Descendants: The Royal Wedding Honors Cameron Boyce, Reveals Franchise’s Wonder-ful Next Chapter
Mal and Ben’s big day finally arrived on Friday with the premiere of Descendants: The Royal Wedding, but the highly anticipated ceremony didn’t exactly go off without a hitch.
Despite Audrey’s best efforts as Mal’s official wedding planner — which is insane, considering she spent years dreaming of marrying Ben herself — it was chaos from the start. Dude the Dog was chasing Maleficent around the castle, Snow White’s doves literally flew the coop and, oh yeah, Hades accidentally set the venue on fire. (Mal just had to say “Nothing could ruin this day,” didn’t she?)
Because Mal refused to get married without her entire family present, she returned to the Isle of the Lost to bring Hades back to Auradon. But before she and the VKs returned to their old stomping grounds, Jay and Evie gifted Mal with an early wedding present — a charm bracelet with all of their family crests, including that of Carlos (played by the late Cameron Boyce). It represents “the four VKs, linked together forever,” Evie explained.
With an assist from Uma, who super-sized herself to put out the fire Hades left on the bridge, the VKs arrived at the new-and-improved island (“I love that the Isle has had a major glow-up!”) to meet with Mal’s dad. A pair of goons, presumably the sons of Pain and Panic, attempted to block Mal’s entry into Hades’ lair, but her dragon form was a little harder to turn away.
Hades explained that his literal meltdown was a total misunderstanding, and that even he isn’t ruthless enough to ruin the happiest day of his daughter’s life. Seeing how happy Mal was with her father by her side, Ben suggested that they get married right then and there — after the Fairy Godmother arrived with Belle and King Adam in tow, of course. And just like that, Ben and Mal became husband and wife, all to the tune of an infectious new earworm called “Feeling the Love.” Watch it all go down in the video below:
But wait, there’s more! After swapping vows and dancing the night away, Mal and Ben excused themselves for a moonlit stroll. “So, this what happily ever after feels like?” he asked, to which she replied, “For us? Yes. But somewhere, another story could be just beginning.”
The camera then panned over to a pile of white roses — painted red, naturally — and took us down the rabbit hole before fading to black. Though Disney Channel hasn’t officially announced anything just yet, it’s safe to say we’ll be getting a Descendants 4 at some point with a relative of Alice in Wonderland‘s Queen of Hearts as the main protagonist.
OK, let’s talk: Do you think Mal and Ben’s story had a fitting conclusion? How choked up did you get during that Carlos moment? And what are your thoughts on the Queen of Hearts’ progeny taking the lead in a potential Descendants 4? Grade the special below, then drop a comment with your full review.
I thought that desendents 4 was supposed to come out on disney plus on August 13th what happened
no disney woiuld not do that although i’m not at all suprised that there probably going to do a descendants 4 with a new premise, as descandants has been one of there most succesful franchises and they heavily promoted it and i never watched high school musical, teen beach movie or any of there other musical dcom because they looked cheesy but this one they put together a great cast, the fact chennowith and dove cameron also worked together as mother and daugter in anotyher tv musical hairspray live and i know i’ll likely choke up when i see the tribute to boyce as i did when the premire of descdants 3 happened and they had that great tribute to him
I’m a biggest fans Descendants:The Royal Wedding
Mal and Ben in my love
Descendants 1,2,3, and 4
Very disappointed it wasn’t live cast. My daughter waited to she a short cartoon. It didn’t do the Decendants justice. I hope the redue it live…
As long as any future movies are live-action, I’ll take anything. I love this movies, but totally hated they did an animated wedding special.
Where can you watch this? We stream everything but it’s not on Disney Plus or the Disney Now app.
I just saw it on DisneyNow.com so I’m assuming it on the app now. Thats the only place I’ve seen it but I don’t have the app.
