Here’s All The Easter Eggs and References You Missed In Descendants: Wicked Wonderland!

From a portrait of the late Cameron Boyce to a Disney Parks nod, I did an Easter egg hunt to find all the little details in Descendants: Wicked Wonderland!

First up, Maddox Hatter’s (Leonardo Nam) mantle is full of magical objects from other Disney stories, including what looks like Snow White’s poison apple, a frog from The Princess and the Frog, a seashell necklace from The Little Mermaid, and possibly a Frozen reference. Considering Maddox is called Auradon’s number one villain, maybe these are his trophies. 

When we arrived at Auradon Prep, there’s a line about Luis Madrigal (Alexandro Byrd) being the tourney captain this year. Tourney is a fictional, full-contact sport played in the Descendants universe. Ben, Chad, Carlos, and Jay played, with Jay being one of the best players.

Of course, Melanie Paxson is back as the Fairy Godmother, and she’s the only actor to have appeared in every Descendants film. She has a few nods to her characters iconic line, like when she says “you can’t “bibbidi-bob yourselves into a dangerous villain’s hands,” and later on when she says “it’s time to bibbidi-bobbidi bust a move.”

When Chloe (Malia Baker) and Red (Kylie Cantrall) pitch saving the Queen of Hearts (Rita Ora) to Cinderella (Brandy) and the Fairy Godmother, Chloe says, “We have to get in there and get our hands dirty,” which is a Rise of Red callback referencing their song together.

The movie includes a sweet tribute to the late Cameron Boyce, with a photo of him in Cinderella’s home.

There are also posters featuring King Beast and the Fairy Godmother, and we see Jay’s “Long Live Evil” symbol, which is another fun callback to the franchise’s history.

The Fairy Godmother says that Uma is calling the Auradon Council together to make a plan.

The costumes are chock full of great details and Easter eggs. A few that I loved were that Luis has candles embroidered on his clothes to represent the Madrigal miracle and Hazel Hook has plenty of pirate charms, but one of them is especially meaningful. She wears a Taíno sun that represents Puerto Rico, allowing actress Kiara Romero to bring a piece of her heritage and culture to Hazel. 

As the HKs and VKs jump into the rabbit hole to Wonderland, Chloe and Red are surrounded by mirrors, or looking glasses, and see their opposite futures as villains or heroes.

There are lots of great details in Wonderland: bread and butterflies, mushrooms, flamingos, and the croquet garden. The movie also includes signs warning about the Jabberwocky and Maddox Hatter uses dodo birds to spy on his enemies and search Wonderland and the Tulgey Woods for the pocket watch. The way he sends them off almost reminds me of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard Of Oz.

When Maddox Hatter sings “Mad,” he also references the unbirthday line that his character is famous for. The Queen also foreshadows the song “Heartless” when she calls Maddox heartless in this song.

Speaking of parallels, Maddox finishes the song by climbing into the Queen’s crystal chandelier, which is ironic because that’s what he gets locked up in at the end.

After Luis and Red escape Maddox through the tree doors, a talking doorknob tells them to stay out, which is a callback to the character in Alice in Wonderland.

There’s even a Disney Parks Easter egg! Felix and Robbie get stuck in a teacup in the ocean, which is a nod to the Mad Tea Party ride.

Pink bringing cupcakes as a snack for the journey is also a really sweet parallel to her mother, Bridget. When Bridget was younger, she was known for making cupcakes, specifically Flamingo Feather cupcakes. This feels like a fun little connection between mother and daughter. In the background of the opening number “Perfect Princess,” someone even has one of the magic pink feathers from Bridget’s cupcakes in The Rise of Red. And this might be a reach, but I wonder if there’s a little Mary Poppins influence there because Pink’s bag is tiny and can fit all these cupcakes and teacups!

In “Did You Hear About Them,” Luis’s tattoo seems to be a subtle Moana reference. Could that mean Maui is his father? He has another line where he says, “I’ve moved a mountain,” which is similar to the line Luisa sings in “Surface Pressure” in Encanto.

When Hazel and Chloe have a conversation, Hazel is combing through her hair with her hook, which just reminded me of The Little Mermaid and Ariel’s dinglehopper. Meanwhile, Chloe is walking around with what looks like a blue pumpkin, which could foreshadow her transformation.

Maddox shrinks the crew down and makes them battle it out on chessboard and, in Lewis Carroll’s sequel Through the Looking-Glass, it features a world structured entirely as a giant chessboard. 

Around the chessboard is a book titled “Punctuality and the Art of Arriving on Time” which be a reference to the White Rabbit always being late in Alice in Wonderland. Then there’s a plate with a handkerchief with an “A” on it, for Alice, and one of the “Eat Me” signs for the shrinking and growing cookies from Alice’s story.

In a flashback to Max’s life before time travel messed everything up, we see Red sneaking over the palace walls, that was a fun to see another side of that scene from The Rise of Red.

Red called Chloe a “goody two-shoes” in The Rise of Red, and Chloe brings it up here. Red says, “If the shoe fits,” which also plays into the Cinderella theme.

There’s a tease of who the Queen of Hearts might’ve dated in her youth, referencing Prince Philip and Gaston. Bridget says she had a bad boy phase.

In Bridget and Ella’s duet, “The Girl I Used to Be,” there is a line where they say “Maybe we can live in this space between,” calling out the iconic Descendants 2 song “Space Between.” They also have a beautiful line where they sing about their daughters, “And now it’s our turn to break out, be brave / With new dreams, the two dreams we made,” which reminded me of the song “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” from Cinderella.

During “Heartless,” Chloe walks through Squeakwood Hollow, which I thought was a cute nod to Cinderella being friends with mice. When Chloe becomes evil, the magical swirls around her seem to echo Cinderella’s magical transformation into her ball gown. This whole song also reminded me of “Queen of Mean” from Descendants 3.

Alice in Wonderland is known for its hedge mazes and moving topiaries, which we see the cast go into to get to the Royal Vault.

When Chessy goes to talk to Red, she says they didn’t figure it out together, which is their plan in “Perfect Princess,” then later those are the lyrics Red sings to Chloe to bring her back from her evil side.

There’s also a fun Rise of Red musical callback when Max tells Chloe to click the watch because it’ll be the “perfect revenge,” a reference to the song in Rise of Red.

There are a few punny lines at the end of the film from the queens, like when Ella says, “This is your midnight, Maddox. Time to go,” because she notoriously had a midnight curfew, while Bridget says “Ace for effort,” referencing her iconic playing cards.

Descendants: Wicked Wonderland is streaming on Disney+.