinda, but Elphaba wasn't listening.

"Other girls are too busy looking in mirrors, but I actually look at the world around me. You know, the real world, not just my own reflection."

"I don't think—"

"While other girls are obsessing over how to please people, I’m actually trying to make the world a better place. A bit more ambitious, wouldn't you say? I don’t waste my energy on frivolous things like popularity. I’d rather have intelligence and independence, qualities other girls wouldn’t even know how to handle."

Glinda's eyes fell upon the hat on her nightstand. "I have an idea," she said, going to pick it up. "I may not have a crown for you to wear, but how about this? You don't like flashy things anyway, right? This black hat ought to match the rest of your wardrobe."

"I couldn't wear that, it's not sensible at all!" Elphaba flipped her hair over her shoulder. "It's tall and pointy. Points are childish and shallow."

"You know," said Glinda, "you say you like to be sensible, but I don't think that's really what you want. A blanket that's thin and moldy isn't a sensible choice. Dark raggedy clothes aren't practical for fitting into a school. I think what you're really trying to be is different." She handed Elphaba the hat. "Take it. Then you can really stand out."

Elphaba stared at the black pointed hat in her gnarled green hands. She traced the brim with a long nail, and her mouth twisted thoughtfully. Slowly, she raised it, and set it on her shiny mane of black hair. She shook her head to adjust it, and walked across the room to the mirror.

"I must admit…" she said, after a moment. "I think it actually suits me."

Just then, a gust of wind crashed the window shut, and heavy hailstones banged into the glass. Glinda yelped, and ran to push a table in front of it. "The latch is broken," she said. "Hand me something to fasten it with, Elphie—It's alright if I call you that, isn't it?—Elphie? Elphaba?"

She turned to see Elphaba standing by the window, her eyes wide, hands raised in the air. The storm was swirling around her, but not touching her. She seemed to barely notice it. 

"Elphaba, are you—" Glinda started, her voice faltering as she caught sight of Elphaba's expression.

Her fingers twitched as the wind howled louder. A thick, dark cloud began to gather over her head. Little bolts of lightning crackled from it, raising her hair around her pointed hat, like eerie spiderweb threads.

Glinda tripped backwards as Elphaba's hand moved in a sharp motion, and the storm outside obeyed, growing stronger. It was no longer a natural force, but something pulled into motion by Elphaba herself. The wind howled more fiercely, answering her every movement. A flash of lightning illuminated her bright green face as the room started buzzing violently.

"Elphaba!" Glinda shouted, eyes wide. "What’s happening?"

"It's… It's working," murmured her roommate, staring at her hands in disbelief. "Everything I've read… everything I've studied… I can do sorcery." Elphaba lowered her arm, the wind outside dying down in response. The storm ceased, just as suddenly as it had started. She stood motionless for a moment, eyes wide, breathing heavily.

Glinda stared at her roommate, unsure whether to be terrified or amazed. "You did that? With your... your hat?"

"It wasn’t the hat," Elphaba said. "It just awoke something. That was... me."

"Oh…" Glinda covered her mouth with her hands. "I guess you're really not like other girls, after all."

"Quite right." A smirk crept up on her face. "I knew that since I was born." But just as her smugness was reaching unbearable heights, Glinda slipped on a puddle and threw out her hands.

The electric feeling in the room returned more intensely, and rainbows shot out of them, followed by blinding light.

Chapter 15 is up

GUYS, THERE'S ONLY ONE CHAPTER AFTER THIS! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S COME SO FAR!

Excerpt (here I attempted to insert more logic into why the seed was never planted earlier and the Lorax didn't help or create more):

A thunderous crack interrupted his thoughts. It was louder than bulldozers, like when the factory had collapsed, but more formidable and extraordinary, a sound Once-ler could never forget, that he heard every night in his dreams.

He peeked between the boards, and, sure enough, the sky had the telltale purple hue and spiraling clouds that signaled the Lorax coming back to earth.

Brown mossy paws landed weightlessly upon the UNLESS stones, and a yellow mustache under glittering black eyes turned up to look at Once-ler.

“HELLO IN THERE!” the Lorax hollered. “Still taking care? Haven't said goodbye? You’ve yet to die?"

Once-ler didn't know what to say at first, but after spluttering for a few moments, settled on: "Well, FINALLY! Where were you this whole time? Let me out so we can plant more trees already! We need to get a head start straightening out this mess, it's gonna take a loooong time to fix!"

The Lorax held up his hands. "Calm down, I can only create one seed every hundred years. And they can only be planted under certain circumstances, I fear. Seeds (and trees, for that matter) ain't cheap consumerist stuff. Unlike Thneeds, creating living things at will is tough."

He walked up to the Lerkim, and did something Once-ler couldn't see to the lock. Perhaps he had created a cheap consumerist key, but, in any case, a clink told him the chain had finally fallen away.

Once-ler slammed his full weight against the door and tumbled out.

"Sorry it took so long, but do you know what went wrong?" said the Lorax, waiting for him to straighten himself as much as he could—Once-ler's crooked spine had been bent too many times to ever go back to normal. "I can only stay in the valley as long as the animals or trees that I protect are in it. Right now a swomee-swan is passing through for a minute."

"Right, well, anyway, we need to plant this!" Once-ler held up the seed he'd protected in the Lerkim for ten years.

The Lorax sighed. "The time still isn't right, that’s why I put up such a fight," he said. "My point, if you’d heard my pleas—is that Truffula Trees don’t sprout with ease. The good news is," he said to Once-ler's dejected expression, "that if you get one to grow, then soon you’ll see—a bloom of others follows naturally; it's like one's the mother, that hundreds of babies spring around. Plus they can clean up the air, the water, and ground—planting Truffula Trees is the first step to restore and  bring this place back to how it was before."

"Okay. So… When can we plant it?"

"We?" asked the Lorax. "There’s nothing I can do. I can't stay here, so it's up to you. And you're gonna be too old to plant it yourself in forty-eight years. When the time comes, you’re gonna need help out here. You're gonna need to give the seed to someone else. Explain what to do and pray that they’ll help. Tell them the story and the instructions I’ll leave on the stones… I have to go, I feel something slipping away in my bones. The swomee-swan is trying to get out of here fast. Goodbye, if you don’t succeed, these words might be our last."

"Wait—"

But the Lorax was positioned on the UNLESS stones, his hand pinching his fur. "Your job now is to spread the word about the seed. Until you find someone willing to do the deed. It's time to live up to your name and not keep making the same mistake. Actions have consequences, so stay awake. At a certain point you can't take your choices back. Only encourage others to stay on a better track. Just remember," he said, "Unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."