The Little Mermaid review

Since I reviewed The Little Mermaid Live for this blog, it only made sense for me to review The Little Mermaid’s original version as well. I don’t know yet if I will be able to review The Little Mermaid 2 or The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning. I can only hope to have them covered in future posts. I just don’t yet know where I could see them easily without shelling out money for Disney+. But it shouldn’t matter too much what goes on. All that I know for sure is that you can enjoy this review now.

We begin with a ship with workers singing on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. There is a man there who is sick. People talk about King Triton to Prince Eric and the others on the ship. They are certain that he is real. We follow a fish that escaped from the ship back to the ocean. It turns out that there are a bunch of merpeople and they are gathering at an underwater theater. Sebastian is asked if the performance will go well. He is sure of this, even as the youngest, Ariel, doesn’t show up to any of the practices. The six daughters sing about how they are the daughters of Triton. As Ariel is supposed to show up, they find her shell empty.

Ariel is meanwhile busy with her friend Flounder and is at a shipwreck. I think that Tarzan’s parents were on this ship after leaving Arendall with Elsa and Anna left behind. While Flounder is told to look out for sharks, he goes inside and they miss one swimming by. Ariel sees things in the wreckage that she puts in a bag and makes sure she has when she leaves after a shark tries to attack them. He gets stuck in part of a ring of sorts as Flounder and Ariel escape to the surface.

At the service, they see a seagull named Scuttle. He mistakes a fork for a comb or brush, calling it a dinglehopper. When given a pipe, he says that it is a snarfblast that is used to make music. The mention of music makes her remember the concert that she was supposed to be at. As she leaves, she is spied on by two fish said to be Flotsom and Jetsom by a sea witch who wants to take down King Triton.

While talking to her father and Sebastian, she tries to explain what happened. Flounder talks and slips that they had gone to the surface. Despite being sixteen, she says that she is not a child anymore. Do they reach legal age sooner down there? Her father angrily yells at her not to go to the surface again. He tells Sebastian to keep an eye on her. As he follows her, he sees her in a cavern where she has tons of treasures from the human world gather. She sings about wanting to be part of the human world, despite not knowing that much about it, such as referring to the objects as thingamabobs or other nondescript labels for various objects.

Sebastian reveals himself and tries to explain that she would be in trouble if her father knew about this. She gets distracted when a ship passes overhead and looks at the people inside, such as a dog named Max. This is where she sees Prince Eric for the first time. Scuttle is there and talks to her. On the ship, a man there reveals a statue of the prince. He reveals that he declined being with a princess. There is then a sudden storm that comes upon the ship.

Lightning strikes the boat causing fire to go everywhere. Many of the men on the ship abandon it right away. Eric goes back to save the dog and somehow runs through the fire without getting burned. The ship explodes, but Ariel takes him to safety. He sings to her leaving him with her beautiful voice in her head. He is able to make it to safety with some not believing that anyone was there with him. She is clearly in love with this prince. The sea witch notices this and we see that there are many people that she calls part of her collection that are gathered in strange forms down there with her.

Ariel’s sisters notice that she’s in love and they tell their father about it. Ariel dreams of live above the surface, but Sebastian sings to her about live in the ocean and how she should stay there with all of the life that is there under the sea with him. She leaves during the song. Sebastian is then called into where King Triton is at. Sebastian is nervous about the meeting. Triton says that Ariel is in love. Sebastian slips that she’s in love with a human and not a merman.

While at what might be treasure cove, she sees the statue of Eric from earlier. This is where Triton shows up and yells at her. He is mad that she saved a man’s life since there is supposed to be no contact between the human world and theirs. In his anger, he destroys her mementos of the human world. She had confessed his love of Eric to her father. Crying, which may not be possible underwater, Flotsom and Jetsom appear and tell her about Ursula, the sea witch. She refused the offer at first and they start to swim away. But she then leaves with them to see Ursula. Sebastian and Flounder follow her to where Ursula is where she considers this offer.

