The New Wave Of Disney: The Little Mermaid

Rating: 10/10 (13 August 2007)

The Little Mermaid (1989): Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Samuel E. Wright, Kenneth Mars, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Buddy Hackett, Jason Marin, Ben Wright, Edie McClurg, Will Ryan, Jim Cummings, Nancy Cartwright, Charles Adler, Hamilton Camp, Jack Angel, Jennifer Darling, Gail Farrell, Ed Gilbert, Mark Hamill, Malachi Pearson, Kimmy Robertson, Matthew Balaban, Caroline Vasicek, Tim Curry, Frank Welker....Director Ron Clements, John Musker...Screenplay Roger Allers.
With "The Little Mermaid", released ind the fall of 1989, a new wave of Disney films hit America both on the big screen nearly each year and in households on VHS (this was before DVD's). This new generation of Disney movies was far from the old-fashioned Disney films of yesteryear - Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty and so forth. Prior to 1989, Disney attempted to make hit movies for a new crowd but the popularity of those films were never as great as the films after Little Mermaid. These films "The Black Cauldron", "Oliver And Company" and "The Great Mouse Detective" went straight to video and were never as big a hit as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, etc. Directors Ron Clements and John Muskers teamed up with musical lyricist and composer Howard Ashman and a talented cast of voice-over actors/singers to make this remarkable and fresh new version of the old Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. The film was a blockbuster, Disney had risen itself from a long dormant period and Disney movies were once again "in".
Ariel (Jodi Benson) is one of the many mermaid daughters of King Triton (Kenneth Mars), a merman who looks a lot like the ancient Greek sea god Poseidon, but she stands out from the rest of the merfolk by her passion for all things human. Bored of life under the sea, she admires humans and their creative abilities (art, objects) as her collection of human-made treasures attest. Before long, she falls for a human, Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes) and her life is changed forever. Rebelling against her father who forbids humans and mermaids to have anything to do with each other, she consults the sea witch Ursula (Pat Carroll) an octopus woman who was banished from Triton's realm. Ursula has a vendetta against Triton for having banished her from court and craves his power as ruler of the ocean. She uses Ariel as a pawn in her revenge plot. Ariel signs a contract and basically sells her soul to Ursula in exchange for a human body, tricked by Ursula into thinking that as a human female she can marry the Prince. But there's a catch - the loss of her beautiful voice, the very thing which Eric associates with Ariel who had once saved his life after a shipwreck. He remembers her singing voice. Her experience as a human girl, her attempt to get the Prince to kiss her and love her and her and the evil schemes of Ursula is the focus of the rest of the film, though it all happens pretty quickly. With the help of Jamaican crab/symphonic conductor Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright) guppy fish Flounder (Jason Marin) and the confused, scatterbrained seagull Scuttle (Buddy Hackett), Ursula is defeated and she is even able to convince her father that Prince Eric is the right man for her after all. Sure, this plot which ultimately boils down to good versus evil and true love conquers all in classic Disney style is not true to the original tale by Hans Christian Anderson, whose story is darker and more tragic, about Ariel's frustrated attempt to gain the Prince's love, even after the sacrifices she's made, resulting in her suicide. Still Disney had a real winner here in many levels you have to analyze.The look of the film was innovative at the time. David Towns, a creative force behind production design/art, made this movie very realistic looking, like we're watching a drama unfold in the 19th century in an unidentified European seaport kingdom. The actors commit themselves to really fleshing out their characters, particularly Jodi Benson's Ariel, Kenneth Mar's Triton (the father/daughter relationship was a theme here) and Pat Carroll's devilish Ursula. Alan Menken's music was another attraction. "Under The Sea" "Kiss The Girl" and "Part Of Your World" are all signature Disney songs. This film was animated and made to sound like it's a live-action film and this was a very inspiring and new technique at the time (fire looks like real fire, the ocean sounds are realistic, and so forth). Perhaps the only minor quibbles are the poorer characterizations of Prince Eric and to a degree, Ursula, whose threat is not as great when you really think about it. Otherwise, this is a superb film, the one that made Disney movies exciting again. From 1989 to 1999 with the Disney film "Tarzan" a new decade of Disney was set. The Little Mermaid is about wanting something with all your heart, defying the impossible and going far to get it.