Prince Ben – His Idea 
The Villain Kids
I believe that the first book left off in the perfect place for the first movie as it ended with Prince Ben saying that he had an idea. The first movie starts of with the introduction being held on the Isle of the Lost and then focuses on Prince Ben’s idea – the proclamation. The book “Isle of the Lost” did an excellent job for shadowing the relationship that Mal and Prince Ben were ultimately going to have without mentioning how, exactly, it was going to happen. I think Del la Cruz covered both people perfectly when she wrote about Mal having dreams about some guy in Auradon and Prince Ben having dreams about some purple haired girl.
The movie is also able to tie into the Isle of the Lost as all four of the parents are still upset about about the disappointment from the last assignment. Maleficent is still disappointed in Mal but gives her a chance to redeem herself by acquiring Fairy God Mother’s Magic Wand. The movie does a great job of showing the relationships between the villain kids (VK’s) and their respective parents – the Isle of the Lost was able to describe each parent to a T but the movie actually does a good job of bringing the descriptions to life – and goes further to show the relationships of the parents with each other.
One of the things that could probably been explained better in the movie or in the book is how Maleficent and Evil Queen got over their differences and how they got so chummy all of a sudden and why Cruella De Vil is not mad at Jafar anymore – he did sell her a faulty product from the junk shop after all. Other than that still a funny scene. I feel that there should have been more of the parent scenes as well. Although to be fair, it is hard to fit everything into one movie.
When looking at themes in Descendants, it is evident that bullying is also a theme in the movie – it is ironic to say that the Villain kids are evil but the Auradon students are not, when it comes to bullying as both Prince Chad and Princess Audrey seem to bully the villain kids somewhat as well. I will make reference to three events in the movie though some might disagree. The first – when Evie meets Prince Ben and announces that she is a Princess and Audrey pipes in stating that since Evie is from the Isle of the Lost she has no royal status in Auradon (these are not the exact words, but it is implied). The second, when Prince Chad takes advantage of Evie by getting her to do his homework and turning the magic mirror into the teacher. A third example would be at Auradon Family Day when Prince Chad causes a scene by stating the faults of the Villain Kids and expressing it in front of everyone. These three examples show how anyone can be considered a bully regardless of were they come from. What I like most about these scenes is that they are ironic – the villain kids are the ones who are supposed to be doing the bullying but they are just trying to fit into Auradon Society. While trying to fit in each villain kid learns something about him or herself.
Mal – She learns that she actually does not want to take over the world through evil means but to live in Auradon and be with Ben – as well that she has a love for fresh strawberries as opposed to the moldy ones that she ate on the Isle.
Evie – She does not need a prince charming to provide for her because she is smart and independent and in Disney irony (Prince – Chad – Charming) is not so charming, he is actually an arrogant, pompous jerk. She does not have to depend solely on beauty to win a prince and actually comes to the conclusion that Doug may be just fine.
Carlos – Dogs are not bad, evil, or scary and despite what Cruella taught him, they will not randomly tear out your throat if you are bad. He learns that once he actually experienced a dog (Dude) – that everything he had heard about the animal was false.
Jay – He learns about teamwork and that he can get things without stealing them even though he goes against the family mantra “There is no team in I”.
One of the scenes that shocked me – only because it is a surprise is the scene where Prince Ben admitted to Mal that he knew she had spelled him (in non-Disney terms – drugged him) when he decided to eat the brownie right away. I’m amazed that there was not any outrage at this scene since Mal had actually gotten away with drugging Ben when Ben said something along the lines of “it’s okay … you thought it wouldn’t happen on your own, am I right?” Mal’s response “Yes, so right”. I can definitely see why Disney in my opinion chose to make Ben the Prince of Goodness and Mal, the evil, wicked fairy because if it were the other way around (Ben was female and a princess and Mal were a male) it would be like validating the use of date rape drugs and that would not be acceptable. The scene could be considered by some as its ok to use the drug on a guy but it is totally unacceptable to use it on a girl – which of course is wrong either way but some things are deemed more wrong than others. In Disney terms Mal wanted to dupe Ben so that she could gain easy access to the Dragon’s Eye so that the villains could overtake Auradon – translated in real life, girl drugs guy to take advantage of him. I am actually very impressed with Disney for making this type of move to teach lessons as not everything is a perfect fairy tale world. They have been watering down the concept of “evil” in some of their programming over the years compared to some of the evil demonstrated in earlier works such as Jafar scheming and attempting to have Aladdin executed (Aladdin 1992) or when Scar murdered Mufasa by throwing him of of that cliff (Lion King 1994).
When looking at the development of Jay’s character in Descendants it is ironic that Jay acts more like Aladdin than Jafar. Jay, himself does not have any magical powers and only steals like Aladdin did before Aladdin married Princess Jasmine.
One of the biggest takeaways from the first Descendants film is that regardless of what background you come from and what your family is like, you do not have to grow up to be like them. Everyone wants approval from their family (deep down) regardless of how they have to get it. Throughout the movie the viewer is able to see this tension where the VK’s want to fit in to Auradon society and at the same time not disappoint their parents. These can be illustrated when Mal gives Evie the speech about why she wants to create the “Anti-Love Potion” or when Evie is looking at her Chemistry test or even when Jay thinks about his MVP trophy. It is hard to disappoint one’s parents but sometimes it is the right thing to do and this is ultimately illustrated when Mal and company turn Maleficent into a tiny lizard and saves Auradon – for the time being.
I believe that the first Descendants movie was effective in touching on some real life themes while making them fun – I also think that the movie continued the journey from the Isle of the Lost in a very meaningful way addressing issues that are universal – I also believe that the movie ended in a good place to create suspense about what would happen next. Mal’s eyes turning green with a glare “you didn’t think this was the end of the story, did you?” leaves the movie and overall story on a cliffhanger creating excitement and intrigue.
In the next posts – I will touch upon the adventures of the VK’s and how the next two books serve as a successful prequal to Descendants 2.
4.5/5
Nice review. I really enjoyed this movie drug references aside. I thought brownies was an obvious reference to drugs. Kind of inappropriate in my view. I notice you did not bother to score this one. Any reason that was? I have signed up for notifications. Looking forward to your review of movie 3! First time commenter but have lurked for a little while.
I actually just notice that I didn’t rate it – thanks for pointing that out. I went and rated the second movie as well. I liked the second movie better than the first even though the first was very good. I think many people liked the second movie better. I believe this may have been one time that the sequel was better than the first but both were done well and served their purpose.