Film Theory: The Whole Movie Is Just The Fulfilment Of Aladdin's FIRST Wish

Disney’s Aladdin was a seminal work in the history of animated Walt Disney films in more ways than one. Not only was it the first ever production to absolutely nail the perfect combo of 2D animation and CGI, it also defined the concept of upward social mobility for a generation of millennials.

The story of a street-smart urchin rising all the way up to a position of power and royalty with the help of a magic lamp epitomised the American dream. But there’s something we found rather strange about the whole business of wish fulfillment.

For a guy who wishes to be a prince fairly early in the story, it’s surprising how the plot and characters proceed under the general assumption that he isn’t a prince. Aladdin is constantly worried about his ‘lie’ being discovered, and at one point is even advised by Genie to just tell Jasmine ‘the truth’. This is rather odd coming from an all-powerful magical entity that literally just made him a prince a little while ago. What ‘truth’ is he talking about? Isn’t Aladdin already a prince? How can one be a prince and not a prince at the same time?

After all, when Jafar wishes to be Sultan, he factually becomes the Sultan. The royal crown, robes, and throne are magically stripped from their ex-occupant and transferred to Jafar. There’s no question of him not really being the Sultan. So what gives here?

You see, unlike becoming the King, or the Sultan in this case, which can be achieved by force, a prince isn’t something you can just magically turn into because of certain logical constraints. That’s because a prince is by definition the legal heir to a throne, legal being the keyword.

There’s only two ways by which you can be a prince – you’re either the son of a king, or you marry a princess. For Aladdin, the first option is a no-go for obvious reasons. His only chance, therefore, is to marry princess Jasmine. Now the two things that need to happen for that to happen are: one, Jasmine needs to fall in love with Aladdin – which the Genie can’t control; and more importantly, even if she were to love him, Aladdin would need to be a prince for the marriage to proceed, which as we just discussed is impossible for Aladdin to become through magic.

It was always going to be an unsolvable, circular problem. Unless... the Sultan changed the law of his own volition to allow the Princess to marry a commoner. But a very specific series of events needs to unfold for that to happen, and that’s where the Genie comes in.

One of the key motifs in stories involving wish-granting genies is that while the genie will make your wishes come true, it won’t necessarily happen in the way you’d expect it to. Given that this particular genie fulfills all the wishes in a relatively straightforward manner, one would assume this motif is missing from the movie. But is it?

What if the whole plot of the movie revolves around the long drawn-out fulfillment of just one wish – Aladdin’s wish to be made prince!

When Aladdin is about to make his first wish, he starts by describing how beautiful and amazing Jasmine is, only for Genie to pick up the hint and interject to remind him that he can’t make her fall in love with him. It’s only then that he wishes, and I quote, “I want you to make me a prince”. Let’s focus on those words for a second. He doesn’t wish to be a prince, but he wants to be made one, and we think that’s very important.

On the surface, it seems his wish is immediately granted. In the very next scene, Aladdin makes a grand entry into the palace as Prince Ali Ababwa. But there could be a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Prince Ali is very much a fake prince of a non-existent kingdom. If he’d actually turned into a prince at this point, he’d simply be Prince Aladdin, and he’d have a real elephant instead of one that was actually his pet monkey. Also if you think about it, even if he somehow managed to marry the princess disguised as someone he was not, things were going to get very ugly at some point in the future.

All Genie had done for him at this point was to have given him a prince’s disguise and associated accessories. He was still the same old Aladdin underneath it all. In fact, when Aladdin is making his grand entry Genie can be seen running around the bazaar spreading rumours among the crowd about all the riches ‘Prince Ali’ has at his disposal, including a zoo of exotic mammals, and how he fought ‘a hundred bad guys with swords’. While it’s true that Genie can bestow on him any amount of riches that he pleases, details such as fighting bad guys and owning a zoo are factual inaccuracies, once again reiterating the fact that he’s a fake prince.

But what if that was the plan all along? What if dressing Aladdin up as a prince was not an end in itself, but simply a means to an end? All part of a grander scheme devised by Genie to make him prince?

