After reading your posts about TLM 2023, I gotta admit, I don’t quite know what to think about it. I kinda liked how they tried to expand on the world a little bit and show us more of Eric’s life and personality, and how they tried to add some similarities between him and Ariel so the two could have something to bond over. (“Tried” being the key word there.)
But on the other hand, you’re right that the movie just came off as really disingenuous. It was clear that there wasn’t really any love or passion behind it, and it was just made to sell toys and give Disney something to point to when they’re accused of not being progressive. (No hate to Halle Bailey, mind you. I’m sure she did the best she could with what she was given.)
Actually, the fact that they added Eric’s passion for collecting like Ariel’s isn’t what makes me the most angry, because I like that they at least TRIED to bring them closer in some way (even though, as I’ve said in many posts, Ariel and Eric already had a lot in common). What makes me the most angry is that fans of that ugly LA movie are going crazy over it as if it were a brilliant idea and as if it “ImPrOvEd” the original (unfortunately, I’ve had REALLY bad experiences on TikTok, but that was to be expected, considering the kind of app it is), without EVEN realizing that it was simply a lazy work, because Disney simply copied and pasted Ariel’s personality onto Eric, as if they took what was already good about the original character and could simply expand on it, and decided instead to throw all the work of the original animators and screenwriters about Eric’s character in particular in the trash.
Another thing that makes me REALLY angry is the backstory they gave to Eric, which in my opinion is completely nonsense. Not only to make him even closer to Ariel, copying and pasting her family situation onto him (so again, another a lazy job), but also to try to make Eric appear “tormented” and “melancholic”, when in reality animated Eric is not like that, he’s completely different. He’s sassy, funny, sarcastic, and charming, BUT he has some problems too, problems that, even if they’re merely hinted at in the movie, are greatly expanded in the Broadway musical.
Did they want to make Eric a little more melancholic by giving him problems in the LA movie? Well, Eric is an 18-year-old boy who likes being a sailor, but unfortunately he was born a prince, so being royalty, he probably gets constantly scolded for spending too much time with sailors, who are lower class than him. At 18, Eric finds himself having to be a prince without any guidance, except for Grimsby (we never see his parents in the film; they’re probably d3ad), and as we see in the scene where the butler presents him with the statue as a birthday present, that gift makes him anxious, because Eric depicted in the statue is very different from the real one: Eric’s statue has a determined look, a proud pose, is elegantly dressed, and seems ready to draw his sword from its scabbard to defend his kingdom. However, the real Eric is completely different: he loves spending time on ships helping the sailors so much that he even dresses like one, is very humble, and even allows his servants to call him by his name, BUT Eric’s version portrayed in the statue is how his WHOLE kingdom sees him. Furthermore, being a prince, at only 18 years old he is constantly pressured into marriage, so much so that some people even want him to simply marry through an arranged marriage, without actually loving the girl. Instead, he would like to find true love, his soulmate, someone with whom he can share passions and interests, so he is obviously scared of all this, BUT he STILL tries not to show it: he thanks Grimsby for the gift, so as not to make him sad (literally a prince who puts aside his true feelings to make his butler happy), and when the butler slightly reproaches him for not having married yet, even though Eric has not yet found what he is looking for, he still appears quite cheerful, remaining firm in his beliefs and simply trying to explain his reasons, therefore remaining faithful to his values, but in my opinion, at that moment he was simply trying to be optimistic, so as not to burden the butler with his own worries, because in fact, a few seconds later, when Eric realizes that he has not yet found the girl he is looking for, his mood suddenly worsens, and that is the VERY first moment in which we see him truly sad and discouraged, that is the first moment in which we see signs of giving up, and precisely for that reason, Grimsby at that moment tries to cheer him up, saying that maybe he’s not searched the girl enough, precisely because he understood all the pressures Eric must endure at just 18 years old. Sure, Eric’s character is more expanded in the musical, but all these reflections came to me simply by rewatching the original film many times (actually, I have much more to say, but I’ve tried to summarize as much as possible here). I mean, did they REALLY want to make Eric a slightly more melancholic character and show us more of his personality? They could have easily expanded on all these problems that are already noticeable (albeit barely) in the original movie, instead of making things up randomly. Like, he has SO MANY problems in the 1989 movie and they completely ignore the WHOLE thing.
Thank you for getting my point. Comparing LA The Little Mermaid to LA Snow White, which came out immediately after, it’s obvious that they at least TRIED to make “something good” with LA The Little Mermaid, but the finished product is still “decent” (and I’m ALSO being generous with my judgment here).
As for Halle Bailey, sadly, I didn’t like her acting overall, although I must say she was excellent in some scenes (especially when it came to communicating with her eyes in the parts where Ariel was voiceless), but unfortunately those scenes I’m talking about are only A FEW compared to the WHOLE movie. What makes me most angry, however, isn’t Halle Bailey (because she’s still young and she AT LEAST tried her best, exactly like Jonah), but Disney ITSELF. THEY decided all those nonsense changes and THEY chose her to play Ariel precisely because they knew that casting choice would spark SO MUCH controversy, and therefore bring publicity to the movie—yet another LA movie that people were fed up with, and they KNEW that—and then what did they do? They STILL made a mediocre movie, with cheap special effects, ugly settings, and above all, cheap costumes and hairstyles. I mean, they didn’t EVEN make her stand out AT ALL.
For example, it may be an unpopular opinion, but as a Harry Potter fan, I didn’t even like Emma Watson in LA Beauty and the Beast, both for her acting and her singing (full of autotune, ewww), just as I didn’t like Naomi Scott in Aladdin either (I thought her acting was SO flat, exactly like Mena Massoud), BUT the budget, the special effects, the costumes, and the hairstyles for those LA films were CLEARLY much superior to those of LA The Little Mermaid. The fact is that they simply wanted to stir up controversy to draw audiences to the theater, so they knew people would see the movie anyway, precisely because they didn’t EVEN have the slightest desire to put in the effort from the beginning of the making of that movie. In my opinion, when you make a movie (or something else, any work of art), you either do it by giving it your all, or you don’t make it AT ALL, because otherwise ONLY barely mediocre results come out, like in this case.
Sorry if I seem kinda angry here, but talking about WHAT that movie could have REALLY been always makes me SO angry (that’s exactly why I stopped reblogging those posts of TLM LA fans, I said what I had to say, I was just ruining my days by doing that). When I went to the theater, I had really high expectations, and after watching it, the movie was “kinda” (pretty…? Idk) in my opinion, but I was also REALLY disappointed about all these nonsense things and changes, and rewatching the original movie over and over again in the months that followed only reinforced my opinions and disappointment.
