For those of you who don't know, DCOM is short for Disney channel original movie. Now, I used to love some of their movies as a child, like Teen Beach Movie (this movie has the best songs and we can fight if you disagree) and Luck of the Irish.
What I came here to discuss, or rather, rant to you about, are recent DCOM's. So I just watched Disney channel's recent movie, Upside-Down Magic, and I have to say, it was rather bland. It was like I had already seen it a million times.
I'm just gonna be completely honest here, but I think that Teen Beach Movie was Disney channel's peak. This was the movie that struck gold, and this is where they mastered their current formula for movies.
And I'm not saying that Teen Beach Movie was their peak because I'm completely in love with the characters, Ross Lynch, and the songs, but I'm telling you to open your eyes and look at all the movies created after Teen Beach.
Let me paint a timeline:
What were some of the most memorable DCOM's of your childhood? Some that I still remember are Starstruck, High School Musical, Lemonade Mouth, and Camp Rock. Notice something about all of these movies? All of the songs are straight bops.
Also, all of the plots of these movies differ greatly, and are memorable because of the characters.
By this time, Disney had figured out that it didn't matter what they copied from themselves, or if the plot itself made no sense. What mattered were the songs, because kids are more likely to remember something with a catchy jingle. Just think of yourself! How many insurance jingles or carpet cleaner jingles have stuck in your brain since childhood?
They knew that what was making them money was the gullible kids and their tired parents wiling to shell out the big bucks to make their kids stop fussing. I'm talking the merchandise, the costumes, hell, I'm even talking about the dolls! You know that kids were obsessed with Descendant's dolls and toys.
Alright, I digress, back to the timeline I'm about to paint for yall.
Before Teen Beach, most DCOM's either followed a couple in different circumstances (Geek Charming, High School Musical) one or a group of teenagers or kids gaining something unusual (Lemonade Mouth, or it was a sports movie.
In the case of Teen Beach Movie, it did follow a couple, Mack and Brady, but Disney was slowly starting to move away from following two main leads and the mean girl trope to opposing sides or the sports movie trope.
Let me ask you something else. What are the most memorable movies since Teen Beach Movie? Descendants? Zombies? Look a little closer at these movies.
Descendants is about Mal and the other children from the Isle of the Lost having permission to attend school at Auradon, a school reserved for the children of the princes and princesses. Mal, the daughter of Maleficent and Ben, the son of... someone? I don't remember- eventually fall in love and band their two groups together. Sound familiar to two groups, bikers and surfers, fighting for a hangout spot, until two of them fall in love and they come together to save the beach? Yeah. I thought so too.
What about Zombies? I mean surely, the plot of this movie should be different? At the beginning of the movie, it opens with Zed, the zombie guy, monologuing about his first day... of starting school... in the human's part of town. Hey, but he meets Addison... and she's a human. And you still have doubts about my claim... why?
I mean, this movie is a direct rip-off of Descendants, for crying out loud! It's like they took Melissa de la Cruz's money to film her book, monetized off of that as much as they could, then did the exact same plot with different characters for more money!
If you still don't believe me, these are the ratings in the millions of DCOMS for 7 years. What are the highest rated movies? If you can't see, Teen Beach is the highest rated in the midst of bad reviews. Next best reviewed are movies from two well-known shows.
Of course, I'm not bashing any of the other movies on this list. Like, a lot of these movies are parts of my childhood, and to be honest, Let It Shine was a great movie and seeing Coco Jones be a star of the movie really inspired me as a young child of color, similar to the way China Ann Mclain from ANT Farm made me feel like I could do anything.
However, just look at where Teen Beach ranks. The songs, the characters, everything about this movie is so unforgettable, just like Descendants and Zombies, and kids have absolutely fallen in love with these so similar movies.
To conclude, Disney has literally run out of content and is recreating the same plots with different songs and monetizable characters ✌