Strange Magic (2015)

Strange Magic is a 2015 American computer-animated jukebox musical fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Gary Rydstrom, produced by Lucasfilm, with feature animation by Lucasfilm Animation and Industrial Light & Magic.[5] The film's screenplay was written by Rydstrom, David Berenbaum and Irene Mecchi, from a story by George Lucas inspired by William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The film stars Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Kristin Chenoweth, Maya Rudolph and Alfred Molina. The score was composed by Marius de Vries and includes contemporary songs, such as "Love Is Strange" and "Strange Magic".[6]

Lucas had been working on developing the project for 15 years before production began.[7] The first Lucasfilm production to be distributed by Walt Disney Studios, after the parent company's purchase of the studio in 2012, Touchstone Pictures released the film on January 23, 2015.[5] The film received generally negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb, grossing $13.6 million worldwide and losing around $40–50 million.[8]

## Plot

A realm is divided between a land of fairies and light, and a land of bog creatures and darkness, living in the dark forest. Primrose flowers, which are a crucial ingredient to love potions, mark the border between the lands. Marianne is a fairy princess and heir to the throne of the Fairy Kingdom, and is engaged to be married to Roland, a handsome warrior who breaks her heart when she discovers him kissing another fairy on their wedding day. Marianne vows to never fall in love again. As at the dark forest, the Bog King also shared the same view on love, despite his caring mother Griselda's protests.

Sometime later, her sister Dawn, who frequently says she is in love, is distraught regarding the upcoming Spring Ball over which boy she could meet there. Her best friend Sunny, an elf who has a crush on Dawn, tries to cheer her up with a song, but they are nearly devoured by a giant lizard before a hardened Marianne rescues them. Sunny, having fallen through the border of the dark forest, finds a Primrose petal, which he subsequently hides when fleeing the forest.

At the ball, Roland tries to assert his intention to marry Marianne, who refuses and humiliates him out of the dance. He encounters Sunny and tricks him into returning to the dark forest to convince the Sugar Plum Fairy, who had been captured years ago by the Bog King, to create the love potion. Sunny acquires the petal he had hidden and with the help of a curious imp, ventures into Bog's castle, eventually finding the fairy and promising to free her in exchange for the love potion.

Their escape rouses Bog, who manages to recapture Sugar Plum while Sunny escapes, followed by the imp, and Bog is enraged when he learns that Sunny has a vial of love potion. Sunny returns to the ball and tries to hit Dawn with the love potion during his musical number. Bog interrupts the celebrations and captures Dawn just as she is sprayed by the love potion and the imp steals it in order to spread it throughout the forest. Bog orders them to deliver the potion to him by moondown or he would harm Dawn. Defying her father's order, Marianne flies off after her sister while he grants Roland a small army to head off on foot to Bog's castle.

Meanwhile, Dawn falls in love with him due to the potion, and Bog has her imprisoned for his own sanity. Marianne arrives and fights with Bog to return her sister. When she realizes the severity of the situation, the two of them begin to find common interests. When they consult Sugar Plum for an antidote, she explains that true love will negate the effects of the potion, recounting a time where Bog fell in love with another female in the forest who left him despite his use of the love potion on her, as she was in love with someone else at the time he used the potion on her. A mutual attraction begins to develop between Marianne and Bog, but it is only Griselda who sees it.

Sunny recovers the potion from the imp and gives it to Roland as they march on to the castle. Bog sees this and suspects that Marianne had set him up, breaking his heart again as he leaves her stranded in a spider web. She escapes and joins in the battle taking place at the castle. Sunny frees Sugar Plum, Dawn, and (at Sugar Plum's insistence) the love-stricken forest creatures that the imp had hit with the love potion.

In the escape, Bog seemingly sacrifices himself by holding the mouth of his den open long enough for everyone to escape. He survives, to Marianne's relief, and Sunny reveals his true feelings to Dawn, who then reciprocates them, breaking the love potion's spell over her and they kiss, to her father's surprise. Roland sprays Marianne with the love potion, who pretends to fall in love with him, only to suddenly punch him and send him off the chasm, being hit by the love potion in the process.

Bog and Marianne, at the insistence of Dawn and Griselda, finally admit their feelings for each other and kiss.

In the last scene credits, Roland has apparently fallen in love with an ugly insect due to the potion, and two of Bog's servants (who spy on people and whisper to others that lead back to Bog on what they heard) are whispering that it's the end of the movie, but one of them, who has horrible hearing, accidentally says 'Tea Blend.'