I love descendant a lot
I hated it! We all waited this long for that. It was so lackluster it was so boring it wasn’t even good enough to be an hour long. I didn’t like that it was animated it really took away from it. It was a complete let down. It’s supposed to be a royal wedding. I was looking forward to seeing the wedding cake and wedding decorations. I feel they short-changed The Royal Wedding. It had so much potential. It could have been spectacular. It was just a huge letdown. I hope Descendants 4 isn’t going to be animated. It just wasn’t the same without Carlos. Miss you Cameron Boyce.
Should have been live, animating it was a ridiculous idea.
I totally agree. Although, the cast claims it was easier to do animated bc of COVID… I hope that the next movie will not be animated though! And they should have added more to Carlos’ backstory as to what happened to him. I mean we all know the tragedy in real life, but he was definitely missed!
I agree. I hadn’t told my daughter’s about what happened to cameron/Carlos since my daughter has epilepsy so it was a tough subject for me to bring up. I wish the movie would have gone further Into detail so I didnt have to hear the “what happened to Carlos” question 🥺
I agree with you . My daughter loved Carlos ( Cameron Boyce) as did I. My daughter also has epilepsy and I hadn’t found the right time to tell her how he’d passed. On the Royal Wedding, we’d been told they’d address why he wasn’t there for the wedding. They didn’t. There was a small tribute to him at the end. I didn’t mind so much that it was animated since Cameron is no longer with us. My daughter, and myself I’ll admit, expected so much more out of the wedding. It was less than 25 minutes. Very disappointing. I could’ve wrote a good script longer than that ! After all the build up, it was a let down. I’m not complaining about what happened in the short . It was good. It could have been so much more. It could’ve been fleshed out to at least an hour .
Loved Descendants 1,2 and 3. Looking forward to Descendants 4.
Yeah. It was easier to do because of Covid because they just recorded their lines on Zoom or something. It would’ve been so much better if Disney had just waited a while and then filmed it when actors could go back to work.
I would have much rather waited 6 months longer or something to get a live-action version
Love all the Descendants movies!! I was thinking, with my daughter, what if Cruella had a son that was unknown to anybody?? Of course, they would have to meet Cameron’s standards!!
I was disappointed because Disney could have made a whole movie about the wedding instead of a animated short
I saw that there is going to be a Descendants 4 coming in the Spring 2022, is that legit?? I have no clue who Pain and Panic are, nor the sons-anyone know what movie that was from? I would love to see the next movie if it involves Alice in Wonderland, would love to see Rapunzel added into the mix too!
Pain & Panic are Hades’ sidekicks in the movie Hercules
They r from Hercules
It was amazing
Okay…I could have SWORN that Kenny Ortega said that there wouldn’t be a Descendants 4. Besides, I highly doubt that Dove Cameron would be willing to reprise her role as Mal and you can’t have the ‘Core 4’ without Carlos (played by the late Cameron Boyce). So why tease a 4th movie?
I don’t think there will be an official decision on the 4th film until the reviews/reactions to this animated world are in.
The cast would likely be more easily swayed back if it were animated, but if the fans hate this, Disney won’t bother.
I hope a new story line can be developed to continue the saga in the future.
i think a 4th movie with new leads can work. the child of the queen of heart, along with Hades’s son Hadie(personally they should’ve brought him in for the wedding special) and 2 others can be the new VKS!
I agree. I think for a continuation to be possible they’ll need to do it with new characters. I would love to see Hadie show up.
Yes the story should follow the child of the queen of hearts
( pretty sure hadie was deleted from cannon because retcon if not it be interesting to see what they would do with his character I mean alot of the villain kids have interesting backstorys that we are never told!) I really wanna see Claudine frollos backstory along with more of Anthony and dizzys backstory
I mean villains themselves have interesting backstorys
I think people complaining about this not being live action is valid but given the circumstances it was an understandable choice. It was said many times that Kenny Ortega did not want to do another Descendants movie without Cameron Boyce. The cast was like a family and it would have been hard for everyone to have been on that particular set without him. Sometimes we have to forgo our wishes for what is right for others. If there is another Descendants movie it makes sense that it would go in another direction. I have loved all so far but I agree a live action without Carlos seems wrong. The animated version was hard enough.
