Descendants 3 (Musical Hell Review #108

Once more into the realm of good bad guys, bad good guys, and Disney characters whose sex lives you did not want to think about.

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[PassTheMarmalade]

Everyone has talked about what wasted potential this series has, and for me, the biggest, most glaring gap is exploring Evie's family. Because it's *totally* possible that Evie is Snow White's half-sister. A villain for a mother and a Disney princess for a sister. Where's THAT conflict???

[trinaq]

I can't believe that this movie serves as Cameron Boyce's swansong. He was such a talented actor, and he deserved to transition from twee Disney Channel roles onto bigger and better projects.

[Hewylewis]

If Maleficent is the mother and Hades is the father... that means that one episode of House of Mouse is CANON! Holy crap...

[josephrowe]

Interesting fact: While The Descendants franchise is a mixed bag everywhere, it has an even colder reception in Australia. It's mainly because the premise of villains being banished to an island for their crimes and their kids being mistreated because they're related to them. It hit too close to home for Aussie Disney fans and not all places down there such as Adelaide had any connection to convicts. Seeing those poor kids subjected to cruelty is a VERY sore topic in 'Straya because they once had their own Isle of the Lost named Nauru where kids were imprisoned.

[spiceupyourafterlife]

To me, the saddest thing about Descendants is how much potential it had. The concept of the offspring of fairy tale characters exploring the complexities of humanity and calling out the idea of good and evil sounds like an awesome idea for a series (hell, it’s part of what makes the School for Good & Evil books so fun) and as a fan of Disney and fairy tales, it’d be right up my alley if it weren’t so half-arsed. My main problem with Descendants is how much it dumbs down what could have been a great concept.

[QueenCloveroftheice]

Fun fact! Harry Hook’s actor came out as bisexual after filming, so the fandom pinning him as a bi icon is not incorrect lol

[willlyon]

Im kind of a mythology purist, Hades is not a bad guy in authentic Greek mythology. He's a tragic misunderstood god that was demonized by both society and pop culture. At least Lore Olympus created a new story on Hades and Persephone's relationship dose justice to his book series while still remaining faithful to the source materials.

[sketchnotes]

You know what's kind of hilarious? There was this cartoon from the early 2000's called House of Mouse, where basically Mickey invites all the heroes and villains of the Disney universe to come chill out at his dinner theater and watch cartoons on the big screen. It was a fun show!

Anyway, in this series, several attempts were made to show cartoon Hades flirting with, you guessed it, cartoon Maleficant. Yes, really. So in a way, that show predicted this pairing.

[sirjedisentinel]

Wait...does this mean, "House of Mouse" is canon to the Descendants universe?
(Context: There was an episode of House of Mouse where Hades developed a crush on Maleficent and between the airing of cartoon shorts, Mickey spent the episode trying to help set them up)

[LaFemmeFictionale]

Okay, so as someone who viewed Descendants as a guilty pleasure and also something I CAN FIX, DAMMIT, this was frustrating to me for the reasons that you've listed in the sin count, but the inherent premise and the way Mal acts in this movie is particularly frustrating. Evie and Uma both come off as far more compelling and compassionate about the Isle situation, while Mal reads as selfish, and while the story exaggerates Audrey's reaction to a degree, Audrey is absolutely justified in calling out her boyfriend being stolen from her by means of magical roofie. And there's also the reality of Mal being positioned as the protagonist/hero of all this, while Uma and Audrey, both of whom are Black women, are treated as being in the wrong and needing to atone and apologize for their actions, while Mal isn't. Also, if you visit the production designer's website, the authoritarian tones get WAY worse as you can see details in the sets, especially propaganda posters. I'm both shocked and not shocked that Disney didn't have anyone sensitivity reading this.

[trinaq]

I love how everyone instantly forgives Audrey for her evil deeds. "Yeah, so you turned Mal into an old lady, stole the Queen's crown and scepter, and doomed Auradon, but we're totally cool with all of that!"

[SuperSongbird]

My biggest disappointment was that we never saw Gil's dad at any point. I imagine he'd be spending all day pounding on the barrier screaming "I DON'T BELONG HERE!" - he thought he was the hero, remember? Or, y'know, probably figured he could charm his way out of being banished to the Island of the Lost.

[Dreigonix]

Can we pretend this whole series was just a nightmare Sora had as his memories were being reconstructed in Castle Oblivion?

[TheKpa]

I do like the idea of Audrey being overly drunk on evil power. She’s immature at being evil so her outbursts of annoyance I find fitting

There’s just no one there to capitalize on it to make it interesting, Hades or Maleficiant could have been the ones, but alas

[olympiadeverre]

All I have to say is that I despise how Disney treats Aurora, and by extension, Sleeping Beauty’s story/Aurora’s family as a whole. It really sucks that all the other princesses get to have their own things, but Aurora is stuck as “ooh, nap!! Girly!! No agency!!”

I get that she’s not exactly active in her own movie, but Aurora does have a personality. It’s even expanded upon in Disney Princess: Enchanted Tales, where she tends to take the easy way out of things instead of facing stress. She’s responsible, but still very much a 16 year old. Feminine, but finding her own way and fit to stand beside Phillip as a ruler in her own right. But Disney would rather dunk on her because she’s “boring.”

[eatatjoes]

What a sad swansong for Cameron, really. Not only that, but I'm *really* aggravated that Ever After High got pummeled by this thing, because it does the "evil villain kid" plot way better, yet Disney steamrolled the fuck out of it.

[NightoftheLivingcookies]

Queen of Mean is actually a better song if you take it OUT of Descendants and put it in something like animatics (which i've seen people do) Also I agree with the whole debacle of the franchise has a LOT of wasted potential for such an interesting concept

[wintersnow]

To me, Audrey's fixation on changing people's appearances (especially her own) felt like a *very* clumsy callback to the first movie when Mal was making herself popular (and manipulating Jane) by 'fixing' everyone's looks. If I remember correctly Audrey even said something to the effect of "If everyone is pretty, what'll happen to me?". Apparently you'll be getting two separate glow ups, Audrey.

[philipdarrenellwell]

At least Cheyenne Jackson was having a good time. He 100% knew this movie was silly, and just went for the camp and did a good job of it.
Gotta respect that, even if the over all product was meh.

[tomhur]

Audrey's portrayal just bugs me in this one. She was FINE at the end of Descendents 1 and was offscreen during the 2nd film so her turning evil had no impact on me. And the way they just forgive her at the end even after pointing out the hypocrisy is infuriating! It actually makes me wonder if at least at one point Audrey was supposed to STAY evil but Disney wouldn't let the writers go through with it.

I appreciate the attempt for trying to call out Mal for the love potion thing but at this point, it just feels like furious backpedaling... I feel like the only way to properly have the characters deal with it is to do a plot about Mal and Ben taking some time off to figure out how they really feel about each other but of course, we don't have time for something like that.

Also how old are these kids exactly? Because if they're supposed to be around HIgh School isn't it a little early for Ben to pop the question to Mal?