The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Disney's Divinity
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

Post by Disney's Divinity »

supertalies wrote: Based on the casting of Ariel and Triton it does seem like this is gonna be a movie with colourblind casting (similar to 1997's Cinderella) so Noma and the other actor could easily play his parents.
That alone doesn't say that. For all we know, Ariel's mother was Black which would explain why Triton and Ariel look nothing alike.

Which, now that I think of it, is another deviation from the original property. There was always this recurring theme that Ariel and Triton were so much alike (Triton once having red hair, both being very stubborn, etc.). That's gone now, too. Especially if Ariel's mother turns out to be alive and on land somewhere, then she's clearly just like her mother both in appearance and behavior, not like Triton.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Disney's Divinity wrote:That alone doesn't say that. For all we know, Ariel's mother was Black which would explain why Triton and Ariel look nothing alike.

Which, now that I think of it, is another deviation from the original property. There was always this recurring theme that Ariel and Triton were so much alike (Triton once having red hair, both being very stubborn, etc.). That's gone now, too. Especially if Ariel's mother turns out to be alive and on land somewhere, then she's clearly just like her mother both in appearance and behavior, not like Triton.
Yeah, I guess they could explain it away like that. I do know that Halle Bailey's parents are both African-American though, so that's why I thought they were going with colourblind casting. I've also seen some names circulating online for actresses who might be playing Triton's other daughters and those actresses were of all kind of ethnicities (granted though, those rumours were never confirmed).

And I agree, it would be sad to lose that element of the story. I always liked that Ariel was more like Triton than both of them cared to admit.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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supertalies wrote:
And I agree, it would be sad to lose that element of the story. I always liked that Ariel was more like Triton than both of them cared to admit.
Same. I liked the idea that they were always locking horns was because they were so similar and that was also the reason Ariel was his favorite in a way.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Supertalies, I think you could be right about Carlotta and Grimsby being the King and Queen! I hope there's still a Max the dog, though.

Also, Eric marrying Vanessa was not him marrying a total stranger. He thinks she rescued him and sang to him and cared for him!
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Disney Duster wrote:Also, Eric marrying Vanessa was not him marrying a total stranger. He thinks she rescued him and sang to him and cared for him!
Well, to be fair Eric was under a spell so I don't think he was really thinking about it too much lol. But you're right.

I was thinking about it more from the perspective of his parents. It would make more sense if their son, the future king, chose a girl to marry that they've gotten to know and that they approve of (like Ariel, or Emily's character if she's indeed a servant or princess). They might not approve if he wanted to marry a girl he'd gotten to know literally the evening before.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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More set photos:

Halle Bailey & Jonah Hauer-King Seem to Be Filming Iconic 'Little Mermaid' Scene in These New Set Photos!
https://www.justjared.com/2021/06/29/ha ... et-photos/
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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That looks like a celebration to me, possibly a wedding? Not sure if Halle and Jonah are meant to be in the same scene as the people on the beach — they could be doing Kiss the Girl (although I really hope they keep nighttime lagoon setting). Also do we have merpeople in those beach pics???
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Yes, maybe they were shooting two separate scenes. I think the celebration has to be the wedding at the end because there are humans and merpeople posing together for the cameras. Now that I've seen all the photos, I've noticed there are several reveals:

- Noma's character also wears a tiara here though she has a different outfit, so she has to be a queen.

- There are several characters with the exact same uniform as the one we thought was a prince, so most likely they're palace guards or something and he's not royalty or a nobleman.

- There's a mermaid with blue hair, so it seems merpeople won't have realistic hair colors like in the original.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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supertalies wrote: Well, to be fair Eric was under a spell so I don't think he was really thinking about it too much lol.
I think they were referring to what Eric's justification to Grimsby would've been. Since Eric had been looking for the girl most of the movie before Vanessa enters the scene, she wasn't really a random girl.

Most of these developments make me roll my eyes. I'm pretty much at Mulan levels of hoping this flops now. I was kind of against hoping that before since I thought it might affect how the company treats the original film, even if this being awful has nothing to do with it (plus, I was kind of deluding myself into thinking it could still possibly be good despite all this)--but when it's bad, it's bad. I'm not going to spare it because it's tangentially related to the original film. Hopefully when they remake TLM again twenty years from now, they'll remember they're remaking the animated movie and not the horrid Broadway show. Blue hair and two Black people giving birth to a lily-white guy, just...ugh, God. :lol: :roll: Too bad Mary Poppins Returns didn't get that sequel to keep Marshall and Miranda far away from this.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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D82 wrote: think the celebration has to be the wedding at the end because there are humans and merpeople posing together for the cameras.
I think so as well.
D82 wrote:Noma's character also wears a tiara here though she has a different outfit, so she has to be a queen.
Do you think the Black man is the King or Grimsby? If he's the King, then why is he never shown with a crown?
D82 wrote:There are several characters with the exact same uniform as the one we thought was a prince, so most likely they're palace guards or something and he's not royalty or a nobleman.
I'm glad about that. I wasn't fond of the idea Eric having a brother.
D82 wrote:There's a mermaid with blue hair, so it seems merpeople won't have realistic hair colors like in the original.
There's no excuse then to not give Ariel bright red hair in post.
Disney's Divinity wrote:Blue hair and two Black people giving birth to a lily-white guy, just...ugh, God. :lol: :roll: Too bad Mary Poppins Returns didn't get that sequel to keep Marshall and Miranda far away from this.
I don't believe Marshall is responsible for the race-bending and the color-conscious casting. There's no indication from his past work that he particularly cares or is interested in that practice. I think this is just Disney's new company-wide policy. Sean Bailey, the president of production at Disney Studios, admitted to reserving roles for people of color and women from the script stage before sending them out to potential directors and ABC doesn't even consider scripts for pilots anymore if at least 50% of the characters aren't from marginalized communities. No individual director or producer has a say in that.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Then why didn't they do it on Maleficent, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast?
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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They did; just not for lead roles. Obviously, Disney has become more aggressive in that regard as the industry moved further in that direction.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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I think George Floyd's murder last year and the massive protests plays a big part in the aggressive shift to "Everyone must be PoC or we're not making it" approach they've taken company-wide. I still blame Marshall and Miranda for most of the changes here though; Miranda talked about how much he loved the Broadway show early on and no surprise this film seems more like the show than the film.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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thedisneyspirit wrote:A reminder that this movie is gonna flop hard in Asia and Latin America. Not one of us is gonna give this trash an audience. rotfl

All I see on Instagram is actual POC complaining that this is not their Ariel while tone-deaf whites scamper to defend their alien bobblehead and call ACTUAL POC racists. When will Americans realize the rest of the world doesn't share the same view on race as them and this marketing stunt is gonna backfire hard with foreign audiences who have an actual nuanced view of race that isn't strictly black or white.

Thank you! And it will. Disney and Hollywood should know by now that Twitter and some small but loud SJWs are not the world.

As you said, Latina America itself that has real diversity don´t care for this much less the rest of the world.

...I´m originally from Puerto Rico, moved to Spain and people here don´t share this Disney/Hollywood mentality.

Not to mention that it is an actual insult that Disney is claiming that their version of The Little Mermaid takes place in the Caribbean, say they want representation/to not culturally appropiate, film in Puerto Rico (unless that´s not a thing anymore but regardless- still is meant to take place in the Caribbean) and cast a random African American for Ariel.

If ANYTHING, they should have cast Queen Latifah as Ursula as she was PERFECT for the role, remained true to rest of the casting and added characters to the movie (like Jasmine handmaiden in Aladdin).

The Little Mermaid is my second favorite Disney movie and I can tell you I won´t be seeing this movie.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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It seems Flounder's design will be quite similar to the original: https://twitter.com/DlabrMidias/status/ ... wsrc%5Etfw

By the way, what do you guys think of the dress Ariel apparently will be wearing during "Kiss the Girl"? It's quite different from the animated one, isn't it?
Sotiris wrote:Do you think the Black man is the King or Grimsby? If he's the King, then why is he never shown with a crown?
That's something I've been wondering as well. I thought that maybe he doesn't wear it outside the palace, but I guess kings also wear their crowns when they're outside. Maybe he is Grimsby, as you say. That would explain why he wasn't with Eric in the water like Noma's character in the first photos and stayed at a distance. If he was his father, probably he would've also run towards him.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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A thought I'd had was that it could be Grimsby alongside the Queen, that perhaps there is no King and that the Queen has a romance with Grimsby throughout the film in the background, and then they get married when she gives Eric permission to marry Ariel or something like that. Who really knows.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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D82 wrote:By the way, what do you guys think of the dress Ariel apparently will be wearing during "Kiss the Girl"? It's quite different from the animated one, isn't it?
It looks like the remake’s take on Ariel’s pink dress. I always thought the original one was ugly, this one is better. The length of the dress is similar to the Broadway musical’s take on the pink dress, too.

I do hope we still get Ariel’s blue traveling dress though, or some take on it. Also her purple transformation gown but I think that one is less likely. Will they go with the poofy sleeve wedding dress (if there is still a wedding scene)? That dress was so 80’s but I think it must still be popular with children— Disney still produces new Ariel dolls using that wedding dress. Plus Princess Diana and her fashions are having a moment in pop culture right now and her wedding dress clearly inspired Ariel’s.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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I think it's ugly, no matter which dress it's replacing. It looks more white than pink. I suppose if you don't really like the original film, this one would be okay.

I never really loved any of Ariel's outfits like I do, say, Tiana's bayou wedding and white dresses, or Cinderella's pink and silver dresses. The wedding dress is probably my favorite of Ariel's, if I had to pick (and her "sails" dress because it's so silly). The seafoam dress is good when it's sparkling, otherwise a little basic. The pink one is alright. My favorite thing about it are the earrings and the shoulder puff-things that were meant to be like Snow White. The one I always hated was the blue dress.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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I didn't think it could be "Kiss the Girl" since it wasn't night. Whether it's replacing Ariel's blue sight-seeing dress or her pink dinner dress...that has got to be one of the ugliest dresses I've ever seen and I much prefer any her original animated dresses.
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Re: The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

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Disney's Divinity wrote:A thought I'd had was that it could be Grimsby alongside the Queen, that perhaps there is no King and that the Queen has a romance with Grimsby throughout the film in the background.
I wouldn't have an issue with that story change although I do think it's a bit strange to give Eric a mother but not a father. Perhaps they gave Eric only one parent to parallel Ariel's home life. Maybe the two of them will bond over losing a parent.
UmbrellaFish wrote:Also her purple transformation gown but I think that one is less likely.
That's arguably her most iconic outfit (and my personal favorite). It's part of her magical transformation. They'd be fools to not include it.
Disney Duster wrote:Whether it's replacing Ariel's blue sight-seeing dress or her pink dinner dress...that has got to be one of the ugliest dresses I've ever seen and I much prefer any her original animated dresses.
I agree. The design of the dress is really tacky, especially the bottom half, and the coral washes her out. The much-derided pink dress from the original is a million times better than this one. I think the Queen also wore a dress with a similar color palette.
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