The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

[carolinakid]

She looks more like Medusa than Ariel on that book cover. Yuck!

[D82]

Odd comment: I actually know a black guy who IS a natural redhead. His hair comes in pretty orange, like most redheads, and he much more dark skinned than Halle Bailey. So her hair color is not impossible... but yes, rare.

That's really interesting. I remember I looked Black natural redheads up online to see if they existed and I found out they did, even though it's quite rare, as you say. There are redhead people of every race, actually. But in the images I saw they had lighter skin than most Black people (apparently it's a physical characteristic common to all red-haired people along with the freckles), so it's interesting the guy you know is more dark skinned than Halle.

In my opinion, in this version where some of Ariel's sisters have pink and purple hair, they could've given Ariel bright red hair if they had wanted to, but perhaps they took into consideration she has to pass as a human when she's in Eric's kingdom and that's why they decided her hair should have a naturalistic red hue. I believe we already discussed this and somebody said her hair could've changed color when she transformed, but I think that would've been too complicated. People would've wondered why she suddenly looked different. They could've explained it in the movie, but I think it would have seemed a detail too small to mention.

There's a new Target exclusive cover of the book:

Thanks for posting! And welcome to the forum! I love your username, by the way.

Welcome, Lele, too!

[Lele]

Thank you D82 after lurking for so long I finally decided to create an account

I've seen this screen online that I don't think I saw here, I guess it's the Jodi cameo?

[D82]

Wow, it has to be! Thanks for posting!

Thank you D82 after lurking for so long I finally decided to create an account

I'm glad you did.

[Disney's Divinity]

I'm glad a cameo is confirmed. At least the $7-10 spent to see this in theaters won't be entirely wasted.

[Disney Duster]

Thank you, Lele. Glad to see Jodi in this. And I LOVE Ariel's blue dress!

[lord-of-sith]

I don't mind the color of Ariel's hair in this, at least it's "red." I found Amber Heard's bright red wig in Aquaman super distracting (but that could also have been because it was obviously synthetic hair) so I'm glad at least I won't have to look at something like that for 90 minutes.

[Disney Duster]

Why thank you for saying something in agreement with what I said, lord-of-sith! Finally someone with sense! JK love you guys.

[Vlad]

Her outfit makes me think of Eliza Doolittle

It's great she makes a cameo though.

[carolinakid]

You would never guess Ariel is black from the back if that is indeed she. The skin on her arm is the same shade as Jodi’s. Makes me wonder what’s the point...

And yes, my first thought was Eliza Doolittle also.

[DisneyFan09]

First image of Sebastian:

Oh my God! He looks even worse than Tamatoa from Moana! And yes, I found Tamatoa as the epitome of a bad character design for a crab.

[lord-of-sith]

You would never guess Ariel is black from the back if that is indeed she. The skin on her arm is the same shade as Jodi’s. Makes me wonder what’s the point...

The point is she's a tremendous singer and (probably) a charismatic actress. Claiming her casting is pointless because of an extremely low-res photo where she's facing away from the camera is a stretch even for this thread.

[Disney's Divinity]

Great singers who have red hair and blue eyes do exist. The only point was insulating the film from criticism, because everything about this movie will be forgotten four months after its release like every other remake. Remakes don't have legacies, they only exist to make money and re-vitalize the original films' brands (ie, helping them make more money in re-releases, merchandise, etc. likewise)--and if they can't even do that because they insisted on changing everything to the point everybody hates it, what is the point?

Tiana (and soon, Asha) are characters that will actually have a legacy. Not that they're Disney's only diverse princess characters (Mulan, Mirabel, Raya, etc.), but as far as Black characters specifically go, original products will always have more impact. There's greater risk in original products, but also greater reward.

[lord-of-sith]

So if the remakes don't have lasting value no matter what, then what's the harm in giving a black actress more visibility and a nice pay check? Seems like that's even more incentive to change it up. I don't think it's at all accurate that casting a black actress has "shielded" the movie from criticism, I mean just look at the backlash and vitriol the movie's getting in this very thread! Casting a black actress is a huge risk for this movie commercially, not a safe choice by any means, and the reactions here prove it.

[Disney's Divinity]

They probably thought whatever risk wouldn't outweight the property already being successful in the past to keep it from doing poorly. I imagine they assumed the backlash would just be along the fringe, while the casuals wouldn't care and the media circus played defense for them. They didn't expect a backlash from a sizeable number of casuals seeing through the calculated bait-and-switch of these last few remakes. Their hesitancy in debuting a full trailer seems to say they know they bit off more than they could chew at this point. After all, unlike the other Fab Four TLM did flop on Broadway when they screwed it up, so it's not like it's a property that can 100% guaranteed withstand a massive amount of bad decisions like this although it still could. I'd argue this looks even worse than the musical from what's been revealed of it so far.

As for the first part of your post--the value is in maximizing the brand potential of the original properties. They certainly managed that with Aladdin. Changing the films to the point they're not even recognizable and not a 'remake' at all has pretty much the opposite effect of what the intended purpose was, imo, when they were in the hot streak with these. That's why it's not shocking the remakes have been showing diminishing returns the past three years as they've become more and more unrecognizable between Cruella, Mulan[/i], now TLM.

[Farerb]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpWBzlqPvrB ... MyMTA2M2Y=

[Disney's Divinity]

That looks really cute!

EDIT: I was looking through Distracker on Twitter last night, and they had the pop at another angle and I was like, ew, what is with the tail??? The bottom half is pink slime or something. My first thought was this must be what FastFins is. Or they turned the merfolk into something selkie-ish? (That would fit with the whole West Side Story-esque changes to the plot here for the humans to know mermaids exist and hate them. ) It could be they made her remain a mermaid until she gets on land and then her tail changes into legs there. I'll miss the moment of Ursula laughing as Ariel nearly drowns though.

[blackcauldron85]

^ I'm assuming this is what you saw?
https://mobile.twitter.com/DisTrackers/ ... 6855980032

[Disney's Divinity]

Yeah, that's the one.

[Farerb]

Better images: