FilmSnark

My. God.

Alan Menken.

Thank you for existing.

This movie is perfection. I'm sure that my complete love for this movie is honed to a fine point by my nostalgia for it, but I literally don't care. Ariel is the headstrong teenager with opinions, rebellious, brave, and funny. Her squad is Sebastian (compassionate and just plain passionate, an artist and a comic genius), Flounder (everybody's sweet little guppy), and Scuttle. I know you're expecting this but I deffo sorted everybody. Ariel's a Gryffindor, Sebastian's a Slytherin, Flounder's a Hufflepuff, and Scuttle is a Ravenclaw. Legit want to hear opinions on this sorting, because I feel STRONGLY about it.

The music, the music, the music. So many good, memorable, well-written, character-driven, musically interesting songs. Under the Sea, Fathoms Below, Kiss the Girl, Poor Unfortunate Souls, and Part of Your World. Part of Your World is 8 times better than Once Upon a Dream and I LOVE Once Upon a Dream.

URSULA. IS. A. GODDESS. She is also a Slytherin and Flotsam and Jetsam are Hufflepuffs. Triton's a Gryffindor. Eric is a Gryffindor. Grimsby's a Ravenclaw. Carlotta's a Hufflepuff. Louis is a Slytherin. Max is a Hufflepuff too.

I honestly feel like Ursula is the first villain where you FEEL her character. She completely embodies the role. Her tentacles are like another character; they remind me of Dr. Strange's cape. Flotsam and Jetsam are really excellent hencheels, and they're very threatening.

Definitely off course from the source material but the original Little Mermaid is pretty frickin horrifying so you know, I'm good. There's so much action and excitement and the romance doesn't really bother me at all (though ending in a wedding when she's 16 is, you know, pretty gross).

The voice acting in this is spectacular, every character is unique and well-fleshed-out. Also the animation has a new feeling to it, the character faces resonate with me in a way that prior ones don't (except Sleeping Beauty). PS, did anyone else really desperately try to get their hair to behave like Ariel's underwater when swimming at the community pool? No? Just me? Great.

Eric, dude, you've never heard of laryngitis? There would have been no movie if he'd asked, "Did you save me from a shipwreck the other day?" instead of saying, "What's your name? Oh....you can't talk.....guess it's impossible you ever talked in your life before right this moment."

I love how the story goes between Eric on the surface and Ariel under the sea until she gets her legs. The switches in context are just so expertly planned and executed. And the editing in this film contributes to its pitch-perfect timing. There's never a dull moment in the whole movie. Every time I watch it I feel like I've only been watching for 4 minutes when it ends.

The landscapes are really stunning in this, and I feel like there's a nod to current issues of the late 80s (showing whales and other fish/sea creatures in realistic scenes at the beginning, whales and the oceans were really a THING around this time) without being so contemporary that it hurts (see also Oliver & Co).

If anyone doesn't like this movie, I'd be really curious to hear why, because it's a perspective I haven't heard often. I'd be curious what parts just didn't work for some folks.