Live-Action The Little Mermaid

[Blade Hoarder]

This would be sorta depressing before you realize that’s the highest they would ever amount to in their hatred. Downvotes and bots. That is the peak of their bile.

 

[samsnee]

To me it was Beauty/Aladdin/Lion King/Mulan/Tarzan/Hercules

Pocahontas and Hunchback also came out around that time frame. But I remember them not being as popular

 

[Iceman]

To me it was Beauty/Aladdin/Lion King/Mulan/Tarzan/Hercules

Pocahontas and Hunchback also came out around that time frame. But I remember them not being as popular

Do you remember the order of these? Pocahontas is the other one I would have considered if it was just down to my preference, but it didn’t seem to hit that big. Which one came out first after the 4 mentioned?

 

[Primal Slayer]

Is The Little Mermaid as beloved as The Lion King or Aladdin, though? At least as far as name recognition.

Never seen it, so I have no idea- or any real reaction to this new version- but something like the live-action The Lion King or Aladdin, regardless of their quality, I can see how they did as well as they did. Not to mention the Disney marketing machine. Has The Little Mermaid ever been on that same level?

Its the reason Aladdin and TLK exists

 

[Drizzle]

Do you remember the order of these? Pocahontas is the other one I would have considered if it was just down to my preference, but it didn’t seem to hit that big. Which one came out first after the 4 mentioned?

The Little Mermaid - '89
Rescuers Down Under - '90 (the forgotten stepchild of the Renaissance era)
Beauty and the Beast - '91
Aladdin - '92
The Lion King - '94
Pocahontas - '95
Hunchback of Notre Dame - '96
Hercules - '97
Mulan - '98
Tarzan - '99

Mostly killer, no filler. TLM, BatB, Aladdin and TLK are my Mt. Rushmore for important childhood Disney movies. Hunchback, Hercules, Tarzan and The Jungle Book are runners up.

 

[Iceman]

The Little Mermaid - '89
Rescuers Down Under - '90 (the forgotten stepchild of the Renaissance era)
Beauty and the Beast - '91
Aladdin - '92
The Lion King - '94
Pocahontas - '95
Hunchback of Notre Dame - '96
Hercules - '97
Mulan - '98
Tarzan - '99

Mostly killer, no filler. TLM, BatB, Aladdin and TLK are my Mt. Rushmore for important childhood Disney movies. Hunchback, Hercules, Tarzan and The Jungle Book are runners up.

Ah thanks!! This makes perfect sense now. I was still very much on board after Lion King and going in to Pocahontas. Was disappointed that it didn't catch fire like Aladdin and TLK (the peak of the era) and from Hunchback onwards it felt like we'd gone back down to silver medal standard - still great but not the same highs. Not to say that the following films were necessarily weaker than TLM & BatB, but those were-part of the build-up period and the overall excitement as films came out wasn't the same for me when it felt like the era was over/winding down/transitioning to Pixar.

 

[Dr.]

Pocahontas might be "politically" problematic these days.

 

[Drizzle]

Not counting Rescuers Down Under, Pocahontas was and still is my least favorite of the Renaissance films but I don't consider it to be bad. The voice cast is great (yes, even Gibson) and the songs are good ("Savages" is one of the more underrated Disney songs but I can see why it's not as popular for the lyrics alone) but basing a Disney animated film on real events is such an odd move that it hasn't been done since.

Hunchback I feel is much stronger but the only real strike against it are those studio-mandated to be more kid-friendly gargoyles. Everything else about it is damn near perfect, especially Frollo, who's one of the best Disney villains with one of the best villain songs.

 

[DarkKnight88]

The Little Mermaid - '89
Rescuers Down Under - '90 (the forgotten stepchild of the Renaissance era)
Beauty and the Beast - '91
Aladdin - '92
The Lion King - '94
Pocahontas - '95
Hunchback of Notre Dame - '96
Hercules - '97
Mulan - '98
Tarzan - '99

Mostly killer, no filler. TLM, BatB, Aladdin and TLK are my Mt. Rushmore for important childhood Disney movies. Hunchback, Hercules, Tarzan and The Jungle Book are runners up.

The box office is interesting too. Hitting its peak with Lion King, but starting to rise again with Mulan and Tarzan, only to drop off again once Pixar and Dreamworks became the main staple of animation in the early 2000s.

The Little Mermaid - $84,355,863
The Rescuers Down Under - $27,931,461
Beauty and the Beast - $145,863,36
Aladdin - $217,350,219
The Lion King - $312,855,561
Pocahontas - $141,579,773
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - $100,138,851
Hercules - $99,112,101
Mulan - $120,620,254
Tarzan -$171,091,819
--
Fantasia 2000 -$60,655,420
Dinosaur -$137,748,063
The Emperor's New Groove -$89,302,687
Atlantis: The Lost Empire -$84,056,472
Lilo & Stitch -$145,794,338
Treasure Planet -$38,176,783
Brother Bear -$85,336,277
Home on the Range -$50,030,461

 

[Drizzle]

The box office is interesting too. Hitting its peak with Lion King, but starting to rise again with Mulan and Tarzan, only to drop off again once Pixar and Dreamworks became the main staple of animation in the early 2000s.

The Little Mermaid - $84,355,863
The Rescuers Down Under - $27,931,461
Beauty and the Beast - $145,863,36
Aladdin - $217,350,219
The Lion King - $312,855,561
Pocahontas - $141,579,773
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - $100,138,851
Hercules - $99,112,101
Mulan - $120,620,254
Tarzan -$171,091,819
--
Fantasia 2000 -$60,655,420
Dinosaur -$137,748,063
The Emperor's New Groove -$89,302,687
Atlantis: The Lost Empire -$84,056,472
Lilo & Stitch -$145,794,338
Treasure Planet -$38,176,783
Brother Bear -$85,336,277
Home on the Range -$50,030,461

The 2000s were a dark time for Disney Animation with the exception of Lilo and Stitch being as successful as it was. Besides Home on the Range, none of them were really bad. Some of them were actually pretty good (Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis) but they still don't hold a candle to peak Disney Renaissance period.

 

[Arachnerd]

The 2000s were a dark time for Disney Animation with the exception of Lilo and Stitch being as successful as it was. Besides Home on the Range, none of them were really bad. Some of them were actually pretty good (Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis) but they still don't hold a candle to peak Disney Renaissance period.

How dare you forget Treasure Planet?

 

[DarkKnight88]

It's sad to think Treasure Planet was/is the biggest modern bomb of Disney Animation history. Glad that it didn't kill Musker and Clements career though with Princess and the Frog and Moana finishing their run.

Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise weren't so lucky after Atlantis (they previously directed Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback). That was their last full length theatrical film!

 

[Drizzle]

How dare you forget Treasure Planet?

I like it fine. Good, not great.

It's sad to think Treasure Planet was/is the biggest modern bomb of Disney Animation history. Glad that it didn't kill Musker and Clements career though with Princess and the Frog and Moana finishing their run.

Disney must have had no faith in it because they opened it up against a Harry Potter movie.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Treasure Planet was okay. There were far worse from that era (Home on the Range, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons immediately come to mind). It didn't deserve to be the megaflop, but the premise was just a little too wacky I think. It should have been either a traditional age of sail version with galleons or a sci-fi version with space ships. Instead it tried to combine them and it was off-putting.

The two I don't like from the Renaissance are Pocahontas and Hercules. Also blasphemy time, but Lion King is overrated.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Pocahontas might be "politically" problematic these days.

It is also almost universally agreed upon to be the bad Renaissance movie, so even if it wasn't problematic it would probably struggle.

Want to see a good Pocahontas movie, watch this one:

 

[Blade Hoarder]

Looks like “redheads are being replaced and erased” takes are back on the menu. Notice that absolutely nothing was said about the daredevil actor not having red hair recently. Which exposes what this is really about.

 

[Iceman]

The box office is interesting too. Hitting its peak with Lion King, but starting to rise again with Mulan and Tarzan, only to drop off again once Pixar and Dreamworks became the main staple of animation in the early 2000s.

The Little Mermaid - $84,355,863
The Rescuers Down Under - $27,931,461
Beauty and the Beast - $145,863,36
Aladdin - $217,350,219
The Lion King - $312,855,561
Pocahontas - $141,579,773
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - $100,138,851
Hercules - $99,112,101
Mulan - $120,620,254
Tarzan -$171,091,819
--
Fantasia 2000 -$60,655,420
Dinosaur -$137,748,063
The Emperor's New Groove -$89,302,687
Atlantis: The Lost Empire -$84,056,472
Lilo & Stitch -$145,794,338
Treasure Planet -$38,176,783
Brother Bear -$85,336,277
Home on the Range -$50,030,461

Thanks for putting this together, also very interesting to see the trends. Disappointing that Disney couldn’t maintain the levels after TLK. From the modern films I think Tangled and Frozen are great and might have also done well during this renaissance period and kept the run going.

 

[Silvermoth]

By the way heads up because Disney has launched the socials for this. Here’s Twitter if you’re interested

https://***********/littlemermaid?s=21&t=_L2DMXCzgYoWfDAVG1m2nA

 

[Drizzle]

I put the animated movie on last night because the trailer got me all nostalgic. Can we all agree that "Les Poissons" is really messed up? Like 15-20 minutes after we see a bunch of fish dancing around to "Under the Sea" we're subjected to seeing a bunch of them getting chopped up, gutted and served on a platter. How did that not psychologically traumatize me as a kid?

 

[Bran The Man]

It is also almost universally agreed upon to be the bad Renaissance movie, so even if it wasn't problematic it would probably struggle.

Want to see a good Pocahontas movie, watch this one:
View attachment 58651

Both starring Christian Bale.

 

[NotNickFury]

Looks like “redheads are being replaced and erased” takes are back on the menu. Notice that absolutely nothing was said about the daredevil actor not having red hair recently. Which exposes what this is really about.

Charlie Cox? It came up when the show first came out and Cox himself even addressed it in 2016 when he said it looked weird. If I had to guess, it hasn't come up with No Way Home and onward because what would it do at this point when there's already a precedent for how Matt Murdock would look in the MCU?

 

[Primal Slayer]

Most people who argue "redheads are being erased" think that you have to be born a redhead lol and dont understand that 90% of the red headed actresses are bottled red heads.

 

[DarkKnight88]

You're telling me Jared Leto is not a natural redhead?

WTF!

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Red hair is really popular in art because it is visually striking and instantly makes the character stand out as well as being associated with feisty or hot head characters. Anime goes even further and has plenty of characters with hair colors like green, blue, purple, and pink. This does not mean that they always translate well to live action where true redheads are rare (and the others non-existent outside of wigs/hair dye), unless there is a really good reason for it in terms of the character (ex. Joker having green hair).

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Most people who argue "redheads are being erased" think that you have to be born a redhead lol and dont understand that 90% of the red headed actresses are bottled red heads.

There is also no stigma or anything against red-headed actors. We aren't talking about a marginalized group here that can't get work.