Descendants: The Rise Of Red

 Descendants: The Rise Of Red

(with spoilers)

    Earlier today, I watched Descendants: The Rise Of Red with a friend of mine. I have been a fan of the Descendants franchise since I was a little girl, reading all the books, doing many school projects on it and even writing an essay on the life of Dove Cameron. This movie excited me, as the new characters and time-traveling storyline intrigued me, but I was also nervous as to how they were going to continue such an iconic franchise all these years later, especially since the kids like me that grew up with the series have grown up. While the cast does not feature many returning characters, it gives a new era of Disney Channel stars a chance to feature in these movies. In the end, I rated the movie 2 stars, because while it may not have been much worse than the previous Descendants movies, it did not ring the nostalgia bell that kept me watching. 

(disclaimer: I did not go into this post expecting to write a full essay, but I apparently felt very passionate on this subject so ignore the incoherence and grammatical errors)

    I do not believe that these movies were targeted at the teenagers who had grown up with Descendants, but instead they attempted to foster a new generation of this fandom, which I suspect will lead to the downfall of the series. With the conclusion of Descendants 3, most fans believed the series was finished, as that movie was marketed as the final installment, especially due to the tragic loss of actor Cameron Boyce. Following the third movie, the Descendants brand slowly faded, and aside from smaller appearances such as Descendants: A Royal Wedding and remixes from the Hall Of Villains, the franchise concluded. The day Descendants: The Rise Of Red was announced, I was very shocked, as the resurgence of my favorite DCOM series was not on my 2024 bingo card. My initial shock was in the title, as it was not called Descendants 4 but instead Descendants: The Rise Of Red, separating itself from the previous trilogy and instead portraying a spin-off. Additionally, the extensive marketing to explain that Descendants 3 was the final Descendants movie in 2019 in order to prevent fans from begging for another movie felt useless now that they had discarded their strong stance on the matter. While The Rise Of Red did follow the Descendants name, there were not many similarities to the previous trilogy, as the only returning actors were China Anne McClain and Melanie Paxson, the main character came from Wonderland instead of the Isle Of the Lost, and the main setting of the story was Merlin Academy, the Auradon Prep of the past. Accordingly, the lack of returning actors supports the notion that this movie appealed to a different audience due to the age range of main characters. The actors in the original trilogy (oh my god I sound like a Star Wars prequel anti), Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, Cameron Boyce, and Booboo Stewart were all born in the mid to late 90s, whereas the new main characters Kylie Cantrall, Ruby Rose Turner, and Malia Baker were all born in the mid 2000s. The shift of generations between the two movies relates to the shift in generations between their audiences as well. Descendants: The Rise Of Red failed because they attempted to rebrand a well-loved franchise for a new audience, ignoring the elements that made the franchise successful in the first place. 

    Personally, I dislike the new style they took with this movie, as the inauthenticity of this new, commercialized, Kenny Ortega-lacking installment represented everything fans condemn about reboots. The new director felt the need to emphasize the color palette of this movie as red and blue to accentuate the main characters Chloe and Red, losing the magic of the individuality in each character's style of the original series. Another gripe was within the costume designing in this movie, which is a little bit pickier, but the wigs were atrocious and looked like they were from party city, the main characters only had two horrendous outfits throughout the entire movie, the Queen Of Hearts' guards were not cards, and the makeup was excessively heavy and ridiculous. While I felt like the costume design declined, I did enjoy the better CGI, although I would hope almost a decade would reflect some advancement in special effects, although young Hades' eyes did not feel more natural. Not only did the visuals of the movie feel different, the sound has also evolved. While many scenes deeply reflect those from previous movies (Merlin's office and Night Falls, the ending scene, etc.), the music behind those scenes did not feel the same. Although the original movies featured autotuned tracks with a hint of rap, this new movie featured much more rap, and featured even more sound distortion. One of my favorite elements of the original movies was the music behind them. I regularly play If Only, and even though I may not be proud to admit it, it is one of my favorite songs of all time. While there were highs and lows in this soundtrack, the music pales in comparison to the bangers of the past. The differentiation of styles ridded Descendants: The Rise Of Red of the uniquely loved qualities featured in Descendants. 

