Descendants: The Rise of Red Debuts on Disney Channel — What We Know About the Ending (And What’s Next)
If you just finished watching the Disney Channel debut of Descendants: The Rise of Red, you’re probably asking yourself one question: Now what?!
The fourth full-length installment in Disney’s Descendants franchise originally premiered last month on Disney+, and fans have been theorizing about the film’s ambiguous ending ever since.
The movie musical concludes with Red (Kylie Cantrall) and Chloe (Malia Baker), the daughters of Cinderella (Brandy) and the Queen of Hearts (Rita Ora), returning from their time-traveling adventure to discover that they successfully prevented the Queen from turning evil in the first place. But all’s not well that ends well, as a closing voiceover from Principal Uma (China Anne McClain) suggests that the story isn’t over yet. “Getting what you want can be dangerous,” she warns, “especially when you mess with the fabric of time.”
Although a fifth Descendants film hasn’t officially been ordered (yet!), executive producer Suzanne Todd confirms to TVLine that Disney is “definitely working on and thinking about a follow-up movie.”
What that movie would be about, however, is still anyone’s guess. One popular theory is that turning the Queen of Hearts good somehow made Cinderella into a villain. On that front, Todd tells TVLine, “I can neither confirm nor deny the future good or evil-ness of anybody, other than saying that there will be future good and evil turns for sure. It’s super fun thinking about it and trying to work it out.”
For what it’s worth, Cantrall and Baker are both totally on board with the idea of Cinderella taking a dark turn, à la Audrey in Descendants 3, especially if the change extends to her offspring.
“I’m putting it out there, I want Chloe to have a little VK moment,” Baker tells TVLine in our video interview above. “Maybe that’s what happens, Chloe goes a little crazy.” And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Trust us, these girls have just as many theories as the fans, if not more.
What’s your take on that mysterious ending? And what are your hopes for the future of the Descendants franchise? Grade The Rise of Red in our poll below, then drop a comment with all of your thoughts.
The Rise of Red was excellent
watched it several time, love it! Hoping Mal’s brother Hadie shows up in the fifth film and he becomes friends with Red and Chole!
I missed the original cast doesn’t feel like there was a Descendants movie without it.
still, a good follow up! I can imagine in the next movie Red and Chloe have a run in with adult Hades who remembers them from his past and he asks them, “what did you girls do?’, hinting that he knows they change the past! i know that Hades is a soul stealer, but can he also read souls too?
It had a lot of potential, but overall it left me disappointed. I feel like we didn’t get a whole lot of Red the rebel, which was teased in the trailer.
But (SPOILER ALERT…) what annoyed me the most is the assumption that a prank by Uliana sister would even turn Bridget evil. I actually don’t see that being enough. It doesn’t make sense, that someone so sweet and forgiving would turn evil just like that. Now if Ella was involved in the prank somehow… even if it was more of a misunderstanding, that would be interesting. Essentially, I was just left with a feeling that there was so much more they could have done to make Bridgets turn to evil make more sense. And that would have set up a second installment even more.
In my opinion they spent a lot of time on silly things, and not enough on actual plot. Which made things resolve too quickly at the end. I was a little relieved when they implied there was more to the story, but I don’t think they set up enough with this first one.
well, hopefully we might get more story in the fifth film. I would like to see adult Hades again and he remembers seeing Red and Chloe in the past. What if Red and Chloe changing the past unleashed a secret from Hade’s past that’s a warmup for the price they will pay? what if hades and Malificent broke up when they were teens the first time around, and Hades got drawn to either Snow White or Elsa(from frozen) in an attempt to get over his ex, hinting that he ends up having a son(Hadie) with one of them in the future, a scandal romance shocking everybody!