[zitagirl]

So after months I finally decided to watch this remake on Disney+and... very mixed on it, although I did find it slightly better than the Aladdin remake back in 2019 (this opinion might change as I'm about to watch that movie again with some friends).

Funnily, unlike for LA Aladdin, I actually enjoyed the second half more here than the first half which actually surprised me, given that by the time I got to the deal part, I was kinda zoned out due to how most stuff felt either rushed or under developed compared to the animated movie (and yes, those did impact my overall enjoyment of the movie).

Now what I liked the most was... Grisby! No I'm not joking. I legit found him the best character by far. They emphasised his supportive side more compared to the original and that made him so much enjoyable with him basically playing wingman for Eric and Ariel. Definitely he's got the best out of the longer run time out of every characters in the movie in my opinion.

Second thing I liked was them actually spending a good chunk of time with Ariel and Eric. Overall those scenes actually worked for me, even if the movie kinda cheated at some parts with giving Eric basically the same personality as Ariel with same interests (just mirrored) and situation with his mother. Other than that, it's definitely welcome addition and definitely helped me enjoy the movie more.

Ursula here was just... alright. I have really not much to say other than... thank god she was done better than Jafar in LA version!

Sadly though, that's where my positives kinda end because... I'm not exactly happy with what they did to the characters, mainly Triton and Sebastian although they were hurt by different reasons in my opinion.

I will start with Triton cause he's much easier to pin down in terms of what1s wrong with him and that is the acting. I know the actor is talented but seriously? Couldn't he be bothered to act at least similar to how Triton was originally? Not once did I felt him be either intimating or be an actual caring but flawed father in the whole movie. The only time I saw a bit of emoting was at the very end when they hugged and even that was a slight improvement.

Now Sebastian is more complicated because on paper, his arc the same and he does have the same beats as the original, but there's 1 little thing that really hurts this arc this time: they removed quite a lot of his scenes with Ariel from the first half with really only leaving Under the Sea there. He's complete absent from scenes like Part of Your World, when Ariel goes up to the ship and even when Ariel saves Eric (technically at the last 1 here's there, but never interacts with Ariel).

This change caused for me at least to not really feel the supposed evolution from simply following Ariel out of duty to actually helping her cause he can see what she truly wants. It makes some of the dialogue where he actually starts to change to come off as hollow (also does not help that they basically used dialogues from 2 completely different scenes from the animated movie that were like 5-6 minutes apart from each other).

Weirdly instead they focused more on the bonding "friendship" between Sebastian and Scuttle which well... was a weird choice imo and honestly didn't really needed. I simply did not enjoy their comedy with Scuttlebutt easily being the most annoying part in the whole movie.

As for the new songs... I liked For the First Time in Forever, but that's more due to Halle's singing than because I actually liked it in the movie. Rather not speak about the other 2.

So there's some creative choices I was not fond of at all and definitely hurt my enjoyment of the movie such as... making Ariel seemingly stronger and more independent by basically altering all the scenes where she got help in the original movie. 2 example: When she turns human and needs to swim up to the surface and when she singlehandedly stirs a ship to kill Ursula.

I have nothing against female empowerment but those 2 changes felt really forced for me. It's not a weakness to sometimes getting some help (least my mother taught me so) and in the first scene especially it's understandable that she may need help as she doesn1t know how to use her legs yet.

The second scene felt silly cause this basically robbed Eric from giving back the favor (Ariel saving him), showing Triton and other mermaids that humans can actually be good and be trusted and in the original it was understandable why he killed Ursula. He actually knew how to stir a ship and Ursula was too busy trying to kill Ariel. I still have 0 idea why LA Ursula was even aiming for Eric when Ariel killed the eels in the first place.

The other choice I wasn't too fond of was the inner singings. It kinda removed the point of Ariel being mute imo and even as if the creators feared that people would not understand what Ariel is feeling or thinking at those scenes. Like, imagine still having that song for Ariel but as she meets Eric and reality hits her, we never hear her thoughts again, really cementing the idea of what she actually sacrificed. Halle definitely had the talent to well... act without words so again, idk why they couldn1t have done that. Okay, I know why, gotta have Halle sing as much as possible, even if it kinda contradicts some stuff (I'm looking at you, Under the Sea).

And yeah, making Eric just a found baby, but otherwise be the same as Ariel with a strict mother was well... not my cup of tea. It's like they thought the only way those 2 can fall in love if they are just mirror to each other. Was cartoon Eric the most well-developed character ever? No, but least he wasn't so much of a copy-pasta.

