Live-Action The Little Mermaid

[Lily Adler]

Even fantasy needs some internal logic. It's world building. Pigment exists as a reaction to uv light.

And as for dwarves and mermaids existing, have you seen the evolutionary record of our own planet? A hobbit like human species existed at one time, dwarfism exists in homo sapiens, and aquatic mammal species do exist on our planet. Nature would be a lot more weird about it, but an aquatic ape evolving wouldnt be outside the realm of possibility.

What's that I hear? Someone called Bessie?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The last page was really like, black folk can't be fantasy beings:

 

[DarthSkywalker]

What's that I hear? Someone called Bessie?

Lily bans are the most confusing if you don't know her.

 

[Lily Adler]

Lily bans are the most confusing if you don't know her.

God forbid I give my ban hammer a nickname.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

God forbid I give my ban hammer a nickname.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I finally watched the trailer for this, and it looks pretty. Halle is fine in the role. But... these live action remakes of the animated movies are lazy cash grabs. There is artistic merit in adapting these fairy tales with the summer blockbuster level effects, but there is nothing artistic or creative in just remaking old cartoons with CGI and actors instead of doing a real artistic and modern adaption of the original stories.

I would love A Little Mermaid movie that is closer to the book, or takes a different approach to Ariel and the other mermaids (giving them a more Shape Of Water like appearance, with the magic spell used to turn Ariel human instead of just giving her legs, which would be a cool contrast). I would rather see that then movies like the live action Lion King where the animals can't emote.

While I can see your point, I don't think it was make much sense for Disney to do this. Audiences overall just wouldn't want it. The adaptations are known for being Disney-fied. Undoing that, makes it something else entirely, and then you end up with Mulan. And well...

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I found them! The only ones capable of playing the merpeople!

Spoiler

 

[Silvermoth]

I’m sure Disney will do this and I would love it. Not sure who it could be though

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I’m sure Disney will do this and I would love it. Not sure who it could be though

Based on what exactly?

 

[DarkKnight88]

Disney will do what they always do, one toe in the water with a wink.

 

[BoredGuy]

not sure if there's a thread for it
but how would y'all rank the live-action Disney movies thus far?

 

[Lily Adler]

not sure if there's a thread for it
but how would y'all rank the live-action Disney movies thus far?

Fantasy - The official Disney Classics Live-Action Remakes

We have this thread.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Hopefully we'll hear remakes of Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl. Daveed Diggs certainly has the chops for both songs.

 

[Lily Adler]

Hopefully we'll hear remakes of Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl. Daveed Diggs certainly has the chops for both songs.

Yes no more omitting songs.

 

[Drizzle]

I'm pretty sure that all the songs from the original are in this, or at least they should be. I wasn't a fan of Jafar's "Prince Ali" reprise being taken out of the live action Aladdin and how they stripped away most of "Be Prepared" in The Lion King remake.

 

[mclay18]

Yes no more omitting songs.

They actually ADDED songs to this movie. Which may or may not be a good thing.

I'm not sure how well Lin-Manuel Miranda's songwriting style fits with the Menken/Ashman repertoire. If it's closer to Moana than Hamilton/In the Heights, might be worth it.

The two new songs in '17 BATB weren't that great IMO.

 

[mclay18]

I'm pretty sure that all the songs from the original are in this, or at least they should be. I wasn't a fan of Jafar's "Prince Ali" reprise being taken out of the live action Aladdin and how they stripped away most of "Be Prepared" in The Lion King remake.

The less said about '19 TLK, the better. They should've just reused the original voice tracks for Scar and young Simba for all the originality that remake had.

 

[Silvermoth]

I can definitely see Triton getting a song about how much he misses Ariel’s mum or something. Just a bit of backstory there about how she got turned into fish fingers by a human or something

 

[Sithborg]

I’m sure Disney will do this and I would love it. Not sure who it could be though

He hasn't actually paid attention to Disney, has he?

 

[Drizzle]

They actually ADDED songs to this movie. Which may or may not be a good thing.

I'm not sure how well Lin-Manuel Miranda's songwriting style fits with the Menken/Ashman repertoire. If it's closer to Moana than Hamilton/In the Heights, might be worth it.

The two new songs in '17 BATB weren't that great IMO.

If the new songs are anything like the new songs in the Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King remakes they'll be passable but not as memorable as the original lineup. That being said, The Little Mermaid isn't without its share of filler songs, like the sea shanty and the song Ariel's sisters sing in the beginning if they even count. Not that they're bad but they're not the showstoppers that follow it like Part of Your World, Under the Sea or Poor Unfortunate Souls. Regardless, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken worked together on this so I don't think it's going to feel as LMM heavy as Moana or Encanto but his songwriting style could fit Sebastian perfectly if there's a new song for him, especially since Miranda and Daveed Diggs go way back.

The less said about '19 TLK, the better. They should've just reused the original voice tracks for Scar and young Simba for all the originality that remake had.

The voice acting wasn't the problem with that one. One can say that remaking the animated Disney classics is devoid of any originality, especially since those Renaissance movies were so well-crafted that no real additional story was needed unlike earlier films like Jungle Book or Cinderella, which are generally regarded as two of the best live action remakes since they did more than just a play-for-play remake. But I admit there's at least a novelty to seeing them brought to life using real actors. I had fun watching Emma Watson play Belle and Will Smith play the Genie. Hell, I even enjoyed hearing people I'm fans of in The Lion King remake like Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, John Oliver, etc. but The Lion King feels like more of an experiment than actually doing something different. The fact that they basically copied a good majority of the script of the original film is a sign that they probably should have just left it alone.

To tie it back into the topic, I'm expecting The Little Mermaid to fall more in line with Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin than The Lion King as far as the live action remakes go.

 

[Ninjablade]

If they do anything that botches "Poor Unfortunate Souls" I will recount Dafoe's Lighthouse speech word for word in the theater.

Granted, I'm not exactly keen on McCarthy singing it. Should've been Queen Latifah.

 

[Silvermoth]

I reckon she’ll be great

 

[mclay18]

Regardless, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken worked together on this so I don't think it's going to feel as LMM heavy as Moana or Encanto but his songwriting style could fit Sebastian perfectly if there's a new song for him, especially since Miranda and Daveed Diggs go way back.

Miranda actually said he couldn't think up any new songs for Sebastian, partly because he loved the character so much. But it wouldn't surprise me if Diggs sung with the ensemble for the new songs they wrote.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

This will probably be lousy based on Disney’s history with these films, but hopefully casting people that can actually sing this time at least will put in the watchable category. Being able to sing is kind of important in a musical and good songs and set pieces can semi-carry the day in them.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I honestly can't remember much about the flick, outside of the music. Which indeed, still slaps, but that is pretty much all Disney movies of that era.

There is a good reason for that. Almost nothing happens until “Savages” and then the movie is over soon afterwards. It is amazing dull. The most memorable thing outside the song is probably the embarrassingly bad excuse they come up with for how Pocahontas can speak English now.