Can We Talk about Descendants (A Follow Up)

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney.  Later, this year Disney Channel will be airing a new Disney Channel movie. Now normally, I don't care about these things but this one is different as it ties into the animated films.  From the DisneyWiki, here's the the plot synopsis.

In a present day idyllic kingdom, the benevolent teenaged son of the King and Queen (Beast and Belle from Disney's iconic Beauty and the Beast) is poised to take the throne. His first proclamation: offer a chance of redemption to the trouble-making offspring of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, The Evil Queen and Jafar, who have been imprisoned on a forbidden island with all the other villains, sidekicks, evil step-mothers and step-sisters.
These villainous descendants are allowed into the kingdom to attend prep school alongside the offspring of iconic Disney heroes. However, the evil teens face a dilemma: should they follow in their nefarious parents' footsteps and help all the villains regain power or embrace their innate goodness and save the kingdom?

Now, when I first heard about this my first thought was maybe they wouldn't tie it so heavily to the animated characters but then the teaser trailer was released.  And I was proven wrong.





As you can see at the end of the trailer, the silhouettes of 4 classic Disney villains appear as the movie will focus on their children  and I have to say that the first cast photo that was released of the Descendants made me burst out laughing.

Here you have Jay, son of Jafar,  Carlos, son of Cruella, Mal, daughter of Maleficent, Evvie, daughter of The Evil Queen.  Now Mal  will be our female lead as the movie will center a romance blossoming between her and Ben, son of Belle and Beast.  And that's another thing, this movie is overstuffed as it will feature the children of the aforementioned Belle and Beast, Mulan & Li Shang, Auroa & Phillip, The Fairy Godmother, Aladdin & Jasmine,  Cinderella & Charming, Dopey (who had a kid with Dopey?) , Snow White and fianlly the one that stung me.

This movie will  also feature the daughter of  Rapunzel & Flynn Rider.  Excuse me, a moment!    

THIS IDEA IS SO STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I'm sorry,  now not  many  cast photos of the adult  characters have been released save for Krisitn Chenoweth as Maleficent.  

I am a fan of Ms. Chenoweth but I don't think that she's right for this role.  Other casting choices include  Kathy Najimy as The Evil Queen from Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.  There has been no attempt at hiding that Disney hopes to turn this into a franchise as they want to make a sequel to this if successful and they are releasing a prequel book and Descendants dolls.

At the helm of this project will be  High School Musical director, Kenny Ortega as this will be a musical. 

Now I have not hid my enjoyment  of the HSM trilogy but this ,  I gotta be honest. I was intrigued by the concept at first thinking that it'd be something along the lines of Once Upon A Time for the tween crowd but well,   just look at this.

Did these kids raid a Hot Topic?  Look I am not against Disney characters having children, even if it doesn't make sense with some of the characters but  why this film is set in modern day and why is Cruella a part of this?  Because she's a popular Disney villain.  This just seems so absurd.  Again, I normally don't  have a problem with Disney Channel movies.  They're fluff.  Nothing less, nothing more but the fact that this film has decided to use  characters we know from  classic and recent animated movies just  seems like some exec thought, "Hey, what if we made a movie about Disney characters and their kids? People would love that!"   A good majority of Disney fans, I've seen online are not looking forward to this thing and can ya blame 'em?   Because all it is,  just  a way to cheaply sell products  using classic Disney characters.   I do plan on reviewing this, after it airs but I can tell you right now that I am not looking forward to this.  You may have seen my announcement on Manic Expression that in the time leading up to this film, I will be doing Villains Profile articles for The Evil Queen, Maleficent, Cruella & Jafar, seeing as their kids are the main four.  I will be doing this so that we can look back on what made them work in their movies and have a better understanding on how this movie could betray these villains.  What are your thoughts on this... thing? Let me know in the comments. Peace!