Lastly, I have a confession: I have never watched the Little Mermaid movie in English. I know the English voices and have listened to the songs , I never actually watched the movie fully in English, just via clips from videos. not because I find it bad but I simply just prefer the Hungarian dub for it both for the songs and for the voice actors really. Seriously, Under the Sea is hilarious in the Hungarian version (and even a bit dirty in a sense hehe) and Poor Unfortunate Souls is in some parts even better than the original (sorry not sorry).

Here if you want to listen to them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDd3y4PvZCs&ab_channel=ZELDOK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXdYa0DzPl0&ab_channel=ZELDOK

So anyway, while watching the Under the Sea scene I decided to take a listen to the dub and well... holy molly, they messed it up big time. Now I didn1t expect the original dub VA as he sadly passed away during the Covid lockdown, but whoever voiced Sebastian was atrocious. I literally had to go to Youtube and listen to the original dub for the song to remove it from my head.

Similar situation happened with Poor Unfortunate Souls and they even heavily altered it compared to the original hungarian lyrics. It was almost shocking to here Part of Your World being more or less the same, although that's more due to the VA really just having this basic "young woman" voice. Actually, I was quite suprised how hard to differ the dub from the original, as from hearing they are quite similar, which on its own not bad... but you can tell the dubbing was rushed. Ariel's VA sounds bored and the rest just try to emulate the original voice actors, but it just comes off as forced and not fitting for Hungarian. The only 1 who kinda worked was Triton, as the VA for him has a more intimating voice and well... actually tried to emote more.

Very disappointed cause even the LA Aladdin had a decent dub, so idk what went wrong here, but it really does not hold a candle compared to the original dub. Actually thankful I decided to watch it English first because the dub would have made my experience so much worse.

Overall just a rather average Live-Action. Didn't hate it, but didn't really like it either.

And now I just want to rewatch the original movie in Hungarian again.

Edit: Okay, just checked and apparently the dub (which means translating and such) was done in a mere month. No wonder the dub feels this rushed and unpolished, minus the parts that were literally taken from the original dub translation (rest in peace Csörögi István. You may be gone, but your lyrics translations shall live on with hilarious parts like "Mert egy titán megérti tán" and "Hidd el te kedves, jobb ahol nedves"). Very unfortunate because I remember a lot of voice actors actually complained about this exact issue and that was back in the 2010s. Not happy to see this issue still being present apparently.

[Dark Rose]

I loved it, only part I didn't love was the starfish (huge fear)

[Meesh]

There's always sequels

[AladdinsGenie]

I find it funny a lot of personal reviews are like "Ariel didn't get any cute outfits like Jasmine did in her remake". Yeah, sorry to say Jasmine has the best wardrobe out of all of them so far. She was wearing looks that had less than a minute of screen time, it's kinda of hilarious actually

[Fez_Head]

I have yet to see the live-action The Little Mermaid. I will be honest, when I watched the trailers that came out, it didn't really look any different from the other live-action movies Disney is pumping out these days. I haven't been impressed with most of them (the only ones I can think of that I somewhat liked were Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast), but I still want to see this one.

Hopefully I will be able to watch it soon and determine my opinions on it.

[zitagirl]

I heard both good and bad stuff tbh, but I rather not comment on the movie yet as I haven't seen it myself and tbh not exactly rushing into cinemas atm.The Hun dub didn't seem any good based on the trailers and not sure if I can find a place where they play the movie in English. It simply doesn't have a big market for that.

Probably just will watch it on Disney+ later on, given that I can only get Bleach TYBW legally there (least till the DVD for each cour doesn't get released) and Doctor Who will be released on that platform too later this year. Geez, it's still a bit weird to think my big 3 favs are under Disney now in a sense.

Glad you guys enjoyed it though at least.

[AladdinsGenie]

Your notes match everyone else's I've come across. What's wild is Javier Bardem was supposed to have a song and they cut it

And I will say one thing I do enjoy about the string of Live Action updates is Alan Menken getting to revisit his scores and update them. The whole thing is out now:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1b7rPu376c9APSVH2KKcdk
itunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-little-mermaid-2023-original-motion-picture/1688808328

[Meesh]

Saw it last night and really enjoyed it!! No spoilers here yet...

