Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The second movie's ending doesn't erase the events of everything that came before with Leila changing the movie, but instead, it's translated into an alternate universe What If? scenario that shows Mac and Brady still finding their way to each other no matter what. That would also lend to the idea that the main storyline still allows not only for that version of Mac and Brady to still have their previous history not be forgotten or undone, but that it keeps the uncertain while hopeful feelings they still have a about their relationship moving forward too.
Aluminum Christmas Trees: Motorized surfboards are about as old as what Wet Side Story/Lela: Queen of the Beach would be.
Awesome Music: C'mon, find a song in this movie that isn't this. Especially "Can't Stop Singing" which gets bonus points for being a song about Lampshade Hanging. Arguably, the second movie has even more awesome songs than the first.
Silver Screen from the second movie hung lampshades on even more tropes.
Special mention to "Cruisin' For A Bruisin". On top of being the most energetic song in the first film, Brady becomes an Ascended Fanboy when he somehow figures out he can join in on the number, which he then revealed that he always wanted to be in. It's really a great sendup to fanboys and girls everywhere.
'Gotta Be Me' from the second movie is just epic. It's Brady and Mack taking a page out of the Footloose book and danced out their problems, though while singing the song at the same time. It's so filled with energy that it's hard not to get wrapped up in the moment.
Broken Base: The ending to the second movie: Lela changes the plot of Wet Side Story into a completely new movie called Lela, Queen of the Beach, and as a result, Brady and Mack never met, but do fall in love all over again at the end. Some people really like it, some people really hate it, and some people don't like it but respect it for not being a typical Disney ending.
This is also partially brought on through the fact that the ending of the second film overrides one of the main messages they were trying to tell, in that Mack is happy to be with Brady and came to like Wet Side Story like he did, and defying what she thought was expected of her to stay in their city to be with him rather than be miserable in a life of academia, which she could easily do other things for after high school. The main motif of the films even became what the song 'Meant to be' is about, in that if you know someone is the one, you should be with them. Mack threw all of that away to change the timeline in ways that she knew would prevent her and Brady from ever meeting for the reason that Lela is someone who was born in the wrong time rather than be happy with her life as it was. Was it a bold move? Yes, but the right one? Probably not.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Teen Beach 2 ends this way. Lela takes Mack's advice to change the movie and make it what she wants it to be for when she and Tanner get back. As a result, the fear that Brady and Mack each have of having never met comes true. Wet Side Story becomes Lela, Queen of the Beach and it becomes Mack's all time favorite movie, not Brady's. Mack's personality is very likely changed as a result of the movie's transformation too. Brady and Mack still meet and fall for each other, but it's under similar but different circumstances at the Save the Beach event. Fate had to intervene to eradicate them of their problems rather than let them figure it out for themselves and because of it, they've lost all the time that they had together before. It's nice that they're meant to be together no matter what, but it makes it that what happened in the first movie and this one no longer exist as well as form a paradox where Wet Side Story should have never changed at all if Brady and Mack were never there. Plus, Mack doesn't remember her friendship with Lela, only knowing her as a character in a movie.
Teen Beach Movie (the in-universe version) is initially used to parody binary, cisheteronormative gender roles. Tanner (Garrett Clayton) and Lela (Gracie Gillam, then known as Grace Phipps) are the faces of these binary, cisheteronormative gender roles, respectively. Clayton would later come out as gay in real life, while Gillam went public with she/they pronouns as well.
Ho Yay: Lela seems just as interested in Mack as she does Brady.
Ramped up to eleven in Teen Beach 2.
This Lela/Mack bond is so strong that it even survived the reset button that overrode 53 years of history.
Memetic Mutation: "Can't Stop Singing" has undergone a bit of a revival on TikTok, where it is frequently used as background music for amateur skits.
Moment of Awesome: At the end of the sequel we learn Lela changed Wet Side Story into Lela, Queen of the Beach. She created a feminist movie in 1960s.
One-Scene Wonder: Justin Bieber makes a surprise cameo at the very end of the movie. The reaction it gets from the characters is priceless, especially if you don't like him. (It's actually a picture of him as someone's homescreen picture on their smartphone.)
Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: In the second movie, Lela and Mack are supposed to be friends and straight with boyfriends. However, Lela begins the movie basically ignoring her boyfriend Tanner and seemingly pinning over Mack. When she finds Mack's necklace, Lela readily abandons her whole life, including Tanner if he hadn't followed, just to see her again. When first arriving in the real world, she's overly excited to wear Mack's clothes and model for her, while acting like a teenage girl in front of her crush. Lela hangs out with Mack to the point that Tanner gets jealous, and then refuses to leave her new life and seemingly Mack behind. Lela ends the film by throwing Mack her jacket and winking at her. For Mack's part, she seems starstruck when she sees Lela look "normal" for the first time, with her mouth hanging open. She encourages Lela to rewrite the movie, and in the alternate timeline is obsessed with the movie Lela, Queen of the Beach even more than Brady was with Wet Side Story.
Signature Song: “Surf’s Up” from the first, “Gotta Be Me” from the second.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Look at the beginning and ending of the first film. It seems really eager to get going with the plot, then end it. We never really get too much development on Mack and Brady's relationship before she has to leave and break up with him. It only takes about 10 minutes for the real plot to get going. If they gave them a few more minutes to show their relationship at the beginning, then we would get a better idea of why Brady doesn't want to break up with her. Then, in the middle of the film, the plot of the Wet Side Story movie moves incredibly fast to get from the beginning to the end of the storyline. If they had 10 more minutes or so to the runtime for the middle, they could've fleshed out the story of the movie a bit more rather than having a boring middle part and just suddenly had Lela and Tanner have the regular plot of the movie dumped into their heads towards the end. They could've had Brady and Mack reenact the plot of the movie as a means to get them together, then have Lela and Tanner get together towards the end. Add a few quick scenes of that into the plot and the middle would have an even bigger part of moving the plot forward, and maybe have a few jokes thrown in too. Luckily, the second movie focuses directly on their relationship to balance this out.
The fact that Brady doesn't learn a lesson like Mack is kind of a waste, as he doesn't really get an arc through the movie like Mack. Thus, the movie kind of feels incomplete on that level. Have him learn that life isn't always fun in the sun and to let Mack make her own decisions and he'd be better for it as well. The fact that the first movie ends like this was what he was supposed to have gone through doesn't exactly help.
The fact that Camembert and Dr. Fusion weren't the focus of the sequel when they had such obvious sequel bait last lines is certainly this.
If they don't make a third movie, the fact that there's changes to the universe of the movies due to Lela changing Wet Side Story to Lela: Queen of the Beach surely had more repercussions than just Mack and Brady never meeting and erasing Brady's favorite movie from existence. The fabric of reality could be at stake or something for all we know, especially with all the plotholes that ending brings to mind.
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