Studio: Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Feature Animation
Watched on 13/06/20
***SPOILERS***
This film is considered a classic. I can appreciate that but I would argue that it shouldn't be. It feels a lot more like a stepping stone to me - Disney and its directors were still tweaking the formula with The Little Mermaid and only got it right a few films after.
The place where this is most obvious is with the story and the storytelling. The premise of the whole thing is that Ariel wants to be part of the human world. That's fine and the story plays out as such (nothing wrong there) but really, it isn't clear enough why she wants to be part of it. Literally because she finds shiny things on the ocean floor? The other side of this is that she has a really great home life and is even the star of the show in Sebastian's concerts - why wouldn't she want to be part of her own world? Compare this to Beauty and the Beast, where everybody in the town very vocally communicates how much they dislike Belle. She has a very clear driver for why should wants to seek something new. (Also Beauty and the Beast was about Belle's intelligence, not outward appearance, yet the Little Mermaid literally removes Ariel's voice a to try and make her 'win' a man with her looks. Yuck.). Another thing that wasn't really driven home enough was why King Triton is so against mixing with the humans. Having something like an opening sequence where the audience actually sees a tragedy occur while a young Triton watches on would not only make the divide between the two species more clear, it would also make the audience understand Triton's perspective a lot more. Last point on this, they should really have focused a lot more on Ariel's voice; it being the reason she's the star of the show, it being what makes Eric so fascinated with her and it truly being something special to and about her. When Ursula asks for it as part of the deal, it doesn't really hold much weight.
Another thing that definitely was a learning experience was the music (and its use). You can hear that the composition is great but the songs aren't as powerful as they are in films like Mulan. Also, they don't always add a lot to the story. For example, 'Under the Sea' is a bop, straight up, but if you were to give a synopsis of the story, you probably wouldn't even mention Sebastian trying to convince Ariel how good the sea is. Also it sounds like it laid the foundation for some of the songs in the Lion King. Similarly, the very French chef's song was obviously later adapted into 'Be Our Guest'. See? Stepping stone.
We see the same thing with the characters. As mentioned, Triton is just a straight up abusive and unlikeable parent. They got it really wrong with him so that they could make Mufasa the incredible parent character he is. Conversely, Ursula is pretty damn brilliant. They did really well with her and from what I can tell, carried all of her appealing qualities as a villain and poured them into Scar. She would have been even better though if we'd understood more about her plot and why she wants what she wants. Her song was also great. Character design was actually really good across the board. Colours were all bold and distinct and you could really infer a lot about the characters just off how they looked. Although I found Ariel a bit hard to connect with, her design is unquestionably iconic. Her introduction to the film with that bright red hair shows exactly why. Character design is probably one thing they didn't have to fine tune too much.
Lastly, art and animation. Having seen so many first passes and pencil tests for this film, I was really expecting a Glen Keane masterclass from the first second 'til the last. That really wasn't the case though. The animation itself is definitely great but there are as many seemingly low effort parts as there are parts that really amaze you. I'm also starting to realise that I really dislike animation without shading; there's lots of it in this film. Worst of all though, I would even blaspheme and say there were some parts where they seemed to break character models/show inconsistent volumes. I also found the art style really weird. Could just be a personal thing but I found the colours in the early underwater scenes really gloomy and depressing and even disliked some of the background art. Similarly, the art styles of the characters were a bit strange. In particular, Triton looked a bit like something out of Ralph Bakshi's bizarre LotR film. Again, I appreciate that absolute masters of the craft animated this film but I don't think they'd call this their masterpiece.
Like with a lot of these reviews, I'm really glad I've seen the film now but have to say it wasn't that amazing. 'Kiss the Girl' is pretty problematic too.