Ursula explains that she can make Ariel a human. I think that Ariel gets screwed by getting exactly what she wants. Ursula talks about the Poor Unfortunate Souls that she wants to help give better lives to. She then explains that Eric has to give Ariel a kiss of true love within three days. If Ariel can do this, she gets to be a human. If not, she turns back into a mermaid and belongs to Ursula. Ursula wants Ariel’s voice in exchange for this deal. Ariel signs the contract and is turned into a human. Ariel quickly makes it to the surface when she gets legs (and a vagina).

Eric is still obsessed with this woman (namely Ariel) and wonders where she is. Back on the beach, we see people gathered where Ariel is and talk about her new situation. They want to help her out since even Sebastian realizes that she would be completely miserable if she returned to the merworld. Eric and his dog find Ariel. He thinks that he found the woman, but isn’t sure since she can’t speak.

She is taken to the palace where people talk about her. Sebastian is there, shocked at all the seafood. At dinner, Ariel acts odd, not sure of many of the human customs. She uses the fork in her hair and blows through another man’s pipe that she borrows hoping to make music. This causes Eric to laugh which a servant there points out he hasn’t done in months. Sebastian, meanwhile, has to avoid becoming food when a chef there is making meals. He lives through it, but still winds up on a plate for dinner. This man is not quick enough eating it and the food wonders right off his plate. During the dinner conversation, he convinces Eric to take Ariel on a tour of the kingdom the next day.

Triton misses his daughter as there is no word on what happened to her or Sebastian. After a day out in the kingdom, Ariel enjoys some of what the humans act like, getting used to some of their customs. There is still no kissing by the end of the day. At night, she is taken on a boat ride. Her friends want to help her, but Scuttle doesn’t sing well. Sebastian, however, knows how to sing so he gets a lot of the other creatures there to sing how he should Kiss the Girl. They almost do, but Flotsom and Jetsom intervene and prevent the kiss from happening.

Concerned that things might be going to quickly, Ursula works up a spell to interject herself into more of the mist of what is going on. She uses Ariel’s voice to go after Eric himself. He’s still concerned about this mystery girl and might go after Ariel instead. As this new woman, Ursula has convinced Eric that she is the mystery girl and they plan to get married at sunset on a boat. Ariel is heartbroken over this. As the ship departs, Scuttle listens to Ursula sing and realizes that she’s in disguise. He tells the others about this as they chase after her and he brings in reinforcements of other animals.

While the vows are supposed to be going on, various animals attack Vanessa (the disguise that Ursula was in) and in this scuffle, a shell that she was using breaks which breaks her control of Eric and Ariel’s voice is returned to her. But the sun sets after Eric realizes that Ariel was always the right woman for him. Ariel is sent back to the sea as a mermaid when her father shows up to intervene. He can’t change the contract at first until Ursula convinces him to take his daughter’s place on it. Ursula gains control of the sea and uses its powers to attack Eric and Ariel. But Eric uses a boat to ram into Ursula which seems to kill her and it brings back the original form of all of Ursula’s victims.

Triton realizes that he has to let Ariel go so he turns her back into a human. She and Eric get married and both humans and merpeople gather for this event. She says that she loves her father as they all sail off into the clearly lit day and not stereotypical sunset.

It is easy to like this movie, even as a guy, even though there are flaws with it. It does seem like the two leads get together far too soon with no regard of how slowly things like this should move in the end. We don’t know why Ariel is so interested in the human world or why Triton forbids it the way it does. There was even a bit that College Humor did that pointed out that she should have dated merman and only after terrible dates with them would she go after humans. Still, the songs are all great and it is nice to see such a classic continue to last.

That’s all I can think of for putting in here regarding this post. I hoped that you liked the review of it and learned a lot from it as well. I also hope that it was different enough from the review that I did on the live-ish version of it. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.