The Midnight Disney Binge

Zombies 4 VS Descendants 4

I grew up a Disney kid.

I watched every show, I colonized the TV anytime they were about to air a Disney Original Movie. I prayed and fasted for there to be stable light when Descendants first aired in 2015 (they took light immediately the movie ended. God truly answers prayers). Basically I have been committed in this shit for years.

Growing up meant seeing my favorite shows stop airing and new ones re-emerge. And with that I lost interest in TV watching. My parents even stopped paying the DSTV and moved to paying for Netflix and Wi-Fi.

Being someone who gets all her pop-culture information from TikTok, when I saw they were airing a new movie in the Zombie franchise, I mentally said I would free it. Descendants 4 had come and gone and the reviews and clips said it was mid tier.

Boredom and sheer will is a funny thing because in my bid to regain my ‘nocturnal creature’ tag that 9 - 5 stole from me, I decided to stay up past 11pm for once. And in that, I decided to let TikTok rest and watch a movie. Zombies 4 came to mind and I said fuck it, let’s check it out.

I would like to add that I already knew like half of the new cast of Zombies, the same way I knew the entire new cast of Descendants (most of them were little kids in the shows I used to watch pre 2020).

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Zombies 4 started with Addison and Zed in college singing about how they want to be Cheercaptain and First Line Football player respectively. Frankly I still don’t understand Addison’s obsession with cheerleading but I had delt with this obsession in 2016, 2018 and 2020 so I could still overlook it again in 2025.

Only four of the cast from Zombies 1-3 were in this one and that already told me they were passing the torch subtly. The entire movie went along those same lines.

Nova was basically a younger Addison and Victor was a younger Zed(not personality wise but as main leads). And the funny thing is that Addison and Zed were shipping them the entire time.

Was it a good movie? Yes. It took a just okay storyline and managed to eat it up. It was better than Zombies 3 in my humble opinion. I would definitely watch the movie again and the soundtrack has been added to my spotify playlists because the soundtrack absolutely ATE.

The actress of Nova is so talented. I spent the entire movie watching her. Her voice is absolutely beautiful and she had very expressive acting. Only for me to go online and find out she was just fifteen years old. Like Girllll, THE TALENT.

Two songs from the first three movies were in this. ‘Someday’ Addison and Zed’s love song and ‘Ain’t no doubt about it’ a song from Z3 where Addison and Zed were worrying about their future, but in this they sang the lyrics in a tone that sounded hopeful about their future (another clue to them handing over)

‘Dream Come True’ seems to be Nova and Victor’s ‘Someday’ but we’ll wait till Z5 to confirm. And I know Z5 is coming because they alluded to the existence of mermaids at the end of the movie, the way they alluded to werewolves at the end of Z1 and alien at the end of Z2.

Also I am currently listening to ‘Possible’ from the movie and you can literally hear in the lyrics that Addison and Zed were passing the torch.

All in all I found it a very nice next-gen movie and I absolutely hate the fact that I am older than the main cast.

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So after watching that, it was still 2am. I had one more fuck it moment and put on Descendants 4. Might as well check it if was as mid as they said it was.

Descendants and Zombies always had an alternating timeline with D1 being released 2015, Z1 2016, D2 2017, Z2 2018, D3 2019 and Z3 2020. So D4 was released in 2024 after all the og fans thought both trilogies were done.

A year late and I finally turned on D4.

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Unlike Z4, they threw us straight to the next gen. Only Uma and Fairy Godmother from the original cast and they were barely involved in the movie (mainly because Cameron Boyce is late and the other three refused to do the film without him).

Where Z4 felt like a mother giving her kids guidance and gently teaching them to fly and exist without her, D4 felt like the mother just kicked the babies out of the nest and said figure it out.

Also unlike Z4, this movie actual had a very mad storyline, its issue was the execution. I don’t know how a movie can feel both dragged and unfinished. I ended it expecting more.

The movie brought a lot of unavoidable plotholes and a lot of things didn’t add up. But I guess that’s what happens when you try to include timetravel in a fairytale mashup movie.

As a Disney fairytale lover, watching them change storylines because they needed something to write really annoyed me. What do you mean Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother are around the same age and went to the same school with Maleficient and Hades?

Even if they were working with alternate universes, it still removes from some of the plot the first Descendants movies tried to build.

The songs were forgettable in my opinion. The first song of the film is the only one that gave instant bop. The song that introduced the new main character ‘Red’. The rest were just there. I am listening to the album right now (finished the Z4 one) and honestly the songs are hit or miss.

Though, the songs give musical a lot more than Z4. Like there’s sing-talking in-between and its nice.

I’m not gonna lie to you. Kylie Cantrall and Malia Baker are the only reason I finished that movie.

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Anywho I ended both movies and by 4am, I decided I had lived up to my nocturnal name and I went to bed (only to wake up by 8am on a Saturday morning because by body clock refuses to miss no matter how tired I am)

TikTok and it’s team of spies decided to send a bunch of Z4 clips to my timeline and in that line I found out that Disney decided to take the next gen main characters of Descendants and Zombies and made a joint concert where all these new adults are performing all the popular songs from all eight movies.

From the clips I’ve seen, they’re eating it up. Like they are actually good.

I watch it with mixed feelings. On one hand, I remember I’m old. Like I’m older than most of these people performing. On the other hand, I wish I was there bopping with all these little children. It’s strange.

I see people in the comments saying it would have been better if it was both the og cast but some people really need to accept that things change and people change. The seven of them that are performing on that tour are extremely talented.

Time for me to go back to work.

PS. No one asked, but for my Zombies ranking Z2, Z1, Z4, Z3 and my Descendants ranking is D1, D2, D3, D4.

Now I’m actually going back to work