Descendants: The Royal Wedding

Descendants: The Royal Wedding is an animated television special based on the Disney Channel movie, Descendants. It serves as a continuation after Descendants 3, where Mal and Ben officially get married. It premiered on Disney Channel on August 13, 2021, and premiered on Disney+ on September 17, 2021.

Plot
Mal and Ben are getting married, but Mal's father Hades destroys the wedding venue causing him to flee and the Descendants to have to go get Hades back for the wedding in “Disney's Descendants: Royal Wedding."

Why This Wedding Wasn't Good

 * 1) Descendants doesn't feel the same anymore after the death of Cameron Boyce, who played Carlos, especially him being absent from this special.
 * 2) *The cast confirmed that it was hard to produce this special because of Boyce gone.
 * 3) There has been controversy about Mal and Ben, who were canonically 16, then 17 in Descendants 3, feeling a bit young to be married (even though they were 1 year close to becoming 18). Although, the special has never revealed how old they are now.
 * Tho, it's pretty predictable that they were never supposed to be married at all, since that Mal had spelled Ben into loving her instead of Audrey, and he hasn’t stopped loving Mal when he washed Mal’s spell on him away in the Enchanted Lake at him and Mal’s first date, which he then finds out that Mal spelled him.
 * 1) False advertising: The second trailer "Falling in Love", where Mal has a terrible dream while Dizzy was doing her hair and makeup, in her dream, when she walks to Ben then ends up falling through the floor, then Ben turns into his beast form (because that his dad is the Beast from Beauty and the Beast) and nearly grabbed Mal. However, it wasn't even shown in the special.
 * 2) *There are also some more false advertising stuff shown in the trailers:
 * 3) **Mal saying “I think we need a bigger cake”, which there was no cake in this special
 * 4) **Hades saying “Since when do villians care about happy endings” as it predicted that he would wreck the wedding, that did happen in the special, but it wasn’t his fault.
 * 5) **Mal turning into a dragon while in her wedding outfit. Though she did turn into a dragon, but in her main outfit, while she was at the Isle
 * 6) The animation turned out very poorly unexpected. However, it was very nicely animated in the trailer, that good animation was wasted only for the trailer. To be fair, the trailer was nothing but only the characters standing in purple-colored backgrounds. and none of the real special was shown in anything until the music video "Feeling the Love" music video released a day before the special's release.
 * 7) *The animation in the special looks poor and very choppy, even the character's designs had downgraded a bit, they barely have the white reflections in their eyes. Unlike the trailers, they had the white reflections all the time.
 * 8) *They could've rather just used the style they used in The Planning of The Royal Wedding shorts or Descendants: Wicked World had.
 * 9) *Considering the fact that this special is 2D animated, the idea of Descendants being animated isn’t any better than Ever After High.
 * 10) **Ergo overall, Descendants is overall a ripoff of Ever After High, Mattel had the whole idea first, then Disney decides to rip off their idea because of their Disney Princess brand.
 * 11) Chad still remains as a coward, as he overreacted thinking he was on fire when he wasn’t, and as he wanted water, Hades just gives it to him due to the fact that he’s the worst. Even the VKs admit that.
 * 12) Plot Hole: It was never explained how Maleficent still stayed as a lizard ever since Descendants 1, Mal turns her into a lizard to stop her from destroying Ben’s coronation. Since that, she had never turned back to normal ever since, as she lived with Mal, and she’s contained. And as she was absent from Descendants 3, there was no telling what happened to Maleficent then. But then in this special here, Maleficent returns and what is she now? still a LIZARD.
 * 13) *Tho, In Descendants 3, after Audrey stole the scepter and cursed Mal into an old hag, when she entered the Isle of the Lost, her curse was automatically removed due to curses (or you know, “evil magic”) does not work there. However, In Descendants 2, when Mal moves back to the Isle after arguing with Ben after he found out about her spell book, as Mal took Maleficent with her, as she entered the Isle, Maleficent seemed to have not changed back while at the Isle. after that, she was no longer anywhere to be seen. If the Isle the place where curses can be automatically removed from you, why didn’t Maleficent change back?
 * 14) Dude becomes pretty annoying as he was chasing lizard Maleficent around (tho he can't help it because his dog instincts) all the way to the wedding, till he accidentally bites Hades, causing him to lose control and destroy the wedding. Dude is quite responsible for causing that all because he was chasing Maleficent.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Good voice acting, especially from the Descendants cast.
 * 2) "Feeling the Love" was a good song.
 * 3) Funny beginning: When squirrels saw about the wedding, they run to it to go check it out, then Dude barks at them and chases them because they weren't invited.
 * 4) Interesting ending: After the wedding, the camera pans over down the hole to Wonderland, knowing that the next film will be involving Alice in Wonderland stuff.
 * 5) Disney shows respect for Cameron Boyce, as they made this special a remembrance to him.
 * 6) The trailers were nicely animated.

Trivia

 * 1) As said above, this is the first Descendants installment without Carlos and Cameron Boyce.
 * 2) This is the third animated program in the Descendants franchise, following Descendants: Wicked World, and The Planning of the Royal Wedding shorts.
 * 3) Pain and Panic, who are Hades' minions, that appeared in the special, are as humans. They are originally demonic imps from Hercules.
 * 4) As also mentioned above, the ending of the special shows the hole down the hole to Wonderland, which is from Alice in Wonderland.
 * 5) It was announced during the season finale of Secrets of Sulphur Springs.

Reception
This special reached 0.65 million viewers, and 0.16 of 18-49 viewers.

Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoPaCxKQxH4