The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

[Farerb]

The movie will be 2 hours and 15 minutes long.

[Marce82]

Gee.... 2:15 runtime... for a movie that can be told beautifully in 1:25.... sounds ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous: that drawing with her "standing" with her fish tail holding the ship's rudder... ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Is there no gravity or balance in this world?? I guess if they really wanted her to stand on her fish tail, there would have been some (questionably) plausible ways for her to do it... the way it is shown in that illustration is absurd.
This movie lost me as an audience member. Oh wait... it never had me.

Plus: that picture of her standing next to Eric by the... pile of wood? She is in a light blue dress... HOW SHORT IS SHE?!?!?!? Did Ursula give her the legs "half off"????

[MrXemnas1992]

So the internet spends literal decades bashing Ariel as a "brat who whines and cries and gets what she wants despite taking no responsibility for her actions"

...and disney tried to fix that, so now the internet is saying "Ariel is a woke girl-boss! What's the point of Eric if Ariel defeats Ursula?!?!"


The moral of the story is that people are dumb and are going to complain no matter what. >_>

[MrXemnas1992]

Gee.... 2:15 runtime... for a movie that can be told beautifully in 1:25.... sounds ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous: that drawing with her "standing" with her fish tail holding the ship's rudder... ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Is there no gravity or balance in this world?? I guess if they really wanted her to stand on her fish tail, there would have been some (questionably) plausible ways for her to do it... the way it is shown in that illustration is absurd.
This movie lost me as an audience member. Oh wait... it never had me.

It's a wonky illustration, but most likely she's leaning against the wheel. Also fun fact? Fish tails are super muscular.

[Lele]

So the internet spends literal decades bashing Ariel as a "brat who whines and cries and gets what she wants despite taking no responsibility for her actions"

...and disney tried to fix that, so now the internet is saying "Ariel is a woke girl-boss! What's the point of Eric if Ariel defeats Ursula?!?!"


The moral of the story is that people are dumb and are going to complain no matter what. >_>

Whoever kills Ursula doesnt change the fact that Ariel is indeed a brat who gave up her voice and put her family and people in danger for a man she didnt even speak to. But that's the whole plot and her character, people love her character despite her flaws, and unless they don't end up together nothing will fix that.

Besides the whole story is about her discovering the human world,not even knowing what's a fork. But she suddenly knows how to navigate a whole ship out of nowhere, while Eric who has been on ships his whole life just stands and watch? this change doesn't fix anything tbh

[carolinakid]

That reminds me.... I always wondered If Ariel didn’t know what a fork was or how to use it, how in hell do the merfolk eat their meals? With their hands? Maybe they use some form of chopsticks ?

That’s why,imo, it’s nuts to obsess over fairy tale details. I just enjoy them as they are...

[MrXemnas1992]

So the internet spends literal decades bashing Ariel as a "brat who whines and cries and gets what she wants despite taking no responsibility for her actions"

...and disney tried to fix that, so now the internet is saying "Ariel is a woke girl-boss! What's the point of Eric if Ariel defeats Ursula?!?!"


The moral of the story is that people are dumb and are going to complain no matter what. >_>

Whoever kills Ursula doesnt change the fact that Ariel is indeed a brat who gave up her voice and put her family and people in danger for a man she didnt even speak to. But that's the whole plot and her character, people love her character despite her flaws, and unless they don't end up together nothing will fix that.

Besides the whole story is about her discovering the human world,not even knowing what's a fork. But she suddenly knows how to navigate a whole ship out of nowhere, while Eric who has been on ships his whole life just stands and watch? this change doesn't fix anything tbh

It's not rocket science to "use wheel to direct pointy ship into big octopus lady"...

also the bad-faith criticism you just spat out is the exact reason WHY disney went for this new ending, so please sit down.

you cannot seriously complain that ariel "doesn't take responsibility" in the original, yet still be angry if she does take responsibility in the remake.

disney addressed these complaints. this is the monster you all created.

[Disney's Divinity]

Whoever kills Ursula doesnt change the fact that Ariel is indeed a brat who gave up her voice and put her family and people in danger for a man she didnt even speak to. But that's the whole plot and her character, people love her character despite her flaws, and unless they don't end up together nothing will fix that.