    The plot of this movie mirrored that of the first and third Descendants movies, where Ben, or in this case Uma, would invite a new group of VKs who would have to assimilate into Auradon Prep. The difference in this movie, however, was that Red did not even get a chance to enter the school as her mother, the Queen Of Hearts, took over Auradon in one fell swoop. In an attempt to stop her mother from becoming evil (?), Red and Chloe (daughter of Cinderella) must go back in time to stop the prank that turned Bridget (Queen Of Hearts) to the dark side. This differs wildly from the original Descendants movies because the coups that happened in each movie happened at the climax, whereas the coup in this movie jump starts the rising action. Following that spark notes explanation of the plot, I will now discuss the plot holes that come to mind. Firstly, in a promotional video, Red claims that all the previous VKs are old and washed up. This makes no sense as they have just graduated high school, and the old movies only finished 5 years ago. Additionally, Cinderella is already a character in the franchise who has a son, Chad Charming. Unless she is immune to menopause, it would not be possible for Cinderella to have both teenage and middle-aged children, and while I understand it is fiction, Prince Charming has black hair and is asian in this movie and Cinderella has blue hair and is black. While these hair colors and races make sense with their blue-haired mixed daughter Chloe, it does not make sense for them to have a blond, white child named Chad. Furthermore, when they go back in time to Merlin Academy, many problems arise. They attempt to portray a sort of School for Good and Evil type, but instead just create an insurmountable number of potholes. In this school, half of the kids have already had their fairytales and the other half have not. Aladdin and Jasmine have already met and have fallen in love, but Cinderella is still under the protection of Lady Tremaine, even though their timelines do not match up. I will not get further into the inconsistencies within the side characters' timelines and how they fit into this academy, and how the social classes of many of these students do not reflect them because I value my sanity, but just know that it makes no sense whatsoever. One character stands out, however, because why is Hades there? There are no other Gods featured, and there is no reason for him to be at an academy with mortals. He also serves practically no narrative function, so aside from being an easter egg to Mal's dad, he should never have been added. Enough with the side characters, the Queen Of Hearts has one glaring issue at the finale of the film. After Red prevents her mother from becoming evil, she returns back to the present to find her preaching about kindness while wearing a tampon dress in almost the exact position as she was before. I believe that turning an infamous story tale villain good again would alter a lot more than just stopping her coup. The lack of consequences for changing the entire trajectory of this characters life also directly contradicts the statement the Mad Hatter gave to Red before she stole the Descendants version of the time turner, as his warning about the consequences of time travel never showed. I think this carelessness when dealing with the complexities of the universe reflects the covert failures of this movie. It appears that Disney decided that they could sell another horrible movie by simply sticking the Descendants name on it, a strategy that did not end up favoring them since the catastrophic dumpster fire that was this movie could never be saved by that name alone. 

    

    While I did have a very enjoyable time making fun of this movie, especially for the horrible writing (ex. I'd rather be a goody goody than a bad person), it presents the larger problem that Disney seems to be facing in recent years. The Disney brand has lasted generation after generation without many issues, but newer movies seem to be performing worse and worse. If we look at Wish specifically, Disney's first theatrical animated release since the pandemic, it performed horribly. The merch has been discounted, the Rotten Tomatoes score is below 50, and the movie ended up losing nearly 130 million dollars. Although there have been highlights in recent years, the new era of Disney movies has not performed well, which I believe to be a response to social media. With the rise of social media, kids have been turning more towards short-form content like YouTube and TikTok instead of looking towards longer-length movies. Although Disney has tried to appeal to this new, younger audience, their failures outweigh their successes, and it begs the question, what will happen if Disney continues to put out lackluster films? Although the brand will not die out anytime soon, at least not in my lifetime, I wonder if these repeatedly failing movies will dent the company in any way. Descendants: The Rise Of Red did end with Uma's classic line, "You didn't think this would be the end of the story, did you?", so hopefully the next installment will not be the failure this one has proved to be. 

On a less serious tone, I think it is incredibly jocular that I simply wanted to write an insignificant blog post on the flop of the century and ended up writing an elaborate, 5-6 page essay. Thank you for reading my absolute blabbermouth sprawl on and on about this disgrace to Descendants, it was one of the most fun things I have ever written. Sorry about the ATROCIOUS writing I have presented. I will be getting back to my life (not that I have one) but you can find my letterboxd review for this movie here, and stay tuned for the next one!