The Little Mermaid Discussion

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MrXemnas1992
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by MrXemnas1992 »

Any news if ShopDisney's going to have new TLM plush to celebrate the 30th anniversary?
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by JeanGreyForever »

At my local Disney Store, they've been selling Max (the same one created for the Diamond Edition release) but that's the only "new" plush for TLM I've seen.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by Farerb »

This could have been hilarious.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by JeanGreyForever »

Honestly, I was never fond of that concept. Maybe it would have worked better when visualized in film but it felt overly campy at a point in the film where humor would just break the flow of the film. Ursula wasn't exactly a laughing matter by then anyway.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by Disney's Divinity »

farerb wrote:This could have been hilarious.
:lol:
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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The Little Mermaid Retold in Paper Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eZM7_xluRM
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Sotiris wrote:The Little Mermaid Retold in Paper Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eZM7_xluRM
That's cute.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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That was so cool!
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Imagination to Animation: The Little Mermaid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXL1NFFqop8
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Sotiris wrote:Imagination to Animation: The Little Mermaid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXL1NFFqop8
These videos are beautiful to watch.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by Disney Duster »

I still always wonder how they go from someone's rough drawings to other people's clean drawings and finished animation.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by Sotiris »

Andreas Deja revealed that he based Triton and Ariel's confrontation on the quarrels between his own father and sister.

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2019/09 ... story.html
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Oh, wow, that's really awesome! How interesting he got to use his real father and sister to make the scene so real and so powerful and so good!
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Sotiris wrote:The Little Mermaid Retold in Paper Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eZM7_xluRM
Like farerb said, cute.

I love seeing the work for Triton. The character balances so many qualities. He's powerful, overbearing, but still relatable with a great deal of humanity.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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As I watched The Little Mermaid Live! tonight, I thought some things, that could be bad, or could be ok, but I just had these negative thoughts...

Ariel needs a powerful kiss from a man to save her from hell with Ursula. And she made this happen to herself.

King Triton gives up the safety of all the rest of his daughters and his entire kingdom of the whole ocean just to save Ariel.

Killing Ursula is in line with the "kill the witch!" stabbing in fairy tales. In this movie it's even more problematic with killing an old woman with power to let the king with power rule again.

What do you guys think?
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by JeanGreyForever »

I don't really see any problems with your first and third issues. As for your second, you have a point there, but frankly the sisters have always been ciphers who only existed to serve as a contrast for Ariel and because they existed in the original fairy tale.

Speaking of which, I really liked how the early 90s novels for TLM really fleshed out the sisters. My personal favorites were Adella and Attina which is ironic, because Arista used to be my favorite from the TV show and Attina was always my least favorite because her appearance. Alana shockingly reminds me a lot of the original Little Mermaid character from the fairy tale.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Ok, well I'm glad that you, as a big fan of your favorite Disney movie, don't have problems with these. As long as you wouldn't make a deal with a sea witch to be turned into a miserable polyp for the rest of your life if you didn't get love from someone you didn't even know loved you back! lol I wouldn't do it. For King Triton I wouldn't do what he did, either, but he has the tougher call. Do you save one person because all life is precious, or do you protect the rest of the world and lose one person? The "kill the witch" thing can just be a bad message if you read it one way.

I never got to know Ariel's other sisters. I never was interested in the Little Mermaid comics unless they had Ursula in them. Or were they novels, not comics? Can you give me a link to what you are talking about? I never saw enough of the show to get a sense of the sisters, or maybe I just didn't care about them enough to notice, and if I did notice, I would have some favorites. Attina has an awful design, yes, lol.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Disney Duster wrote:Ok, well I'm glad that you, as a big fan of your favorite Disney movie, don't have problems with these. As long as you wouldn't make a deal with a sea witch to be turned into a miserable polyp for the rest of your life if you didn't get love from someone you didn't even know loved you back! lol I wouldn't do it. For King Triton I wouldn't do what he did, either, but he has the tougher call. Do you save one person because all life is precious, or do you protect the rest of the world and lose one person? The "kill the witch" thing can just be a bad message if you read it one way.