You know, when I was watching the Aladdin remake the other day, the part where Aladdin apologizes to the Sultan and Jasmine after Jafar is handled made me think of the eternal criticism of Ariel jeopardizing the sea kingdom by being dumb and all. It's true that Aladdin in the original film (not the remake) does similarly endanger the Sultan and Jasmine--Jafar could only get to full power through Aladdin finding the lamp for him, and then Aladdin brings it right to the palace because getting Jasmine is priority #1--but puts himself first and has never really been criticized for it online the way Ariel is, and that's considering the people he endangers, the Sultan and Jasmine, are largely more innocent than Triton (who hates humans so much he wouldn't care if one drowned and is a person from whom Ariel is trying to escape). And Aladdin even has the moniker of "Diamond of the Rough," meaning he's meant to have a special / kinder personality whereas Ariel is largely just an adolescent going through typical growing pains.

Maybe some of the difference in response could ne because Aladdin displays some guilt about lying before Jafar steals the lamp as well as the fact he plays a larger role in defeating Jafar (he cleans up the mess he created)? Whereas Ariel causes all the problems and then depends on Triton to fix it for her and Eric to save her afterwards. Still, the different response over the years to Aladdin and Ariel (as well as the differently constructed finales, as far as Aladdin doing everything and Ariel doing nothing) is definitely layered through gendered expectations.

Anyway, Ariel saving the day through realistic means considering she doesn't have legs at the time isn't some impossible hoop for them to jump through. Having her steer the ship was dumb. Since they decided to keep the Triton and Ursula are brother and sister thing from the musical, they could've kept the part about Ursula's shell being something equivalent to the trident (that both items were inherited from their father). I believe Ursula thought the shell was useless or something? They could've had Ursula simply never having comprehended the shell's power because she was too focused on the trident, something like that--perhaps the shell is a protective / defensive power whereas the trident is destructive / offensive. Then Ursula discards the shell once she has the trident seeing as she always found it useless, Ariel finds it when she's at the bottom of the whirlpool and uses it to reflect a blast from the trident back at Ursula or something like that. IDK, they wouldn't even have to use the shell, it wasn't that complicated to find a way for Ariel to save herself that wasn't dumb and also kept the epic vibe of Ursula's death.

Honestly, if they wanted to go with something as silly as her steering the ship while having no legs, they might've as well owned the ridiculousness of it all. The human item people most associate with Ariel's curiosity is a fork, right? Perhaps have the two duke it out somehow with a fork v. the trident.

[Sotiris]

Honestly, if they wanted to go with something as silly as her steering the ship while having no legs, they might've as well owned the ridiculousness of it all. The human item people most associate with Ariel's curiosity is a fork, right? Perhaps have the two duke it out somehow with a fork v. the trident.

Maybe Ariel should just stab her with a fork then like in Once Upon a Time.

[Lele]

Whoever kills Ursula doesnt change the fact that Ariel is indeed a brat who gave up her voice and put her family and people in danger for a man she didnt even speak to. But that's the whole plot and her character, people love her character despite her flaws, and unless they don't end up together nothing will fix that.

You know, when I was watching the Aladdin remake the other day, the part where Aladdin apologizes to the Sultan and Jasmine after Jafar is handled made me think of the eternal criticism of Ariel jeopardizing the sea kingdom by being dumb and all. It's true that Aladdin in the original film (not the remake) does similarly endanger the Sultan and Jasmine--Jafar could only get to full power through Aladdin finding the lamp for him, and then Aladdin brings it right to the palace because getting Jasmine is priority #1--but puts himself first and has never really been criticized for it online the way Ariel is, and that's considering the people he endangers, the Sultan and Jasmine, are largely more innocent than Triton (who hates humans so much he wouldn't care if one drowned and is a person from whom Ariel is trying to escape). And Aladdin even has the moniker of "Diamond of the Rough," meaning he's meant to have a special / kinder personality whereas Ariel is largely just an adolescent going through typical growing pains.

Maybe some of the difference in response could ne because Aladdin displays some guilt about lying before Jafar steals the lamp as well as the fact he plays a larger role in defeating Jafar (he cleans up the mess he created)? Whereas Ariel causes all the problems and then depends on Triton to fix it for her and Eric to save her afterwards. Still, the different response over the years to Aladdin and Ariel (as well as the differently constructed finales, as far as Aladdin doing everything and Ariel doing nothing) is definitely layered through gendered expectations.

