I'm the same age as these characters. It was wonderful to take a trip down memory lane and watch the original series Degrassi Junior High & Degrassi High, restarting right at the beginning in Grade 8 along with Joey, Snake, Wheels, and the others. Then capping it off with this film -- the finale. My impression is that the film does NOT reflect the series, and for that reason, I'm disappointed.
The film went into a direction of ticking boxes of all the things that could be upsetting and did so while alienating most of the cast that I expected to see at the end. Whether the casting just couldn't round up most of the actors, or if the actors simply declined the offers, School's Out only focused on the inevitable longing for losing one's virginity, which had me wondering if it simply wasn't a choice for most actors to turn this film down.
The Degrassi High franchise prior to this send off made me laugh and cry. Not everything revolved around love, but when it did we saw different combinations of couples, and sometimes life altering results for the choices they made for sex (ie. HIV and pregnancy/abortion).
This film steered away from all that Degrassi worked on when it came to social dynamics to simply give us a typical look at sex and losing one's virginity between a select few original characters. It was a very basic script, and offers almost no humour and nothing to think about. In fact, there isn't even much that is relatable, or anything we learn from this film -- unlike the beloved series.
What's even more puzzling is how the spotlight was given to the very new and unliked character of Tessa, while giving a character like Spike almost no camera time.
When the door closed on the original Degrassi High series, it would have been nice to see some alignment with it in this final film. I wished for a little bit of humour and some problems to solve. Instead, the film takes us to a darker place filled with infidelity, fighting, alcohol, with life changing consequences stemming from those three themes. Was anything happy in this film? Sure. But the few happy moments were criticized by the characters.
While the cast did their best with the script and remained true to the characters that we loved watching throughout the series, I found myself simply disliking almost everyone in the end mainly because I was expecting so much better from this film.
The film went into a direction of ticking boxes of all the things that could be upsetting and did so while alienating most of the cast that I expected to see at the end. Whether the casting just couldn't round up most of the actors, or if the actors simply declined the offers, School's Out only focused on the inevitable longing for losing one's virginity, which had me wondering if it simply wasn't a choice for most actors to turn this film down.
The Degrassi High franchise prior to this send off made me laugh and cry. Not everything revolved around love, but when it did we saw different combinations of couples, and sometimes life altering results for the choices they made for sex (ie. HIV and pregnancy/abortion).
This film steered away from all that Degrassi worked on when it came to social dynamics to simply give us a typical look at sex and losing one's virginity between a select few original characters. It was a very basic script, and offers almost no humour and nothing to think about. In fact, there isn't even much that is relatable, or anything we learn from this film -- unlike the beloved series.
What's even more puzzling is how the spotlight was given to the very new and unliked character of Tessa, while giving a character like Spike almost no camera time.
When the door closed on the original Degrassi High series, it would have been nice to see some alignment with it in this final film. I wished for a little bit of humour and some problems to solve. Instead, the film takes us to a darker place filled with infidelity, fighting, alcohol, with life changing consequences stemming from those three themes. Was anything happy in this film? Sure. But the few happy moments were criticized by the characters.
While the cast did their best with the script and remained true to the characters that we loved watching throughout the series, I found myself simply disliking almost everyone in the end mainly because I was expecting so much better from this film.