At one point in the film, Genie declares that his repertoire of omnipotence includes the ability to see millions of years into the future. If that is the case, he should have no trouble figuring out the exact chain of events that needs to unfold for Aladdin to be made prince, and all he does is play a Machiavellian role in effectively manipulating those events into occurring.

Playing such a role would also explain why Genie is constantly present by Aladdin’s side throughout the film, as his aid and advisor. Keep in mind that he is well aware of exactly why Aladdin wished to be made prince to begin with – not to wield power or inherit the throne, but to be able to marry Jasmine.

What Genie proceeds to construct, then, is a reality where Aladdin ends up becoming the prince of the geographically nearest kingdom, Agrabah. He doesn’t really fulfil his wish by making him prince at the start – but simply dresses him up as one so he can at least have access to the royal palace and begin discussions regarding marrying the princess. It was just Step One in the master-plan for him to be made prince.

Of course one might argue that Aladdin doesn’t specifically wish to be made prince of Agrabah, so Genie wasn’t obliged to go through all that trouble – but we need to remember that not only does Genie seem to be genuinely interested in wanting to help Aladdin out, but he also has a bit of vested interest in giving Aladdin exactly what he wants – his own freedom. After Aladdin pledges to use his final wish to set him free, Genie would naturally be all the more determined to ensure Aladdin’s complete satisfaction after the first two wishes were fulfilled.

According to this theory, literally every single event that takes place after Aladdin’s wish to be made prince, including things that seem to go wrong – like Jafar wresting control of the throne from the Sultan - are all part of a much larger picture that no one except Genie is aware of. In fact, being stripped of his throne (and his clothes) and being forced to bow in front of Jafar are exactly the things it takes for the Sultan to finally realise just how pointlessly stupid and needlessly troubling the law is.

This makes him resolve to change the law, making the marriage legitimate, and it is then that Aladdin is made prince of Agrabah, as the princess’ husband. It is only at this point that his first wish is finally fulfilled.

One of the biggest pieces of evidence supporting this theory is the circumstances surrounding what counts as Aladdin’s second wish, and the way it is fulfilled. This is the wish Genie uses to save Aladdin from drowning. Genie practically invents this wish by himself on behalf of an unconscious Aladdin, even without Aladdin actually saying the words.

This is especially suspicious given the lengths Genie had gone to earlier to establish the importance of following protocol and saying the exact words while making a wish. He’d made Aladdin repeat his wish to become a prince in a properly constructed sentence, and even conceded that getting Aladdin out of the Cave of Wonders couldn’t count as a wish because Aladdin didn’t specifically frame it as one.

Alright, we get that Genie is probably a bit attached to Aladdin at this point, and wants to help his buddy out, but he’s still bound by the same restrictions that he was working under earlier. There’s no way he can have the authority to just make up a wish by himself like that. Unless of course, he needed Aladdin to stay alive because the first wish hadn’t been fulfilled yet.

That’s right, the only situation in which it would be okay for Genie to use his own discretion in saving Aladdin’s life was if his first wish – that of becoming prince - was still a work in progress, rather than having already been granted in the past. Dying would obviously disqualify Aladdin from being made a prince in future, and this gave Genie complete authority to save him simply as part of the work that needs to go into fulfilling that first wish.

What’s more, a little research into the film’s conception and background throws up further support for the theory. As you probably know, the film is based on a middle-eastern folktale from One Thousand and One Nights. In the original tale, the protagonist wishes himself into wealth and marries the princess right at the start, with the rest of the story revolving around him trying to protect his power and position from the evil sorcerer.The makers of the film actually went to record to state that they were wary of how the tale celebrated greed, and fetishized the idea of being able to have anything you could wish for, without consequences.

They wanted to deviate from this problematic theme of wish fulfillment in their adaptation and put out a moral message about destiny taking its own course instead. If that’s what they were looking for, it would make sense for Aladdin to become prince as part of his pre-ordained destiny, rather than petty wish fulfillment.

We’re hurtling through life, grinding it out, hoping to find a shortcut up the ranks, but maybe the secret to finding success is to commit to the long route and do our best to put ourselves in the right places at the right times to give us the best chance of grabbing hold of opportunities.As long as we remember to dream big, and dare to make wishes.