Anyway, Ariel saving the day through realistic means considering she doesn't have legs at the time isn't some impossible hoop for them to jump through. Having her steer the ship was dumb. Since they decided to keep the Triton and Ursula are brother and sister thing from the musical, they could've kept the part about Ursula's shell being something equivalent to the trident (that both items were inherited from their father). I believe Ursula thought the shell was useless or something? They could've had Ursula simply never having comprehended the shell's power because she was too focused on the trident, something like that--perhaps the shell is a protective / defensive power whereas the trident is destructive / offensive. Then Ursula discards the shell once she has the trident seeing as she always found it useless, Ariel finds it when she's at the bottom of the whirlpool and uses it to reflect a blast from the trident back at Ursula or something like that. IDK, they wouldn't even have to use the shell, it wasn't that complicated to find a way for Ariel to save herself that wasn't dumb and also kept the epic vibe of Ursula's death.

Honestly, if they wanted to go with something as silly as her steering the ship while having no legs, they might've as well owned the ridiculousness of it all. The human item people most associate with Ariel's curiosity is a fork, right? Perhaps have the two duke it out somehow with a fork v. the trident.

I don't see the parallels between Aladdin and Ariel. Some poor guy from the slums who doesn't even have enough to eat fulfilling a task hoping it will get him rich doesnt sound the same to me as a daughter of a king making foolish decisions for a man she barely met. And the sultan isn't his family, he doesn't owe him anything.

The gendered problem here is that Aladdin has to rise up in order to meet Jasmine, becoming a rich prince and all and even if it's through magic, who cares? It's in a context of a monarchy. While Ariel not only loses her voice, she's about to give up her whole life if things don't work, becoming a noone without even having a voice and only counting one some miracle that he will fall in love with her in three days. They are too different to me, I can't put them together.

[Disney's Divinity]

But when Aladdin has the lamp, he's already never going to starve again; he puts Jasmine in danger because he's in love with her, not to get food or money.

[Marce82]

Speaking of ridiculous: that drawing with her "standing" with her fish tail holding the ship's rudder... ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Is there no gravity or balance in this world?? I guess if they really wanted her to stand on her fish tail, there would have been some (questionably) plausible ways for her to do it... the way it is shown in that illustration is absurd.
This movie lost me as an audience member. Oh wait... it never had me.

It's a wonky illustration, but most likely she's leaning against the wheel. Also fun fact? Fish tails are super muscular.

The issue is not the musculature in the tail. I said there could be plausible ways she could stand herself up using the strength of her tail, but it would look nothing like that illustration. In that picture, laws of gravity, balance and logic have flown out the window.
Even if she was leaning against the wheel, her tail would NOT be in that curved shape if it's being used to prop herself up.

[lord-of-sith]

I have found this thread (just like most threads on this forum) very useful for finding the most up-to-date info on new Disney movies. But boy does it feel like this one has really lost the plot. It's like a continuous rotation of "something new and vague is revealed" (i.e. a toy or a book illustration)...."people take it as literally as possible and complain about minute details"...."something else is released showing the first thing wasn't fully accurate"...cycle starts over.

Prime example being Ursula's tentacles. When the doll was first leaked, people were having meltdowns over the design because the tentacles were small on the doll. When the trailer was released the tentacles were shown to be huge (even bigger than the animated version). The same thing is happening with that illustration of Ariel driving the boat. It's a drawing in a kids book! It's obviously going to look different in the finished film. All that drawing tells us is what is literally going to happen, not how it's exactly going to look. Same thing with the Ursula description. Complaints that suddenly she's not modeled after an octopus because a cereal box description says so? Just ignore what she actually looks like (basically a carbon copy of the animated version minus some irrelevant details) because of a caption probably written by an intern.

I agree with MrXemnas92 that the nitpicking is really going overboard here. Are we really having conversations as to why Ariel doesn't know how to use a fork? It's because it's funny to watch her brush her hair with a fork! It's not that deep. Just like how all the dancing forks in Beauty and the Beast don't have human equivalents, it's just fun and magical to see! Requiring perfect logic (i.e. how Ariel could stand on her own tail) is sucking the fun out of a children's fairy tale.

The movie can still be bad, but it won't be because Ariel balancing on her tail "doesn't make sense."

[Disney's Divinity]

You're right, it won't be bad because Ariel standing on her tail to drive a boat "doesn't make sense," it'll be more because "it's stupid."

Anyway, Halle Bailey is supposed to be on That's My Jam (one of Jimmy Fallon's game shows) in the next week or so. I would've watched anyway to see Adam Lambert.

[Farerb]

[Disney's Divinity]

[DisneyFan09]

A new TV spot with some new footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqkcMwwInjU.

[Farerb]

It sounds like she's singing "smiling an' me" instead of "smiling at me".

[Sotiris]

You're right. How come no one noticed this during the recording? That's incredibly sloppy. Where's the quality control?

[carolinakid]

Poor diction...