Happy Never After

Descendants

Lee Donghyuck

I just know it's late at night

Alright! Okay! I'm on a wonderful nostalgia high, and I don't want to come down. So here we are. As a treat, I will actually be talking about all the movies in the series and not just the first one. I mean, I've got to when we're talking about Descendants.

Do I have to explain this one? I never know what movies I have to explain. Unless I know they're something not many people have watched.

I'm trying, man.

So! Descendants! In all essentiality, it's just the kids of Disney villains being absolute bosses, getting the chance to go to Auradon where all the "heroes" and princesses live, and overcoming evil with the power of good and love.

Because I can, I will be doing this purely as a movie review. Okay, I might do something at the end as a treat. We'll see.

The first movie was all about the bringing of Mal (daughter of Maleficent), Carlos (son of Cruella de Vil), Jay (son of Jafar), and Evie (daughter of the Evil Queen) to the United States of Auradon. Gee, I wonder what that acronym ends up being.

Then a whole bunch of stuff happens, Mal ends up becoming Ben's (son of Bell and the Beast) girlfriend, Jane steals her mom's wand (the Fairy Godmother) and opens the barrier around the Isle of the Lost, allowing Maleficent to fly over and try to destroy everything.

And with the power of good and love they defeat her and turn her into the size of the love in her heart. Which surprisingly makes her a lizard and not an ant.

Now the first movie was great. Amazing. Fabulous. The soundtrack was great too. When I was a kid. Re-watching it made me realize how low-key cringey it was.

But that's fine because literally everything else makes it better.

I also had an issue with how Maleficent is considered to be the worst villain out there when there's a whole Chernabog everyone forgets about. My man Chernabog is from the movie Fantasia, and he can call up the dead from their graves and control them to his will.

He's also a mix between a Minoan bat god and a bull. If that doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will.

Oh dang I got off track. Whoops.

Now for Descendants 2!

Holy heck this one is by far my favorite. A few things were a little sketch, like for one what happened to Maleficent after Mal put her in the travel box with holes in it? And why change out of a suit to fit in on the Isle of the Lost if they're just going to put on shiny leather? But you know, that's fine.

BECAUSE OH MY GOSH HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN HARRY? AND THEN THERE'S UMA *chef's kiss*

The decision to give Harry Hook eyeliner was the best one I've ever seen. His character in general was just jskbaobwgbaorg

And then the soundtrack! OH MY GOSH THE SOUNDTRACK! It immediately started off with a banger and then kept going off! Like dang!

Best of all, it wasn't cringey! Okay, a little, but considerably less than the other two.

Oh yeah, this movie is about Mal struggling to fit in with the Auradon expectation of being a perfect princess, so she runs away to the Isle of the Lost, everyone goes to follow her, Ben gets kidnapped like the dumb dumb he is, the squad has to go save him from Uma (daughter of Ursula), and then they have a giant octopus to deal with.

I'm also in love with Dizzy (daughter of Drisella). She's adorable.

Now for the last one. I almost didn't finish watching it before I started writing this. I was a little excited.

Just a little.

The third one is all about dealing with Audrey (daughter of Aurora) when she decides she's had enough of Mal taking her throne and spotlight and curses all of Auradon to sleep for eternity. The only thing powerful enough to stop this is Hades' ember, so the squad goes back to the Isle of the Lost to take it from Hades (who apparently is Mal's dad?), and Harry and Gil (the third son of Gaston, the other two are Gaston 2 and Gaston 3) jump through the barrier before it closes, and they join them. Then Uma comes out of the water like a boss and inserts herself into the situation.

But like her hair somehow got even cooler?

So then they go and save the kingdom, and later on the barrier keeping those on the Isle of the Lost is taken down. This is where my problem comes from.

Think about it, if you invite both sheep and wolves to a party, only the wolves will come because the sheep know they will be ate.

There's a perfectly good reason why all those villains were over there. I'm not saying their children deserved to be over there, because they didn't, but the villains most definitely did.

To that point, as we saw, people in Auradon still had the capability to be evil.

So I propose that the Isle of the Lost becomes a jail sentence. I don't know if that would really help, but I think it's better than letting all the villains loose everywhere.

Also, there is no way Audrey would just wake up after almost dying and apologize. That girl was angry! Let her be angry! Her actions because of the anger were not okay, but her anger was valid. Even if she sucks. But having her just wake up and immediately be sorry is garbage.

I have one more major problem, and that's with Hades being on the Isle of the Lost. It's literally his job to control Hell and the souls of the dead. And if you read the mythology behind it all, he didn't choose that, Zeus did because he was a jerky brother and won a competition. I think.

But that's his job, he's not actually a villain, he's just got a bad rep.

Now for the most important question: do Ben's fangs stay forever and can he shave the beard he gained by briefly being a beast?

Thinking about this now, I could go on forever about all of this. Oh but this is already long. Ugh, what to do?

I'll take a break and come back in a bit. Maybe then I'll know.

Yeah, I just want to rant about all of this.

So now we're doing an Audrey as a villain appreciation rant. Because we have to give her the credit she deserves if Disney won't.

First off, for someone who has never seen any evil acts done and has only heard stories of what the villains have done, she did very well. I love how she did exactly what Maleficent did to her parents. A perfect parallel.

Also, when she turned Ben into a beast, she didn't just make him all cool and scary, she made him a very wimpy beast. That's even more evil. Like dang. And the creativity with the armor suits to attack them? Amazing.

She was doing very well on her own. I'm proud of her.

At this point I just want to know what happened to Maleficent and if anyone ever turned her back to a human. Because if everyone else gets a second chance, why doesn't she? Or are they now drawing a line at how evil?

And as a little PSA, the reason the second movie might seem a bit spontaneous in a few aspects is because there's two books that go in between the first and second movies. I thought they might go nicely in an order because the first book came before the first movie and then there's the second book, but no, then it goes to the third book and then the two other movies.

I highly recommend reading the books because it adds so much more to the movies. And the movies add a lot more to the books. A genius marketing strategy by Disney.

I did actually read the books just because I was so obsessed. I was teased endlessly because apparently I've never read a book in my life.

The knowledge you have gained has been at the expense of me. You're welcome.

Despite all the complaining I have done, I am in love with these movies and will never stop playing the songs. They're golden. 

This was fun.