My main notes are:

1. It was a little too long. Took foreeeever to get her turned into a human.
2. The romance between Ariel and Eric was really given the update it deserved - it was really sweet and believable. I was very impressed with how well they made the 2 believably fall in real love in 1 day with Ariel not having her voice. The 2 also have great chemistry.
3. They did a really nice job updating Eric to give him more personality and depth. +Jonah Hauer-King is super lovable as Eric.
4. Score updates were really well done. Looking forward to that part of the soundtrack being available? I hope?
5. Overall good casting. But nobody in my party enjoyed Javier Bardem as Triton. He felt like he just showed up, had 0 fun, and kinda sucked all lovability out of the character.
6. Halle Bailey was amazing. 10/10 no notes.
7. Location change and character additions/changes/updates were all good.
8. The new songs are... fine. They didn't feel stylistically out of place like "Speechless" does, and their placements make sense in context, but they obviously don't hold a candle to the originals.

There are definitely more specific things I could nitpick but those are my overall impressions!

[Meesh]

Re: Fez_Head and AG - I thought his tweet was strange too. I just read it like he was hype-manning himself like "MY TEAM IS #1 AND WILL ALWAYS BE #1" I think TLM will do extremely well, and I agree it might surpass Aladdin.

Re: The Aladdin sequel/spin-offs. 2019 was so long ago - nobody even thinks about the live action anymore. I don't even think about it anymore. It was a fun thing that happened once. Not sure if a sequel or spin-off will be exciting enough to be worth it anymore. Maybe if it somehow came out like the same year (2019) people would be excited about it, but it's been so long.

[Fez_Head]

I also thought that Mena Massoud's tweet was a little bizarre because out of all the Big 4 live actions, I could see The Little Mermaid making MAJOR money. Everywhere I turn on social media, there is some news article or some video talking about the movie coming out.

Aladdinsgenie, I agree with you that the proposed sequels for these live action movies are just plain weird, especially that Prince Anders one. I honestly want to know who at Disney decided that the most annoying character from the live action Aladdin movie needed his own movie. Is there anyone who even liked the character enough to warrant that type of thinking?

[AladdinsGenie]

I'm still trying to understand why he would think that. If the other three of the "Big 4 of The Disney Renaissance" made it to a billion, why would The Little Mermaid not? Ariel's fans show up for her - including Miss Jodi Benson, before you even get in to nostalgia hungry millennials who love the original film. I actually think overall it's going to do the same or a little better than Aladdin's $1.1 billion as it has a lot less controversy weighing it down and causing people to stay away if we're keeping it real ("Controversies" is the alternate title "Aladdin", I swear )

Plus, Disney has done a lot for the marketing of this film and targeting particular demographics to ensure it's successful - not because they have to work hard to get audiences to want to see it - but because we're in a "post-covid"/high-inflation market where people have to be really picky about where their money goes. The theater industry overall is still in a slump with the occasional burst of a big - usually superhero - movie here and there. And while Disney traditionally owns the box office around Memorial Day weekend, they can't assume people are going to spend $18+ per person on tickets - especially for something they've technically already seen - as easily as they would have before.

I don't think it's getting a sequel, though, even if it is successful. The Lion King getting another movie is weird on its own even with making $1.6 billion, but I imagine the logistics of doing voice overs is easier (and way cheaper) than trying to pull together a cast of actors with busy filming schedules throughout the year. However, I doubt that's why the proposed Aladdin sequel is dead in the water, though, but I didn't think that was going too far either way (along with that supposed Prince Anders spin-off for Disney+ that literally no one asked for )

[Meesh]

Mena Massoud got into a little hot water by predicting TLM won’t do as well as Aladdin:

https://amp.tmz.com/2023/05/13/mena-massoud-aladdin-delete-twitter-little-mermaid-backlash/

[Meesh]

Clip of "Under the Sea"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgrqAgDqg0Y

[Meesh]

A little BTS:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CsBUQ5PojLK/

Also, the soundtrack is out but only on Amazon Music Unlimited:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-little-mermaid-2023-soundtrack-listen-stream-buy-online-1234732453/

[zitagirl]

I know they did alter the lyrics of Arabian Nights, the part where originally had the "where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face" to "where you wonder among, every culture and tongue" which I actually quite like and definitely much better than the original alteration.

No idea if they altered the lyrics in the Hungarian dub too. Hang on a sec *boots up Disney+*. Nope, we still got the "Ahol minden sivár, mindig perrzsel a nyár" (where everything is barren, summer always burning).

I do know they tried to make Friend Like Me more hip and well...it hurts my ears to this day. Does not help that the dub voice for Will Smith could not hold a candle in terms of singing compared to OG dub Genie.

Now I wonder if they will change the Kiss the Girl in my language, because here it's already called "Csókra vár" which means "she's waiting for (the) kiss" which idk about you guys, but seems like her consent is loud and clear