I couldn’t agree with you more @Victoria A Fain! The pluses to this film: the believable sound effects, the beautiful animation, the voice overs, and it answered a few of my questions besides when Mal and Ben were getting married. For instance, how everyone was going to treat Hades, because after all nobody would just accept him with open arms. Another answered was if Maleficent was going to be there and if that was going to pose an issue. The last question I had was how and if they discussed what happened to Carlos. I was disappointed that that question was not answered. However, I can tell a lot went into this. Am I disappointed that it wasn’t live, yes, however, it would’ve been hard on the entire crew to be back on the set again without Carlos, they are all still grieving. Am I disappointed that the movie didn’t have more conversations about Carlos yes, and I’m also disappointed in not seeing Jane in the movie. However, I’m grateful for this movie being made. It must’ve been hard doing this without Cameron Boyce. Covid made it possible for this to happen. This movie I felt was a way to bring Descendants movies and the show Descendants: Wicked Ways together.
Hated the cartoon version!!! Needed to be real life like all the movies!!
Desendants The Royal Wedding Including The Song Can You Feel The Love Was Brilliant Plus Mal Enjoyed Jay And Evie Charm Bracelet Gift With All The VKs Icons Was Great And The Tribute To Cameron Boyce Stood Out Perfect.
Such a disappointment. 22 minutes after 2 months of advertising hype. Disney should be embarrassed.
I think the royal wedding was really nice also how they putted it on YouTube because my disney plus ended 2 days before the wedding I was so sad u thought I couldn’t watch but then I did so it was really greatly especially loved the song feeling the love
For myself and my family this movie, if u can call it that was an epic disney fail as I can remember. We’ve been waiting for the next chapter instead we a a single page of the book. All 3 prior movies were 2 plus hours of magic. This 25 min poorly drawn and completely out of sync voice overs paled to any of the other movies. My 6yr old daughter was so excited for this, a highlight of our summer, to turn out as it was a huge slap in the face of descendant fans everywhere. Next time disney don’t even try bc my 3yr old could of put together a better program.
I really love the descendants raw wedding it is fantastic and use me to start the next chapter descendants 4 because one two and three turned out well and I love those movies and I even love the short story descendants royal wedding I would love to see a fourth one because it’s going to be the greatest thing to see and I would really really like to see it if you’d be willing to make it because it is the best thing that you came up with and I would love to see it on Disney that means a lot to people like me I’ve always been a big Disney fan and now I’m at descendants 123 and short story of descendants make the fourth one I really would love to say that
I love the story descendants 1 2 and 3 plus the short story which is descendants royal wedding I would love to see descendants 4 which would probably be the next best thing that you’ve ever did
Disappointed. We as a family loved this Disney movie. We felt like Cameron would have wanted them to do a live if he was here today. He looked like he enjoyed preforming with this group so much and it brought so much joy to our kids.
We just didn’t care for this one.
Not a huge fan of the animated version. Would love a fourth live action movie though, they could make it To where it’s set 20 years later and focus on Ben and Mal’s kids or smthing. Definitely missed Carlos in this one wish they made an explanation.
I love Mal because she is the villain of the most powerful mother of Maleficent.
I love Evie because she is the fashion designer of her character.
Please make a 4th movie
The animation quality was poor at best, and horrendous at worst. We all expect and deserve better animation quality from Disney. Secondly the story line was cliche at best. The hinting towards a new character at the end was very good, everything else was just too rushed.
They had the opportunity to include Carlos by using recordings of Boyce from the other movies since it was animated. Very disappointed they didn’t. Also kind of lame that all they said was a vague reference to him bc his charm was on a bracelet. Lame I’d you ask me considering what a HUGE part of the Disney family he was
I think they should make a descendants 4 but have someone play Carlos as his stunt double.