There's something I need to get off my chest about the new Descendants and ZOMBIES. It will probably be controversial but hear me out please. The biggest problem with these movies is that it's too choreographed.
Now, you're probably wondering why I said this, well let me explain:
In these new movies, everything comes with big dance moves, everything has a choreography and it's too much sometimes.
Like in the newest Descendants, Red and Luis have a duet, and suddenly they're doing big things with their arms. And it really takes me out of the song.
Let's compare with some other duets in Disney Channel Original Movies:
- High School Musical: In the first movie, Troy and Gabriella have three duets together, the first one is just karaoke so they're standing there, reading the screen and Troy is doing some silly moves here and there. It's not a big dance number.
Then there's the duet with Kelsi on the piano. Same here, they're just reading the partition so no choreo here.
And the last one is at the end of the movie, they're on stage together and they're just having fun. Troy makes Gabriella spins, they move across the stage, but that's kinda all.
The Sharpay and Ryan duets are different because they planned it. They both have a choreography because they gave it all. They prepared it, they created a dance to go with the song and to impress other characters.
Same for the second movie, You Are The Music In Me is just Troy and Gabriella having fun, discovering Kelsi's new music, and trying some things. And Everyday is them on stage, and the biggest part of the choreo comes when everyone joins in.
And for the Chad/Ryan duet, it's all about dancing, so there's a big choreography for this.
And in the third movie, Troy and Gabriella sing in the treehouse, there's not a lot of place so again, it's just them having fun. Then they sing on the roof of school, and there's an intentional choreography because Gabriella is teaching Troy how to dance. And their last duet is part of the senior musical, and we saw them learning the choreography, prior to this in the movie.
Now you will tell me "okay but it's in the real world, it's different", and I hear you.
- In Descendants: There's no Mal/Ben duet to compare, but there's Space Between with Mal and Evie. And both are standing in the stairs of their safe house in the Isle. They're looking at each other, and they're expressing their feelings. And even when they go in the house, there's no big moves, just some small moves to give some effects.
And it's exactly what they used in the newest Descendants movie with the duet between the two queens. They were both in the staircase, and they were just singing. There was some subtle choreo here in there, but no big moves. And it really permits the watcher to feel included, you're allowed in their intimacy.
The other notables duet in the first trilogy are Evil Like Me and Do What You Gotta Do, aka Mal's parents being overdramatic and dancing to prove a point. The songs are not very intimate, the first one is Maleficent convincing Mal to be evil, and Mal joins in at the very end ; and the other one is Mal making some criticism to Hades' parenting skills, and Hades convincing her it was for the best. It's energetic, and not very reflective. So it makes sense why it's like this.
No I'm not counting Stronger, which was a duet between Uma and Mal in the short film, as it was just a dream.
- ZOMBIES: The duets in Zombies are a bit different, as the choreography usually makes sense with the plot. Like Fired Up, it's Bucky and Addison at the cheer tryouts, so the big choreography makes sense.
Then there's Someday, there's a bit of choreography that comes out of nowhere with the tap dancing part, but most of the songs is them using the props to illustrate what they're singing. Like Addison saying "tell me more" and mimicking popcorn, or Zed singing about how he comes from the "darker side" and hiding behind something. It's fun, the dance has a goal that's more than just doing some choreography, as it serves the story they're singing.
And the acoustic version of Someday is just them moving around slowly and singing. Same for the reprise in the other movies, in the second one they're at prom, in the third one it's everyone singing from different places and the fourth one is Zed dying (well not exactly, but kinda).
I don't consider Stand as a duet, it's for an Addison solo with a few lines from Bucky.
In the second movie, the Zeddison duet is sad and contemplative, the choreography is the people around stopping and walking, so again, it's more subtle.
Then in Zombies 3, the duet is Ain't No Doubt About It, and there's a lot of choreography involved, but the moves are mostly silly, as a reflection to the tone of the song, which is about them not having to worry about their couple for the future, but in an ironic way because Addison is saying things here and there that shows her anxiety. So the choreography works here because the song isn't really emotional.
And the reprise in the fourth movie is more emotional, but the choreography is a callback to the third movie, so it works.
But in the fourth one, the main duet is Dreams Come True. The song is really cute, they're singing about falling for each other and how they won't hurt the other, but the problem is that's heavily choreographed. The moves have nothing to do with the song, they're doing things with their arms, they're pulling the other close and let go, and they're flying with the wind.
(by user davinaclaires on Tumblr)
So my point is that the choreography used to feel more intentional, less grand, for intimate moments. The emotional moments felt more emotional because you weren't distracted by what the characters were doing on screen. Now, it just feels like there's choreography for everything. The moments that are supposed to be intimate aren't anymore. When I watched the newer Descendants, I was like "why are they doing things with their arms? They're sitting next to each other, we don't need this", instead on focusing on what they were singing. The Brandy/Rita Ora duet was perfect because it was more subtle and was more about their feelings.
I don't mean that the choreography are bad, just that they distract you from moments that are supposed to impact you. It's perfectly good to have big choreography for some group numbers, like the one at the beginning and the one at the end, and some moments in the beginning could benefits from it, but not everything needs to be big...
