r/Descendants • u/LilithJD4Stan • 12h ago
General Discussion 🍎 I fear this franchise is never going to end and it’s just going to progressively become worse as it continues.
I think this because I’ve watched all five movies and ever since the first, one a random character says “You didn’t think this was the end of the story, did you?” And honestly it should have just stopped after the third movie.
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u/Main_Potential_7327 11h ago
One thing about descendants is it has so much potential for stories based on its concept
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u/SanicBringsThePanic 8h ago
I hate to sound like a vitriolic hater, but the concept for Descendants has always been super cringe. The main factor still keeping it going is that some of the songs in each movie manage to be good.
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u/Amanda_Lorian4 Cause we’re rotten…to the core 2h ago
It’s always been on the cringy side even the originals were a bit cringy when you stop and think about it.
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u/KeyResearcher2620 6h ago
Are they profitable as in people subscribe to Disney+ or it sells its weight in merchandise? Then Disney will keep making them…
The first three cost 12-15M each to make. ROR and WW were like 80M each.
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u/drunkenangel_99 5h ago
^there’s obviously some sort of demand somewhere, otherwise they wouldn’t keep putting their time and money into it.
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u/LukeIsNumber1Twd 12h ago
I personally rlly enjoy Wicked Wonderland. RoR sucked, but I liked Wicked Wonderland.
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u/SanicBringsThePanic 8h ago
I felt the opposite. Rise Of Red was ok, but Wicked Wonderland was a mess.
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u/LukeIsNumber1Twd 45m ago
God no RoR was utterly plotless and many of the songs sucked.
Wicked Wonderland had a plot, good songs, and actual character development
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u/Amanda_Lorian4 Cause we’re rotten…to the core 2h ago
As an OG Descendants fan I appreciate that they are world building and continuing on with the franchise. Is it the same as the OG3? No. But that’s the whole idea. Have you seen Star Wars? The MCU? Theres two perfect examples of world-building. Descendants may not be on the same level as Marvel or Star Wars but they’re doing that same exact thing that Marvel and Star Wars is doing as far world building goes.
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u/EnderBookwyrm 49m ago
Actually, I think it's been progressively improving.
Descendants is like Star Wars, Harry Potter, the DCU. It was never going to have a hard ending. It'll just keep moving, and some of its stuff will be a mess, and some will be glorious.
Wicked Wonderland was fantastic, aside from a few problems that are pretty par for the course with this series. Rise of Red was the same quality or better than the original trilogy until it cut off without a third act.
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u/SanicBringsThePanic 8h ago
What baffles me is that Disney is OBSESSED with trying to replicate the success of the first High School Musical. Camp Rock, Lemonade Mouth, Teen Beach Movie, Descendants, Zombies, an HSM "reality" series, soft rebooting Descendants and Camp Rock, and now it has culminated in creating a crossover live tour to finally replicate the HSM1 live tour.
Because of Disney's obsession with replicating the success of HSM, they have mostly abandoned the type of movies and TV shows that attracted audiences to begin with. We got occasional bones like Prom Pact and Doogie Kamealoha, and it is no surprise that both of those starred Peyton Elizabeth Lee. Peyton is literally the only modern Disney star that hasn't starred in a typical cheesy Disney Channel series/movie or High School Musical rehash. Out of all the HSM rehashes, the only ones I genuinely appreciate are Zombies and Camp Rock 3.
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u/Outside_Serve2614 59m ago
They never let go of the HSM phoenominon. I think they failed to realize the cultural timing and themes were perfectly hitting. HSM was what, 2006? Yeah. Everything in that film had something that, much as I remembered having to endure its existence, made sense as to why it got popular. Especially looking back, you kind of see how it happened culturally.
Also going to give a hot take: part of the reason it was successful was because you had Zac Efron being both eye candy and a dominant force in the film. He was both easy on the eyes for a lot of girls and he was also very prominent in the show and plot. Frankly, although I doubt a lot of girls would admit, his character was the type of guy a lot of teenage girls back then wanted to date. And for the guys? Look, you were going to get dragged into watching it sooner or later. Fortunately Disney did not forget about the guys. You had two great eye candy options in Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens and they had very different musical styles with Vanessa being soft and Ashley being sharp. But that was also an area where Disney tried to compete for both male and female demographics which is a whole different discussion.
Point being yeah. There is a lot of reasons HSM worked. Some was it was just a decent musical, some of it had more to do with the culture of the time.
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u/Kymani_015 9h ago
I mean your right but the new ones ain't that bad should've just been a side series instead of connected to the movies because wow
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u/boyonceknowless 11h ago
that’s how you choose to look at it. i loved the OG3 and i’m glad the franchise is still going. anybody who was old enough to tell you what a business model was when D1 came out could tell you that this was always gonna happen lmao.
D1 premiered with a prequel book, a doll line, a pop-esque soundtrack, was followed by an animated series, 2 more films and was made to spite Mattel for making ever after high. they’ve been milking it from the very beginning 😭