Descendants

**1️⃣8️⃣MOVIES FOR THE FIRST 18 YEARS OF MY LIFE —————————————————— Part 7️⃣ ~ “Descendants” 🍎🐉👑🏫🪞🍪 Age: 8** 7️⃣ I’ve mentioned countless times in these reviews that I WAS A VILLAINS KID, so you can pretty much assume how i (over)reacted when i found out they’ll make a movie about the disney villains’ kids and how many times i rewatched it afterwards. So this is going to be a LOOONG review. 7️⃣ So idk exactly how i found out about this movie, but i remember learning the trailer BY HEART long before the movie actually came out and seeing a huge poster for the film at Disney. And even in my hometown there were huge screens on buildings advertising Descendants (which was so surprising to me). 7️⃣ I read the description of the movie and i learned that the VKs parents were Maleficent, Evil Queen, Cruella and Jafar, and if you know me (or if you’ve read my Aladdin review from this list), you know how much i loved Jafar. Now here’s the fun thing: upon seeing the Descendants poster i fell in love with Carlos, but i thought (or at least wanted to think) that he was Jafar’s son. I literally don’t know how i thought that, he’s dressed in black and white… But point is: Carlos was my fav before the movie was even out (and long after). I obviously had the biggest crush on Cameron. I do not want to talk about July 6th 2019 (I will later). 7️⃣ So basically i was in love with the movie and i was calling it “my fav” before it was even out. I don’t think i can explain how excited i was for it and how much i was talking about it the months before its release date. And here’s the tragedy of my life and my own villain origin story: I DID NOT SEE THE MOVIE FOR MONTHS AFTER IT CAME OUT :0 Why? My dad. I think the movie was supposed to come out in under a month when i didn’t do my homework for school at some point (or smthg like that i don’t remember exactly) and my father didn’t allow me to watch TV for 3 months :D. I don’t remember if he changed his mind after a while, but i cried so much when i found out i won’t be watching Descendants on its release date after months of waiting… (i still think it’s pretty sad and i might cry rn as i’m writing this). I remember asking one of my friends from school who’s seen it about the movie (especially about Jafar haha). 7️⃣ And on top of that i can’t even properly rememver the first time i actually got to watch it. 7️⃣ But i do remember that at the beginning i was keeping track of how many times i watched it (i lost count after a couple of months or so). Ofc i watched it on TV on Disney Channel so i had to wait for it to… be on TV. But at least at first it played very often so i got to watch it A LOT of times. It was also during the first couple of months since i started watching it that i first watched it with my mom (who kept leaving the room during the commercials and i kept calling her back), and after that with both my parents (and i don’t think my dad liked it very much, but he underlined the fact that even the villains turn good in the end). 7️⃣ What’s for sure is that i rewatched this movie an OUTRAGEOUS number of times. I was even told that once i came back from school the only thing i would talk about was Descendants, all day long. I even had the core 4 as “imaginary friends”. 7️⃣ The soundtrack is still in my brain. I used to listen to these songs every day. My fav was “If only”. And i wouldn’t just listen to them, no no, i would PERFORM them. I would sing lyrincs that i did not know (english is not my first language) and dance the full movie choreos. I remember learning the “Rotten to the core” choreo OH MY GODD. And now i learn lots and lots of Gaga choreos, but Descendants is what started my passion for dancing. 7️⃣ Even tho i now prefer the songs in the sequel, this one still has the great og songs (tho i was never a huge fan of “Evil like me”). 7️⃣ Soon after i found out about the Wicked World animated sequel series and i ofc rewatched it many many times. Now, i watched it on YT, in english… so i didn’t really understand everything everything. But i did enjoy it. (I did watch the movie dubbed on TV, so i understood that don’t worry). 7️⃣ The following summer (aka summer of 2016), while i was spending a couple of weeks at my grandparents, i played a free online game ALL DAY LONG. It was a “run”/“subway surfers” kind of game where you were playing the core four on the Island, while “Rotten to the core” was playing in the background. 7️⃣ Another thing i did that summer was watch the Descendants “doll series”. If you don’t know what that is (nobody does), it was a fanmade sequel series with dolls on YT. I remember particularly loving the mermaids episode. 7️⃣ I also did TONS of Descendants quizzes during that time. Both movie quizzes and “what __ are you” quizzes. 7️⃣ I can’t explain the monstrous amount of Descendants merch that i own. From stickers to diaries (yes ofc my diary was Descendants themed). 7️⃣ I think one of the first pieces of merch i got was the soundtrack CD. I saw it in a store where i was with my mom and my grandma. And i showed it to my mom and she agreed to buy it cuz “this movie was the only thing i was talking about”. 7️⃣ There was also a stickers album that i had and i used to buy a new stickers pack every day in order to get them all. I still have that album. I don’t think i managed to complete it, but i have SOO many duplicates i could sell them (cuz i don’t think they’re being produced anymore). That Descendants stickee album is definitely one of my horcruxes. 7️⃣ Books. I had LOADS of Descendants books. Ofc the official movie(s) novelization(s), but also “spin off” books like “Mal’s Diary” or “character books” etc. But two of them stood out the most. Firsty, the official prequel and sequel books (mostly the prequel). I remember i enjoyed “Isle of the lost” SOO much. And i thought it was the longest book in history (at my 8 yo age) (fiy: it’s only 336 pages long… :D). 