The Little Mermaid live-action trailer just dropped...
- Brooke D
- Mar 17, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 24, 2023
... And I have plenty of thoughts!
Hello! I know I said I wanted to post about the books I've been reading for class but I thought the release of the live-action trailer would mark a great time for a short discussion of the live-action Disney films that have been released in the last decade or two.
Initial Thoughts
I believe since the initial announcement of this film, my support has been automatic. Many of you have films that defined your childhood, many from Disney, and the original Little Mermaid film is mine. It played nonstop in my household. I had an orange bag similar to Ariel's, the Nintendo DS game, and practiced my mermaid swimming in the pool during the summer. That being said, when I heard about the live-action remake, I was extremely excited about both the story itself, but also the usage of CGI to replicate the underwater atmosphere. This is a film that definitely could not have been made a decade ago.
The trailer itself, when compared to the trailer for the original film, is nearly a shot-for-shot remake. Not only do the special effects look fabulous, but Halle Bailey has a beautiful singing voice and I believe will do the role justice.
While some of the lines feel stilted, overall, I have high hopes. The rest of the cast also does a wonderful job embodying the characters and the nearly shot-for-shot remake of some of the more iconic scenes, such as Ariel's emergence from the water with legs as well as seeing the fireworks and the reprise of Part of Your World are all very exciting and I'm sure will not disappoint.
Pre-Cinderella (2015)
Now, let's quickly talk about the history of the live-action remake. The live-action films that came before Cinderella were sparse and worked incredibly well. Films like 101 and 102 Dalmatians or the reimagined Alice in Wonderland began with a mindset of creating something new with the framework in place. More so in the Alice and Wonderland film from 2010. The film's overall tone is much darker and ages the Alice character up. It takes place in the future, after her adventures. Even Maleficent in 2014 was created with the intent to make the original stories darker and with marketing and follow-through of creating an original story based on the old films.
Cinderella (2015)
When Disney's remake of Cinderella was released in 2015, it was promoted as a live-action version of the film. Practically ignoring the others that existed before. Disney chose to lean into the promotion of the film, recreating iconic scenes from the original film, though still making attempts to alter and update the original story. While there were recreations of the original, the film still had an aura of originality to it. Cinderella is probably the best live-action of the bunch in my opinion. Despite being a well-known and well-told story, Disney understood the importance of serving the audience key moments from the original while seamlessly updating the story itself, something that gets lost as these remakes continue on.
Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Aladdin (2019)
Disney's follow-up of Cinderella was Beauty and the Beast, another beloved Disney Princess. At this point though, after earning over 200 million dollars, Disney decided to lean even further into the live-action retelling. While these films are stunning, there's something inauthentic in their storytelling. Its focus is no longer telling a good story, but rather recreating the original films and sprinkling in plot hole fixes for the sake of it. While the production is beautiful and I do enjoy the film, the live-action Beauty and the Beast has changes that take away from the characters and don't make much sense. They could have drawn music from the Broadway production, but instead chose to create new music. Of the new songs added, Evermore is my favorite.
Aladdin has a similar structure to Beauty and the Beast, however, I believe the song added was much better written and incorporated. Again, it had a beautiful set, although I think the slight change to the ending undermined the original film, it also doesn't have the same magic that Cinderella does. It's no longer attempting to be original, and therefore there weren't many surprises.
Mulan (2020) and Cruella (2021)
Finally, the most recent live actions have been major disappointments (yes, I'll be ignoring The Lion King, Jungle Book, and some of the other more obscure live actions). Mulan, while I'm a major fan of the original and actually enjoyed the aesthetic of the new film, I have yet to revisit it. There wasn't too much that was memorable about the film, especially since it was marketed as a live action of the original film and yet, was filled with simple callbacks. Perhaps that isn't Disney's fault. They were transparent in their trailer and in their promotion that this would be a film more inspired by the original legend of Mulan than the actual Disney film, but it was very far from the way Cinderella was handled. Cinderella struck a perfect balance of fan service and originality, especially for a story that's been told so many different ways, something Mulan lacked. With barely anything from the original film other than an instrumental score. Everything loved about the original was stripped out in an effort to be original, despite building a franchise meant to bank on the nostalgia of its older audience.
Cruella, in a similar vein, was a backstory to the beloved villain, but by the end, there's nothing recognizable in the film that calls to the earlier live-action films or even the original films from the 60s. The film itself softens the original puppy-hating villainess and makes her into a completely different person. It's a story more about friendship than it is about madness. It seems like Disney didn't start with the end in mind. Maleficent twists the story of Sleeping Beauty, while Cruella does not make it clear if it's meant to lead to the original film or if it too is meant to be a twist in the tale. Again, a beautiful job was done in the creation of the film, but still, Disney was not able to recreate the success of their previous live-action films.
While I'm all for originality and I truly believe that if Disney wanted to, they could create more films with the same magic as before (look at Encanto), but if they're going to continue banking on the nostalgia of their past franchises, I prefer their initial attempts to actually recreate the original films in a similar vein to Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, rather than ignore their original works but still use the title to get the seats filled.
This was some great insight and now I'm really curious of how the movie will turn out! I haven't watched any of the Disney live action remakes, but I'm a big Halle Bailey fan so I'll definitely be seeing this one.