I never got to know Ariel's other sisters. I never was interested in the Little Mermaid comics unless they had Ursula in them. Or were they novels, not comics? Can you give me a link to what you are talking about? I never saw enough of the show to get a sense of the sisters, or maybe I just didn't care about them enough to notice, and if I did notice, I would have some favorites. Attina has an awful design, yes, lol.
Lol, that is sound advice. I agree that Triton was put in a tough position and probably for the sake of his kingdom, he made the wrong choice. I don't really see why the "kill the witch" storyline is so panned now because if Ursula was male, that wouldn't suddenly make Ursula's actions unacceptable or make Ursula a toxic character all of a sudden. And TLM shouldn't be criticized for this when Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (and Cinderella too to an extent) featured similar "witch" characters who met grisly ends.

The sisters were barely present in the show. Arista was the most prominent one as she had two episodes dedicated to her rivalry with Ariel which is also why most fans tend to like Arista the most because the other sisters were basically ciphers. Alana has one episode with Ariel where they go to Eel-ectric City but she had no personality or presence. The books I was referring to are these. http://cbl.orcein.net/thelittlemermaid/ ... novels.htm

I picked them all up on Amazon second-hand and I really enjoyed them. A lot of them don't focus on Ariel (although she's always in the story) but are from the point of view from one of the sisters and a few books focus on all the sisters equally which was great. I think every sister ended up having a book with a prominent role except maybe Aquata. Ursula appears in one of the books (take a guess which one lol).

I've read both comic series for the film as well. The original four-issue Peter David one and then the second series which was created by Marvel Comics and tied-in with the TV series so it had characters from the show like Urchin, The Evil Manta, Pearl, the Crab Scouts, the Lobster Mobster, etc.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

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Disney's Divinity wrote: I love seeing the work for Triton by Deja. The character balances so many qualities. He's powerful, overbearing, but still relatable with a great deal of humanity.
Seeing this post again, I wanted to add that—in part because of talking about Disney failing at villains these days in the TLM Live thread—I think one reason Ursula is such a successful villain is because Triton is so well-done. Triton himself is more than a bit frightening in how aggressive and forceful he is, which makes Ursula even more badass as a villain for not hesitating to take him on. I mean, the first moment he lays eyes on Ursula, he blasts her into a wall. :lol: And all she does is laugh.

I know I’ve often seen sayings like “A hero is only as good as his/her villain,” but I think it’s a more reciprocal relationship than that really. A villain isn’t satisfying if they don’t have a good character to fight against. That’s why the climax to Aladdin is one of the best Disney has, imo, not just because of how powerful Jafar is at that point but because Aladdin is such a smart, formidable, well-rounded character, too.
Last edited by Disney's Divinity on Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Little Mermaid Discussion

Post by Farerb »

Disney's Divinity wrote:
Disney's Divinity wrote: I love seeing the work for Triton by Deja. The character balances so many qualities. He's powerful, overbearing, but still relatable with a great deal of humanity.
Seeing this post again, I wanted to add that—in part because of talking about Disney failing at villains these days in the TLM Live thread—I think one reason Ursula is such a successful villain is because Triton is so well-done. Triton himself is more than a bit frightening in how aggressive and forceful he is, which makes Ursula even more badass as a villain for not hesitating to take him on. I mean, the first moment he lays on Ursula, he blasts her into a wall. :lol: And all she does is laugh.

I know I’ve often seen sayings like “A hero is only as good as his/her villain,” but I think it’s a more reciprocal relationship than that really. A villain isn’t satisfying if they don’t have a good character to fight against. That’s why the climax to Aladdin is one of the best Disney has, imo, not just because of how powerful Jafar is at that point but because Aladdin is such a strong, formidable character, too.
I agree. I think the dynamic between the protagonist and antagonist is something crucial for a film's success. I think that was one of the strengths of the earlier Renaissance films that the latter Renaissance films couldn't recreate for some reason (except The Hunchback of Notre Dame).
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