7️⃣ And the second book that meant everything to me was “Mal’s Spellbook”. I WAS IN LOVE WITH THAT BOOK. Another one of my horcruxes. I carried it with me everywhere i went. I used to take it to school every day. I even spilled some red paint on the first page during art class at school one time. I took it on holidays. I think i read it more than 10 times. It’s so worn out now, but that’s the charm of it. And i even practiced some of the spells and rituals from there. The story of how i got it is also very fun: someone told me they saw it at the bookstore and thought i should know (ofc i should). And then i asked my grandma to go buy it. When i came back from school the next day my grandma was in the dining room with it, and before handing it to me she said i have to be aware of the fact that thise spells are not real and evil. I nodded yes yes and took it straight away. And now look where i am: i love tarot, i occasionally practice rituals and i care about the current moon phase more than about my academic results. So maybe that book really had an influence on me. I was always into witchy things and this goddamn book only made me love that kind of stuff even more. 7️⃣ Even tho i LOVEEDD that book (and the second one once the sequel came out), i also wanted the “actual” spellbook. Like with the 3d dragon on the cover and no character notes on the side of the pages. And i found a notebook that had the og spellbook cover and i wanted to write the spells inside myself, but i couldn’t find it available anywhere in my country. And it was a LONGG search. For months i kept asking my mom to search for a place where i could get that notebook. I still don’t have it… 7️⃣ There was also a notebook with Mal’a graffiti that i wanted so badly. At first i saw it in a Disney store abroad when i was with my mom, but i didn’t ask her to buy it for me (i was usually scared to ask my parents to buy me things). And some time after that i was in a bookstore in my hometown with my aunt and searched for it there tho i was sure they won’t have it. I told my aunt’t i’m seraching for “a drawing notebook with Mal’s graffiti from Descendanrs on the cover” and she told me to ask the lady working there, describing it exactly the same. I did. As expected, they didn’t have it. And then i decided to call my mom when she was out of town again to ask her to buy it for me from the Disney store. 7️⃣ Just like the spellbook notebook, there’s another Descendants merch piece that i wanted to badly and didn’t get. Evie’s purse. Guess why i didn’t get it? Cuz i’m a boy… But that was yet again another LONGG search to find it available somewhere. But even if i would find it, my parents wouldn’t buy it for me cuz “it’s for girls”. 7️⃣ And another thing i really really wanted was the Descendants dolls. Since (as i said) i was obsessed with the “dolls series”. And even tho they were “for girls” my mom DID get me the Ben doll. 7️⃣ Ofc i also had diy stuff. Like Evie’s mirror. And my room walls were full of Descendants photos. And after the sequel came out i made two board games (one for each movie) and brought them to school to play with a friend. I still think they’re super cool. 7️⃣ This movie also introduced me to Disney Channel (since before it i was a Disney Junior kid). Oh how i miss the good old days of Disney Channel when not every since show was animated… I started by watching Liv and Maddie (cuz Dove, duh) and then Jessie (cuz Cameron, duh) and then everything else (i particularly liked Soy Luna, K. C. Undercover, Wizards of Waverly Place etc). 7️⃣ I also BLAME this film (and Disney Channel in general) for the idolization of the american high school stereotype. Can you imagine my disappointment when i found out european high schools don’t have lots of lockers and a football team and cheerleaders and a cafeteria etc etc etc?! 7️⃣ LET’S (QUICKLY) TALK SEQUELS: 7️⃣ I did watch Descendants 2 on its release date. I already knew most of the plot and songs from the trailers and clips that were released before the movie, but i still really really enjoyed it (and rewatched it many many times ofc). I was still very much in my Descendants 1 phase when Descendants 2 came out, so it like a extension of that phase. (“It’s going down” is my fav song from this film). 7️⃣ Now, the third movie… So i was in my pre teen years when that came out. The time when i wasn’t into Disney anymore. BUT when i found out this movie was coming out next month or smthg (that’s how late i found out), i got SUPERRR excited. I started singing “Good to be bad” and “Queen of mean” ALL DAY LONG (though it would eventually turn out that “Night falls” would become my fav song from that one). 7️⃣ And then it happened… I remember the moment very clearly. I was at my grandparents, in bed, and it was pretty late (around midnight). The lights were off but ofc i wasn’t alseep, i was scrolling on social media. And then it read the article and i found out the awful news… I was actually in shock. Carols has always been my favorite, even before the first movie came out. So i was speechless, i didn’t even know how to feel. I remember going to bed soon after finding out and feeling so weird (i think i might have been grieving in some strange way). 7️⃣ When i got to watch the 3rd movie though (on its release date), i was disappointed (and rightly so). It’s by far the worst movie in the franchise. And tho it’s funny at times and it has good songs, the plot is all over the place and there’s no real plotline. 7️⃣ When i found out they were making a 4th movie i was skeptical. Cuz it would be a reboot, so no og cast. But then in the summer of 2023 they released some behind the scenes clips while the movie was still in production and i found them cute, so i started getting excited for it. When it finally came out, i watched it on its release date (yet again). I also rewatched the first 3 movied before watching this one. And i liked it quite a lot. Idk why so many ppl hate it. Sure, the ending is weird, but it’s a two part movie, we need to be patient. I loved the characters, plot and songs. And i for sure of excited for Descendants: Wicked Wonderland. 7️⃣ This franchise is based on such a cool concept tho, and it’s no wonder why so many people love it. It has great characters, costumes, songs etc. 7️⃣ It will always be a part of me (especially the first movie). When i rewatched it today (although i did rewatch it multiple times in the last couple of years) i teared up so many times (especially during “Rotten to the core”) due to all the memories that this movie holds for me.